by SM Reine
11
Arawn’s ballroom was better than his dining room, but it would have been difficult for it not to be. The only thing Seth could imagine that might be worse than the meat locker was an actual grave pit filled with rotting bodies.
Seth didn’t doubt that Arawn had one of those somewhere within his tower.
Stepping into the ballroom felt like stepping into an oversized iron maiden. Spikes thrust from the walls and ceiling. Only the concrete floor was polished smooth, glistening in the light from the jagged iron chandeliers.
On the left-hand wall, the spikes had been bent to act as hangers for weapons and armor. Arawn had everything that Seth could imagine. Guns, knives, swords, flails, whips, chains. They all resembled their Earthly equivalents, but the lines on them were skewed, as if hacked together by clumsy hands. They might as well have been stamped with “Made in Sheol” labels.
Dana McIntyre would have been jealous of the variety.
Arawn led Charity to an engraved wooden chair on a dais at the far end of the hall. It was positioned underneath a tattooed skin that had been framed and mounted like a painting. “Why don’t you take a seat?”
Charity sat uneasily, and Seth stuck close beside her. There was no chair for him. Standing on the floor beside the stairs to her seat meant that his head barely reached the level of her knees. Unfortunately, that meant he got a great view of the carvings on the seat’s base—all the naked human bodies folded in on one another, contorted into positions of agony.
Arawn’s mismatched gang was filtering in through the narrow portal to the room, talking and laughing and shoving each other, as though they were going to a sporting match. Arawn watched his people enter with a smug smile. “I’ve been doing some reading on these sidhe rituals. We each get to choose a weapon, and then there’s this whole ten paces thing. Isn’t that adorably archaic? You wouldn’t believe that the sidhe didn’t exist prior to fifteen years ago.”
“They’ve always existed,” Charity said. “Just not in such numbers.”
The lord waved her off. “What do you think would be the best way to beat Konig? I can’t kill him—that would be ungentlemanly—but there are no rules against a little maiming.” The switchblade flashed in Arawn’s hand again, appearing from seemingly nowhere. “Cut a few pieces off his pretty copper face.”
Seth could have told Arawn that a switchblade would be a terrible choice. There was a two-handed bastard sword hanging among all those weapons on the wall, so he knew what Konig would pick.
But he kept his mouth shut.
Seth’s feelings about Konig aside, the prince was their way to get to Duat. In this matter, they were on the same team. He wasn’t going to give Arawn any advantage against him.
Then Konig strode in with an arm around Marion, practically dragging her while she looked exhausted at his side. The sidhe healing hadn’t benefited her for very long. Seth already knew that—she hadn’t been able to get to the paternoster, after all—but the sight of bright, mischievous Marion barely shuffling into the ballroom still gave him pause.
Her skin had lost all its luster. Her curls were limp. And she reeked of death.
If Seth hadn’t known better, he’d have thought she were a woman of eighty years, rather than someone who couldn’t legally drink in the United States.
It took every ounce of self-control Seth possessed not to seize Marion the instant she entered the ballroom. Forget what damage she might experience if she teleported within the Nether Worlds again—he needed to get her out of that place of rusted spikes and meat hooks.
He needed to find a way to drag her back to Earth before she died.
Because that was where she was heading, no doubt about it. She was teetering on the precipice of death. Merely existing in Sheol was enough to suck the life out of her.
Konig set her on the top step of the throne beside Charity’s legs.
“Watch, princess,” Konig said, kissing her passionately. Much too passionately for someone who looked so weak. His fingers dug into her shoulders hard enough that it seemed like he’d break her in half. “Watch what your prince is willing to do for you.”
“Clear the space,” Arawn boomed to his people. “We’re going to have a little show today.” He stepped onto the floor with Konig.
The instant that the prince’s attention was diverted, Seth dropped to his knees beside Marion. “Are you okay?”
Her gaze remained fixed to Konig’s back. She didn’t look injured—no more injured than she’d been when he’d left her, in any case. Yet some shadow had fallen over her entire demeanor.
The same seemed to have struck Konig. He was agitated. His motions were jerky and halting. He was no more injured than Marion, but something had happened between them—and neither was very happy.
Seth touched her shoulder. “Marion?”
She jerked away without looking at him.
“These are the rules as I understand them,” Arawn said, addressing his gang like they were an eager audience. “Prince ErlKonig of the Autumn Court challenged me, so I get first pick of any weapon in this room. Because we’re not the same species, we can’t use any of our powers. We fight to defeat, not death.” That sent cruel chuckles through his people. “Does that sound right, pretty little prince?”
“Don’t call me that,” Konig said.
“I could kill you where you stand, so I’ll call you by whatever names I think suit your prissy ass.”
“It’d be against the rules to kill me. You said it yourself.”
“I don’t have to follow the rules of the Middle Worlds if I don’t want to. You’re in Hell, pretty-boy. You’d best remember that.” Arawn lifted his switchblade. “This is the weapon I choose. I won’t need anything bigger to take a scrawny thing like you down.”
Konig shivered with rage. The sidhe power that was suppressed by the Nether Worlds sparked to life and rippled down his skin.
He marched to the spikes on the wall, reaching into them to extract a sword as long as he was tall. It was huge to a theatrical degree, designed by demons more interested in instilling fear than producing a functioning weapon. There was no doubt in Seth’s mind that it would be sharp, though. The twin edges gleamed with murderous promise.
“I pick this one.” Konig’s arm muscles didn’t even strain to lift it.
For the first time, doubt shifted through Arawn’s eyes. “Big toy for such a little boy.”
“I’ll make you regret saying that to me,” Konig said. “I’m going to make you cry in front of your gang.”
Arawn gave a booming laugh. “That would be a sight!”
He shared chuckles with his gang. One of them had brought that long-legged white dog, and it howled at the sound. The chain around its neck rattled when it threw its head back.
Arawn lunged for Konig before they’d even stopped laughing.
So much for ten paces.
He danced into Konig’s guard, slashing his switchblade with the swiftness of a cobra. The point sliced from the prince’s belted jeans to the v-neck of his shirt. The cloth parted as easily as paper. Arawn didn’t cut his undershirt because his touch was so light.
It was a move meant to show Arawn’s speed, not hurt Konig.
The prince didn’t have a chance to retaliate. Arawn leaped back as quickly as he’d leaped in, cackling wildly.
He whirled around Konig. Another couple of slashes destroyed Konig’s belt, and then one more sent a lock of glossy black hair floating to the ground.
Each time, Konig tried to hack with the bastard sword, but he was so much slower than the demon.
“You must have thought you’d be able to win when you challenged me to a duel, little prince.” Arawn was addressing the gang more than his opponent, sauntering along the ballroom to high-five demons. “As if the sidhe could ever stand up to the might of the infernal forces!”
Something in Konig snapped.
Seth could see it. He could feel it.
Konig roared, swinging the sword
in both hands. He swept up, hooked high, slashed it across Arawn’s back.
He wasn’t trying to humiliate Arawn. He was trying to cut deep.
And he did.
The blade opened Arawn’s jacket and dug deep. The blood that spurted forth was as black as Arawn’s eyes. The muscle within looked rotten. His spine glistened when exposed.
He fell against the spiked wall, grabbing one of the iron points to hold himself up.
Arawn wasn’t laughing now.
“Fight me!” Konig shouted.
He thrust the blade forward, aiming for Arawn’s gut.
The demon leaped away. The bastard sword smashed into the spikes with a sound like a blacksmith’s hammer striking an anvil.
Marion tensed all over and Seth reached over to take her hand. She turned to him, startled. Confusion filled the paleness of her eyes. “Seth,” she said, squeezing his fingers for a moment.
She pulled her hand out of his, shrinking away.
The tone of the fight had gone from jovial to grim. The gang was silent except for the white dog. It howled, thrashed, rattled its chains.
Arawn circled Konig with a little more caution. He seemed to be rethinking his switchblade.
“You got me good once, I’ll give you that,” Arawn said. “But you can’t keep it up. You’re not man enough to follow through, pretty-boy.”
Konig’s lips spasmed.
He missed with his next swing, but not the one that immediately followed. The bastard sword bit into Arawn’s wrist. The demon dropped the switchblade.
Disarming him should have been enough to end the fight.
They’d won. They were free.
But Konig didn’t stop.
He swung again, and again, driving Arawn backward. “You think I can’t follow through?” Konig snarled. “I’ll show you follow-through!” Magic rippled over him, building and frothing and pulsing in time with his anger. The music of the Middle Worlds shouldn’t have been able to reach them there, but Konig was strong in his fury. He dragged the full might of the Autumn Court into Sheol as he pursued Arawn.
“Wait,” Marion said, surging to her feet.
She stumbled. Seth grabbed her.
“Careful,” he said.
“But Konig’s not giving up,” she whispered. “He’s—he’s so angry, and—”
“Cheater! Cheater!” Arawn shrieked.
It was chaos in the room.
The gang was screaming.
Arawn was running for another weapon.
The white dog bayed.
Konig swung, and Arawn had to drop to the floor or risk getting impaled on one of his own spikes.
Once he was down, Konig didn’t relent. The prince crouched atop Arawn, slamming the pommel of the sword into his face again and again.
“I concede!” Arawn finally said.
“Konig, stop!” Marion shouted.
It was against the rules to continue fighting after someone conceded. Until that moment, Arawn had been following those rules perfectly, even though he didn’t need to. Most likely it was out of some perverse sense of amusement rather than honor.
But now that Konig was breaking his own rules, there was nothing to keep Arawn from breaking them, too.
Arawn disappeared from underneath Konig. He reappeared a few inches away. Seth thought he’d intended to go further, but failed to put adequate distance between himself and Konig; he had to be caught by one of his gang to avoid collapsing into a bloody mess.
For the moment, nobody was moving in to attack Konig. Spattered in the blood of a Lord of Sheol, towering taller than any demon, holding a mighty sword, he was even more frightening than Arawn.
“I am the Prince of the Autumn Court, and you will respect me!” Konig roared to the room at large.
But he was looking at Marion.
The gang surged forward, collapsing around Konig.
A dozen demons. Two-dozen. Seth hadn’t bothered to count the gang when he’d entered, but he knew that the prince was vastly outnumbered.
Seth was tempted to let him get murdered. It would be a death of his own making, and the promise of oblivion hung heavily in the ballroom, as though vultures were perched in the chandelier, waiting to descend upon the carrion in the aftermath.
But Marion was clinging to Seth’s arm, and he knew she was aching to help, unable to intervene.
“Damn it,” Seth said.
He gently pushed her into Charity’s waiting arms and leaped into the fray.
Seth yanked one of the guns off of the wall.
He picked something that looked like a hunting rifle—the kind of weapon he’d trained with as a boy. It was heavier than he expected and the trigger was too far forward. He was clumsy bracing it against his shoulder, aiming into the mass of demons.
Seth squeezed. The gun exploded in his hands, discharging something that sparked with brimstone.
A white fireball punched into the back of a female demon. She didn’t have bones or muscles like Arawn did. She was yellow on the inside, rather like a blister brimming with pus.
She burst.
Fluid spattered over the other demons. Several swung around at the sensation, and a dozen black eyes focused on him.
He only had time to shoot twice more before they were on him.
Seth’s feet went out from under him. There was no making sense of the attacks—who was grabbing what, or which blows connected which parts of his body. He was punched and bitten.
He kept shooting until the rifle didn’t work anymore.
Claws slashed across his chest, and the scent of his blood filled the air. A demon with feline features tried to dig her hand into the wounds.
Seth shoved her back. Rolled both of them. Ended up on top, dripping blood into her face.
“Seth! The dog!” Marion’s voice carried over the cacophony.
He sat back to search for what she was talking about, and he found that the white dog was straining against its chain. Its nostrils flared. Its eyes were huge.
It wanted Seth’s blood.
The chain snapped.
It bolted through the mess of demon bodies, skirting Konig’s wide-sweeping sword, and leaped.
Seth flung himself off of the demon before the dog could strike. It didn’t bother chasing him. It wanted Seth’s blood, and there was plenty of it on the demon who had cut his chest.
Its mouth opened wide—and then wider, wider. Its toothy maw opened far larger than should have been possible with a skull so narrow. And then its mouth snapped shut on the demon’s face, ripping her skull off with an easy toss of its head.
“Holy crap,” Seth said.
The dog looked at him, mouth closed and throat distended with the mass of the demon that it had devoured. Its long tongue licked its chops.
Konig hacked through the last of the surviving demons, slicing a man from nether to shoulder. His upper half slid sideways off of his body. There was nothing inside but a sludgy black mass that might have been organs.
The only survivor was Arawn, and he didn’t look good. He was sitting in a puddle of his own fluids. He was struggling to move.
The dog bowed its head to the demon to keep eating.
Konig glanced at the dog, and then at Seth. He seemed to be trying to decide if he wanted to save Seth or go after Arawn.
After an instant of hesitation, Konig attacked the dog.
It was sluggish from its oversized meal and didn’t stand a chance of escaping. The dog barely dragged itself three steps before Konig cut it open. The demon it had eaten spilled out of its belly.
Distracted by the dog, Konig didn’t see Arawn phasing across the ballroom. He reappeared on the throne with a swirl of black smoke.
“No!” Seth teleported too. He crossed the distance in a heartbeat, and he dragged Marion out of the demon’s reach.
Arawn wasn’t looking for his pound of flesh, though.
He wrapped an arm around Charity’s throat.
“You miserable child,” Arawn hissed
at Konig, blood spraying from his shattered nose. “You stupid little asshole.”
Charity turned wide, terrified eyes on Seth. “Doctor?”
“I’ll see you sacks of shit in Duat.” Arawn swept his arm under Charity’s legs, holding her against his chest.
He vanished, taking the revenant with him.
12
Arawn and Charity appeared in a room of crumbling stone in the space of a blink.
She hurled herself away from him, out of his arms.
“Seth!”
Charity stumbled on a piece of uneven floor. The landing shocked through her body.
“Relax,” Arawn rasped. “They’re gone.”
She got onto her knees, eyes wide as she looked around for her friends. But he was right. They weren’t in Arawn’s tower anymore. They were in a room with no furniture, arched ceilings, and walls of obsidian. Murals depicted eerily long-legged jackals, like an entire pack of those white dogs from his home.
“Where are we?” she asked. “What did you do?”
He laughed. “What did I do? I’m not the asshole sidhe prince who broke his own rules!” Arawn spat onto the floor. It was more ichor than sputum. “That shithead is going to pay for what he did to me!” He flung his arms wide to show his body to her.
Arawn’s clothes were torn open to expose lengths of desiccated skin, which Konig had carved into with that massive blade. Nothing looked to be healing. Demon he may have been, but preternatural regeneration didn’t seem to be among his skills.
The slashes in his jacket revealed extensive tattoos. Until that moment, he had been covered from throat to ankles and wrists in clothes. Charity hadn't realized he would be marked. Now she could glimpse detailed illustrations over the remainder of his wrecked body.
Arawn was tattooed in suns, moons, and whirling planets, shaded with elaborate stippling. The imagery was strangely beautiful for a demon.
And Konig had cut through much of it.
Yet even though glistening ribs were exposed on one side and dried muscle dangled off his opposite shoulder, Arawn didn’t seem to be in pain. He limped over to Charity and helped her stand.