“Okay then,” I replied, smirking. “So when Custody said she was going to get the Alpha, was that why you told her not to?”
“Yes,” Thes replied. He was about to say more but evidently thought better of it because he shut his mouth and said nothing.
“Would that be so bad?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. Yes, it would have been bad. Even if his Alpha had come over, and we’d just talked, Thes would have lost face in front of everyone. I glanced up at Thes as he moved beside me, no longer the angry football player. His shoulders were slumped as we moved through the endless maze, thoughts playing through his dark eyes.
Even if we got back, Thes was still going to be in a world of trouble. As the one left in charge, he was supposed to protect his people, and who knows what had happened after the magician had zapped us into this place? For all I knew, we were going to return home amid a field of corpses.
Then again, we had to get back for that to matter. I looked around as we passed the zillionth wall sconce. A soft sigh escaped me. Escape seemed unlikely.
“How long do you suppose Connor has been unconscious?” Thes asked, interrupting my thoughts as he stopped and leaned the still unmoving Connor against the wall. He slumped there boneless, chest rising and falling in quick breaths, eyes flitting back and forth beneath his eyelids.
“Too long for it to be good,” I said. I’d been trying to ignore it for a while now, but now that Thes had said it, the unconsciousness became harder to dismiss. Humans and magic didn’t exactly mix well, and I had no way of knowing what the magic eating magician had done to Connor. I was less worried about the others left behind because, in the real world, magic would fade away pretty quickly, but here, inside whatever magical realm this was, I had my doubts.
“I’d say we should go get help, but I don’t know where to go,” Thes said, angling his head toward the pink taffy stars. He sniffed, sucking in a deep lungful of air. “I can’t even smell anything, except… well…”
“Except what?” I asked, suddenly on edge because I didn’t sense anything. It was like someone had stuffed cotton in all of my magical senses.
“There’s a faint musk in the air that reminds me of this one time when I was in Mexico for the running of the bulls,” he replied, shaking his head, eyes distant as the memory played in his eyes.
“So you smell a bull?” I asked, glancing around the maze. “We’re trapped in a goddamn maze and you smell a bull? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged at me like he had no idea why that was important.
“Get Connor and let’s get out of here right now,” I barked, swallowing the fear that was uncoiling inside my stomach like a huge snake.
“We don’t know where we’re going, Lillim,” Thes said, glancing from me to Connor and back again. “Let’s just take a break and regroup.”
“Do you know who Polyphemus is?” I asked, walking past him and grabbing Connor by one arm. I huffed, pulling him onto my shoulders and wobbling forward.
“Um… no?” Thes replied as I hobbled away, Connor’s body draped over my shoulder. For a moment, I was worried he wasn’t going to follow me. Then I heard the crunching of his feet on the gravel that lined the floors of the maze.
“He’s from Greek mythology,” I replied. “Do you know what else is from Greek mythology, smells like a bull, and lives in a maze?”
“Um, can you give me a hint?” Thes asked, stepping up next to me, worry crossing his face. But it wasn’t the right kind of worry. It was the ‘I don’t understand, but I can tell you are upset’ worry, not the ‘oh I get it and am appropriately alarmed’ worry that it should have been.
I was still barely forming the word in my mouth when a ginormous golden axe smashed into the wall next to Thes’ face and sank at least six inches into the blue stone. I swung my head toward the direction it had come from as the giant bull-headed creature began kicking up dirt with one foot. Its head was angled toward us so that its wickedly long black horns glinted in the pink starlight like obsidian javelins.
“M-minotaur!” Thes cried, eyes darting from the axe to the creature then to me in a swivel that reminded me of a bobble head. Even from here, the minotaur looked immense, easily several hundred pounds of muscle. Its skin gleamed like polished sapphire, the firelight cascading off of it in scintillating waves.
I dropped Connor unceremoniously to the ground as the creature snorted, actual steam spurting from its nostrils and curled its hands into fists. I reached for the twin blades of Shirajirashii, only they weren’t there. Great. Just great. How was I going to stop a minotaur with bracelets?
“Okay, Thes,” I said, raising my fists in the most menacing way possible. “I hope you have a great trick up your sleeve.
“Yeah,” Thes said and wrenched the axe free of the wall. It hit the ground with a thunk, and as Thes hefted it in his hands, arm muscles bunching, the creature charged. “It’s called, ‘hit it in the face with a giant axe.’”
Thankfully, the minotaur was slow. I dodged to the side with minimal effort as Thes brought the huge gilded battle axe around in an upward arc. The blade struck the oncoming creature with a sound that reminded me of nails on a chalkboard and shattered into a billion shards of crystalline bronze.
Thes’ follow through carried the ragged edge of the broken weapon upward. The beast’s shoulder slammed into him, catching him full in the stomach and launching him backward. He skidded across the ground like a rock on a flat lake, the busted axe smacking into the wall next to my head with a clang that rang in my ears like a gong before falling to the floor with a strange finality. “What’s your next trick?” it seemed to say.
The minotaur whirled, and I barely managed to throw myself out of the way as its giant horns cleaved gouts in the blue stone behind where I’d been standing. It narrowed its huge golden eyes at me and stamped its hoof, throwing up a cloud of blue dust. Was it about to charge again? That wouldn’t be good at all. I threw a glance over my shoulder to see Thes lying in an unmoving heap several feet away.
“Uh… good bull,” I said, edging to the side so that if it did charge it wouldn’t trample Thes or Connor and was immediately annoyed because there was virtually no space between us. It sort of smirked then, huge flat teeth twisting into a wide grin as it raised one hand in the air between us and made a sweeping gesture.
“Your move, Lillim,” it said in a metallic, gravelly voice that echoed out of its gullet like it was a huge cavern.
“How do you know my name?” I asked, swallowing my fear as I stepped around the creature so that my back was to the empty pathway behind me. Now if it charged it would head away from the others. There was, of course, the chance that something else would come from behind. Still, I was pretty sure the minotaur killed everything that entered its maze. That had to be good for something, right?
“Why wouldn’t I know your name?” it asked with a shrug. “You two have been talking for how long now? You think I haven’t heard every word within the labyrinth?” It laughed, and it was a horrible sound that rippled over my flesh and left gooseflesh in its wake.
“You’ve been spying on us?” I asked, suddenly annoyed with the creature. “You couldn’t have attacked us an hour ago? You know, before I had blisters the size of Texas on my feet?”
It shrugged again before tilting its head toward me in a gesture that clearly said, ‘your move.’ It began pawing at the ground with its hoof, throwing up clouds of blue dirt as I took a step back and readied myself for its charge.
“Toro!” I called out, shaking my hands like I had a make believe cape. The minotaur burst forward, but before it had taken more than a couple steps, something dark and furry leapt on its back and grabbed the bull by the horns. There was a horrible shattering sound, like stone sloughing off a mountain as the minotaur’s head was jerked backward.
The minotaur’s feet went out from under it, and it crashed to the ground as the werewolf leapt from the bull’s back. The wolf’s feet hit the
wall, and it bounced off of it, using the blue stone as a springboard to launch itself onto the minotaur’s chest. It drove a pair of razor-sharp claws deep into the creature’s sapphire throat. It tore its claws outward in a blue spray that sent shards of sapphire flesh cascading against the stone with a sound like a million tiny wineglasses shattering. Blood gushed from the wound as the werewolf clamped its huge jaws onto the thrashing minotaur’s throat.
“Thes?” I asked, my eyes opening wide in shock as the werewolf tore away a mouthful of gore and howled, sapphire ichor dripping down its fur. The minotaur’s movements had slowed as blue fluid spilled out of its ruined throat and pooled into a steaming puddle around it.
The werewolf made a thumbs down gesture at the minotaur with one huge black claw.
“See, he wasn’t so tough,” Thes growled in a voice that was his, but deeper and hungrier sounding. The minotaur raised one hand, grabbing Thes around the leg before its huge fingers slipped off Thes’ fur and hit the ground with a thud.
That thud echoed up into the air, so much louder than it should have been as the ground beneath the creature opened up. A huge whirlwind exploded from the cavern swallowing the minotaur. Thes leapt backward, crashing into the ground beside me as the maze around us melted into the giant, sucking black hole.
Chapter 11
We fell for so long that it reminded me of the time the Blue Prince had flung me from the top of a building. When we’d finally struck the spongy pink ground below, we sort of bounced a couple times before the pink stone solidified. It had felt a little weird, less like a trampoline and more like what I’d imagined Jell-O would feel like.
It was a miracle we weren’t dead, but as I stared around the ominous pink cavern, I wasn’t so sure that was positive. It was filled with luminescent cilia that reminded me of brightly lit sea anemones. Their writhing tentacles cast dancing, ominous shadows across the walls. Every surface oozed with slick fluid that reminded me of the insides of some giant creature. The air itself was warm and wet. It gusted down the tunnel in regular bursts that set my nerves on edge.
“Well, at least the fall didn’t kill us,” Thes said, brushing himself off. He was only partially clothed, his jersey and jeans had ripped at the seams when he’d transformed. He’d since pulled his shirt off and wrapped it around his waist to shield his lower body. Still, that left his naked chest with all its touchable muscles in full view… and oh my god, I was a horrible girlfriend.
I turned away from him, a flush rising on my cheeks as I shook my head, biting my lip. I really needed to stop being around really hot half-naked men, or I was going to get some kind of complex. Besides, what would Caleb think? It wasn’t like I would be pleased if he was in a similar situation.
There was a huff of effort behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Connor slumped over Thes’ huge, shoulder. His muscles strained as he took a wobbly step forward and steadied himself on the uneven ground.
I swallowed a particularly naughty thought and averted my eyes as he stepped up beside me, grinning. “See something you like, Dioscuri?” he asked, voice low and, well, wolfish.
“C'est la vie,” I replied, waving my hand at him. Behind him, the tunnel shuddered, and a shiver slid across my spine as the ground beneath my feet rumbled.
“Okay, well let’s go that way,” Thes replied, pointing ahead of us. “It smells less like rotting food in that direction.”
“Less?” I asked. “What do you mean by less?”
“What do you think I mean by less?” he replied, moving past me, Connor’s feet bouncing against Thes’ back. “Are there other meanings of the word I’m not aware of?”
I sighed, and as I began to follow him down the tunnel, couldn’t help thinking we were in a very, very bad place. We’d come here after the minotaur had been destroyed, so it stood to reason that we were in whatever magical realm monsters came when they died, which admittedly, could have been anywhere. Though, I had a pretty good guess.
“Um… where do monsters go in Greek mythology when they die?” I asked, glancing at Thes who shrugged at me. Which, I guess I should have expected because he hadn’t even known what was bullish and lived in a labyrinth.
“Is that a river of fire?” Thes asked, pointing off into the distance. I followed his finger and saw what looked like a dancing river of fire.
“Um…” I said as oranges and reds flickered across its surface, reminding me less of hot lava and more of an actual blazing forest fire turned liquid. It streamed over the gulley below like it was tearing after some super tasty gasoline. Heat wafted off of it so hot, it burned the sweat from my body in an instant. If we got much closer, I was going to need some SPF one trillion.
“We should go back,” Thes said, stopping and glancing back over his shoulder. That was when I realized that our little tunnel entrance led right up to the river’s edge. Since we were in a cave, we were left with all of two choices: cross the flaming river or turn back.
“Or we could, you know, cross the river,” I said, shrugging like it was no big deal even though it was a very big deal.
“It’s a river of fire,” Thes said, giving me a look that said he was unconvinced, but there at the very edge of his face, was a small twitch. “But you’re the big bad Lillim Callina. If you say we can cross a raging inferno, well, I’ll believe you.”
“Well, how does a girl say no to a statement like that,” I replied even though I had no idea how to cross a river that looked to be as wide as a football field.
“You have no idea how to cross it, do you?” Thes asked, quirking one dark eyebrow at me.
“I didn’t say that,” I replied as flames danced across my vision, but he was right. I was a bit rusty on my Greek Mythology so I wasn’t sure how it had been crossed in the myths, or if it even had been crossed in the myths.
“You didn’t not say that either,” he said. “Or deny it.”
“Shut up, I’m thinking,” I said, staring out across the bristling flames.
“We should go back,” Thes said, turning and glancing back down the hallway. “Even though it smells horrible.”
Instead of replying, I reached out with my power, my fingers trailing over the bangles as I murmured a single word under my breath. “Apep.” The faintest tingle of a giant leathery snake unfurled itself in the back of my brain, flicking its huge shadowy tongue across my senses.
“Yes?” The voice was like a thousand old cobwebs whistling in the night.
“How do we cross that?” I pointed at the fire river.
“One does not cross the Phlegethon. To attempt is to be burned to a cinder within its flames. Even Styx herself, who flows endlessly adjacent to us has been consumed by the fury of the Phlegethon.”
“You’re saying that’s the Phlegethon? As in the river of fire that burns within the bowels of Tartarus?” I barely managed to speak the question as fear welled up inside me, and my knees began to shake. We were in Tartarus, the freaking prison that held the Titans after Zeus defeated them. It was where dead monsters came to… well be punished.
“Yes,” Apep replied.
“Are you talking to yourself? Or is this a weird Dioscuri thing?” Thes asked, eyes wide as he stared at me, mouth slightly agape. “Your eyes are all distant, and you’re sort of talking to yourself so I think it’s a Dioscuri thing…”
He kept prattling on as I turned away from him so that his chatter wouldn’t totally break my concentration. I thought about answering him, really I did, but doing that might sever my tenuous connection to Apep, and I wasn’t sure he would awaken for a second chat.
“So what should we do, Apep?” I asked, casting one last glance at the river of fire before turning to stare back down the tunnel.
“I’m not sure, honestly,” Apep replied. The image of him tasting the air with his tongue filled my mind. “The only way out of Tartarus is to follow the river Styx back up to Hades, but that entrance will be guarded by Cerberus. I’m not sure what will happen if you turn back. I’
ve never actually been here before. Either way, you’ll have to cross the river eventually, then cross the river Styx, outwit Cerberus, and make your way through Hades.”
I swallowed, and the sound was a lot louder than I’d meant to be. Thes’ eyes got as big as dinner plates as he stared at me. “What? What is it?” he asked.
“You may want to find a nice place to hole up and die. Get any last requests out of the way. That sort of thing,” Apep said as he curled back down, pulling himself back into the little pinprick in my mind he usually occupied. “That will be easier.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I replied, and the flickering image of a grinning snake turned away from me and closed its eyes.
“No worries. When you die, I’ll just sail away into the chaos,” Apep murmured before fading completely into the last tattered wisps of ether.
“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” Thes said before I could respond. “Your eyes aren’t dark anymore so I’m pretty sure you stopped talking to your demon or whatever it is you people do.”
“Apep isn’t a demon,” I said but before I could say more, Thes’ mouth dropped open, and he looked even more horrified.
“You were talking to Apep? The freaking big bad of Ancient Egypt?” he said, fear etched into his words.
“Uh… yeah?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “You mean you don’t know what a freaking minotaur is, but you know who Apep is? Really?”
“Ancient Egypt is sort of my thing,” he said with a shrug. “But that spirit is dangerous. Like really, really bad news.” He shivered. “I can’t believe the Dioscuri…”
“Apep isn’t so bad. He told me how to get out of here. It’ll be a piece of cake,” I replied, waving him off, partially because what he said was true. Apep was a big bad primordial deity. He was the darkness that blotted out the sun, the force that the combined powers of all the ancient Egypt tried to stop.
How Mattoc had harnessed Apep was beyond me, but then again Mattoc hadn’t been normal, and now that he was gone forever, I wouldn’t be able to ask him. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the story.
Hardboiled: Not Your Average Detective Story (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 5) Page 9