“You are an ugly bastard,” Erias growled, side-stepping another blast from his foot.
They went on dancing like that for what seemed like hours, parrying each other’s moves until they were both weak and breathless. Cerberus dropped his oversized butt to the ground and lolled his tongue, panting and oozing drool that sizzled as it hit the dirt.
Not sure what to do next and unwilling to let down his guard, Erias stood at the ready, his sword clutched in both hands, raised at his side, his muscles bunched and ready for the unexpected.
Dehstroy walked onto the field. He studied the now half-asleep Cerberus with narrowed eyes, then turned to Erias with a smug look of satisfaction.
“Congratulations, you’ve passed the test.”
Breathless, Erias said, “Oh? How’s that?” He hadn’t killed the hound as he figured was expected. Merely worn it down. In his homeland, that would have spelled weakness and the warrior would have been expected to fight another until either him or the other guy was dead.
“You lived.” He walked away, leaving Erias standing there.
Looking up, he caught the briefest flash of heat from Persephone before she too spun off in a whirl of silken robes.
Only later he would find out that he was the first of the Brotherhood to survive the trial against the hound Cerberus and, therefore, the first true member. Always one for a man of strength and ferocity, Persephone had had her eyes on him from that day forward. She’d appointed him the unofficial leader, and he trained the new recruits alongside Dehstroy for a century thereafter, ensuring their success in the trials until their numbers had increased to five and was relocated to the world of light and land and clean air, left to fend for himself until he was called upon once again.
The palace loomed ahead, appearing out of the hazy fog like a dark, soul sucking beast. “That’s it,” Behr whispered as they crouched low behind a stand of gnarled, thin, leaf bare trees, careful to remain unseen and unheard. “The Palace of Hades, aka, the Palace of Death, aka, the bitch goddesses' fortress of doom, aka—”
“Yeah, we get it,” Kris snapped with an exasperated look.
“Aka, the place where Kris is going to be beaten to death if he doesn’t shut his smart mouth and keep his fucking opinions to himself, Palace.” Behr’s eyes held a dangerous intent. His lips pulled back from his teeth revealing his distended fangs.
“Quit the fucking posturing, gentlemen, we have a treasure to steal.” Erias moved ahead, slinking silently through the shadows, Kris and Behr flanking him.
The guards were easily dispatched. A well-placed hand over the mouth and a quick slip of the blade across their throat, and they were inside.
“That’s one piece of shit,” Kris said, admiring the Helm as they stood in the expansive, round, empty hall.
It stood on a podium resting on top of a purple cushion with gold fringe hanging from the sides and a light shining on it from above. The dented metal was a dull bronze and scratched across every inch. It had a few holes where it had been punctured by the arrows, marks from when the Fallen who had worn it fought valiantly with his brothers and sisters during a time immemorial. Other than that, Erias thought it was a beaut, but that was it. No guards. No lasers crosshatching the walls or floors or air in between to make it a challenge.
“This seems way too easy.”
“Yeah.” Behr scratched the stubble on his chin. This was too easy.
“I don’t know,” Kris said after a moment. “Maybe the guy is just so cock sure that he figures no one would have the balls to steal from him.”
Which was a pretty good assumption. The guy who could walk the Earth any day or night of the week picking off the weak-willed, naïve, and vulnerable with a crook of his finger probably wouldn’t bother with security beyond what they’d just encountered.
“One way to find out.” Erias stepped up to the podium, hesitated, looked around for any threat ready to pounce, and when he saw none, he placed his hands on either side of the helmet.
The coolness of the metal shocked his heated skin. It literally shocked him, but it wasn’t unpleasant, just unexpected. He started to lift it from its cushion when a loud clapping echoed off the chamber walls.
“How exciting. Visitors!” Hades appeared out of nowhere, as if he had just stepped out of thin air. Which he probably had. The guy was a practically a god, after all. His smile was radiant as he approached, the fathomless depths of his obsidian eyes soaking them in with each step.
Erias jerked back reflexively when Hades reached out his hand. He laughed a warm, rich laugh that reverberated off the walls. “Fear not, warriors.” He cast a fleeting glance at Kris as if to say he was not included in that statement. “I only wish to shake the hands of the men who so fearlessly entered my realm and successfully relieved me of my men.” He turned and paced the floors, circling the podium with a thoughtful expression.
Kris thought he was going to have a heart attack. When…Hades?...the devil? Jesus what had he gotten himself into?...just appeared like fucking Houdini, he went slack-jawed. He was so fucking beautiful it had to be a sin. And considering he was the biggest sinner of all time; it probably was. But when he had rested those freaky ass eyes on him, he’d wanted to crawl into a hole. They were soulless, bottomless ink wells. They reminded him of a shark. Glassy, unmoved by emotions, he would devour you and pick his teeth clean with your bones.
“You’ve come for the woman.” It hadn’t been a question, but then this was Hades’s realm so it wasn’t a surprise that he would know everything that happened here, but Erias had been hoping for a small chance to slip in under the radar and slip back out again. Of course, nothing was ever that easy.
He nodded.
“And you need the Helm, do you?” When Erias and Behr nodded together, he regarded them with something akin to curiosity. “Do you love her?” he asked Erias, though his eyes were once again on the artifact, his finger sweeping over the bridge of the nose and circling the eye holes.
He raised his chin higher. “Yes,” Erias told him confidently.
“And you would risk everything for her would you?”
“Yes.”
A cruel smile tilted his thin lips. “Then come with me. No, you two stay here,” he commanded Behr and Kris when they started to follow as well. “Just him, we have business to discuss.”
He wasn’t sure how long they had been walking. It seemed like an eternity, and at the same time it felt like they had made it in record time. Erias crouched alongside Behr behind a large boulder, Kris looming just behind him. They looked ahead to the towering pyramid shrouded in ethereal shadows that shimmered and quaked with an unquenchable thirst for life.
“This is it? Tartarus?” Kris asked in a low, hoarse whisper.
“The one and only,” Behr confirmed. “Home to thousands of lost souls damned to eternal punishment for sins committed against humanity. The lowest of the low. The most dangerous of them all.”
Behr shook his head in disgust. “What the hell made Seph think this was the appropriate place to bring a female like Cheyenne?”
“The woman is whacked,” Behr said simply. “I don’t think she thinks beyond much of anything besides how she is going to get her way. Cheyenne was in her way, so she made sure she wasn’t.”
Erias nodded. It made sense. Persephone was the most selfish creature he had ever had the misfortune to meet. Once she dug her claws into you, you were hers for eternity. Much like the souls her husband coveted. No matter their punishment or crimes, once they had served their time and were ready to be recycled out for another shot at life; he was reluctant to let them go. They were property to him. He could only imagine how the two might clash being so much alike, but then, they deserved each other.
He hoped she was as miserable as she made everyone else who encountered her.
“Let’s move, we don’t have much time.” He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that Cheyenne was in trouble. And if she wasn’t, she was going to be very, very soo
n.
Rushing forward, keeping to the shadows and taking cover behind one of the large stone walls, the men plotted their next course of action.
“Stick together, don’t make a sound. Once we’re inside, only hand signals and keep your eyes peeled. This place is as nasty as they come.” Behr stared pointedly at Kris. “Think Alcatraz but with more guards, and they’re all thirsting for blood. Yours.”
Kris shook all the way to his core. He wanted to run, but where would he go? He didn’t know how they’d gotten here exactly. One minute they had been in an all-out rumble in the hotel room, the next they were giving him funny looks and out of nowhere he found himself standing on a shoreline waiting for a ferry. And to top it off, he’d met the God. Damned. Freaking. Devil. In the flesh! He had to get out of here, only problem being; he wouldn’t know the first thing about how to leave.
Struggling to keep the shaking from his voice, Kris mustered a small voice. “What if…I mean, how do you know…” He cleared his throat under the scrutiny of their disturbingly blue gazes. “How can you be sure she’s even in there?” Shit, if he had taken any of this seriously in the first place, he would have thought to ask this question ages ago. Heck, he would have asked a shit ton of questions, and then he might have not even come. He’d be home right now waiting for word on how it went. Not sitting on the front lines ready to get his knee caps blown off.
He was not a fighter! Just a simple explorer and mathematician who liked to drink some beers and have a good time. He shouldn’t be here right now.
Erias could read the kid like an open book. He was ready to shit his pants over all this, but there was nothing he could do for him now. Kris had volunteered to go. Insisted actually. Fought for his place alongside them, and now he’d have to deal with his choices like a man.
“There’s only one way to find out.” Leaping to his feet, Erias shot out an arm, his scimitar glinting in the dim light just as one of the demon guards appeared from around the corner, and took his head with one swift, precise cut across the throat.
He was like poetry in motion as he cut a swath through the gates and opened a path for them to filter into the so-called impenetrable prison of Tartarus.
Chapter 23
Navigating the weakly lit corridors was a piece of cake for Behr and Erias and their enhanced hunter sight. It was Kris that was bumping into walls and stumbling over his own feet every other foot. Erias rolled his eyes at the man’s inability to walk.
“Watch your step there, Grace.” He laughed as Kris fell yet again, grappling for the wall to hold himself upright.
He was probably being a jerk, but he had good reason not to like the guy. He had a thing for Cheyenne, and Erias never had learned to share. So watching the guy get a few self–inflicted scrapes and bruises was just good fun. Especially since he knew he couldn’t lay a finger on the guy without permanently sealing his fate.
Cheyenne would never forgive him if she knew that he had intentionally injured her friend. It was going to be hard enough to get her to forget about that little mishap back at the hotel room.
He’d never thought Persephone would show herself to a human let alone interfere with his space. Why should he? She’d never done so before. Seph was more a spectator in the human world. She hated getting her hands dirty, and she abhorred interacting with anything she considered beneath her.
Why she felt the need to complicate his life was beyond him. Except the woman enjoyed torturing others, so that might be it.
It piqued his ire that he was going to have to do damage control over female jealousy issues. Women would forever be the bane of man’s existence. Cheyenne being the only exception, of course, but why, he didn’t know.
Christ, he was in a foul mood. After that meeting he’d had to endure with the Prince of Darkness, he’d come to two realizations: One, he would do anything for his woman, including giving up his own life to protect her. And two, after he rescued her, he was going to have to figure out a way to break it to her that they could never be together.
The best part of the whole deal was when Hades handed over the Helm and informed them to use it wisely. “As I always settle my debts, consider this my payment for keeping your hands off my wife.” Then he went on to say, “I have spelled the Helm. You have one shot. One chance to be invisible to your enemy. After that, the Helm will return home, to me. Use it wisely for you will not get another opportunity like this.”
Erias had already made his decision. They wouldn’t use it until it was absolutely necessary. And this was neither the time nor the place. Not just yet. From his experience, he knew the worst of it would come after they got Cheyenne back. Then, they would need all the help they could get.
Slipping down another hall they passed a few cells and torture chambers. Souls being torn to shreds and rebuilt only to repeat the process. Blood, guts, and other such gore. The usual stuff. The biggest thing was to maneuver the halls silent and unnoticed.
Sliding a peek around a corner, Erias gestured to Behr. One guard stood watch at the end of the passageway in front of the very door they intended to breech.
Unfortunately, they weren’t given the time to plot out the next course of action because Kris’s bumbling idiot routine caught the attention of the eight foot, iron clad sentry when he slammed Erias from behind causing him to lunge forward and drop his dagger, which skittered across the stone floor with an echoing clatter.
Meeting a glowing yellow-eyed stare, Erias cut an impetuous glare Kris’s way then scooped up his weapon and faced the enemy, Behr bringing up the rear in a fierce standoff.
The men had never cowered in the face of adversity before, and they weren’t about to start now. The ogre had a good foot and a half on both of them and about a hundred pounds more muscle, but they had taken on worse and come out fairly intact. This time would be no different.
Hopefully.
But the beastly man had one disadvantage that Behr and him didn’t. Erias quirked a smile and looked at Behr to see a similar one playing on his lips that told him he had noticed it too.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Erias asked him.
“Already ten steps ahead of you, old man.” Reaching over his shoulder, Behr extracted a thick metal chain from…somewhere. “Don’t ask,” he muttered as he wrapped one end around his fist, allowing the other end to hang freely, scraping gently across the stone as it swayed back and forth.
Erias admired the leave–no–prisoners stance he’d taken up and raising his sleeves to reveal a set of leather vambraces on either wrist equipped with throwing stars rigged to shoot at any target; he assumed one of his own. He mentally ran down the list of weapons at his disposal, flexing muscles in his thighs, arms, and back, feeling the curve of two blades snug against his shoulder blades; a bowie knife at his calf, and two Berettas tucked under his arms just inside his leather jacket…just to name a few.
Rolling his head on his shoulders, he felt his muscles bunch under the excitement of what was to come. He was like a horse at the starting gate, ready to kick some ass.
Remembering the pale–faced Kris, he shot him a warning glare. “Stay,” he commanded, then nodded at Behr to start the ritual countdown.
The ogre, intent on crushing skulls, strode toward him, his eight-foot body framed in thick black shadows. He cracked his meaty knuckles against his palms, the air of menace radiating off of him in waves. Intensely luminous red eyes burned through the dark, the only way to accurately measure how close he was.
Behr’s lips moved as he silently counted down. Erias gripped his swords in anticipation. He felt the heat building inside and his gums swelling with blood lust as his body prepared for the meet and greet in a way that was always triggered by being around the demons he hunted.
As the beast closed in, Behr glanced over at Erias and glimpsed the deep crimson glow of his now demonic eyes. Being several hundred years older than he was, Erias had reached a point that Behr knew he would eventually meet but hoped he could somehow avo
id.
With each kill, they absorbed a little bit of the evil the demons housed inside them and were brought a little bit closer to the Hell realm they served. And eventually there would be no turning back. There would come a day where all the members of the Brotherhood would have to return to their maker, the owner of the soul they bartered for the revenge their hearts sought, and serve out the rest of eternity never experiencing the warm glow of the sun or the love of a good woman or family.
By the way his muscles bulked, and his skin quavered between shades of human peach and demonic red, he could tell that Erias wasn’t far off and Behr silently mourned the loss of his friend.
The man towered over them, the dim light flickering over what Erias could now see was not shadows but darker than night skin, the only source of color being his deeply hateful, red eyes that fixated on each of them in kind.
Silence fell over the small group as they sized each other up; Kris’s labored breathing that told of his building hysteria the only sound besides distant moans of torture, they could hear. Behr’s only signal was that of his thick length of chain reaching out to grasp their enemy's neck, but before it could get there, the demon caught it in his fist and began wrapping the chain around his fist at an alarming rate. Behr was pulled off his feet and lunged forward, trying to regain his footing.
In a flash, Erias could see the events unfolding in his mind’s eye before they even happened. Behr falling against the demon’s chest before he could catch himself. The demon spinning him around to face Erias, and as he reached out a hand to save his comrade, one large hand slapped down on his head and twisted.
Erias shrugged off the vision of Behr’s lifeless eyes staring back at him as he fell in a heap at the demon’s oversized feet.
He knew it was just a vision; however, and acting fast; he spun out, snaking the blade of his scimitar between Behr as he careened forward and loped off the hand the demon was about to grab him with.
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