Lady of the Underworld

by Skyler Andra

  I pushed the seat back almost completely and sunk into the ridiculously soft leather. It occurred to me that his seat was probably more comfortable than my bed.

  “Poke me if I snore,” I instructed. He cut a sideways glance at me; it told me that no one had ever asked him that. Well, the last few days had been full of surprises for the Lord of the Dead—and there was going to be more to come.

  Chapter 10

  Autumn

  A few minutes later, I was already drifting off. Didn’t take me much. Just call me a grandma.

  I don’t dream much. I tried to keep a dream diary once, but it ended up being just way too many pages filled with question marks.

  Rocked by the gentle motion of Hades’ car, I found myself dreaming almost immediately. I was walking through a forest that dripped with hot steam. It felt like being in a sauna or maybe the greenhouse Pearl sent me to sometimes to look over the stocks. The flowers around me bloomed in colors and with a lush exuberance that I’d never seen before. As I proceeded through the gorgeous greenery, I reached down to gently stroke the velvety petals and towering fronds, my fingertips coming away stained by golden grains of pollen. Stems and stalks brushed against my skirts as I went by.

  Oh, very nice, very nice. It’s so good to see everyone doing so well, I thought with pleasure.

  I found myself hurrying along as if I had someone to meet. My bare feet dug harder into the dark earth as I went. It had been such a long time since I was able to run anywhere with no shoes on. The minute you tried it in the city, you were asking for a foot full of glass; but here, there was no trash or broken glass, just lush, healthy brown loam.

  The forest opened up to a clearing, and a cool breeze dried the sweat on my skin.

  Oh, that feels good. This is going to be so nice…

  Up ahead, I noticed a void in a ground as if something enormous had been uprooted from the earth—a wound where there had once been something alive and growing. The violation, the sheer wrongness of its presence penetrated me, lancing painfully as my hands started reaching for the earth as though I could mend it or somehow put everything back the way it was.

  “Shh, shh, I’ll look after you,” I murmured. “I’ll take care of you.”

  Covered in dirt, my hands were warm, but then I felt something wriggling I couldn’t understand. Soil. Millions upon millions of things traveled through it. Tunneling moles, ants bringing back food to their queen, earthworms burrowing, and all the little bacterial decomposers who worked hard to provide the nutrients the soil and plants needed. All of it to ensure that the world didn’t stop spinning. I knew what they felt like. Knew how they moved. Whatever was beneath me was bigger, faster, and more frightening than any of them.

  I should have pulled back, but for some reason, I couldn’t or wouldn’t. Then the strange thing I felt rose up, round and hard, and cold under my fingers that I cried out in panic. My instincts told me it belonged to me. That it was coming back for me. I’d been wrong to bury it. Nothing stayed buried, nothing stayed inert. It wasn’t the way of the world, and it wasn’t the way of what had come back to me. In my hands I held something curved and white like bone… no, not like. It was bone—a skull. Oh, God, I was holding a skull in my hands, and someone terrible had stuck marigolds in its eye sockets. Tangled with my horror was my helpless fury and offense.

  Did they think it was a joke? Did they think that death was something cute and funny and beautiful? Didn’t they understand that you couldn’t take it back once it was stripped from you?

  In my fury, I dug my fingers into the skull, creating hairline cracks across it, crushing it like fragile clay. The moment I did so, however, I was consumed with horror and shame that I had done something wrong. Unable to process my actions, I started to scream and cry, beating my breast with my fisted hand. My grief was so powerful, so intense, that all I could do was get it out through physical pain, only if to show the world how much it hurt, how unfair it was, and how brutal…

  I woke up to my own wild cries. My shirt was sticky with sweat. I was stuck in the moment with no past or future. I didn’t know where I was. Didn’t know what was going on or why I was in a car or why someone’s hands were around my shoulders. Through the haze, a man’s dulcet voice whispered something so soft to me, telling me that it would all be fine even if I didn’t fully understand the words he used.

  Blinking hard, I cut off my own cries with a sudden surge of surprise. I looked into the deep pit of Hades’ eyes, wide with alarm and worry.

  “Darling, darling, it’s all right,” he was saying.

  When he realized that I wasn’t screaming anymore, he cut himself off. He didn’t let go of me, but I didn’t want him to.

  He swallowed, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of the movement in his throat. God, he was so buttoned-up. Literally. His tie looked as if it had been made out of perfect geometric angles, and suddenly I couldn’t stand it.

  “You were so afraid,” he started, but that wasn’t the reaction I wanted just then—not at all.

  We were parked now. He must have pulled over on the side of the road. The blinkers clicking, I reached for him, taking a handful of that perfectly pressed and starched shirt in my fingers. Somehow I knew that if he didn’t want to move for me, he wouldn’t. All that mattered was that when I pulled, he came. One moment he was staring at me under the cast of the overhead light of the car, his hands on my shoulders, and the next he leaned in and kissed me as if his life depended on it. The searing intensity of it burned my lips, my throat, my entire body.

  In that kiss, absolutely no sense of hesitation or nervousness existed. No “But what if…?” or “This is inappropriate; he’s my boss and I should stop.” The only thing that mattered was his mouth moving with mine, how he tasted faintly of coffee and sugar, and how perfect it all was. The kiss fired up the tension that had been simmering between us ever since we first touched, reminding me of that roaring torrent of need. But this was nowhere close to enough to quench it.

  A deep growl in his chest rumbled through me as he braced himself over me slightly, pressing me back into the seat. In another world, I might have been nervous and startled. Some guys don’t like to stop once they’re started, and despite everything that had passed between us so far, I really didn’t know anything at all about him. All I knew right then was how incredible and hot this was, and that was all that mattered.

  His teeth grazed my lower lip, causing me to moan. Encouraged, he slid his tongue between my lips, exploring me with a kind of need that made me weak. I reached for him, clinging to his broad shoulders and the strength in them, his need mirroring my own. There would never be any kind of guessing with Hades. I would always know that this desire existed between us—that we were drawn together, and that he felt it just as strongly as I did.

  His hand brushed my green hair from my face, trailing a sensual fire down my cheek before reaching my throat. For a moment, he lightly pressed my pulse with his thumb, and then he went lower, curling his fingers around the loose collar of my top.

  Oh. Oh, wow. No. This is a bad idea.

  Who’d said that? Certainly not me. Maybe the sensible part of me? It didn’t even sound true. Wasn’t true. The vast majority of me was shouting about what a very good idea it was and wondering why in the name of everything we should stop things just when it was moving past good and into awesome, hopefully headed toward incredible.

  “Hey,” I said, my lips moving against his. “Hey, no. Quit.”

  Oh, God, why did I say that?

  It might not have been the most coherent or decisive thought, but I felt the very moment he registered it. His hand slid to rest on the seat by my head, and he pulled back, his eyes wide and a little wild. His mouth was gorgeous, reddened by what we’d done, and in spite of what I said, I reached up to touch my fingertips to them, marveling at the color and the beauty there.

  His tongue lapped gently at my fingers, but because I supposed he was the adult where we were concerned, he pulled back
a little.

  “You said stop,” he confirmed.

  It struck me that there was no resentment in his voice. He wanted to know if we were all right, if stop entirely was what I meant or the million and one things that it could mean. His entire body was cued to my response, and I sighed, knowing what it had to be.

  God, but I didn’t really know what I wanted. I’d awoken, shaken from the dream, lost in confusion. And he’d held me, worked his magic on me with those damn hands of his. I was swept away by his kiss, left adrift in the middle of a stormy ocean. Then reality came crashing back.

  “Yeah, I did,” I replied, unbuckling my seatbelt and pushing him back. He retreated easily and sighed.

  I pushed open the door and swung my legs out of the car. Climbing to my feet, I looked out over the pure darkness of the stubbled cornfield. A real chill was coming on as fall pulled back to reveal the sting of winter. Shivering, I wrapped my arms around myself. I had a jacket on, but it was far too light for the weather.

  Hades was behind me in an instant. I held my breath, waiting for him to say something potentially comforting or something with a little bite so I could reorient myself. He did neither as I breathed in the cold air, letting it and his quiet both ground and calm me.

  “There’s so much corn in this state,” I stated, cutting through the silence because I couldn’t handle it anymore.

  “Is there?” he asked, his voice mild and utterly non-committal.

  “Yeah.” Oh, God, listen to me. But I didn’t know what else to say to break up the awkwardness. “It’s the only reason this state runs in the black, industry-wise. It’s not the type of corn people can eat, though.”

  “Explain.”

  “It’s feed corn. They pick it and mill it up for livestock. No sugar is added, which is just as well for the cows and the pigs, but still way less good for any of us.”

  “Do you like… corn?”

  I laughed at his politely confused question. Would he be polite even if… No. I was not opening that particular jar of snakes again—not right now, no matter how amazing it felt.

  “I do,” I answered instead. “It’s so easy to cook. Microwaved or in a boiling pot of water, but, man, is it good grilled. Just throw some butter on, salt and pepper. I like it with lime and chili, too, but I grew up eating it with butter, salt, and pepper.”

  “That sounds good,” Hades replied, sounding more befuddled by the moment.

  I sighed as I turned back to him. “Sorry. You don’t need me to list off the food channel. We can get back in the car now. I won’t make us stop again.”

  He made no move toward the car, however. The empty road stretched in either direction. His car sat on the shoulder like some kind of lone bastion of civilization.

  “You sounded terrified.” He frowned, then corrected himself. “No, heartbroken.”

  “Bad dream.”

  “Do you get them often?”

  I quirked an eyebrow at him. “No? Why are you asking? Seems sort of personal.”

  His jaw tensed at that, expressing his discomfort with my mild reprimand. “I wouldn’t like to think it happens to you often.” Then more softly, he added, “I wouldn’t like to think you were so unhappy on a regular basis.”

  I let out a long breath. What was I thinking he would say? We were just talking about dreams, passing time on the side of the road while I got my heebie-jeebies under control. Nothing weird to see here at all.

  “No. I don’t get a lot of bad dreams. I don’t get a lot of dreams at all, really.”

  “Ah.”

  I moved past him to the car door. “Well, I’ve officially kept us too long and worn out my own patience. Shall we get back on the road, boss?”

  He gave me an incredulous stare but nodded, coming to the passenger’s side and opening the door for me. It was a strange act, and I couldn’t tell if he had done it for chivalry points, but the intensity in his action made me think he might not do it for just anyone.

  “You shouldn’t do that for me,” I told him. “Otherwise, I’m going to get used to it and then refuse to get into any car that you won’t open up for me.”

  Ah, finally a smile. An icebreaker. It occurred to me that he was getting more comfortable with me.

  Our kiss rose up in my mind again, and it was only with a massive effort that I managed to avoid touching my lips, recalling it in incredibly vivid detail.

  “I don’t mind opening doors for you,” he acknowledged, shutting the door after I got in.

  The sky, a black tinged with blue, began to merge with the golden tip of dawn, telling me we had an hour before sunrise. As was apparent, we had left the highway and twisted through county roads. Long and snaking, they had existed long before the highways had. People still used them, but they had a forgotten quality to them, each one uneven and ill-maintained. So far, we were still on the paved roads, and that was a mercy. More than a few were just dirt, heading off into the darkness of the corn fields.

  With all the power Hades had at his fingertips, I still didn’t understand why he couldn’t just magic us to his destination. Surely I’d get used to the teleporting each time we did it. A thought occurred to me that maybe he didn’t want to transport us quickly because he wanted the company.

  “You know,” I said. “This is a lot of trouble to go to just to dump me in the woods.”

  “Not funny,” he absently chided. “Are you sure this is where we’re meant to be?”

  “Yup.” I pointed to the red line that ended on the map. “Right down this road.”

  “There’s nothing here.” He slowed the car and glanced out the window.

  “Not surprising. We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  He sped up again. “It’s not nowhere, not to everyone that lives out here.”

  I was still figuring out what I wanted to say to that when he turned into a driveway.

  “I think that’s what we’re looking for.”

  We weren’t on one of those dirt roads that I’d been eyeing so warily. Although Hades’ car moved as smoothly as silk, some potholes could drown ducklings. I did not relish the idea of pushing a car this big out of a ditch if that was where we ended up.

  Fortunately, it looked like the house we were aiming at was just a mile on, easily visible in the flat winter fields. The trees lining the driveway had lost their leaves in the cool of autumn. A few sheep nibbled on the grass nearby.

  Unfortunately, as we got closer, I realized it was a horror show. Tall arched roof beams. Curtains drawn across every window. Eerie shadows cast by sharp and bare branches.

  “Oh, come on,” I complained. “That place looks so cursed and haunted.”

  Hades shot me a slight smile as he steered the car toward Haunting Central. “And what did you think we were going to be doing when I asked you to help me corral the dead?”

  “I don’t know.” I rolled the map back up into its pouch and shoved it in the glove box. “More like what we did at the funeral home. You know, where it was full of life and people, not abandoned and creepy.”

  “Some would say that those were strange notions to relate to a funeral home,” Hades pointed out.

  “Not if you’re a florist,” I objected. “But I was thinking more that, and less… this.”

  He eased the car right up into the end of the drive for the house, which again looked no less promising up close. Without their leaves, there was nothing to stop the tree branches from raking against the house and producing all manners of alarming squeaks and groans.

  “I need to go in,” Hades said, before adding hesitatingly, “If you want, you can…”

  “No. No. I’ve got this.” I raised my palms in the air. “You are not paying me to sit in your car like a glorified navigator. I’m in. I’m a part of this.”

  “I see.” He nodded.

  “I’m also right behind you.” I waved him forward. “So, you first.”

  That won a real laugh from Hades, which sent a shiver of pleasure up my spine. He was always h
andsome, but when he laughed it was like the sun emerging after a long winter. It made me want to grab his sleeve and turn him around, to kiss that laugh right out of his mouth, but I stopped myself. Okay, so I wasn’t averse to making out on the hood of a car in front of a haunted house, but that was definitely not a great idea.

  We got out of the car at the same time and approached the house slowly. Paint peeled from the wooden boards. A lopsided swing creaked in the night breeze. The front porch looked like it was about to collapse under our weight, and the steps cracked disturbingly as we climbed them. At the door, a rusty old thing hanging off its hinges, Hades raised his hand. For a moment, I thought he was going to knock, but his magic simply pushed it open instead.

  “Nice trick,” I murmured.

  “No doors stood against death,” he responded, and I felt that chill again.

  Sometimes, when I looked at him, I saw a normal man. Maybe one with too high a sense of himself or someone who had a real stick up his rear, but nonetheless, a normal man. Moments like this reminded me that he wasn’t just any mortal man, and that if I weren’t already treading water to keep up, I would be in way, way over my head.

  I followed behind him as he stepped over the threshold, vaguely impressed by the fact that he boldly walked inside like he had every right in the world to do so. He certainly fit the personification of death. No doors stood against death, he had said, and I hadn’t heard anything quite so true in a long time.

  Me, on the other hand, I was quite a different case. The moment I strode into the house, I felt as if I’d been dropped into a cold bath. One that my instincts told me to get out of right away. This place didn’t feel right. The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood up as one thought came to mind: it didn’t want me here.