I thought about everyone else that I cared about, including those in Lucius’ council. People that I hadn't seen in a long time. Hell, but it felt like an age ago, and I knew that time was different down here, depending on which realm you were in. It was like travelling the world and not knowing what the time difference was. It felt longer and I was starting to miss everything.
“Hey, you okay?” Nero asked, placing her hand on my arm to get my attention. I thought for a moment knowing that having Nero with me in all this was a comfort I should have felt guilty for feeling. But a comfort it was all the same and one she would probably never realise. I didn't want to do this alone, Gods, but I wasn't even sure that I could have. This was why I answered her truthfully,
“I know this may seem like a really awful thing to say, but I'm really glad you're here, I don't think I could have done this without you.” She looked thoughtful for a moment as if fully digesting my words and then with a slight smirk she said,
“You're right, that is a really shitty thing to say, but you know what, I'm glad you said it. Not that I think I've helped in any way shape or form, you know, since you have been doing all of the killing and all, but I am glad that you're not doing this alone...and of course you did save my life, so you're not that bad of a friend.” She joked making me laugh and once again easing that tension that I needed to let go of.
“Let's try this again shall we...let's get out of here,” I said, knowing I had repeated these same words the last time, just before we had been discovered.
“Yes please,” she agreed, and just as we started walking off a sinister laughter coming from behind us made us both take pause. We both turned our heads at the same time to look to see what type of crazy the Harpy Queen had sunk to next, neither of us liking the sound.
“Hey, where do you suppose she's trying to get to?” Nero questioned the second she saw the Queen dragging her broken body closer to the tower. It was the same one I had emerged from when trying to save Nero.
Her back was covered in blood from the deep lacerations the soul weed had caused, along with me crushing her bones with my mace. The brutal end of the V shape of bone coming out of her spine was bloody and covered with matted feathers from where I had cut her wings off.
I started to narrow my eyes, questioning like Nero had, as to where it was she thought she was going. Was she trying to get underground, potentially trying to find a place where she could heal? Personally, I thought the damage inflicted to her body looked too great and I didn't think it would be long before she ultimately bled to death. I believed her end was near and it was a mercy I could not grant for making that death a swift one. Not after knowing what she had been prepared to do to me. She would have seen me tortured over and over again along with Nero just to amuse herself. No, she didn't deserve a swift death, far from it.
I took a step closer and frowned having a bad feeling about the determination in the way she dragged herself across the floor. Doing so in what looked to be a painful endeavour and for what looked to be little gained. It didn't make sense, that was until I saw her reach for something.
“What is she doing?” Nero asked, watching her and obviously having the same concern as I, that the horror we had had endured was not yet over. That was when I remembered something from earlier. It had been before I'd walked out into the bailey to rescue Nero. A deadly sound I had heard coming from the depths below in the tower.
This was when dread filled my veins.
“Fuck!” I swore as I started running towards the Queen, hoping to prevent whatever it was she was trying to do. But then her evil cackle grew louder until it became like nails scratching the edges of my soul.
“You're too late! Nothing can save you now! Nothing!” The Harpy Queen started laughing hysterically as if the thought of our deaths was one that brought her great joy and even if she did die in the next few minutes, she would now do so happy in that knowledge.
“What the hell is she smoking now!” Nero shouted over to me, but the second I saw her grab the hidden lever, I knew I was too late. I skidded to a halt and started running back to her and before Nero could question why, she said,
“What the...oh wait, never mind.” This last part was in response to the thunderous demonic roar that ripped through the air as it echoed up the tower. The beastly snarling sound combined with that of the thundering footsteps of whatever it was she had released was now running up the staircase.
I turned to Nero with panic in my eyes and said the very last thing that I wanted to as the Hellhounds finally emerged …
“RUN!”
Chapter Nineteen
Nice Doggy
After shouting this, neither of us needed to be told twice as we left these gruesome memories behind when running through what was left of the gatehouse. Of course, the speed we both ran at had everything to do with the beasts that were chasing after us, meaning that we didn't stop, not even when crossing the precarious looking drawbridge.
It was one that had a large section missing from its centre and was merely held together by the beams either side of the hole that stretched to the land on the other side. I told myself the whole way across not to look down, but then again, we had no choice because if we didn't, then one wrong move and we would find ourselves falling into an abyss. The drop below could have been anything from ten feet to a hundred, if not more. I also doubted that you would have landed in any water usually found in a moat but instead through a cloud of fog, and one that could have covered up an endless drop. Either way, neither of us wanted to find out any time soon, hence our caution.
I felt as though I could only breathe the second I made it across. I also noticed that Nero was a lot nimbler than I was, making it across first. But once both of us were on the other side, this was when we got our first break. Because in the end, that giant hole where the missing beams of wood were, was a means of slowing down the beasts. We knew this after they had finally burst through the castle gate and had been forced to a stop, by digging their razor claws in the wood and gouging deep grooves in the planks, pealing it away like skin.
“Holy shit, you've got to be kidding me…seriously, Hellhounds!” I shouted, slapping out a hand in their direction as the demonic dogs snapped and growled on the drawbridge, with its damage preventing them from going any further.
“Oh, they're not just any Hellhounds,” Nero said giving me a bad feeling.
“But of course they're not, because some psycho Harpy Queen wouldn't keep normal pets in her basement, no, no, these ones have to be special Hellhounds,” I muttered sarcastically throwing up my hands.
“Yep, pretty much,” Nero agreed with my mocking reply.
I quickly thought back to that night in the silent garden on the roof of Lucius' German castle and the Hellhounds I had encountered there. But then looking at these now and I could definitely see the differences. Not only were they bigger but that cracked flesh seemed to glow with lava blood in between the broken skin. They reminded me of a cross between a panther and a Doberman, having pointed ears and long snouts. Their tongues whipped out like thin snakes and their glowing red eyes burned with hunger, burrowing into us. Spikes ran down the length of their arched spines, all the way to the tips of their tails that were complete with the largest and most deadly spike. Their hind legs were shorter than their front ones, lending all its menacing appearance to the front of their bodies. I just hoped that meant their bodies weren't particularly good when it came to jumping, or we were so unbelievably screwed.
“Just a quick and terrifying question I know I am going to regret asking but what's that under their skin?” I asked, referring to the glowing veins covering their bodies.
“Oh that, yeah, that's lava.” I shot her an incredulous look before she said,
“I think we should still be running.”
“Yeah, that sounds like a good plan right now.” I agreed, as it looked like the three Hellhounds weren’t giving up and kept trying to look for a way across. In reaction to this, w
e both turned around and started running down what looked like an overgrown road. We both continued to look behind us becoming more nervous by the second. Because even with the growing distance between us, we could still see the Hellhounds trying to make their way across.
So, we ran.
And we ran.
And then we ran some more until we could no longer see them.
“Where do you think we are?” I asked Nero after we both needed to stop to catch our breaths before passing out. Like me, Nero had her palms to the tops of her knees as she bent over taking deep breaths but at this question she straightened and looked around. To be honest I didn't think there was much of the landscape to be able to tell us wherever we were, but she still said,
“My guess, somewhere on the outskirts of Tartarus.” At this I sucked in a startled breath, because this is what Lucius' brother had been wanting to find out. He had wanted to know where this gate was and the place I knew from my future. I also knew it was the only way to stop the plague that was killing Lucius' people and one that would eventually reach me and my mother at the top of the Tree of Souls.
“What…what is it?” Nero asked, no doubt after seeing my face drop. I shook my head a little and told her it was nothing, when in actual fact, it was everything.
I knew that being in Tartarus and potentially this close to finding the gate he was looking for could be my only shot at stopping this. But I was torn because I also knew that I couldn't do this alone. However, this in itself presented a problem, as the person I needed was also the last person that would ever help me. This was because as soon as I made it back to Lucius, then it was doubtful I would be allowed to go even a few feet away from him. And let’s just say that I didn’t think my powers of persuasion were good enough to get Lucius to believe that Tartarus would make for a nice romantic weekend away.
Nero and I continued to run, stopping for only a few minutes to catch our breaths before we were off again. From the looks of things, then neither of us was in the best of shapes and at our fittest. But then having Hellhounds chasing after you was a heck of an incentive to get your ass moving. The only time we started to slow down was when the vast open space was no more and instead the view in front of us now, was that of a looming, dark forest. A forest, I should mention, that held nothing growing but giant soul weed.
The seemingly never-ending bush, if that was what it could be called, rose higher than trees in the forests back home. Their roots were pushed up from the ground as thick as tree trunks, and the way they arched made them look like giant grey snakes trying to hide in the dirt. It also reminded me of the scene from Sleeping Beauty where Maleficent surrounded the castle with thorns. Only in this forest the thorns were the length of VW Beetles and looked big enough to spear elephants!
“Well, this looks like a happy place,” I commented, making Nero reply,
“You're in Hell, sweetheart, what did you expect, A fairy tale forest with talking rodents?” Nero asked dryly whilst looking uneasy.
“Hey at this rate I'll take the Bates Motel even if it was situated on Elm Street!” I replied making her frown.
“Yeah, I don't know what any of that means,” Nero confessed.
“Tell me you've seen a horror movie before?” I asked, clearly shocked, well that was until she pointed out the obvious.
“What do I need to see horror movies for, I live in Hell, all I gotta do is step outside and I'm in a damn horror movie!” Okay, so granted she had a good point with that one, although I also thought it fair to make my own in return,
“And in what part of the movie do you come across three hot Scottish shifters huh?” She smirked, wagged her eyebrows and said,
“The part where the female lead gets laid.”
“Yeah, I think you will find that’s just called porn,” I told her.
“Ah potato, patato.” I laughed and to be honest this weird conversation we were having was currently the only thing keeping me sane as we walked down the centre of these creepy woods. It was formed in such a way that it looked as if the centre had been tunnelled out giving us at the very least a place to walk through it. Of course, we still didn’t have a single clue where we were going.
“I wonder what's at the end,” I said referring to the end of the tunnel of twisted soul weed.
“More creepy shit probably,” Nero said dryly making us both laugh, a sound that ended abruptly the second the demonic growls could be heard from behind us not too far away in the distance.
“Well, whatever it is, it's not gonna be as bad as what's coming for us…run!” I shouted, and once again we found ourselves running for our lives. Looking behind us now and we could see the Hellhounds emerge, looking vicious with red drool falling from their open mouths, pooling in their jaws and overflowing their teeth. I don't think I had ever seen a creature looking so hungry before. I knew we had to do something because there was no way we could outrun such beasts.
I suddenly stopped in the centre, turned to face them and pulled at the material over my shoulder.
“What are you doing?! Come on!” Nero shouted in an understandably panicked tone.
“I am going to use the Eye,” I told her fishing around and trying to touch it.
“Erm, is that wise?”
“Probably not, but here goes!” I shouted, before bracing myself and slapping a palm to the cold sphere. But then…nothing happened.
“What the…?” My question trailed off as I smacked it this time, trying to make the connection. But once again, nothing happened and now, here I was, in the middle of this new Hell, having a stand-off with three of its Hellhounds.
This was when I could think of only one thing to say…
“There, there…nice Doggy.”
Chapter Twenty
Temples Lost in Time
“What’s wrong?!” Nero shouted, ignoring my comment about nice doggies.
“I don’t know, it seems to be out of juice or something!” I told her and her navy eyes nearly popped out of her head.
“Out of fucking juice, it’s not a fucking car!” Nero said, hysterically this time. And it was justifiable panic considering the Hellhounds were getting closer by the second! I looked around frantically trying to think of what to do and really there was only one other option left.
“Come on! We're going to have to go into the soul weed!” I told her, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her with me.
“Are you crazy, how would we make our way through something like that?!”
“I don't know, but if we struggle then they most definitely will and right now, it's the only way, because let's face it we're not going to outrun them!” I told her making her see my point.
“Come on, I think I see a break.” I pointed to what seemed like a small tear in the thicket of the soul weed branches and we ran for it. But then just as Nero was pulling her foot through the gap, she got herself caught. Thinking fast, I grabbed her blade hooked inside her belt, and started chopping at the part that had her caught. It was tough stuff, but I managed to break it enough for her to wiggle her foot free. This was just in time too, as we both screamed falling backwards against the branches, as the face of the Hellhound snapped its jaws through the gap. We both scrambled back over each other, trying to free ourselves from the tangle of our bodies before breaking free enough to start climbing through it.
It was tough going but we made our way through far enough away that we no longer felt the threat of the Hellhounds making it through. Unfortunately, we also had no other choice but to continue on as we climbed and crawled and squeezed our bodies through the tightly entwined roots. Scraping our skin on the rough texture covering the branches and the smaller thorns snagged our clothes. Although with most thorns at this level being the length of my shoe they were easy to avoid. But on looking up these thorns also ranged from a foot long, all the way up to the length of school buses.
I couldn't help being thankful for this as I knew if they'd have been smaller then we would have been cut to piece
s. Thankfully, having bigger thorns meant they were easier to navigate around. The downside to this of course was that one wrong move and we could easily find ourselves impaled.
However, it was a risk we were willing to take considering the alternative was being ripped apart by Hellhounds. And I wasn't surprised when they stopped following us as the large beasts were five times that of a Great Dane and would find it difficult getting through such tight spaces. For a large part of the journey through, Nero and I had no other option but to crawl down on our bellies and drag ourselves over the smoother roots that covered the forest floor.
But it was worth it when, not long after starting, we could hear their whining and the growls of frustration, sounds that only died down the further we went. All we had to hope for was that there wasn't another way through for them to find.
“Okay, I'm getting real sick of commando training,” Nero complained, and I couldn't say that I blamed her. I opened my mouth just about to add to her complaints with those of my own, when I saw in front of us an opening. I could not explain the utter relief I felt when seeing this, making me grab out to shake her arm,
“What?” she said, looking down at my grip on her instead of looking in front.
“Look…LOOK! We made it through, we made it!” I shouted after what it seemed like crawling for days. Of course, in reality it could only have been an hour or two but that was definitely enough, as I didn't think I had ever felt so tired in all my life!
Roots Of Rage: A Vampire King Paranormal Romance (Transfusion Saga Book 9) Page 15