by E. A. Copen
“Fine! I’ll tell you! Just watch the shirt!” He smoothed his hands over the ruffled collar when I released him. “The short version is this. There are multiple hells, each ruled by a different entity. Some of them get along. Most don’t. None of the realms are pleasant, and you can’t simply walk from one into others. There are rules, gates, keys. You need the right key to open the right door at the right time. Morningstar’s Hell is accessible only after moving through six others.”
Something Baron Samedi had said to me outside the morgue suddenly echoed through my head. “Seven nights,” he’d said. “Seven moons. Seven gates, seven tombs.” I knew the rhyme. It was an old voodoo story about a way for the living to pass into the underworld. Traditional voodoo belief made the seven days directly after death a sacred time, and that matched up with what I knew about ghosts and spirits. They were easier to call up within the first week after death. On the eighth day, shades took a lot more power to summon, and even more to maintain their own physical presence.
I needed to go back and find those gates. But if that was how I was supposed to do this, why send me to Hel first? Was there something here I needed? Maybe one of those keys Jean had mentioned.
“Why can’t I just open the gate I want?”
Jean shrugged. “I don’t make the rules. That’s just how it is.”
I looked around and frowned. “Why is the key to the first gate in the Norse underworld? Seems an odd place for it.”
He sighed. “I only know two things. One, the key is here. If it wasn’t, she wouldn’t have sent you. Two, I hate this place even more than I hated Earth. I want to go back, so let’s go.” Jean gestured to the open door.
Okay, so I had to find some magical key and somehow escape the Norse underworld, hopefully bringing the soul of Jean Lafitte back with me. Why couldn’t things ever be easy?
We crept into the empty hallway. The walls were made of rough-hewn red brick, the floor unfinished slate. Torches burned every few dozen feet, providing light in what would’ve otherwise been a darkened corridor.
“Where are we?” I whispered to Jean.
He took one of the torches from its resting place inside a metal hook. “The bowels of Hel’s keep. The hellhounds won’t come here. They’re terrified of the place.”
That wasn’t a good sign. Any place hellhounds feared was a place smart people stayed out of. Then again, smart people didn’t break into seven Hells either.
Jean pressed himself flat against the wall as we came to an opening in the corridor, so I did the same. Cautiously, he peeked around the corner before stepping out. I followed. A narrow stone stairway curled upward. He moved toward it.
I should’ve saved all my questions for later. After all, we were creeping through a castle in the underworld, being hunted by supernatural flaming murder dogs. I just couldn’t help myself.
“What are you doing here anyway?” I whispered as we crept along the stairs, climbing up.
“It’s not by choice, I can promise you that. One minute, I was wandering down the street, and the next thing I knew I was being dragged here by the most beautiful creature I had ever set eyes upon. Why does love have to be so cruel?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, Jean. You’re a real Casanova.”
Jean’s “beautiful being” was probably a reaper. Their job was to escort the dead to the After, and they were serious about it, some more than others. Some of them went out of their way to hunt ghosts and spirits who’d escaped the trip the first time, even if they weren’t being a bother. Considering the number of supernatural entities that were in town during the tournament, his chances of getting picked up were higher than normal.
The stone stairway spilled into another long hallway, this one with a crimson carpet running down the middle. There were no guards, which I found weird. A castle that size should’ve had guards at every choke point. Maybe I was just used to how the Summer Court handled security. Made sense, considering that was my only experience with castles and guards.
“Do you have any idea where we’re going, Jean?”
“To find the key.”
“And where is the key? What does it look like?”
Jean spun around, a horrified look on his face. “I thought you knew!”
“I thought you did!”
He threw his hands up, exasperated. “You didn’t think to mention this earlier?”
“Oh, you mean while we were running from hellhounds? Or are we still doing that?”
A loud bang echoed down the hallway. Jean shrieked and jumped into my arms, trembling like an excited chihuahua. We looked at each other a moment before I dropped him flat on his ass.
The hallway boomed again, the sound of something big and powerful busting through a barrier. A growl swept through the air, moving dust from the ground like wind. It struck me like a physical thing, bathing me in fear. My skin prickled, and my heart immediately began hammering in my chest. Cold sweat appeared on the back of my neck. It took everything I had to fight the urge to turn and run.
A huge, hulking black shape rounded the corner ahead. Like the hellhounds outside, it walked on all fours and vaguely resembled something canine, but that was where the similarities ended. This monster was twice the size of the hellhounds and muscled like a lion. A mane of thick green fire sprouted from its neck and raced down its back, illuminating a leonine tail. Black feathered wings sprouted from its back and skin-rending claws from its paws. Rotten flesh dripped from its bloody snout, revealing sharp yellow teeth.
It turned its ugly face toward us, nostrils flaring.
I took a step back the way we’d come. “Jean, what the hell is that thing?”
He backed away a step before turning and knocking me aside. “Abandon ship! Every man for himself!”
That coward!
“Oh, no you don’t!” I reached out with my power and clamped onto him, keeping him from going too far.
He rushed another foot or so before the invisible leash of magic pulled him from his feet. Jean crashed face first to the floor and tried to scramble away, but I held firm.
“Come on, Jean! You’ve faced an Archon. You’re not going to run from a lion-hell-dog!”
The creature broke into a run, big paws shaking the whole building every time they slapped against the floor. Jean yelped.
I waited until it was almost on me before flattening myself against the wall, pulling Jean along with me. A monster that big had the advantage in a physical fight, especially since I was unarmed except for my staff. Luckily, physics was on my side. The creature tried to put on the brakes, but momentum made him slide even after his feet stopped moving. Giant claws dug into the carpet and ripped it from the floor, pulling it into a pile under the creature’s feet. He slammed into the wall, and the carpet piled on top of him, trapping him momentarily under tangled fabric.
I ran the way the monster had come, rounding the corner and stumbling into yet another long hallway. Jean sped in front of me.
Behind me, the creature let out a long, echoing bellow and gave chase. It leaped onto the wall as it sped around the corner and then jumped across, gaining on me. There was no way I’d be able to outrun the thing, especially since I didn’t know my way around.
Think, Lazarus! Think! I sped around another corner and nearly ran straight into Jean.
Two skeletons stood guard in front of a huge iron door, a spear in one hand and a round shield in the other. They lowered their spears and marched forward at the sight of us. Trapped between an overzealous guard dog and two literal boneheads with no way out. It was as good a time as any for a little magic.
Power surged around me, thick and free for the taking. The air itself shifted and changed color, turning an electric violet streaked with shades of emerald. Holy shit, that was a lot of magic, and I’d barely pulled on it. No time to consider how cool that was. I had monsters to take care of.
I pulled the magic into my body, funneling it into my staff and unleashing it toward the skeleton guards with a
shout. They raised their shields as the beam of purple and green energy careened toward them. It struck their shields, igniting a rune in the wood that had previously been invisible. The runes glowed and drank in the magic. Shit.
Ugly rounded the corner behind me, forcing me to move or die. Again.
I sprinted for the skeletons and swung my staff, batting aside their spears as they jabbed at me. One grazed my side. The stinging pain made me stumble to my knees just short of the door beyond.
Both skeletons raised their spears in unison, poised to drive them into my neck on either side.
The door slammed open, the whole hallway trembling with impact. Spears froze mid-air and the mutt monster behind me slid to a stop. Both skeletons dropped to one knee, facing the door as a woman strode through. Jean shifted his hands which he’d put over his face so that he could peek out.
She was tall, her face all sharp angles. A dress of the deepest black clung to a perfect figure while a dramatic collar made of raven feathers crowned her bare neck and shoulders. Black horns curled back on either side of her head, propping up a crown of black gold. Over half her face, she wore an ornate iron mask that left only her full lips completely visible. Hair the color of fire twisted over her shoulder.
When she spoke, her voice resonated a deep alto. “What’s this?” she demanded. Her gaze finally lowered to me. The sensation of a thousand panicked spiders crawled over my skin. “So you’re the escapees everyone is so worked up about.”
“My name is—”
“I don’t care what your name is. I don’t care what you want. You have disturbed my peace. For that, you will suffer.”
I swallowed. That’d be hard to bargain or reason with. In the absence of reason, it was time to appeal to authority. “Okay, but before you torture me, you should know I work for Baron Samedi, and he’ll be pissed.”
Her jaw relaxed. She lowered her arms from the door handles, her one visible eye widening. “Samedi? Do you know Baron LaCroix? Have you seen him? Did he mention me?”
“Uh...” Smooth, Lazarus. If I told her I didn’t know LaCroix, she’d probably go on to torture me. If I lied and said I did, she’d probably find out and torture me. Good going.
Jean flitted forward to stand between me and the goddess. “Your most esteemed majesty, allow me to introduce Lazarus Kerrigan, the Pale Horseman. He has come on a quest to retrieve the key to the Cross Gate.”
Her face turned sour. She crossed her arms. “And you are?”
Jean removed his hat and bowed with a flourish. “Jean Lafitte.”
Her eyes narrowed. Behind them, wheels turned in her brain, deciding whether to squash us or hear us out. “He wants the key for the Cross Gate? LaCroix wants it back, does he? Doesn’t even have the decency to come and ask for it himself. Men! They promise you lakes of fire and pits of despair and do they deliver? No. They run off with some younger goddess and leave you all alone!”
So that’s what the key was doing here. Apparently, the guardian at the gate would be the infamous Baron LaCroix, the baron of the cross. Pony’s favorite Loa. He was supposed to be suave, attractive, irresistible to women. A real smooth talker. He must’ve talked his way into her bed and left the key behind the same way I’d give my apartment key to a girl. Must’ve been serious if he’d done that.
I raised my hands in surrender while racking my brain in search of the right name. The goddess of the Norse underworld...I knew I knew her. Why couldn’t I remember her name? “I don’t know anything about all that. I’m just the messenger.”
“And it’s bad luck to shoot the messenger,” Jean added, replacing his hat.
She jerked her chin toward the guards. They stood, pulling me with them. “Old LaCroix thinks he can make a fool of Hel, does he?”
I kept my head low. “He can’t really help himself. I mean, he’s the Loa of death and sex. Not that I’m excusing his bad behavior, nor am I condemning it. That’s not my place. I’m only a puny mortal after all. I just work for Baron Samedi.”
Hel sighed, closed her eyes, and shook her head. “Release him.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and made a dramatic turn. “Come, Horseman. Let us discuss this like people of our standing should. You may bring your manservant.”
The skeleton guards let me go.
“Manservant?” Jean puffed himself up.
“Let it go.” I pretended to dust a little dirt off my shoulders and followed Hel into her throne room.
Chapter Three
Hel’s throne was made of bone. It sat alone on a dais with a huge, reptilian pelt stretched out before it. A square pit of lava sat in the center of the room, giving off a bright red glow. The lava bubbled and vomited glowing streams over the side where they dried into a steaming black crust.
Off to the right, a massive wooden table stretched with a dozen seats on either side, a man in each chair. Some were tall and lean while others were thick and strong. Each was armed to the teeth and stared at me with dead, empty eyes.
Food spread over the table untouched. Whole suckling pigs held apples in their mouths. Exotic fish with their heads still attached rested on beds of herbs and spices. Steam rose from full bowls of soup, and warm, crusty rolls sat in cloth-lined bowls, one bowl for every two men. My mouth watered at the sight of it all, despite warning signals from my brain. Eating food in the underworld was bad in just about every myth out there. Once I did, I might be trapped forever.
Hel walked to an empty ornate chair at the head of the table and gestured to the other end where another matching chair waited. “Sit. Dine with us and regale us with the tale of how you came to be here, Horseman.”
I glanced at Jean who shrugged. I had no intention of eating or drinking anything, but it seemed rude to refuse the offer to sit, especially with a table full of angry Viking warriors staring at me. Avoiding eye contact with any of them, I went to the other chair and stood in front of it, waiting for Hel to sit before I did. The moment my ass found the chair, women stepped out of the shadows around me, their bodies and faces veiled in black lace. They placed a wooden bowl of thick, savory-smelling broth in front of me. Colorful root vegetables and hearty chunks of meat crowded the bowl. Another placed a strange-looking cup full of amber liquid on the table.
My stomach complained that I hadn’t already picked up a spoon and started shoveling the soup into my mouth. I squashed its protests with iron will and met Hel’s eyes.
She smirked, leaned back in her chair, crossed one leg over the other and sipped from a gilded drinking horn. “Speak, Horseman. We are waiting.”
I took in a deep breath and instantly regretted it when the scent of roasted meat and warm bread hit my brain. “Lucifer Morningstar tricked someone I care about into giving up her soul to save me. I’m going to get her soul back. To do that, I need the seven keys to open the seven doors. You have the first one I need.”
The hall was silent. No one else reached for food or drink. They stared at me, their expressions carefully neutral.
Hel took another drink and leaned on her fist. “The terms of Morningstar’s deal, did he abide by them?”
I gritted my teeth. “Yes.”
She sighed and leaned forward. “You seem new, so let me give you a tip, Horseman. We gods and goddesses no longer war amongst each other. Yes, we have our enemies and our allies, but to wage a full battle would benefit no one. So, we sit, and we stew in our rage. It twists us, but there’s nothing to be done for it. If I were to strike out at my enemies, I would upset the balance and draw one of you to my doorstep. You would murder me. Do shut your mouth. I’m not finished speaking.”
My jaw snapped closed. I’d been about to insist I wasn’t a murderer, and to reassure her I had no intention of killing her, but I knew better than to interrupt a goddess of death.
Hel placed her horn inside an iron stand on the table. “It is for this reason I cannot openly help you, even though I despise Morningstar.”
The floor felt like it dropped out from under me. If Hel would
n’t give me the key, my only choice would be to take it, which wouldn’t make me any friends. It’d probably get me a permanent ticket to the After and Emma would stay right where she was.
“However,” Hel continued, pushing hair behind her ear, “should you prove yourself, I would be obligated to reward you for your heroism, strength, or bravery. None would challenge my right to do so.”
She’s offering me a way out. It was a technicality, but one I could exploit. Considering my options, I’d take it. “Let me guess. You’ve got some sort of quest for me? Stubborn magic pickle jar that needs to be opened? Nosy neighbor needs a stern talking to? Or does Fido need a walk around the block?”
Her lip curled. She reached up and tugged off the mask covering half her face. Jean cringed. I glued my eyes to the ground.
“Look at me.”
I glanced up.
Half her face was a mangled, rotten mess. Skin hung in black strips over part of it, while the rest was red and raw. In some spots, nothing but white bone remained. She had no eyelid, no hair. It was as if half her face had simply rotted away.
She pointed at the disgusting corpse half of her face. “Does this look like the face of a goddess amused by your wit?”
Unable to speak, I shook my head.
“Good.” Hel slid the mask back in place and let out a shuddering breath. “Now, since we are at dinner, let us have some entertainment. Hjungvar.”
A young man near the head of the table rose. He sported a blonde mullet with braids on either side and eyes the color of ice-crusted waves. He wore a bear pelt clasped at his neck by the paws. The head hung limply down his back. The back paws of the bear pelt only barely touched the ground.
He placed his hands on the tabletop, his icy glare at me intensifying. “Yes, my queen?”
Hel smiled and relaxed in her seat. “You shall be my champion. Bring the drinks!”
A drinking competition. Finally, something I stood a chance in winning. I’d been trying to pickle my liver since I turned sixteen and got my first fake ID, though I’d slowed down a lot since Remy was born. My old man was an alcoholic who beat me. The image of becoming that kept me from indulging too much anymore, that and I was getting too damn old for hangovers.