by Jake Richter
Ash reassured Alex. “Don’t worry. He won’t be back to full speed for a while.”
They turned and walked briskly down the alley.
“Okay. So let’s talk. Real talk. What is this all about?”
“I already told you what happened, Alex. The Grand Reaper was assassinated and his lord of souls, Grimwood, has taken over. The only problem is the source of power, the Reaper’s sickle is gone. Your grandfather took the sickle and hid it in the Otherworld, which kinda scuttled Grimwood’s plans. Now all we have to do is get the sickle back in six days, kick some ass, and save the day. In that order if we’re lucky.”
“But why do you need me? Grimwood doesn’t have the sickle. He doesn’t know where it is. Problem solved.”
“Your grandfather was supposed to come back to the Underworld after he hid the sickle. He never returned, and I don’t know how to get to the Otherworld. Earth and the Underworld are all I know. I’m hoping like hell that you can help me.”
“What do I know?”
Ash smiled. “You knew your grandfather better than me which means you know things, maybe secrets, that I don’t know about.”
Alex massaged his chin, plumbing his brain for anything, any clues that his grandfather might have mentioned to him. “I didn’t see him much right before he disappeared, but we talked sometimes. And quite a lot when I was younger. He told me a whole bunch of crazy stories about spending years searching for a portal, but I didn’t believe him.”
“Well, your grandfather told me a lot, including the stuff about the portal. He said that portal could take him to a place beyond the final resting place of all living things.”
“Ah, yeah. It was weird. He said this place was a new world. Like different from here on Earth and...”
“Yes, and different from my world, the Underworld. We called it the Otherworld but it is not something my kind would know.”
“So this is real?”
“Alex. Your grandfather found the way to this Otherworld. And I believe he may have left a clue or two behind. If we find them, we can figure out where he is and where he hid the sickle.”
Alex nodded, slowly taking everything in. “What was that thing back there? Dante?”
“He’s Grimwood’s bitch.”
“What does Grimwood do?”
“Before he killed the Grand Reaper, he was one of the ones who decided what level of the Underworld a soul goes to. I guess you could say he was in spiritual upper management.”
“As in the upper management of hell?”
She shook her head. “Listen, stop trying to compare my world to the classical idea of hell or even heaven. There is The Underworld, Earth and…the Otherworld, and that’s just for starters. The Underworld is where everyone initially goes and if they rebel, if they choose not to be part of the divine plan and find a way out, they take refuge in the Otherworld, which is basically like the Wild West…with all kinds of castoffs, weird creatures, and crazy goings-on.”
“So, basically, the Underworld is the place with souls, fire, hot pokers, and eternal damnation?”
Ash rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so melodramatic. Only the suburbs are reserved for that type of torture. And maybe a pancake house or two…”
Alex was not amused. “None of this shit makes sense.”
“It’s not supposed to. It’s chaotic, but there’s a kind of balance that keeps everything in order. Or…there was.”
“What happened?”
“A very small group including your grandfather and me, knew Grimwood was up to no good, but the Grand Reaper trusted him. He never imagined he would turn on him. When he did, some of us did what we could to prevent him from taking over, but things went off the rails when your grandfather took the sickle and vanished.”
“That sounds like a pretty shitty plan,” Alex replied.
“Well next time there’s a coup in the Underworld, we’ll make sure to plan a little bit better and check with you first, okay?”
Alex held her look. “When you saw me last night you knew I would help you?”
“I had a hunch, but I had to test you. To see if you’d save a life and were capable of seeing me.”
“A test?”
Ash pursed her lips. “You passed. Sure the prize is not going be easy or fun or safe. Well, maybe a little fun, but on the bright side, you just might get a chance to save the universe.”
Alex had a shit ton more questions but focused on getting to Fincher’s car. They checked the surroundings and started up the street. The canary yellow Hellcat was about a block away.
“Do you think my grandfather is okay?”
“I hope so. We should have warned the Grand Reaper and convinced him that Grimwood was up to no good. Maybe he would’ve listened and this whole thing could’ve been avoided. But we did what we thought was right and I have to live with that.”
“What the hell do we do?”
“We need to meet up with my Belles and then we get busy finding the sickle.”
Ash nodded and Alex held her look. “What’s a Belle?”
Ash smiled. “My lady friends.”
They made it to Fincher’s ride, and Alex fidgeted with the keys. He still had a lot of questions but noticed a tattoo on Ash’s wrist. It was an ancient clock with what appeared to be Egyptian symbols on the face. Unlike a normal tattoo, it seemed to breathe and move like an apparition, undulating across her flesh. He could see that the outer portions of it were fading slowly, vanishing in miniscule amounts with every passing second. “What is that?”
“My timer,” Ash replied. “Once this clock disappears in six days, the Unwinding will be complete, and everything and everyone in my world and yours will be no more.”
“Why six days?”
“Because it took seven days to make the world, seven days to undo it…and the Unwinding started yesterday.”
“What actually happens during the Unwinding ?”
“Oh, not much. Just a few earthquakes and worldwide winds, thousands of miles per hour, that would sweep across the entirety of the planet. Anything that wasn’t anchored in bedrock would be ripped up and tossed into the air. The world would be cloaked in a swirling mass of debris that the Grand Reaper claims would last for a thousand years.”
“Oh, is that all?” Alex replied, his stomach doing somersaults.
8
Alex and Ash stood at Fincher’s car. Before they entered the ride, Ash made a visual sweep of the area, looking for any sign of Dante. One passerby dropped his coffee and stared for a long beat at Ash, not only because of her attire but because of the weapon she was carrying.
“I thought you were invisible,” Alex said.
“Interference. When I touched you and didn’t take your soul to the Underworld, I lost a little of my mojo. I’m visible now and I can be wounded just like any mortal. Of course, I’d gladly sacrifice all of my power if it meant restoring the order and keeping Grimwood from taking the throne.”
“Wait. Take my soul? You mean…I was going to die back at the bar?”
Ash nodded. “Yep. Lil’ Red overdoses, you see it, Brock kills you, covers up the evidence, life goes on. But it didn’t go that way. Still, you were marked to go and if I hadn’t given you a bit of myself, Brock would have killed you anyway. Or something would have killed you at that moment.”
“Thanks for saving me,” Alex replied.
“No worries, but don’t make me regret it.”
Alex felt a vibration in his pocket. It was his cell phone. He picked it up and saw it was Spence. “Spence!” Alex yelled.
“What’s up, kemosabe? I saw you called and—”
“I’m with Ash and we just killed a bunch of things from another world!”
Silence on the other end of the phone.
“What’s an Ash? Have you been sniffing glue again, Alex?”
“Spence, I’m super-serious here—”
“So am I! I wasn’t judging and if you’ve got some I’ll join in!”
Alex stared at the phone for a few moments s. “Meet me at my place in thirty minutes.”
“What are you talk—”
Alex killed the line and stopped, taking a deep breath.
“Listen. Maybe there’s another way. All my years behind the bar have made me pretty good at talking to people. Maybe there’s a way to just sit down and talk to Grimwood and make things right.”
Ash laid a hand on Alex’s shoulder. “You want the good news or the bad news?”
“The good.”
“It won’t be easy to reason with Grimwood because he’s one of the galaxy’s biggest douchebags.”
“How is that the good news?”
“I don’t know. Some human shit I understand, some I really don’t. Good news bad news isn’t my thing and Grimwood doesn’t reason or play nice.”
“Never?”
BOOM!
The building next to them exploded.
Metal and stone shrapnel filled the air along with jets of black smoke.
“NEVER! …IT’S DANTE!” Ash shouted.
Alex held up Fincher’s keys and tapped the fob. There was a chirp and the Challenger’s doors unlocked. Ash cocked her weapon and grinned. “We’re in it now! Whoa. I think my nipples just got hard.”
Alex studied Ash’s breasts as they neared the car.
Alex slid behind the wheel and Ash jumped into the shotgun seat as another blast pulverized brick and mortar nearby.
Alex juiced the Challenger’s engine, listening to the three hundred horses under the hood rumble to life.
He stomped his foot down on the gas and the car vroomed off down the street while explosions detonated to the left and right of the car, sending up geysers of dirt.
“Where is he?” Alex yelled.
He stole a look at the side mirror and bit back a scream.
Dante was visible, running down the street toward the Challenger.
Running faster than a fucking cheetah on PCP.
There were balls of orange flames in the palms of his hands and he was throwing them like baseballs.
Cars up ahead were struck by the energy balls and blasted apart.
“Isn’t there anything you can do?” Alex asked.
“Dragon breaths, Alex. Dragon. Breaths.”
“Um, you mean deep breaths?”
“Sure, if that works for you, but for me, nothing says calm and in control like Dragon Breaths!” She held up a blood-red shell that was no larger than a common shotgun shell.
“What the heck is that thing?”
Ash smiled. “Dragon’s Breath.”
“What’s it do?”
Ash jacked the shell into the gun and leaned out her open window. Her ass was there for the viewing pleasure, and Alex couldn’t help but glance over, appreciating it in all its glory. Of course, doing so nearly cost him his life as he almost collided with another car. He snapped out of it, steering hard to compensate and then veering back onto his side of the road.
Now that he was focused, he pushed the speedometer to fifty miles per hour. He kept pushing it, one eye on the road, another on the side mirror. Dante was there, taking to the air and then running up the side of a building like a spider.
Ash must’ve had him in her sights because she took a shot. The Dragon Breath burst forth. The windows on nearby buildings blew out as whatever was in the round flashed to life, brighter than a bonfire, its initial sound followed by a supersonic shriek.
Alex caught sight of a smoke-trail as the round corkscrewed back and—
Struck Dante in the chest, flinging him back through the brick and glass façade of an office building.
“Holy,” Alex whispered to himself. “Holy mother of…”
Alex steadied the wheel, watching Ash climb back into the machine.
“Nice job,” Alex said.
Ash smiled hugely. “I think I just rocked his world.”
“Is he down?”
She nodded. “But definitely not out. That just buys us some time. We need to find a place to lie low for a bit, to see whether Dante is actually tracking us.”
Alex took this in, nodding. “I’ve got a place.”
Alex floored the Challenger, realizing they needed to get to the rowhouse he shared with Giselle as quickly as possible.
Sirens echoed and Alex caught sight of the red and blue bubble tops on a couple of cop cars.
“Five-O.”
“Relax,” Ash said, studying the cars.
“What are you…you can’t kill the cops, Ash.”
“I don’t need to. At least one of them is on my list.”
“What list?”
“The list to join the Underworld. Everyone has a number and me and the Belles have the master list. I’ll show you. Look behind.”
Alex glanced in the rearview mirror, watching in astonishment as one cop car veered to avoid hitting a pedestrian and careened off course, and then rolled over and over until it smashed into a series of parked cars and fell to a stop, blocking the other cop car.
“You knew,” Alex said.
Another nod from Ash. “I make an appearance, then comes transportation—that’s where my gals come in—we take them to the Show aka Underworld, and they get processed. On any other day, that means meeting Grimwood before the Grand Reaper makes the final call, but today ain’t a normal day, so those guys might have to wait a while before they get sorted.”
“Who is Grimwood? I mean, I know you told me about him, but what is he really?”
Ash’s face clouded. “Like I said, he’s in upper management and is a rather unpleasant part of my past if you really want to know.” Alex nodded. He wanted to know.
Ash sighed with a smile and then turned serious. “We were with each other once, but I broke it off. He was a jealous sonofabitch and had a habit of incinerating people he thought I was fucking.”
“Which means what?”
She shrugged. “Oh, not much, mostly that he probably thinks you’re my new guy.”
“But I’m not.”
She winked. “The day’s is still young, Alex.”
Alex gripped the steering wheel tighter and accelerated, fighting to put as many miles as he could between the Challenger and Dante, even as he pondered just how much Grimwood had factored in Ash’s past.
9
Grimwood sat in a pool of darkness that was so profound, he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. There was a voice somewhere out beyond him, the guttural rasp of Dante, his creature-servant and occasional sycophantic “fixer.”
“Unpleasant?” Grimwood said in a voice that was sweeter than clotted butter. “Did she really say that?”
“Yes, sir,” Dante muttered.
Grimwood rose to his full seven-foot-plus height in the darkness, strode forward and pushed back a set of lush curtains.
His fine-boned stubbled face was the color of bleached sugar, his longish black hair swept back. He was sinister-looking and enigmatic, an aged yet ageless devil in the flesh dressed to the nines in a tight-fitting neon purple suit.
He did a little dance, light on his feet, moving to a sound only he could hear with the purpose and grace of a trained dancer.
He stood in the center of his opulent retreat: a massive circular abode with a stone dome that provided a panoramic view of the Prefecture of Petros, an urban center of the Underworld. The city was built atop a spit of land near the edge of a garnet-red sea and was reserved for the Underworld’s elite, the movers and shakers of Earth who passed away and had been transported here.
Dante crouched submissively before him, still covered in soot from being blasted by Ash’s weapon. It had only been ten minutes but he was still glowing from the explosion and his ears were still ringing. He held a small transparent egg filled with golden oil in the palm of his hand. Grimwood eased himself down into a metal throne that was shaped like a person screaming and was placed before a hexagonal mirror.
“Yes, sir, that was her exact word,” Dante said, opening the egg. “’Unplea
sant.’”
“When did she say this?”
“Right after she blew me up. I still was in spirit transition back here.”
Grimwood smiled. “She’s still got her good stuff, doesn’t she?”
“If by ‘good stuff’ you mean explosives, then yes she does.”
Dante withdrew some of the oil on the tips of his fingers and spread it over the thick muscles that ridged Grimwood’s neck and shoulders.
Grimwood threw an expectant look at Dante. Almost as if he was waiting for an announcement, some key info. But he went along with the massage and eased into a line of questioning. “So was she with him??” Grimwood asked.
“Yes.”
“Was he handsome for a human?” Grimwood arched an eyebrow in mild curiosity.
Dante nodded. “Totally fuckable. I mean you’ve seen his grandfather, right? He’s much better looking.”
“This is not the news I wanted to hear.”
“Oh, I thought you enjoyed a little small talk before a discussion about usurping ultimate power.”
“To be honest, I do enjoy it. Where are my manners, Dante? Regime change is exhausting and quite stressful. I mean, you plan for most of your life to take over, never thinking you’ll get the chance, and then it happens. I thought, ‘wow, I’m the guy now,’ but then this latest kerfuffle has left me…a bit vexed. So I guess I was hoping you’d cheer me up with some really good news.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
Grimwood waved his hand dismissively. “Let me tell you a story, Dante. It’s about another person who I had an unpleasant history with. This was back during those days when I used to visit Earth regularly. There was a woman…”
“Marion,” Dante said, remembering.
“And there we were, ensconced in our love nest in the deepest of the Deep South in July, which is a very lovely time of year if you enjoy the heat and humidity.”
“I love both of those, sir,” Dante said, manufacturing a huge smile.
“Marion and I were enjoying each other’s company when I asked her to grab my favorite nut…macadamia to be exact. Wouldn’t you know it, the little shop near where we were staying was known for their high-quality nuts. But when she returned, she had all these other groceries but not one bag of my macadamia nuts.”