But all I could think about was my satchel sinking to the bottom of the lava ocean.
Seeing I no longer held the spear, he let go and stepped back. I rasped out a breath, and instantly scrambled to the side of the boat, staring down into the lava, searching for any sign of my satchel in the shifting, molten rock. I felt no heat, but instincts are hard to ignore. This was fucking lava, not water.
Before I could think too hard about it, I took a deep breath, and then shoved my hand into the fucking lava. Anubis watched me thoughtfully, making no move to stop me. I frantically grasped, sweeping my hand from left to right, wondering if the lava had simply burned the satchel out of existence in seconds.
My hands touched something, and I let out a gasp of relief, instantly lifting it up from the depths. Too late, I realized it was one of the souls tied to the boat, and he had grabbed me right back, latching onto my forearm. With a snarl, I yanked my hand out of the lava to find a balding man with a congress-issued grin staring up at me, fingers grasping onto the side of the boat for dear life. “Look,” he pleaded in a rasping voice, “I can make you a deal. I can—”
I reached down, grabbed my spear, and swiftly stabbed him through the throat on instinct, not even consciously deciding to do it.
My spear… gobbled him right up, the massive ruby flashing once before the soulless soul of the senator winked out of existence. Remembering Anubis’ dislike of the spear, I tossed it back into the boat, and reached out even deeper into the lava, desperate now to find whatever remained of my satchel.
Because the items inside were all I had left from my parents. I couldn’t just let them go.
And… Callie had given me that satchel.
I had never – before this moment, my arm submerged in lava – really considered how much that gift had meant to me. That she had bought me such a rare gift was great, but more than that was the fact that she had gotten me a satchel, at all.
Callie had arrived at my door one night out of the blue, and had told Dean she needed me in Kansas City at a hotel – the same hotel where we had almost kissed…
Then she had promptly left before Dean could respond or go get me. Thinking she was in danger, I’d arrived half-dressed, ready for war, clutching a tattered satchel full of dangerous weapons to help me save her. I hadn’t even hesitated to answer her call.
And I’d found her – absolutely not in danger – sitting on the roof of the hotel. She’d teased me about the satchel absently, and then we’d spent some time drinking and talking. She hadn’t been in danger at all – she’d just wanted to bounce some ideas off of me.
And seeing me arriving ready for war with a torn satchel, she had silently decided that I needed a new one.
She could have bought me a Mickey Mouse satchel for all I cared. Quality wasn’t the point. A friend – one who knew me barely at all at that point in our lives – had gotten me one of the most thoughtful gifts she could think of. Not something that I said I wanted – anyone could do that – but something she knew I needed.
People don’t normally do that. They discover your interests and find something super flashy and cool that you would probably like based on those interests. Or they just flat out ask you.
But to silently observe someone, pick up on the subtle nuances behind the person, silently dissecting what made them tick, and what meant the most to them, and then to nonchalantly buy them the thing they wouldn’t have ever asked anyone for…
That was an attention to detail rarely seen. And to do that for someone you hardly knew…
So, yeah. I realized in this moment that the fucking satchel was pretty fucking important to me, for multiple fucking reasons.
And hanging out of Charon’s boat in the deepest levels of Hell, with Anubis sitting beside me, having just obliterated a soul with my mysterious new spear, and shoving my arm up to my armpit in an ocean of lava, a funny thought flittered across my mind.
Maybe, just maybe, this was what love felt like.
Not the ocean of lava aspect, but the emotion fueling me to shove my arm into the lava without concern for the consequences.
I was waving my arm back and forth, now, panting as I stretched, reaching, the molten lava rolling over my fingers like warm syrup, when Anubis cleared his throat behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder – still searching with my other hand – and froze.
Anubis dangled my satchel in his claws, letting it swing back and forth. He was grinning as I stared at him, my mind short-circuiting. I’d seen him throw the satchel…
“I always wondered,” he said conversationally, “what it felt like, pretending to throw a ball and then watching as your dog took off in a dead sprint, chasing down the ball…” he grinned wickedly, “that you’re really still holding in your hand. It makes more sense, now,” he admitted, tossing the bag at my feet.
I stared into the dog-like god’s soulless eyes. “You… are an asshole.” I couldn’t believe I’d fallen for it.
Anubis ignored my accusation, giving me a very deep look, his eyes narrowed as if he hadn’t truly seen me – or recognized my level of insanity – up until this point.
Something brushed my hand – the one I had forgotten about in the lava – and I shrieked instinctively, jerking it away and splashing lava all over me in the process.
Luckily, it didn’t burn, and I turned to see Charon treading lava, staring up at me with a concerned frown. He had reached out to touch my hand, scaring the shit out of me.
“It’s couture,” I muttered, shaking lava from my fingers.
I let out a faint shudder, my brain only just now beginning to process what I had done – submerging my entire arm in lava. I should be dead. Good thing Charon’s beer hadn’t worn off.
I reached out a hand, pulling Charon back into the boat. He was staring at me wonderingly. “I’m really glad your beer kept me from losing an arm,” I told him, laughing shakily. I felt slightly dizzy, the adrenaline wearing off and likely sending me into a form of shock.
He stared at me, shaking his head. “The beer wore off ten minutes ago,” he told me softly. “I thought you knew that when Anubis pretended to throw your satchel into the lava.”
I jolted, staring down at my arm.
And saw a faint flicker of gold where my veins were visible under my skin.
Anubis grunted, staring at my arm thoughtfully. “Looks like I guessed right… You do have a little god in you…”
Chapter 23
Charon kicked the motor back on, not speaking or drinking as he did. Which let me know just how bizarre the situation had really been.
“I needed to test your heart,” Anubis told me, obviously not a question. He held up a paw, pads aimed at me, and closed his eyes, murmuring something exotic under his breath, probably Egyptian. Or Jackal-ese.
“And my mortality, apparently,” I muttered, studying my hand. The flickers of gold were faint, maybe one or two a minute. A weaker form of what they had been directly after I had killed Athena, when they had shone like permanent glow sticks for a short time.
“I don’t understand,” I finally admitted. “You saw, I barely had any last time I was here, and I used the last of it to power up my hammer and fight Alaric, accidentally breaking Mordred out of his cell. Why would you put me in that room, anyway, knowing Mordred was locked up in there?”
Anubis studied me, thoughtfully. “Thank you for finally telling me about the hammer…”
I winced inwardly, realizing that I’d just slipped up.
But Anubis just chuckled. “I knew about the Key from the beginning,” he said, waving a paw dismissively. “Odin told me about it before you first came to Hell. But when I searched your bag and didn’t find it…” he said, locking eyes with me, “I thought we’d been wrong. That you weren’t the one to take out Mordred.”
I did a whole lot of staring, remembering that Anubis had seemed desperate to find a Key in my satchel. I hadn’t known what he meant at the time, but to hear that he’d known about it
all along… that Odin had told him about my hammer…
Made me feel very concerned.
Odin didn’t just talk hammers with anyone. Only one hammer really held his interest…
Anubis continued, saving me from panic-inducing introspection. “My original plan had been that you had enough god juice to kill him outright. When I realized you didn’t, and had no Key, I saw no harm in tossing you in the cell.” He lifted his eyes to mine. “But look at you now…”
“But what does all of this mean?” I demanded.
“I think it means you’re the fucking Catalyst. You already claimed your Devourer,” he muttered, kicking the spear that still sat on the bottom of the boat. “Although you failed to fucking use it when you had Mordred sitting twelve inches away from you,” he growled.
I frowned. “Devourer?”
Anubis sighed. “Souleater, Devourer, Neverwas… More of them than I’d care to admit floating around on Earth. They go by many names. But before you play with a Devourer, I recommend you regrow your Ichor.”
I frowned at him, then down at my veins, wondering what I wanted to ask him about, first. “The gold stuff? I thought it was only called Ichor when inside a god.”
Anubis arched a brow, his silence speaking volumes. “We already talked about this…”
I was already shaking my head. “Nope. I’m not a god. My parents are right over there, remember? In your chain-gang.”
He waved away my comment. “Semantics. A Godkiller becomes a god by default. In a way. It’s all very complicated for your tiny, almost non-existent, speck-of-dust-sized brain, so let’s just leave it at the fact that you’re technically a god. And technicalities can win Wars.”
I studied him. “The Catalyst thing…” I said out loud.
He nodded. “That’s a part of it. Or, that’s the whole of it, depending on how you look at these types of things.”
“Right. These types of things. Like wondering why hot dogs come in packs of ten, but hot dog buns come in packs of eight,” I mused. “Just a pointless debate. Fun for a laugh, but ultimately, not that big—”
I cut off as he abruptly lifted his paw, reminding me of his ability to fist me into oblivion.
Well, use his fist to crush my heart, not the other kind of fisting.
Realizing that was all he was going to say about it, I scratched at my chin. Was that why the lava hadn’t harmed me? Just to be safe, I reached into the cooler for a few more beers, dumping them liberally over myself. Satisfied, I set my elbows on my knees.
He met my eyes. “I applaud you on deceiving me, and I forgive you for it.”
This was him doing me a very big favor, judging by the look in his eyes. I nodded gratefully. “Thank you. So… how do I regrow my Ichor? I thought I used up the last of it to beef up the Hammer.”
“The Hammer. Right.” He was watching me very intently, that smug grin on his face.
“Yeah. The big fucking stone hammer, or Key, as you called it,” I explained. Part of me wondered if the Hammer was some sort of Devourer, since I’d seen it eat Alaric’s soul. But it didn’t have a stone on it, and it hadn’t eaten every soul it came across, where my spear sure had.
Anubis was silent for a few minutes, eyes distant, coming to some decision. “You are going to go back to your realm,” he said, turning back to me, and seeming to speak very deliberately, choosing his words carefully. “You are going to use every tool in your precious little treasure box, your Mask, Ichor, and every speck of magic you can beg, borrow, or steal. Maybe this will give you the strength to destroy Mordred. The table and sword are not what you think, and he must not get his hands on them. You are going to make an example of him. You will return my Nine Souls. You are my emissary in this. You are my hand. I own your soul—”
Charon popped the tab on another beer, ruining Anubis’ threatening speech. I was finding more and more reasons to be happy that I had always paid homage to the alcoholic, scarecrow-looking reaper. “I think he gets it,” Charon muttered drily, taking a healthy gulp of his beer. “Maybe you should calm the fuck down.”
The resulting silence was as brittle as glass. “What did you just say?” Anubis snarled, leaning forward.
Charon, with the patience of a priest, downed the rest of his beer, then crushed it on his forehead, tossing the empty out into the lava. I guess it wasn’t littering when the can would dissolve in milliseconds.
Charon gripped the paddle in his hand and climbed to his feet. He thumped the butt into the boat and I shivered as I felt a pulse of power emanate from it. Then I blinked to see that the paddle was suddenly a rough, but deadly looking iron spear, of sorts, like an iron leaf, but each of those nicks and gouges as sharp as any razor. Like someone had made a paddle into a blade, sharpening the edges, beating it against thousands of other blades, and then retooling each scarred indentation. The beauty was in its function, not its perfection.
Anubis sat very still, lips curled back defiantly, challenging Charon and his spear with respectful wariness. I realized I was in a very shitty location for this family feud.
Right in the middle.
And what was Charon thinking? Wasn’t Anubis his boss? I didn’t want to have the Boatman’s death on my conscience.
Charon slowly lifted a hand to the stitches on his mouth and tugged one free. Then another, until half his mouth was open. Anubis might as well have been a statue, no longer looking as aggressive. I don’t exactly know how to describe what emanated from Charon’s mouth, but it was like silvery fog, and it was as cold as liquid nitrogen.
Charon was like Mr. Keystone. I had never thought I would hero-worship cheap light beer, but in this moment, sitting on his boat in the middle of Hell, watching the Boatman flex his muscles for the first time against Anubis, I suddenly realized that frat bros across the universe actually had a spokesperson – a god listening to their drunken prayers.
All those lonely, desperate frat bros praying for women with lower standards, stronger protein shakes, popped collars, new Axe Body Spray scents, and more s-medium sized muscle tees.
Charon spoke. “You’re on my boat, Anubis. I think you just might be overplaying your hand, here. Temple has shown you nothing but respect, even impressed you, as impossible as that is to believe. Perhaps you should extend the fucking courtesy.” He lifted a hand to another set of stitches, and I realized that this last knot was one solid thread.
The last stitch that – if tugged free – would open his mouth entirely. Which, judging by the dog-headed god’s I just crapped on the living room floor face, wasn’t a desirable outcome.
“I could give this a little yank…” Charon said, pinching the twine between his fingers.
Anubis lifted a hand, stalling him. He didn’t look pleased, but he did look defeated. In fact, he looked… humbled. “Well played, Boatman. One so easily forgets that you are formidable in your own right. Always sitting back, drinking your brews, cruising the lakes in leisure. Perhaps I had forgotten why you were hired,” he admitted, dipping his head slightly. “My apologies.” He turned to me. “To the both of you.”
I nodded, remembering that I really wasn’t in the physical position to get out of the way if they threw down, and although my Ichor had prevented the lava from melting my arm off in point-three seconds, I wasn’t sure I was up to testing it out with a swim to the shore while the two duked it out.
“But my demand still stands. You will do this thing,” Anubis said in a gravelly tone.
“Then he shall get something in return,” Charon pressed.
Anubis studied him. “What did you have in mind, Boatman?”
“Relieved of his debt to you, and he gets two get-out-of-Hell-free cards,” Charon said, as if he had planned this out well ahead of this conversation.
Anubis blinked at him. “Two…” he said, glancing thoughtfully at the cliffs we had left behind, where my parents had been working.
My heart suddenly skipped a beat in realization. Wait… what the hell was going on here?
>
Anubis smiled way too emphatically for me to feel entirely good about it. “Agreed.”
“Agreed,” Charon said.
When I hesitated, Charon nudged me with his wicked paddle, and I felt a bone deep frost flick my soul, causing me to yelp as I jumped clear. “Fine. Agreed,” I shivered.
Anubis gripped me by the shirt, pulling me close. “I’m warning you… pull no punches against Mordred. If you think, for just one moment, that you are overpowered, you will realize the error in your judgment. Overkill is your only salvation. Use every tool, every Key at your disposal, not just your Devourer. It’s not strong enough to hold all Nine Souls, so make sure your cat’s Eyeless gets a Devourer, too. I recommend a blue one,” he said with a meaningful wink. “Maybe then, you’ll stand a slim chance of survival.”
I blinked at the rapid fire. “My cat? What the hell does that mean? Talon?”
Anubis nodded. “His spear. It’s just like yours, but it is missing its Devourer, so it’s Eyeless at the moment.”
I blinked at him. “Talon… his last name is Devourer,” I said, freaking out a little.
“Huh. Imagine that,” Anubis muttered, smirking. “Almost like it means something.”
I shook my head, clutching my satchel and spear anxiously. “No. I named him Talon the Devourer. As a child. There is no way I could have known it meant something more important. I was just a stupid fucking kid giving my pet a name,” I snapped, realizing that I was panting, shaking my head furiously in denial.
“From the mouths of babes,” Anubis chuckled.
I was shivering, hugging my toys to my chest like a security blanket. My temples began to throb, not helped by the fact that I was still jerking my head back and forth in denial. I had just been a kid naming a cat Pan had brought over. An orphan. Coincidences like that didn’t exist. I felt like I was drowning, spinning out of control, my memories of my childhood in Fae – the moment I had met Talon and named him – merging with my current predicament, and the importance of these Devourers in killing Mordred, in taking away his Nine Souls.
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