by Carmen Kern
More than a century ago, Phobetor and Thanatos had hashed out the original plan to take over the Underworld under the influence of dragon juice and dried fungus cigarettes. A dangerous combination at the best of times.
“It should be us, you know,” Thanatos had said, sprawled on their mother’s couch, his head lolling to the side.
Phobetor was lying on the floor, smoking the weed in slow, deep tokes. “What should be us?”
“Ruling the Underworld. We should have majority rule by sheer numbers. Our family, the Night family, is the Underworld.”
“We’d make the rules?”
“Phobetor.” Thanatos sat up, sober as if death had finally caught up to him. “We would make the rules. We would make it however we wanted. We could turn all worlds upside down…but it will take time.”
“We’ve got plenty of that.” A thin stream of smoke rose from the red cherry end of Phobetor’s tiny joint.
It had taken time. They kept secrets, killed, and tortured humans and immortals, writing it all into horrific comics that came to life. Along the way, they created this world, to hide them, to be their refuge until they ruled the other worlds.
Now, all Phobetor wanted to do was sink into the cushions of his couch. “I didn’t know the cost, brother. If I had…”
A harpy feather poked his arm through the cotton pillow cover. He pulled it through the cloth and tossed it in the air, his eye socket twitching as he watched it fall to the ground. He took another burning sip of bourbon.
The god of nightmares let the silence and the dank, comfortable smell of rock and books seep in. His glass was empty when he pulled the coffee table close and opened his boar skin journal. A journal Thanatos had never seen, and never would. He picked up his pen.
Tonight, in a dream that never turned to nightmare, a man walked through crowded alleys and hollowed-out beings reached for a touch of his sleeve or the hem of his coat. They moaned and sung the songs of the almost dead because there was no food to be had. In the shadows of doorways, the living fed from the dead flesh of stiff corpses. Months ago, I would lead a human mind into such a nightmare, mire them in the horrors, the stench of sulphur and spoiled meat. But no longer. The Overworld is horror. When my phone vibrated with a warning call from Kevin in Security, I realized I, the god of nightmares, was not needed there. Life itself has become filled with horror.
Phobetor reached for the bourbon bottle, strangling the glass neck as he brought it to his mouth. If only I could drown, he wished in the moment. One more swig and he replaced the bottle for his pen.
And now Hades found a way into this world…we didn’t contain him on Deadman’s Island like we thought…and if he made it here, the other gods, the muse, flames, anyone with mythical blood in them, could find us…find out what we’ve done.
My brother, Thanatos, I am with you. Or at least, I was. But this mess, the possible genocide of the humans, dead nymphs—gods, beautiful Helle, her hair black like coal, floating face down, the translucent tail of her immortality leaving her, your mouth on hers—the wrath of Hades’s brothers—this has become something more than what we planned.
You know how I hate a mess. Nightmares are tidy, at least for me. The humans, they sweat, moan, and kick, some scream as if fire ants flow up their throats. But I come and go. A man of many faces that pulls terror from the minds of the sleeping. I walk through the fears that are tucked away in the shadows of their minds, and I come out whole and clean. Filled up.
This chaos we stirred into being is not like my nightmares. Now, I am empty. I fear the gods and what they will do to stop us, to force you to bring death to the Overworld. Our mother, sisters, and brothers thrown into Tartarus for our ambitions. Oh, the thought of ruling the Underworld makes my mouth water, or maybe it’s the bourbon…but…
Phobetor rubbed the back of his neck before taking another long drink from the bottle. He swatted his empty glass onto the sheep wool carpet. It bounced, then settled into the soft fibers. The satisfaction of shattering glass was stolen from him, which somehow suited his mood.
Hades. Persephone. My fingers ache to wrap around their necks, to pull out their tongues and rip out their lungs. You’ve nurtured this hate in me, brother. But it did not come from me. You planted it within. And to prove my love for you, I have fed that hate, let it grow inside. But it is still yours.
I’m tired, Thanatos. So. damn. tired.
The green fountain pen dropped from his hand. He slouched back into the couch; the flap of eyelid skin covered his empty eye sockets like a coat thrown over a chair.
Nothing moved for over an hour. And then his phone vibrated in his pocket, startling him from a dreamless sleep. Brushing his hand over his smooth, glasslike skull, he snatched the phone and sat up straight, one of his combat boots kicking the glass on the carpet.
“What?” It was a croak of a word jerked out of the driest of mouths. Without thinking, Phobetor lurched for the bottle and swallowed the fire water.
There was shouting on the other end of the line. Kintos’s deep voice said, “We found something. Do you want to come up here, see it on the big screen, or should I send it to you?”
“Send it.” Phobetor didn’t recognize his own voice. It buzzed back at him, echoing in the phone, and for a moment, it was like his father’s voice, rich and dark and full.
The phone vibrated again. Phobetor held it away from his ear and watched the camera feed.
Hades. He was laid out in the shadow of a weeping tree. The branches bowed and hung low, but they weren’t long enough to hide the god of the Underworld. The black soles of Hades’s boots were worn through in spots. One foot twitched. His hand clenched into a tight fist before slowly relaxing. On his finger, an obsidian ring, the band thick and wide and engraved with skulls rising from the ashen flowers of Asphodel. The skull’s ruby eyes were the only spot of color on the black-clad god.
“Did your muse fall asleep, Hades? Did you lose your cloaking device?” Phobetor touched the screen on his phone, pinched his fingers together, and zoomed in on the ground around Hades feet. The god’s face was hidden. The only movement was his twitching foot.
“You see him, right?” Kintos’s voice echoed in Phobetor’s phone. “This was live two minutes ago. I sent in the closest squad. Jethro’s. When they got there, he was already gone.”
“He looks pretty beat up. Someone must have found him. Were there tracks? Blood? Anything the hounds can follow?” Phobetor asked, his face shimmering. Bones pushed against skin as fur erupted from pores, his jaw unhinging into the wide and powerful muzzle of a lion. His mane of hair swarmed with hissing snakes, their tongues flickering, tasting the air.
Kintos issued a quick muffled command to someone else before responding to Phobetor. “The hounds are checking the nearby merchant tents and shops. Nothing so far.”
“Keep me posted. I’ll be in the tower with Thanatos.”
“Yes, sir.”
The phone went silent. Slowly, thoughtfully, he extended every movement—put his phone in pocket, picked up the bottle, drained the bourbon, tossed the empty on the couch, tucked the journal in hidden cubby under the couch—but all too soon, he closed his apartment door behind him.
He spared a quick glance at the exit door at the end of the hall before taking the stairs up. Earlier that day, Phobetor had slipped out that door to the alley and walked around to the back of the next-door building, checking that the black-and-yellow-striped dumpster was still in place. Hidden behind it, an iron grate was securely locked, blocking the access to a large square vent. He had placed yellow nuclear hazard stickers on all sides of the garbage bin, a warning for all but the rats to stay away from the dumpster. This was his eject button.
Inside the tunnel, he’d stored a backpack of supplies, a key, and his notebook with the final chapter of his story in this world.
In the end, he would be nothing more than words.
FIVE
The tracking hounds bay
ed at a fresh scent, at each other, and the meat vendors cooking chicken and beef on rotating spits. Their low bellows like loose blades in a chainsaw, wheezing and howling, one over the other.
On the streets of Mantis Market, buyers made way for the patrol of mixed beings in black uniforms. Knives, guns, and batons hung from various appendages of each soldier. Three handlers followed their hounds through tents. The canines sniffed behind carts and boxes, then moved on through the narrow lanes between buyers, sellers, and lookie-loos who had nothing better to do that morning.
A red hound, mottled and molting from a long hard winter, took point at the front of the pack, sniffing in circles around a cart of caged exotic reptiles. Teeth clacked, throats hissed, and tongues flickered at the long-fanged hound resting its large paws on the wooden bed of the cart. The canine tracked the scent around to the back and dropped to the ground, clawing at the hard dirt, digging a shallow hole between the cart tire and the alley wall before lifting its snout into the air. It pulled against its harness, straining against the firm hold of its handler. The officer gave the hound a hard yank before crouching to study the ground.
A thick layer of gold and fuchsia paint covered an opened keylock, partially buried under the small mound of dirt beside the hole. “Sarge! Over here,” the tall soldier shouted, the sawed-off lock clutched in his gloved palm.
A large rectangular cage, perched near the open end of the cart, rattled beside them. The officer glanced up at the sound of scraping claws and a warning hiss from one of the exotics waiting to find their forever home. Another rattle. The cage door banged against the metal plate with every movement of the beast inside.
“Flier shit!” the soldier mumbled. He spotted a cast iron gear under the cart. He ducked beneath the cart, pulled out the cog, and heaved it up and against the cage door.
A grotesque show of teeth appeared at the front of the cage. Sinew and stringy bits of an animal hung like streamers from the lizard’s jaw.
The officer scuttled backward, the hound pulling in the opposite direction, eager to be on its way.
Jethro, a sergeant in Necromourn’s police department, followed his patrol at a distance, scanning the market for anything that seemed out of place. He had lived in this part of Necromourn since he was inked into existence. As a youngster, he had played in the buildings, the alleys, the dead ends, and knew what street belonged to which gangster or preacher. If anything were out of place, he would sense it.
He followed the call of his officer to a tent, where the merchant was in full sales mode, hanging an albino python around a woman’s slim neck. The lime-green diamonds embedded in the snake’s back warped as it slithered and slid across the woman’s shoulders, reaching its long body out to her upheld hands. Her companion, a monk dressed in earthy green robes, stood silently beside her, watching the serpent with his one good eye.
“Unless that has anything to do with Hades, I don’t want to see it,” Jethro said to the dog handler who handed him a colorfully painted lock.
“Take a look.” The officer jabbed his thumb toward the swamp lizard clicking its jaws open and closed from behind the bars. “The lock was cut from the cage. And the latch has the same paint.” Bright strokes of pink and gold were sprayed over the iron door plate.
Jethro studied the lock. He scratched the paint with his fingernail. The surface layer flaked under his nail. He sniffed his finger before wiping it on his camos. “These aren’t Thanatos’s colors,” he said. “Pastels aren’t his thing.”
“Whoever did this must have been in a hurry. Look at the loose dirt and tread marks. These are fresh. They could’ve seen us coming.” The officer looked up at Jethro. “It wouldn’t take much for the lizard to bust out of there. It would’ve made a perfect distraction to slip past the hounds, don’t you think?”
The hound scratched at the ground with massive back paws and strained forward against the thick cording across its chest, nose close to the ground.
“Hey, Nick!” Jethro shouted over the noise of the market.
The merchant glanced over his shoulder at the two officers, his eyes shifting between them and his giggling shopper. Her money purse was splayed open on the table; the snake dipped its slim head inside the velvety cloth.
“Be with you in a minute,” Nick said.
Jethro wasn’t the kind of guy who waited. He rumbled at Nick, “Did you unlock this cage?”
Nick counted the coins the monk placed in his outstretched hand while answering the officer. “Didn’t touch the cage since loading it. If you’re interested in the reptile, I’ll make you best deal. You take care of good citizens of Necromourn, I take good care of you. You know what I’m saying?” A gold tooth in the back of Nick’s mouth glinted in a lone stream of sunlight. He nodded to the monk and stroked the money in his hand. His head snapped toward the officers.
“Wait. What you say? The cage was unlocked?” He threw the woman’s coins in a large apron pocket tied under his bulging belly. His squat body lumbered across the stall, kicking up dirt. Nick grabbed a long iron rod he had pushed through the spokes of the cartwheels to keep it from rolling and shoved himself between the officers. The hound followed closely on his heels. “Why did you say nothing? Very dangerous.” He poked the rod through the side bars of the cage, mindful of the teeth clacking inches from his hand. “Very expensive.” He pushed until the rod came through the other side, blocking off the front section of the cage. “Good pet,” Nick said, dusting off his hands on his apron. “You buy?”
“Unless you can train that thing to track, I’ve got no use for it,” the tall officer said.
Jethro shook his head. “I don’t want it. I like my body parts where they are. And I’ve got no taste for lizard stew.” Jethro watched Nick dig another lock out of one of many pockets in his apron. The lizard crunched on the iron rod while Nick quickly replaced the lock.
A pair of thin-skinned figures slowed in front of Nick’s tent to peruse the display of bone jewelry, their black veins an endless labyrinth of tattoos beneath their skin. Their lidless eyes forever open and watching. They chirped at each other, discussing the delicate structure of the finger-bone necklace one of them tried on.
“Friends,” Nick called out. “I have a deal for you. Just for you, no others.” He sidestepped the officers and moved to intercept his customers.
“He can move fast when he wants to,” Jethro said.
“Especially when money’s involved.” The tall soldier turned back to the cage, keeping a tight hold on the hound’s leash. “Nick didn’t have anything to do with this. He isn’t careless with his animals.” The K-9 officer yanked back on the hound’s leash. “It could’ve been Hades. Maximus only had the god’s scent to go on.”
Jethro scratched his chin beneath a bushy beard. “Agreed.” Jethro lifted his eyes from the hissing lizard in the cage and scanned the nearby merchant stalls. “I don’t think this paint is from this world. I’d put money on it.” Jethro nodded to his officer. “Let Max go.”
The soldier barked the command, “Feststellen.”
Maximus bayed in response, pulling his handler past boxes of stored goods and tent ties. The hound stopped beside the next table, sniffed the air, then changed directions down a lesser-traveled alley, where sellers of bodies, dark magics, and computer viruses peddled their wares.
Jethro stayed back and looped the lock through a Velcro strap on his tactical vest. The soldier and his hound disappeared around the corner.
The market was busier now. Those with money had slept off their hangovers and were out looking to purchase their next high and satisfy whatever fetishes they were into that week. The woman with her slithering diamondback snake draped around her neck bought blood flowers at the next tent. Her companion, the one-eyed monk, took her money bag and made it disappear into the folds of cloth below his belted waist. He followed behind her. Blood dripped from the bouquet of flowers, leaving black splatters in the dirt behind the woman.
The rest of Jethro’s patrol were several tents ahead and moving toward the food merchants at the end of the street. No doubt to snatch some dried dragon meat or deep-fried kraken tentacles.
To Jethro, everything else seemed to be in its place. And no signs of the god of the Underworld. “Where are you hiding?” he whispered, looking overhead to the fire escapes and rooftops.
Nick, the trader of all things exotic, kept his nervous hands busy, rearranging bags of dried snail meat, cane toad secretion, and other hallucinogenic edibles, all while keeping an eye on the two alien-like customers trying on jewelry.
Jethro snuck up on Nick and rumbled into his ear, “Is the gator poisonous?”
Nick flinched, throwing a bag of monkey brains in the air. The officer’s skinny fingers clamped around the merchant’s arm, steadying the man and holding him hostage all at once.
Nick’s brown skin shone with sweat. His small black eyes reflected Jethro’s angled features. “Poisonous, yes. One nick of its teeth on your skin”—Nick’s Adam’s apple struggled for something to swallow in his dry throat—“if it claws you…even a scratch…the wound will fester and blacken until the flesh peels off your bones. But used carefully, in a mixture, it can dull pain.”
“Can you think of anyone who would want one of these critters loose on the street?” Jethro’s fingers tightened around the man’s arm.
“Ahhhow,” Nick moaned. “Many. There are sick people in these parts. Those who live for chaos and pain. You know the type better than most. Your sister—”
Jethro jerked Nick’s arm behind his back. “We aren’t talking about her, seller.”
Crying out, the merchant went limp in Jethro’s arms, sinking. Jethro stepped back and let Nick’s body hit the dirt. “Jackass.”
A gust of wind blew around them, garbage danced, old comic pages and plastic bags shifted and flew, resurrected from the black dirt. Jethro’s hand brushed the pistol strapped to his gun belt.
Phobetor, his lion face and slithering mane of snakes, materialized, shimmering into being, hovering three feet above the seller’s table. Thanatos peered over the shoulder of his brother, his death eyes matte black and endless, even in the holo.