Rivers of Hell (Shadows of the Immortals Book 3)

by Marina Finlayson

  “How’s your night vision?”

  “Do you really have to ask? I’m a werewolf.”

  I rose from my seat. “I’ll be back in a minute. Hit the door as soon as the lights go out.”

  He shook his head, but it was a I can’t believe I’m doing this kind of shake, not a refusal. He was still smiling as I headed out into the night, searching the darkness with my mind’s eye.

  A narrow alley ran behind the pub. My boots rang on the concrete pavement as I headed that way. There were already several rats in the alley, drawn by the delights contained in the various garbage bins there. I called more to me as I walked. By the time I arrived at the back door of the pub, I had a dozen little friends waiting to greet me.

  It was dark in the alley, but there were plenty of cats within range, though fortunately none near enough to frighten away my new friends. It was a moment’s work to boost my night vision by linking with a nearby tabby. The light over the back door was only switched on when the kitchen staff came in and out, so all was dark. There was no one around to see me as I eased the door open, flooding the alley with light from the hallway inside. The rats’ eyes shone eerily in the sudden glow.

  I stepped inside, the rats at my heels, squeaking and scampering. I sent them down the passage and into the kitchen proper, while I opened the fuse box on the wall inside the door. I knew they had arrived at their target when I heard Lisa scream. A second later, the sound of breaking glass echoed down the passageway as Lisa dropped a tray of glasses. Through a rat’s eyes, I saw her flee for the door that separated the kitchen from the bar, trailing rats and still screaming at the top of her lungs. I flipped the circuit breaker, plunging the whole building into darkness, and followed the rats.

  I burst into the main bar just a moment behind Lisa. In those few seconds, the place had descended into pandemonium. Male voices shouted in alarm and surprise, the rats squealed and squeaked, and over it all, Lisa continued to scream. With all that going on, the noise of something heavy hurling itself against a door would hardly even have registered, except that I was listening for it.

  I hurried towards that sound, grateful for the construction of the vampire’s pub which didn’t let in even the faintest glimpse of light from outside. If there were any shifters among the group that had been watching TV, the rats were causing enough of a diversion that their superior night vision wasn’t turned our way. In a moment, someone would think to throw open the doors so they could all stop stumbling around in the dark, but until then, Lucas’s activities were nicely hidden.

  I arrived just as the door gave way and Lucas stumbled forward into the dark opening, barely keeping his feet. “Thanks.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “You’d better get out of here now.”

  “You sure?” He sounded disappointed. “You never know when some extra muscle might come in handy.”

  “I can take it from here.” It was bad enough that I’d told him as much as I had; I didn’t need to drag him all the way to the underworld, too. Besides, I had no way of knowing if the ability Jake and I had to move between the worlds extended to anyone else. It might have been a courtesy Hades had only extended to us and Syl. The last thing I wanted was to drag Joe’s brother into Hell and not be able to get him out again. “You go see that beautiful niece of yours and tell her Lexi says hi.”

  Still he hesitated in the doorway. “What are you going to do down there?”

  “Better if you don’t know. Now move it before someone gets the lights back on. I’ll catch up with you later.” Fingers crossed.

  Reluctantly, he stepped out of the way and I shut the door in his face. One of the hinges had loosened, so I had to jiggle and shove to get the door properly closed, but I managed it. No one should even notice that it had been opened.

  I took a step into the darkness. A line of light appeared under the door behind me. Someone had thought to check the fuse box. In the dim light, I could just make out a narrow staircase leading down. I felt my way down it carefully, one hand on the wall, easing my numb left foot gently onto each step. I couldn’t afford to slip and break a bone, and it was pitch black by the time I got to the bottom.

  At the bottom of the steps, I groped around on the wall until I found a light switch and flicked it on, revealing walls draped in great swathes of red velvet, and a grand black coffin on a plinth in the middle of the room. I almost laughed out loud. Hades had certainly enjoyed his little charade. The coffin lid stood open, showing red silk lining and the lack of any occupant.

  Anyone who got this far probably would look no further, since the room was empty apart from the coffin, but I poked around behind the drapes until I found a set of smooth steel doors. At last—the elevator! I pressed the single button on the wall and the doors slid open soundlessly, revealing an interior lined with mirrored tiles.

  Zeus’s balls—I was filthy. It was a wonder Jeremy hadn’t thrown me out. I looked like I’d been in a mud-wrestling match and lost.

  I stepped inside. There were only two buttons on the panel by the door—an arrow pointing up and one pointing down, with nothing marked beside them. Fortunately, Jake had already told me that these were just for show. I rapped on the mirrored walls until I found a tile that gave off a hollower sound than the others. It took me a few moments to figure out how to open it but, eventually, I discovered a tiny indent on one side of the tile. When I got the tip of my finger into the crack, the whole tile slid aside, revealing the real lift controls. I pressed the down button and the doors slid shut.

  As the elevator began to move, I sagged against the wall and contemplated my bedraggled reflection, weak with relief. I was going to Hell.

  14

  The elevator pinged and jolted to a stop. The doors opened onto the familiar carpeted hallway of Hades’ palace, and I stepped out. I had only a moment to register a joyous barking before I was slammed to the floor by a brick wall. At least, that’s what it felt like.

  “Cerberus! I can’t breathe. Get off me.”

  *BOSSY GIRL BACK! WHERE MASTER?* All three heads craned into the elevator, evidently expecting Hades to pop out.

  I managed to struggle into a sitting position and used the front of my shirt to wipe off the dog slobber facial he’d given me. “I’m back? Where did you get to? You just ran off and left us in the middle of nowhere, yelling something about your master. What was all that about?”

  He whined, a surprisingly pathetic sound considering the size of the animal it was coming from. *MUCH DANGER. MASTER GONE.*

  I stood up and patted his shoulder awkwardly. “Gone? Gone where?”

  Three big heads drooped in unison. *DON’T KNOW. LOST HIM.*

  “But you guys have a mental connection, right? Like you and me.” Only theirs was much stronger. Hades seemed to be able to direct Cerberus when they weren’t even in the same world together. I’d nearly turned my brain to mush trying to do that back in Mrs Emery’s cellar, and I hadn’t been able to influence him at all once he’d hared off after Hades and left us stranded on the plains.

  *GONE,* the big dog repeated mournfully. Did he mean their mental connection was gone as well, or just that Hades was gone? If their connection had been severed, that left only a couple of options, neither of which were good. Either Hades was dead or someone had managed to cut him off from his powers. Maybe there were more of these collars floating around than I’d thought. If someone had managed to get one onto Hades’ neck, it would explain both Hades’ disappearance and Cerberus’s inability to find him.

  Damn. Shadow shapers were popping up everywhere. How had they managed to find Hades after all this time? I had an uneasy feeling it might be my fault. Still, there was no use crying about spilt milk now. All I could do was keep going. The sooner we had a key to unlock those collars, the sooner we could start fighting back.

  *FIND MASTER NOW?* Fires burned deep in Cerberus’s eyes as he gazed hopefully at me. It was a little disconcerting to be the focus of such intense concentration. His tail wagged ever so slightly, as
if he really wanted to put his faith in me, but wasn’t sure that he could.

  “I’m on it, buddy, I promise.” I patted his shoulder reassuringly. “I just have a couple of other loose ends to tidy up first.” Apollo probably wouldn’t appreciate being called a loose end. The thought of his reaction almost made me smile. “Let’s go find Apollo and Syl.”

  I headed down the corridor, Cerberus trotting at my heels, his hot breath ruffling my hair. Somewhere in the distance, a harp was playing, and I figured that would be a good place to start looking. When Apollo wasn’t busy driving his sun chariot, he had a reputation as a pretty mean harpist.

  I found them both in one of the palace’s many courtyards. Apollo was seated on the low stone wall that surrounded the central fountain, the underworld’s fake moonlight playing on his golden hair. The gentle pattering of the fountain formed a liquid counterpoint to the clear beauty of the harp’s notes. I paused in the doorway, touched by the music somewhere deep inside. It spoke of loss and longing, and filled me with a melancholy that brought tears to my eyes. Apollo looked as if he were in a trance, his eyes focused on something far beyond the moonlit courtyard. Syl sat on a cushion at his feet, gazing up at his face with a look of such rapt attention that it made me uncomfortable to see it, as if I had intruded on an intensely personal moment. I cleared my throat and the delicate rippling sound of the harp cut off mid-note. Syl looked up, a glad smile spreading across her face as she leapt to her feet.

  “Where the hell have you been?” She closed the space between us in three large strides and wrapped me in a bone-crushing hug. “I was so worried about you. How could you just run off like that? Were your fingers broken, that you couldn’t even leave me a note?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be away that long—I thought I’d be back before you woke up.”

  She shook me a little, not hard, but enough to let me know that she meant it. “Before I woke up? You’ve been gone two days! And you smell like you’ve spent the whole time rolling in mud. Don’t you ever pull a stunt like that again.”

  Her hair smelled of jasmine, and she had more colour in her face than last time I’d seen her. She looked more like the old Syl than the pale, withdrawn creature I’d left behind. Was there something in the air here, more than the liquid sounds of the harp? The way she’d been staring at Apollo just now …

  He was giving me his usual frown. Intentional or not, Captain Sunshine always managed to give the impression that he didn’t like me. Well, if Syl was going to start mooning over him, the feeling would soon be mutual. His eyes slid to the doorway I’d appeared through then back again, lingering on my face. The frown deepened. “Where’s Jake?”

  Syl released me and gave me the same frowning look. Disapproval—now in stereo. Excellent. Just what I needed to brighten my already shitty day.

  “Jake’s been captured,” I said. I began pacing as the words tumbled out, filling them in on our adventures. Syl sank down onto the wall next to Apollo, her expression dazed, as the story unfolded. Finally, I had brought them up to date and I pulled the star-metal from my backpack. “This is it. This is what we went to get for you.”

  I lobbed the metal her way and she caught it reflexively, still with that stunned expression on her face.

  Apollo took it from her, turning it over in his hands as he examined it. “Hephaistos said a key made from this would unlock the collars?”

  “Yes. Unfortunately, we’re now short a metalshaper. Jake said you’d be able to make a key.”

  He continued to frown at the small bar of metal in his hand. The silence stretched, and my nerves with it. In the back of my mind, that clock kept ticking. How long ago did Styx tell Jake he only had twelve hours to return? I was guessing about five hours had passed, maybe a little more—but it was impossible to be sure. And Jake’s life depended on getting it right. I clenched my fists, willing Apollo to give me the answer I needed.

  “Of course I can make a key,” he said. My whole body went limp with relief, and then he opened his mouth again. “But I’ll need to consult with Hephaistos. I don’t even know what this key is supposed to look like, how big it is—anything. If I had my power, that wouldn’t be a problem, but without my power, I’m just a skilled metalworker. I can’t work miracles.”

  I had to find a seat, too, as my legs threatened to give out. I sank into one of the elegant gilded chairs in the courtyard, staring at him in horror. “But it will take us a day just to get to Hephaistos. We don’t have that kind of time. Jake will die.”

  “What do you expect of me? Without magic, no one can craft a key just like that.” He snapped his fingers in illustration. “You have to make a mould, pour the metal, let it cool and harden. I need tools. A furnace.” He shook the star-metal at me. “This is just the beginning. What was Jake thinking? And that’s assuming there is no magic involved other than the magic inherent in the metal. But if the key needs some kind of spell laid on it in its creation …”

  We were screwed. I dropped my face into my hands. Jake was screwed, regardless. Maybe Apollo would be able to make a key, and maybe he wouldn’t—but clearly, there’d be no key in time to help Jake.

  What had Jake been thinking? He must have known this, but he’d sent me back here anyway, knowing it meant his death. Free Apollo, he’d said, as if that was the only thing that mattered. Stupid, stupid man. How dared he throw his life away like that?

  My thoughts turned to desperate rescue plans. Okay, so Apollo wouldn’t be able to smite the traitorous fireshapers for me. I’d just have to come up with some other way to free Jake and get him back to the underworld in time.

  Cerberus turned around a couple of times, then flopped to the ground next to my chair. His ear was soft and silky and bigger than my hand. I stroked it, thinking furiously. I could use the Helm to sneak into the Ruby Palace and free Jake …

  I paused in my patting and Cerberus looked up, pushing his head meaningfully against my hand. “Can you open a way to Crosston?” I asked him. If I used the elevator to return to the pub, it was three hours’ drive to Crosston and then three hours back again. If Jake only had seven hours left I needed to cut that time out of my plan.

  He huffed a sigh and dropped his big head to the paving stones again, misery in every drooping line of his body. *NO. ONLY MASTER CAN.*

  Damn. Why weren’t things ever easy? I’d assumed that Cerberus had opened his own way up from the underworld when I’d called him to save our bacon in Mrs Emery’s cellar, but Hades must have let him through. Hades might even have been able to reason with Styx if he were here.

  Yeah, well, no point wishing for what we couldn’t have. I’d just have to work with what I did have. Currently that wasn’t looking so hot: one grumpy god cut off from his powers, one shifter who couldn’t shift, and a thief who was so tired she could barely string two thoughts together, much less come up with a brilliant plan to save the day.

  Cerberus nudged me again, nearly shoving me off the chair, and I went back to stroking his velvety ear. Add one massive three-headed hellhound to the tally. Oh, and the Helm of Darkness. If I couldn’t use it to free Jake from the fireshapers, maybe I could sneak up on Styx and drown the bitch. That could solve a lot of problems.

  I sighed. Except, of course, that she was a water nymph—and besides which, Hades, if we ever managed to find him, might not take kindly to my running around killing his people. I eyed Cerberus. Maybe I could get him to bite her head off, the way he’d done with Mrs Emery’s arm.

  I stood up. Sitting around here thinking wasn’t getting us anywhere, and the delay was making me twitchy. “Let’s go.”

  Apollo and Syl stood up. “Go where?” Apollo asked.

  “To see Styx. I need more time.”

  Apollo gave a hollow laugh. “Styx doesn’t give extensions to her deadlines.”

  “But it’s not our fault. I can’t produce Jake when he’s locked up in another city. If she really wants him, she’ll have to be a little understanding.”

&n
bsp; “Styx doesn’t do understanding. It’s not in her nature.”

  I glared at him. Was being a negative arsehole in his nature or had he just perfected the art over the centuries? I didn’t hear him offering any better ideas. “Then we’ll just have to hope for Jake’s sake that you’re wrong.”

  15

  Cerberus gambolled ahead of us through the Fields of Asphodel like a giant three-headed black lamb. He snapped at the occasional soul that drifted past through the misty twilight, the way a normal dog lunges at flies. He seemed as happy as I was to be moving again, convinced that I would somehow do something to find his missing master. His faith was touching, but the weight of expectations rested heavily on my shoulders. Find Hades. Save Jake. Free Apollo and Syl. My to-do list was bursting at the seams.

  I stopped to wait for Apollo and Syl. “Get a move on, guys. We haven’t got all day here.” My left leg tingled and ached. What was the hold up? If I could keep up with Cerberus with a bad leg, why couldn’t they? If there were only two of us, I would have asked Cerberus for a ride again, regardless of how much he disliked playing horse, but his back, large as it was, wouldn’t fit three.

  Obligingly, they lengthened their strides, marching in step as if they were in the army. Weird. I’d have liked to take Syl aside and ask her if something was going on between them, but my friend’s possible romantic entanglements would have to wait, even if I thought she needed her head read for getting involved with Apollo, if that was what was happening. I’m sure he played a mean harp, and he was certainly good-looking, but every time we were in the same room together, I always ended up wanting to punch him right in his handsome face.

  I tried to make allowances for the very real frustration he must be feeling. He was a god, used to almost unimaginable power. Being unable to access any of it must be infuriating. If he were free, he could shape that damn key faster than I could say “the sun god sucks”. But, of course, that was the problem. He wasn’t free, and therefore the key remained tantalisingly out of our reach.