Darkness & Lies: A Brotherhood Novel (#1)

by Brandi Salazar

  A little bit of the anger he was feeling toward the little turd fizzled out, but he still wasn’t over the fact that he had dared to put his hands on him. Again. It wasn’t like Erias to allow anyone to get the better of him let alone live to tell about it. The fact that there were witnesses made his humiliation that much worse. If they had been alone when it happened, then there would have been no question how this would have ended up. Dismemberment, and him and Behr planning a little side trip to dispose of the evidence.

  As it was, there were witnesses and killing them all could prove quite messy. He needed to maintain some anonymity in at least one corner of the world.

  “I see what is going on here,” he said, studying the group.

  The men, Tim and Harold, stood directly behind Kris to lend quiet support. No doubt they would turn tail and run if they got a load of what he could give them. The annoying female who seemed to be more interested in witnessing a good throw down or painting her nails, stood off to the side with a goading smile painted on her overdone face. The remaining two women, Cathy and Hadley if he recalled correctly, were standing just inside the doorway, their faces drawn from worry.

  He remembered the way Cheyenne seemed around them. How her face would light up during their conversations when they took their meals in the mess hall and how she seemed to gravitate to their company wherever the group went. It was plainly obvious that theirs was a close friendship.

  They were the only thing that saved the lot of them from being burned to piles of ash where they stood.

  “Just because she didn’t come moseying back to you with her tail between her legs, that somehow breaks down into me knowing where she is or having done something to her?”

  Kris was livid as Erias spoke to him in a simpering voice. He was such an egotist. Ignoring his jab about their rocky relationship as of late, he returned a hateful glare.

  “You’re damn right. The way I see it, she was terrified of you. She tried to tell us all that, and we didn’t listen.” He looked back to his friends who all looked as contrite as he felt.

  He would never forgive himself if something bad had happened to her, but he couldn’t undo the past, the only thing he could do now was try to make things right. And if that meant finding her body, he would do that and make sure she got home safely where she could be laid to rest with her family where she belonged.

  He refused to think about that just yet. There was still a good chance that she was roaming about, laying low and avoiding them all. That’s how she got sometimes. When life proved too overwhelming for Cheyenne, there were times that she would just take off for a while to get her mind straight.

  He turned back to Erias. “Well, we’re listening now. And you were the last one to see her, pal. That makes you the number one suspect.”

  “Suspect of what exactly?” Erias quipped. “The only thing I’m guilty of is showing her a good time. Now, if you don’t mind”—he motioned to the open door— “I was in the middle of something important, and you all need to leave.”

  “Oh yeah?” Kris said. “You have something to hide?”

  Erias and Behr shared a look that said Kris was grating on both of their nerves, and it wouldn’t be long before one of them shoved their shiny black boot so far up his sphincter, he’d been tasting shoe polish for years to come.

  “You got it all wrong, pal,” he mocked, turning his back on him and returning to the map. He didn’t have time for this nonsense. Cheyenne was being held in Tartarus, the worst kind of prison imaginable, and it was only a matter of time before she met with a horrific end. Assuming she hadn’t already. “I don’t have anything to hide,” he lied smoothly. “But this doesn’t concern you, so there’s the door.”

  Kris wasn’t accepting his absent dismissal even though the others seemed to take it for what it was and were now quietly filing out. Whatever. Let them leave. He wasn’t about to give up so easily. Something inside was telling him that this man knew exactly where Cheyenne was, and he wasn’t leaving until he got some answers.

  “Well, if you got nothing to hide, then I’m sure you won’t mind telling me what’s so important.” He muscled his way up to the table and stared down at what must have been an ancient scroll of some type.

  Dull brown ink detailed the neighboring mountainside complete with tree-lined villages, including the one they were in, and some that he knew for a fact no longer existed. Forests so dense and thick they nearly blotted out the landscape took up the majority of the map, but what caught his eyes most was the intricate tunnel system running below the earth floor.

  “What’s that?” he asked, ignoring the turbulent look on the men’s faces as they stared down on him as if he’d lost his damned mind.

  Whatever, he didn’t really care. They could string him up and beat the life out of him, but he wasn’t leaving until he got some answers.

  He was vexed. Totally, and completely vexed. It was as if this boy had a death wish. He truly wanted to die. Flashes of what he might do to him given the opportunity rolling through his mind, Erias stared him down for several long moments.

  It was Behr that broke the silence. Kris followed along as he pointed a thick finger at a long winding path at the far bottom of the yellowed scroll.

  “That is the river Acheron. The river of sorrow,” he began. It wasn’t a concern if the man called Kris knew what the map said, he was human, and it wouldn’t even occur to him the significance of the map or the connection it had to his missing friend. To him, it was the quickest way to satisfy his curiosity and get him on his way and off their backs, so they could get on with saving the damsel in distress.

  “The River Styx flows parallel, as well as the rivers Cocytus, Phlegethon, and Lethe. They become one in the Marsh where Cheron guides souls to their final resting place.” He pointed to a small grouping of islands. “Elysian fields, where the virtuous of the dead resides." His finger leapt to the opposite end of the map to a large structure hidden in shadows. “Tartarus, the most feared of all prisons.”

  Behr looked back and forth between the men, from Kris, who was completely absorbed in the brief history lesson, then to Erias for permission to continue.

  He heaved a heavy breath in preparation and crossed his fingers the guy, Kris, was dumber than he came off.

  “It is said that during the war of the Titans, Cyclops gave three gifts. One to Zeus, one to Poseidon, and one to Hades.”

  “You’re talking about the thunderbolt, the trident, and the helm, right?” Kris interjected. "Basic Greek mythology."

  “Yes,” Behr stretched the word out, becoming warier by the second at his astuteness. Returning to the map, he pointed out Hade’s palace to the far north of the rivers and Persephone’s Grove to the south. “As you can see, if someone wanted to navigate the underworld undetected, they’d benefit greatly from the Helm, which would render them virtually undetectable.”

  “Virtually?” Erias raised a questioning brow.

  “Well,” Behr hedged. “Nothing is ever one hundred percent, and from what I can tell, the Helm has never been out of Hades possession since the war.”

  “So you’re saying…” He looked to Kris, who now had his full attention trained on them, and chose his words carefully so as not to arouse suspicion. “If one was to travel into Hell and needed to get to, oh, let’s say…Tartarus, he would first have to go to, oh; I don’t know…Hades’s palace to track down the Helm first?”

  Behr nodded. “And all this while completely visible. Not to mention, we’d have to catch a ride on Charon’s boat, try not to rouse suspicion through the demon fields and perform a little B and E on the palace and hightail it back to the prison to perform, um, certain tasks.”

  Erias didn’t like the sound of this plan. It sounded like a death trap, actually, but if he were going to go out, then it might as well be in a blaze of glory doing what he did best.

  Killing some demons.

  “Well,” he sighed, gathering the map up, “sounds like fun.” He turned
to Kris and gave him fake smile. “Looks like you got tons of answers, huh?" he said caustically. "I guess it’s time for you to run along so you can find the next red herring to chase.”

  Kris regarded Behr steadily, giving no indication that he even heard a word Erias said. But he had. “You said ‘we.’ What did you mean exactly? ‘Cause I’ll tell you what it sounded like to me. It sounded like you two believe in all of this.” He motioned to the map that Erias held in a fist that clenched tighter with each accusing word he uttered. “And it sounds like you two are planning some kind of trip. A trip that somehow involves that there map.”

  “Wow.” Erias laughed. “If that doesn’t sound crazy…”

  Behr caught on a second later and gave a half–hearted laugh. “Yeah, real crazy.” He rolled his eyes and made a spinning motion with his finger to indicate how crazy Kris supposedly was.

  “Uh, huh,” Kris said, eyeing them suspiciously. “Where ever you two are going; you can bet I’m going to be right there with you.”

  Erias could see that Kris was too astute for his own good. There was no way he was going to sway him from this. The man’s heart was too wrapped up in a woman who didn’t return his feelings, but was too stupid to cut his losses.

  Kind of like what he was doing. Huh. What did that say for him?

  ‘Well,” he looked over at Behr, who was giving him an is-this-guy-for-real look. “You get the rope, and I’ll hold him down?”

  “Deal.”

  Chapter 21

  The darkness was like looking into oblivion and yet; she could swear there was something unseen lurking about just beyond the reaches of the impermeable night.

  The only tangible thing she could hold onto was the thick rope of chain above her that connected the heavy metal cuffs around her wrists to a solid circle of metal jutting from the dampen wall behind her.

  Shifting her weight to her right foot in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure on her heel, Cheyenne felt the burning tingle that had set in begin to dissipate, only to begin again in her other foot. She shifted again.

  Her body was sore and aching from the prolonged stance she was forced to hold. Her arms had long since gone numb, and her head was throbbing with a fatigue so great she wanted to scream from the torture of it, but she wouldn’t scream for fear that it would come back.

  She’d lost count of how many times Leseot, the strange half man half demon creature, had visited her and certainly had no idea how many times he had bitten her since the first time. She didn’t relish the experience, therefore, wasn’t about to do anything to gain his undue attention.

  Reclining her head back, she closed her eyes out of habit and tried to get a little rest before feeding time. It was the only time she got to see light of any kind, but with it came unspeakable horrors that made her crave darkness where others might pray for light.

  Off in the distance she heard the familiar clang of metal as a door banged shut. Someone was coming, and she had no doubts as to who that someone was. His cheery whistle gave him away every time.

  This time, as it always was when he came for her, he was whistling the tune “You Are My Sunshine.” She hated that song now.

  The first bit of light filtered into her cell just moments before revealing a face so beautiful it was incongruous with the hideous monstrosity of his body. His hooves clacked against the stone, the keys jangling at his hip where they hung from a leather belt alongside various blades that glinted against the flickering flames of his torch. Opening the door, he stepped inside and went about his usual ritual of first locking the door behind him, then lighting the torches mounted in the corners of each wall.

  Once they were all lit, he turned to face her with a serene, deceptively sincere look conveyed through large, wholly black eyes.

  He reminded her of a shark–deadly and soulless.

  “How are we feeling today, love? Still in pain are we?” His voice was soft and a direct paradox to his actions as he selected a curved knife from his belt and ran a finger over the sharpened edge.

  She didn’t want to answer. He might try to cut her tongue out like he’d done to Atheros, the guy hanging on the opposite wall. She looked to him now seeing his fearful black eyes trained on her. He was as much a demon as the rest of them down here, but he was a prisoner like her and, because of that common ground, she had found an ally. Sometimes, he was the only thing that kept her sanity among the endless night.

  At least, he had, until Leseot had removed his tongue. Now she held the conversations for the both of them.

  She hated that he had to witness her humiliation, just as she knew he hated her falling witness to his own. With a tight smile of support, he turned his head away just as the blade of Leseot’s knife skimmed the inside of her thigh.

  He was silently freaking out. The bubble in his throat was probably the only thing keeping him from screaming like a sissy and jumping ship. That and the putrid, boiling red water that Erias and Behr claimed would eat the flesh right off your bones.

  Peering over the side, Kris shuddered at the thought and slunk a little lower between the men and a little further away from the enormous skeletal figure manning the helm. He’d thought all the talk about Charon and Hell, and the five rivers were just that, talk. Joke was on him, because here he was, in the middle of a ragged, falling down, sorry excuse for a ship that appeared to be made from the bones of the victims who probably fell overboard.

  As they maneuvered through the long, dark channels of underground waterways, Kris looked out across the banks of the river watching the hordes of demons milling about, attacking human bystanders awaiting passage, being attacked by other, bigger demons, and performing menial tasks similar to the tasks they had back in the real world, and had a small inkling of thought. How in the world were they going to find Cheyenne in this place? Not to mention, how were they going to manage hijacking her from a high-security prison under the watchful eye of the Devil himself and make it back topside without being murdered themselves?

  Simple, they weren’t. They were dead. She was dead. This was a total lose-lose situation, and he shouldn’t be here. Let the deranged warriors next to him run headlong into Hell. They were more equipped for it anyway. Hell, just looking at them anyone with half a brain could see they weren’t normal. No human being could grow that tall and have that much muscle while being so freaking gorgeous it made a straight man like him take notice and look twice and not be otherworldly. He was not meant to be here.

  “Oh, man,” he whimpered under his breath. “What the fuck am I doing here?”

  Erias stiffened at hearing Kris speak and immediately glanced around to make sure no one had noticed. After their futile attempt at roping and hogtying the guy, Kris had turned out to be stronger than he appeared, and they had decided they were just wasting valuable time trying to dissuade him. If he wanted to see Hell, then far be it for them to stand in his way. Besides, he might prove useful as cannon fodder.

  Jabbing his elbow into his ribs, Erias spoke from the side of his mouth, careful not to rouse attention. “Unless you want to get us all killed, shut the fuck up.”

  He and Behr had expressly gone over the rules. When traveling in Hell never look at anyone in the eyes, or eye as it may be.

  Never say God or make any reference to God or even think anything that may be misconstrued as godly, holy, or angelic, or having to do with the gods, God, or angelic beings or places as you never know who may be listening.

  Never stray from the group. If you get lost, it’s your ass and no one is going to come to help you, so you’d better keep up.

  No one is your friend down here. Trust no one.

  Nothing is as ever as it seems. If you see something out of place, not quite right, or different from the last time you checked, run ‘cause it can’t be anything good.

  Never touch the water, wade in the water, drink the water, or look too long at the water. The consequences are dire and need no further explanation than that. Except Kris’s dumb ass h
ad needed further explanation, making Erias want to give him an up close and personal experience with it, but reigned himself in and settled for telling him instead.

  Cheyenne probably wouldn’t be too happy to find out he’d tossed her friend into a boiling river of agony.

  And one of the biggest no no’s was don’t speak. Don’t utter a word, a sound, a cough; don’t even scratch your ass unless you want to find a group of demons running a train on it. This was not a friendly domain, and they didn’t need to call any attention to the fact that they were one of the few living beings among a soulless, eternally hungry group of man eating fiends.

  Was that really so hard to understand?

  Kris wanted to protest. He wanted to tell Erias and his overbearing, pushy, pompous, narcissistic self to shove it where the sun didn't shine, but when he felt the heavy, fetid breath of the thing behind him bearing down on his neck, he could see no reason to argue the point any further.

  “Shutting,” he muttered, then immediately fell silent. The last thing he wanted was to become some fleshless troll’s bitch for the rest of eternity. If that meant taking a vow of silence, then so be it. Bring on the quiet.

  But it was really hard to stay completely silent when something slithered across your boot and tickled the hairs on your leg. That was real hard to stay quiet about. Kicking his leg out to shake the serpentine creature free, he glanced up to see Erias shooting him a lethal glare. “What?” he mouthed, then went back to staring out across the river banks where a winged creature with scaly orange skin and blood-red eyes beat at an emaciated man with a barbed leather whip, tearing chunks of flesh away with each lash.

  He hoped Cheyenne was grateful for his efforts because this was no trip to Disney Land.

  Leseot licked his lips clean and grinned wickedly, flashing his serrated teeth at Cheyenne, who was hanging limply from her shackles, spent from his last session of torture. He’d sliced into nearly every inch of flesh on her body with his small, curved blade, licked the wounds clean with his spongy black tongue. Then he had done things to her she would be embarrassed and ashamed about if she had any will left in her to care, let alone live.