The Underworld (Rhyn Eternal)

by Lizzy Ford

  “Kill? No. He didn’t earn death.” There was a silence as Karma worked on her bonds. “Past-Death pissed off Karma again. Karma figured out how to get back at her and was going to tell Gabriel what past-Death was doing to manipulate his future.”

  “And she imprisoned you.” Deidre grew thoughtful.

  “My brother turned me in. Said I needed to learn not to fuck with deities.”

  “That sucks. So you knew exactly who I was when I was brought in.”

  “Yes.” The sound of something snapping drew a curse from the deity.

  Deidre flinched at the thought of desecrating the remains of anyone, even an Immortal serving Harmony.

  “More bones,” Karma ordered.

  Deidre sought out two more and took them to the corner. Suddenly, Karma’s movements stopped.

  “They’re coming,” she whispered. “They want to see what Karma did to you.”

  “No!” Deidre said, starting to panic. Her eyes went to the bones in the center of the room. “I’m not going with them again!”

  “Toss your clothing on the bones. They won’t dare come close enough to be balanced.”

  Deidre obeyed without question and went to the dark corner with the rest of the bones.

  “Three.” Karma’s count was accompanied by the snap of another bone.

  Deidre heard the sound of a death dealer rapping on a door nearby. Huddled in the corner naked, she prayed he bought their bait. She didn’t remember her last run in with them, but she could guess what happened by the blood on her body and where the dress was torn.

  “Keep silent,” Karma warned. “Karma is almost free.”

  I’m not sure that’s a good thing, Deidre thought. Was she unleashing a plague of a different kind by freeing Karma?

  The door creaked open.

  Deidre held her breath and prayed. Karma’s rattling stopped.

  A death dealer entered, his gaze on the pile of bones and the black dress in the middle of the cell.

  “Shit,” he muttered. “Harmony needed her alive.”

  “You should’ve thought of that before you tossed her in here,” Karma said calmly. “Karma saw what you all did to her. If Karma knows, the Dark One will.”

  There was a pause then an alarmed, “He’ll know you killed her, too!”

  “Well … maybe Karma didn’t.”

  The death dealer froze in place, gaze riveted to the corner where Karma was. “Is she alive or not?”

  “She’s in the corner.”

  “You don’t let anyone live.”

  “Then go tell Harmony she’s dead.”

  The death dealer shifted feet. Deidre could almost see his thoughts: face certain death here or certain death if he disobeyed Harmony. Who did he fear more?

  He took a step into the room.

  “If you’re alive say something,” he ordered.

  “I am,” Deidre said quietly.

  The death dealer inched forward then stopped and retreated to the doorway, leaning out to reach the nearest torch in the hall.

  “Come here,” Karma whispered. “Quickly!”

  Deidre scampered across the bones to the corner where the deity was. Karma took her hands and pulled her closer. Deidre dropped beside her, noticing how warm she was compared to the cold air and stone floor of the dungeon.

  The death dealer stepped back into the cell. She covered her chest self-consciously when his torch lit up the corner.

  “Close your eyes,” Karma said for her ears only. “Demon or not, Karma has seen your soul. You are not ready yet to see this.”

  The words filled Deidre with fear. She hugged her knees to her chest and squeezed her eyes closed, ducking her head.

  “She is alive!” the death dealer exclaimed. “Come with me, demon!”

  “Come and get her,” Karma challenged.

  He said nothing.

  “What can Karma do? She is chained, remember?”

  The sounds of the dealer’s feet scuffing on the stone floor started then stopped. Deidre’s jaw clenched. She waited to hear the sounds of his horrible death or for Karma’s manacles rattling.

  The silence stretched on. Deidre resisted the urge to look, afraid of what she’d see if she did.

  “Here.” Karma’s word was accompanied by the brush of the Hell dress across Deidre’s arms. “You can look now.”

  Deidre lifted her head tentatively. She saw nothing of the death dealer. The door to their cell yawned open, and Karma stood in the middle of the cell.

  Pulling on her clothing quickly, Deidre hurried to the door. She didn’t look too hard at the rest of the cell, not wanting to see what her newest ally was capable of.

  Peering around the corner, she stepped into the vacant hallway.

  Karma followed. Deidre faced her, startled by the woman’s appearance in the full light. Her dark auburn hair fell almost to her waist. Her eyes were large and deep set, her taller, fuller frame gaunt and dressed in a worn gown from an era Deidre wasn’t able to identify. Karma was beautiful in an earthy way and innocent looking, her appearance nothing like what Deidre expected. Like every other deity she had met, Karma appeared deceptively young, in her early twenties, aside from her inhuman eyes.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Deidre said. “And thank you.”

  “Her inevitable pleasure.”

  I’ll never get used to dealing with deities.

  Karma offered Deidre her hand. Deidre took it, and the deity whirled and ran down the hallway in the opposite direction that Deidre had gone earlier. She was about to object and tell Karma about past-Death being imprisoned when Karma gasped.

  “Be still!”

  “What? What’s wrong?” Deidre started to turn.

  Karma yanked her to face her and released her hand. “Be still!”

  Deidre froze, listening, afraid there were guards sneaking up behind her or some other danger she couldn’t sense.

  “You have a new soul.” Karma appeared puzzled, her gaze taking in the space around Deidre.

  Confused, Deidre looked down. She saw the strange fog form at her feet and frowned. “I don’t understand. What is it?”

  She took Deidre’s hand and held it out, palm up. “Look.”

  The fog snaked around Deidre’s hand and centered in her palm, coalescing and solidifying until it took on the shape of an emerald with the coloring of smoky quartz. There was no mistaking what it was despite the unusual color.

  Uncomfortable with the idea of holding souls, Deidre hesitated then closed her fist around it. Once, a soul had spilled out its story all at once to her, terrifying her at the intensity and tragedy of its tale. She braced herself for a similar experience, only for the soul to remain quiet.

  “Whose is it?” she asked.

  An image of past-Death formed in her head briefly before sliding away.

  “Oh, god,” she whispered, looking again at the smoky gem. “It’s been a week.”

  “You have more.” Karma was eyeing the pouch at her waist, the one protected by magic that kept the death dealers from seeing it. “Karma senses souls, one her brother gave you.”

  Deidre opened the pouch and dropped past-Death’s soul into it. She stared at it, bitterly realizing Gabriel’s soul rested beside his mate’s. The third gem was given to her by Fate before she was kidnapped by the death dealers. She didn’t know whose it was, but Fate seemed to think she needed it.

  “I guess I’m collecting them.” A pang of hurt went through her at the thought of past-Death losing her soul. It meant Gabriel wasn’t the only person who was heartbroken. At least I have it and not Darkyn or someone who won’t protect it.

  “Karma thinks we should go.”

  “I have to free my friend.”

  “Karma thinks this isn’t a good idea now.” The deity’s gaze was on the cell across the hall from hers. “She –”

  “I,” Deidre corrected again.

  “- I thinks we should go quickly.”

  Deidre roused herself from the sad though
ts about the gems in her pouch. She tied it closed and wiped her eyes.

  “Is there something wrong?” she asked, following Karma’s look.

  “Very.” Karma rested a hand on the petrified wood of the door of the closed cell. “Karma … I feels a great imbalance.”

  “Darkyn?” Deidre’s hope surged.

  “Not the Great Imbalance. Karma thinks …” the deity drifted off.

  “Does Karma … I mean, do you know what it is?”

  “No.” Her tone was softer. “Karma feels sad. You are sad?”

  “I am.”

  “Karma reflects the emotions of those around her. Sadness is Karma’s least favorite feeling. Please refrain from sadness.”

  Deidre managed a smile at the note of pleading in the deity’s voice. “I’ll try not to, if you can stop referring to yourself in the third person. It’s kind of weird.”

  “Very well. Karma … I will tries. We need to escape.”

  “No. I have to help someone,” Deidre said firmly.

  Karma cocked her head to the side. “We cannot stay in the dungeon.”

  “This place is huge. We can hide somewhere, find the key to my friend’s cell and free her.”

  “I thinks your plan is not thorough enough to be successful.”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “Not yet.” Karma’s gaze went down the hallway. “There is someone else here.”

  Deidre spun, panic flying through her at the thought of being cornered again by death dealers. She almost sighed. There was no one in sight. Spooked anyway, she let Karma take her hand and start down the hallway.

  “Come on. I’m not being trapped again. We are both in rags and we need to rest before we face death dealers for keys to the cell,” Karma said firmly.

  Deidre went, her gaze lingering on the cell she’d shared with past-Death.

  Hang in there. I’ll be back.

  Chapter Seven

  They’re leaving without me.

  Past-Death watched the two women race down the hallway towards the stairs. Not that she expected Deidre to come back for her after all they’d been through, but …

  It stung knowing she was being left behind by everyone. She hadn’t been able to find the key to the other door and had stalked a few different death dealers to look for it only to come up empty handed.

  Everything hurts. Past-Death stood frozen in the hallway for a long moment, until they disappeared up the stairs. She blinked away tears that shouldn’t be possible to feel in a dream.

  Trudging down the hallway, she traced their steps, this time stopping in the room with the guards to find the key to the demon’s chains. After grabbing it, she continued into the main palace. Deidre was safe and well, and there was nothing past-Death was able to do if she didn’t escape her cell first.

  The path was so familiar, her feet went where they needed to while she spent time in her thoughts, trying to quell the pain of betrayal and loneliness.

  Only when she stood outside her old bedchamber did she blink back into reality. Opening the door, past-Death paused to take in the destruction with no small amount of horror. This room had been hers for thousands of years. Seeing it in such disarray weighed her heart down even more.

  She made her way around the mess, seeking out the jewelry box where she knew the soul she sought was located. Her gaze strayed to the door in the corner, the one containing secrets only the deity Death was permitted to know. The sight of it made her think of Gabriel, which made her even sadder.

  Pushing away the emotions, she focused instead on doing what little good she was able to. Kneeling beside the jewelry box, she opened it, only to find the soul gone.

  “Shit!”

  The dream began to wobble and fade. If the soul wasn’t here, who had found it? How did she recover it, before Harmony figured out how to fuck over Gabriel for good?

  How did she tell Gabriel she’d failed him yet again? Frustration and sorrow made her eyes water. She was turning out to be the worst human ever.

  Past-Death snatched the content of the box, a tarnished ring, before she was yanked out of the dream once more.

  “Hey, cupcake.”

  She groaned, gripping her head hard. The headache was pulsing, her general fatigue adding to the discomfort. She expected to feel the same sense of betrayal she did in the dream and was relieved that she was … numb.

  “You were out for another day,” Jared called. “I’m tired of this fucking place!”

  “If you were more patient, I might’ve brought you a snack,” she retorted.

  “Really?” he asked. “What was it? A head? Goblet of blood?”

  Past-Death rolled her eyes and sat carefully. “Shit. I gotta go back under to get us out of here.”

  “This is taking forever. Why didn’t you just free us last time?”

  “Shut up, demon.” She gripped her temples. “You’re not the only one who’s hungry and sick of this cell.” She slid the ring she’d grabbed onto her finger and placed his keys beside her, unwilling to reveal she had them until they had a way out. It was suicide to be stuck in a cell with a starving demon.

  “Don’t wake me up this time,” she ordered and lay back down again. “Got it?”

  Jared grumbled in response.

  It was easier to fall into the dream state this time, possibly because she was too exhausted to resist it. Standing outside her cell, she drew a deep breath and paused before unlocking the door.

  Was she really going to trust a demon to get her out of here? True, demons were sworn to uphold their deals. But since becoming human, since taking on the frail body of a mortal, she’d found herself hesitating when she never would have as a goddess.

  I’m afraid of almost everything. She hated that about herself. As a deity, the universe had feared her. And now the reverse was true. She was sick of it yet too aware of how vulnerable and weak a human truly was.

  “If my twin was brave enough to make a deal with the Dark One, I can work with a demon,” she murmured.

  Past-Death unlocked the door and pushed it open.

  Almost immediately, she was sucked back into her body.

  “Excellent, cupcake!” Jared all but shouted.

  Past-Death took a minute to assess her headache and decided she’d just have to deal with it. Jared was rattling his chains, and she feared what happened if Harmony’s men were drawn by the demon’s noise.

  “I need funnel cake,” she mumbled and sat up.

  Her head pulsed, and her stomach growled.

  “Free me!”

  Past-Death eyed the demon as she rose. “You better not make me regret this, demon.”

  “We have a deal,” he said. “Stay out of my way until I find a snack.”

  It wasn’t the reassurance she sought, but she tossed him the keys to his chains. “There are at least two death dealers on the floor above us. Is that enough to keep you from gnawing off one of my arms?”

  “Maybe.”

  She heard the chains fall to the ground. Despite his hunger, the demon moved faster than she could track with her human eyes.

  He gripped her neck and shoved her into the wall behind her, the dark depths of his eyes boring into hers. He was salivating, his fangs dripping, his lean body pressing her into the wall.

  Past-Death gasped, too startled by his speed and burst of strength to move.

  “Do not forget this, human,” the demon growled. “If you think to betray me to your mate, I will -”

  “I … won’t!” she gasped.

  “I know who you are and what you’ve spent the past thousands of years doing.”

  “I swear it. No harm will come to you from me or my mate, so long as you keep your word about helping me.”

  The demon studied and then released her, stepping away.

  “If you hadn’t noticed, I’m not who I was anymore,” she added with some bitterness.

  “You are always who you are,” he scoffed. “You just aren’t immortal anymore.” He faced the
door. “Stay here.”

  Past-Death released the breath she was holding. For a split second, she’d seen her death at the hands of a hungry demon. Adrenaline managed to clear most of her headache, and she sagged against the wall.

  Despite all the sleep, she didn’t feel rested, perhaps from the effort of dreamwalking. Or maybe, it was fatigue, another experience she never knew the meaning of before becoming a human. She was tired and hungry, and for some reason, that was making her angry.

  She waited for the demon, too tired to do more than hope he was serious about returning for her.

  You are always who you are. His parting words played over and over in her thoughts, and she chewed on them. He hadn’t meant it as a compliment; that much she knew. The idea behind his words intrigued her tired mind.

  Was it true she was the same person she’d always been, just in a new body?

  Or did being human change the essence of who she was?

  She still loved Gabriel and her underworld. But her life was so much more confusing now. She’d never had to think twice about right and wrong, about emotions or life and death.

  Sooner than she expected, she heard someone hurrying down the hallway.

  Past-Death crept away from the door, in case it was one of Harmony’s sentries. A moment later, Jared poked his head in.

  “Come with me, cupcake,” he ordered. “I’ve had my fill for now.”

  I don’t want to know what that entails. Past-Death moved into the hallway. She tried not to look at the newfound slickness on his clothing that gleamed in the torchlight. The faint scent of metallic blood was in the air around the demon, and the glow of bloodlust remained in his gaze.

  “You know this place. Where do we go?” he asked, starting towards the stairs.

  She considered. “We have a few options. If the dealers haven’t found the passages hidden in the walls, we can use those to move around. There are safe spots where we can hide, and of course, the armory has the thickest walls and doors of the whole palace.”

  “Armory?” Jared stopped and turned to her. “That’s where we need to go.”

  “You realize that’s the most dangerous place to go, right? Harmony will have it well guarded, and it’s on the main floor,” she said skeptically. “I can’t imagine a demon like you has a plan.”