by Carmen Kern
Rad checked the clock beside the bed. “I found the man’s dreams at the same time last night. I should be good to go. But we’re also assuming he’s actually sleeping.” Rad snapped the bamboo toothpick, flicked the pieces toward the bedside table, and missed. “What if he’s found other more enjoyable ways to occupy his evening…maybe he’s got a mistress and they’re—”
“Here.” Persephone tossed a silver chain weighed down with a metal hound’s tooth and witchy charms at the djinn. “Anything to shut you up.”
Rad’s violet eyes flashed as he snatched the chain out of the air. “Don’t forget, goddess, you came to me for help.”
“Don’t forget, dark prince, I own you.”
Rad stared at Persephone. “Own is an exaggeration.”
The room shifted, tilted, like a teeter totter weighted at one side. Persephone was in one place and then another. She slammed the palms of her hands down on either side of Rad’s body, looming over him from the foot of the bed. The djinn seemed to slide toward her.
“Really? Is it an exaggeration to say that if your father new about your little secret—”
“Flames.” Rad rested his head against the headboard. “You made your point.”
No one heard Bob come out of the bathroom until he said, “I’m gone for a few minutes and everything goes to shit.” He stood behind Persephone, rubbing his hair with a towel. “I can’t speak for the djinn, but if you were standing over me, threatening to ruin my life, I’d be less inclined to play nice. I’m just saying.”
Bob continued across the room and snatched up the half-eaten chicken wrap he’d left on his plate. He’d shed his wet jacket, shoes, and flannel shirt. A piece of lettuce slid out and dropped on his Tragically Hip T-shirt. “Did you finish the details on the manhole cover?” he asked Kay Te, biting into his lunch with one hand, brushing the food shrapnel from his shirt with the other.
“Almost done.” She nodded. “Hopefully Rad is right and it’s the link between our world and Grim world.”
“Grim world?” Bob asked.
Kay Te shrugged. “Thanatos gives off a Grim Reaper vibe.” She shrugged again. “So…Mr. Grim…and his world. Grim world. It’s the best I could come up with on short notice.”
“The manhole has to be the link,” Rad said to Kay Te. “It’s identical to the one I saw in the bounty hunter’s dream. Same details. Same letters. B.C.B.A. British Columbia, Blood Alley. Limited edition, baby. Good thing Thanatos has a thing for historical landmarks.”
Rad sunk down onto the pillows and looked up at Persephone. “Could you stand down or get a drink or something?” he asked. “No way I’m going to sleep with you hovering like a vulture.”
Bob spun around. “See?” Tortilla bits flew from his mouth. “Sorry,” he said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “Threats aren’t conducive to sleep, or anything else, for that matter. I know from experience.”
Kay Te stood up, her chair bumping back against her artist toolbox. She climbed up to stand on the seat of her chair and crossed her arms over the grunged-up image of Tinker Bell on her sweatshirt. “We ain’t getting Mr. Inferno back acting like this. Gods and djinn, pfft.” The muse gestured, her multicolored fingernails bright against the gray window. “You want him back? We do this together. Mash up all our guesses and get a little artsy. You want Mr. Grim locked down and doing his job again, and get help for some of these people you looking down on from your lofty windows? Then let’s get to work.” A large pink bubble grew from her lips and snapped back with a loud pop. She hopped off the chair, sat down, and pulled herself up to the writing desk. The turquoise ends of her hair changed to red, like a brush dipped in paint.
There was a great stillness in the room as they all stared at the muse. And then the rain came down in heavy sheets outside the window, splattering across the narrow window ledge, bouncing off the side of the desk. Kay Te closed the window and dabbed at the wet splatters on her drawings. The very walls of the hotel seemed to groan.
Bob finished eating and sat next to the small but mighty muse. “What can I do to help?” he asked, his knee brushing against hers.
Persephone stood at the foot of the bed, watching the muse. “You sound like Hades…I mean the working together part. He’s always hated the Overworld. Never wanted anything to do with his family, with our family. Not until Thanatos forced him.” Persephone made her way across the expensive carpet. “He told us that we had to work together.” Persephone pulled out the only remaining chair from the table and sat. “So, how exactly are we getting him back?”
Kay Te snapped her gum once more before taking it from her mouth and setting it on a napkin. “I’m not sure. Thanatos created Grim world. That means we play by Grim rules, whatever they are. I say we go in like we did with the parallel world of Deadman’s Island. We try a few tricks and see what works. We start by sending in the only creature Mr. Inferno might trust.”
“Ferret,” Bob said.
“Yup. If we can get a lock on Mr. Inferno, I can send Ferret to him. He can be our eyes down there. But magic is tricksy. And Mr. Grim’s world doesn’t want me there—it’s pushing back.” Kay Te slid a double-page spread across the table to Persephone. “I already tried to bust through a back door, ’cause always, there’s a back door. A tether from one world to the next. But I haven’t found the right one yet.”
“Like the one Hades opened for us off of Deadman’s Island?” Bob asked.
“Yes, and no. That was a copycat world, grown from a seed of the original. If you looked hard enough you could see one place from the other. But this world, it’s an original made of nightmare and ink by the Night brothers.” Kay Te picked up a cinnamon-colored pencil, flipping it around her fingers in a continuous loop. “Good thing there’s dreams for the djinn to walk .” She nodded at Rad, sprawled on the lush bed. “And inked lines for me to follow. If the manhole cover Rad found is the back door we’re looking for, then we’ve got the tether between our worlds. Maybe the luck of the lady is shining on us.”
Persephone watched the muse’s fingers spin the pencil into a blur of color. “I’ve never known Lady Luck to shine in my direction.”
“Mine either,” Bob said.
“I met her once,” Rad piped up in his raspy voice. “Didn’t like her.”
“She might like me,” said Kay Te. “So let’s ride that wave.” She shuffled her paper around and pulled three drawings out from the bottom of the stack. “If the bounty hunter is with Mr. Inferno—”
“He’s got to be. How else could he have the twin to your necklace?” Rad said.
Persephone shook her head, her long dark hair swinging behind her. “He could have found it—or taken it from Hades. If you can’t see Hades in the man’s dreams, we can’t know where he is.” She spun the obsidian wedding ring on her finger. “But he isn’t dead. I still feel him.” The carved skull on the outside of her ring seemed to grin at her as it spun around and around.
Bob took one of Kay Te’s drawings, and held it up to the light, studying the details of the sewer tunnels. “How long did it take you to find the man with the black cape?” Bob turned and looked over his shoulder at Rad.
The violet light behind the djinn’s eyes darkened to a deep purple. He swam the currents of memory. There was only a moment of silence before he said, “I walked the nightmares of three worlds. It was in the fourth that I found him. The power…the magic in the hound’s tooth necklace is steeped in the fires of the Underworld. It led me to graveyards and lands soaked with the blood of war. Nightmares come in two flavors: real life and dream life. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. It took three nights to walk those worlds. But now that I found the right one, it’ll take minutes to get back inside the man’s head.”
“Blood Alley…” Bob carefully laid the drawing on the desk. “Makes sense.” He stood and walked toward the front door. “Thanatos is using this place, the myth of blood, as the link between worlds. We don’t know for sure
if they hung people in this alley or if blood from the slaughterhouses flowed through…” He spun around at the door and walked back, talking out loud but to himself. “But it might not matter. Myth might be enough. Appropriate for the god of death. The sick horror comics, the kidnappings, and—”
“We get it, Bob,” Persephone said softly. “So Rad goes in again, confirms that this guy, this black-caped man, is with Hades—”
“You ride his memories and see if there are other similarities to our world. That’s most important, djinn.” Kay Te fixed her large blue eyes on Rad. “We need those links to find our back door in and out.”
Persephone ran her fingers through her hair, scratching her scalp at the roots. “Is there a way I can go in with you?”
Rad grinned and patted the bed beside him. “Plenty of room for you right here, goddess.”
Bob turned and glared at the djinn. “That’s not what she asked. Don’t be an ass.”
Rad settled back in his pillows and sighed. “Walking nightmares ain’t a carnival ride. No tickets for anyone but me.” He glanced sideways at Persephone. “But if you want—”
“Don’t.” Bob’s fingers flared, tipped with live flames. The fire demigod claimed his power, his palms glowing red and yellow, controlling its strength after only a few months of practice with his father, Hephaestus. “Shut your mouth and your eyes, Rad. Go find us the god of the Underworld.” Bob’s short hair, his eyebrows, the scruff of a beard appeared as smoke and flame.
It was the first time any of them had seen this show of power. This Bob was all god.
Persephone and Kay Te exchanged looks, one of them impressed, the other slightly scared, for her and for Bob. With power came sacrifice. That was the pain of it.
“Tone it down, demi.” Rad dismissed the show with a flick of his wrist. “I’m just having a little fun. You do remember what that is, don’t you?”
“Not really.” The fire sprouting from Bob’s body dimmed, the flames shrinking and then flickering as if blown out by the wind. “Not since she got into my cab.” Bob tilted his head at Persephone.
“She’s got that effect on men,” Rad continued quickly before anyone could threaten him again. “Give me an hour. If I’m not conscious by then, take the chain out of my hands and wave a cup of coffee under my nose.” He held up the silver chain, the tip of the hound’s tooth glinting with the last of the flame from Bob’s fingers. “Wish me luck.” He grinned and closed his eyes. The intricate tattoos etched into the djinn’s body glowed and turned darker, blanketing his body in an eerie light. His hands sunk to his chest.
“He’s got a real Dracula vibe going on, don’t you think?” Bob watched from the foot of the bed.
Rad heard Bob from a distance. From the edge of the world and beyond.
FOUR
Phobetor avoided Thanatos. Lately, the nightmare god spent more time in his basement suite and in the streets of Necromourn. Anything to be out of the shadow of his brother.
He took the stairs of Corvus Tower. His brother’s tower. He didn’t care about the health benefits of climbing or getting his steps in for the day; he reveled in his physical power. It was raw, spontaneous, and unfettered. He supposed each god’s power was different, unique to their calling. And ever since blood sacrifices had somehow been dubbed barbaric and against human rights, they’d all had to adapt. But terror, that emotion had felt the same since time began. And it was in endless supply, thanks to him and his brother.
Nightmares were his bread and butter. He ate human terror like poached eggs on rye. But they tasted meatier. More filling.
Normally, in the morning hours, Phobetor was amped up from the moans and cold sweats of fear he placed in human dreams, but there had been no nightmares this night.
And damn Hades even more for ruining a perfectly delicious evening, he thought, swinging open the door.
There was no hallway on this floor. Just one large open room with multiple stations, all of them humming and glowing with images and programs. The beings in this room had been created by his brother, who borrowed from the characteristics of the Titans, the ancient roman empire, and the militaries of the largest nations on earth today. But in true Thanatos fashion, he had to throw in a little something from the animal kingdom, both mythical and real. Dragons and wolves were his thing, and he took elements of each of those beasts and placed them on the bodies of their security team members. Animal-human hybrids.
Their fur and scales and rotten breath didn’t help the stink in the room, but their bulky flesh and night-vision eyes helped to keep a sort of chaotic order to this world.
Kintos, the head of security, lapped up a bowl of coffee, his wolf snout dripping as he caught Phobetor’s eyes. His long pink tongue cleaned up what was left in the bowl.
The streets of Necromourn wore an eerie glow, a greenish pink of early morning. Thanatos had used a sick sort of color palette for the city, dirtying up all colors with gray, his favorite. Phobetor scanned the many monitors of live video feed, making his way past workstations and field officers picking up their morning assignments.
Kintos wiped his damp muzzle with his paw. “Sir. All but the last patrol has been sent out. I’ve assigned them to the north sector where the cameras last captured the cloaked man.”
The screen on Kintos’s desk was split, showing two ends of a long and busy street. “It could be woman or beast.” Phobetor’s panther eyes watched the screen and the first merchants sweeping the walk and opening their shops. “I want a pair of guards at either end of Mantis Market. Day and night. It is the busiest part of the sector. Getting anything in or out without notice would be easier there. Let’s not make it easy.” The fur on the back of Phobetor’s neck rose. “Check everyone coming or going from Mantis and all the other market streets in the city.”
“Yes, sir. Anything else, sir?” One side of Kintos’s upper lip was caught on a fang.
Phobetor made a slow circuit of the room with his gaze. “You have more men today. Good. We need their eyes on the monitors. If there is anything strange—”
The head of security smirked, unhooking his lip.
“Stranger than usual,” Phobetor corrected. “Objects floating in midair, footprints and no feet…anything at all, I want to know. Immediately. And don’t bother Thanatos. I’ll handle it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Phobetor waved his phone in the air. “You can reach me on this. I’ll be in my office.” He turned and made his way to the stairs, a rumble in his gut. An insatiable urge for rabbit made his mouth water. He needed meat. He paused on the landing inside the stairwell, crouched and sprung over the railing, jumping three flights to the ground floor. His powerful legs absorbed the shock.
“Gods, that never gets old.” His mouth filled with saliva. He hissed in hunger. There was meat in his fridge, enough for each of his animal masks. But today he didn’t need the distraction of feeding.
The tower lobby was through the stairwell door, the mortar in the cobblestone floor stained a permanent crimson from the creatures slaughtered in the name of vengeance or cruelty or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The ceiling soared, leaving room for balconies with nooses hanging from steel beams. Each Juliet balcony was adorned with a single noose, some still occupied with the hanging dead. Thanatos thought of them as decorations. Phobetor, with his nightmare mask, animalistic in nature and sensitive to smell, growled with hunger.
He hurried through the short hallway to the elevator and held his phone to the scanner. The doors opened and closed.
Phobetor pressed the only button on the panel. His domain was in the caves beneath Corvus Tower, the farthest he could get from the stars. Something about the night sky made him feel like his mother was still watching over him. And like an adolescent kid, there were many things he just didn’t want her to see.
The elevator bounced to a stop. The doors hissed open.
His room was drawn into being around a large dead tree
made of ivory. It raised its leafless branches to a rock ceiling, passing three levels of wood mezzanines heavy with bookcases. Ladders made of petrified wood rolled along each level, allowing access to the fifteen-foot-tall shelves. This collection had nothing to do with comic books. Here was every book in the world that meant something to Phobetor. His private collection. Some, the ones at the top, were the only ones left of their kind. Most of them first editions.
The god of nightmares raised his hands, palms at waist level. He closed his eyes and opened his mind. Heat from atoms rubbing, flaring, and changing spread through his body. The change was as easy as slipping on a different pair of pants. Where Thanatos used the images formed in his mind, Phobetor used words, exchanging this noun for that one, adjectives and verbs erased and rewritten until the new sentence, the new mask, was complete.
But here, he showed his true face.
He pushed his glasses up higher on his nose. His hunger pains subsided. Phobetor stooped his shoulders and took a deep breath. He was home.
Unlike Thanatos’s steel, leather, and tech lair, Phobetor preferred wood and stone and a couch to sink into. He spent many nights sleeping on the overstuffed brown cushions.
He headed for the kitchen, but not for food. A sealed bottle of bourbon awaited his return. At the end of every day, he needed a drink, but today more than ever. He tore the wrapping off the bottle and popped the cap. He held it to his nose and left it there, erasing the stink of the rest of the tower, hell, the rest of Thanatos’s world.
It doesn’t belong to me, not really. All but this dungeon had Thanatos’s thumbprint all over it. “I’m just along for the ride.” He poured a healthy three ounces and raised his glass in mock cheers.
And now Hades, who was supposed to be drained of power and lying in a puddle of his immortal blood on an island that was sealed off from all but the Fates, had somehow found his way here.