Samantha and Agent James glanced at each other. He squeezed her hand and she nodded, before standing and an entire silent conversation passed between them.
I had a moment—be it brief, stupid, bitter and fleeting—when I wondered what that sort of understanding felt like. I imagined Dulcie and me exchanging a look that comprised paragraphs of speech left unspoken, words of kindness and understanding and love rather than…
But I digress.
“So,” I said. “Meg.”
“Yeah,” said Dulcie. “Meg.” All our worst fears were confirmed but it was nothing new to any of us. At this point, I would have been more surprised to learn this creature was not of Meg’s doing.
Dulcie sniffed and blinked and her face was clear. Her eyes reflected pools of utter despair, rage and frustration. Her grief was as deep and infinite as the ocean. The colors of her sorrow pierced my heart like arrows, and for a moment, I thought I might collapse.
Empathy, it is called. A sensation as old as hope and fear. Such a peculiar feeling. And not one I enjoyed by any stretch of the imagination.
“What do we do?” inquired Samantha. She should have asked, what did Dulcie want us to do? This crisis belonged to all of us—every one of us had been burned and drowned and tortured at the hands of my maker—but it was Dulcie’s personal crisis now, so the decision belonged to her.
“Call the FBI,” Dulcie commanded. “Um… and provide protection details for everyone.” She pushed herself onto her feet, brushing the loose dirt and pebbles from her knees. She looked at all of us with eyes of iron as she took a long breath. “And find its sibling before it does something awful.”
ELEVEN
Knight
I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
It was inane and overly distracting, as I was climbing a goddamn mountain. I really should have paid more attention to the thousand-foot drop, but I didn’t. I was staring at the blank black stone, and using my hands and feet to find my way. Dulcie’s face was in every crevice and shadow. Nothing nearby was even remotely shaped like a face, let alone, Dulcie’s, but it didn’t matter. The mountain was right in front of me and she wasn’t, so I guess that was enough to bring her to mind.
I wondered not-so-casually if Dulcie knew I was gone from the office and if she even cared. I wondered if she’d be pissed or relieved to realize I’d disappeared.
I also wondered what she’d do if I died here. Count her blessings and move the fuck on, I replied to myself miserably.
You have slowed down, said Hades.
“Shit really?” I asked, grunting. “I didn’t know we were timing our pace.”
Your time runs short.
“Yeah, along with my fucking patience,” I muttered. Reaching forward, I hooked my fingers around the next stair, and pulled. A whole chunk of sandy black and red earth broke away, falling behind me into the deep, dark nothingness, and leaving me swinging by one arm.
Do not think of her. She is overly distracting you.
I hauled myself up onto a low, slightly wider stretch of ground, grinding my teeth together so hard, I was a little surprised one of them didn’t break. “Actually, you’re the only one distracting me.”
Hades paused. Climb.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
Stalling.
“Fuck you.”
What I was climbing up wasn’t really stairs as much as shallow, infuriatingly steep cutouts perfectly designed for mountain goats and other animals that have no fear of falling. They glowed when I touched them, humming faintly, a piano staircase only a hundred thousand years out of tune. Even with a gun to my head, I couldn’t tell you how long I climbed up, but I can tell you the stairs consisted of a lot of bullshit winding. They had to go down a couple of times whenever the jutting rocks or masonic founders prevented them from continuing up. By the time I stumbled on the rock landing above the clouds, I was so tired and pissed, I was ready to punch Hades in the face as hard as I could. I’d probably break my knuckles just trying, but honestly, that might not have been enough to stop me.
There was a deep rumbling sound, and then a high whine like a humpback whale song. The ground shook and the clouds went totally dark. Even the sky seemed to literally tremble, like it was glitching right out of existence.
Hades made a deep rumbling noise of his own. His presence grates upon this place, he said, sounding more irritated than anything else.
“His?” I asked.
Meg and her Darkness have violated my dimension in their contact, reaching through and joining hands, dripping the viscera of their union upon my altar, he explained as his grip tightened on his staff.
“Can you repeat that in English?”
He sighed audibly, his shoulders drooping. The Darkness lies beneath this world. You and Meg are from the places above it. To connect, one must pass through here. There are many holes now: in the earth, the clouds, the sea, always opening and closing like hungry mouths. His teeth clacked loudly together. They wound the sky and offend the sand.
Hades suddenly went quiet.
We’re here, he said, tapping his staff against the ground. Smugness poured out of him like a fog machine.
“No… shit…” I said, bent over, my hands on my knees as I fought to catch my breath. A massive arch of old, red stone loomed before us. The air around it pulsed like a beating heart. From beneath the stone came the screech of gusting wind.
Do you require a moment?
I scoffed. I need a fucking drink, I thought.
You will find nothing of the kind out here. You may rest though if you must.
“I’m fine.” I pushed myself upright and wiped away a mustache of sweat.
Hades drifted forward. He looked a little different, now that we’d been here a while. He was not that much changed, but his skeleton seemed darker, if that were possible, and the lights in his eyes appeared brighter. They flared every time the lightning struck the clouds above.
Inside, he said.
“Inside,” I mimicked. He gave me what I would have called a scathing look if I saw it on a human face.
A thick wave of heat washed over me as I walked beneath the arch.
I stared down into the frothing magma, letting the heat warm my face. The mountain seemed to breathe; and a rumbling could be heard underneath the wind, like the inhale and exhale of something ancient and unimaginably big. A gong stood at the edge of a long platform suspended above the lava, gleaming red from beneath. Its polished gold surface was a mandala of shallow etchings: mostly demons on fire and Lokis with burning swords. None of the Lokis had faces, and all of the demons had eyes.
The whole edifice appeared to be a forgotten temple, the kind of place where you would find lots of traps and monsters hidden inside the brickwork. I put my hands into my pockets, sweating and panting as I whistled softly.
“Whoa,” I said.
Whoa, indeed, replied Hades.
“It’s hot in here.”
It certainly is, he agreed.
“Am I supposed to hit it?” I asked, pointing over my shoulder at the gong.
What do you think?
I raised my eyebrows at him.
Strike it, said Hades, eventually.
“With what?”
Your fist. Your foot, your head. It does not matter, but you must be the one who awakens it.
I didn’t like the implication that the gong, or the volcano, was a sleeping, living entity, but we were leagues past the point of no return. I stepped up to the gong, took a deep breath, and punched it as hard as I could.
I expected to hear a deep, metallic tolling; what I actually heard was a high ping and an echoing whisper that spread out like ripples in the golden circle. It instantly sent thousands of hushed voices spinning though the cavern. They became absorbed inside the red walls and withered away into nothing.
Slowly, things began to take shape.
Shadows poured out of the stone, smoke and vapor twisting themselves into something human wi
th a sound like a cement mixer.
They had bodies and faces too. Beings…
Gabriel collapsed onto the stone, coughing and spitting. “What… the… fuck…?”
“Gabe?” I asked as I looked at Hades and held up my hands. My face was stretching with utter confusion. “What the hell? What are you doing here?”
Then I remembered what Hades said about coming here to “collect my army.” It never occurred to me to ask what my army was composed of.
Lokis. Of course. What the hell else could it have been?
Your army, he said, seconds after I got it.
“Right,” I said as I walked over to Gabe to pull him to his feet. Around us, more shadows were forming, solidifying, and bubble-bursting into five, ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred Lokis. Some I knew, and some I’d never seen before. Several fell over while coughing and cursing, and a few sputtered like they’d been close to drowning, while others landed perfectly on their feet. They calmly looked around as they pulled their sleeves back into place. A few of them were wet and naked, yanked straight out of the shower. (Yeah, that was pretty funny.) All of them revealed the glowing gold skin that distinguished all Lokis in the Netherworld. Now, however, it was not a dull, pulsating Christmas light, but much more substantial, like a flash grenade under a blanket. Maybe their blood was glowing.
We were inside the mountain of our own making, so hell, maybe it was.
Gabe was cursing as I knelt beside him. “You okay, man?” I asked, knowing it was a really stupid question, but it seemed like the right thing to say.
“What the flying fuck,” he answered, staring at his hands with confused, narrowed eyes, and his mouth in an O shape. “What the hell is this? I’m a goddamn lightbulb.” He looked up and a full ten seconds passed before he recognized me. “Knight?”
“Hey, Gabe,” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder to keep him from falling over.
“Are we dead?”
“No,” I answered.
“Um,” he started and looked around.
“You lucid?” I asked. “Not going to have a panic attack or some shit?”
“Sorta lucid but no panic attack.” Gabe shook his head and immediately, his eyes unfocused, like the whole world was turning cartwheels around him. “God damn. Where the fuck are we?”
“Loki City,” I said. Hades made a disgruntled sound behind me and I rolled my eyes. “The Mountain of Shadows. We’re in a magic Loki group-call or something.”
“Mountain of Shadows?” Gabe nodded like it sounded about right and looked around. “Fuck, there’s a lot of us.”
You will need each and every one, said Hades.
Gabe’s eyes narrowed. “Um. Who the hell is that?”
I followed his stare and realized he was looking at Hades. I guessed it made sense that the other Lokis could see him too. “That’s Hades,” I said.
“Like… the…god?” he asked slowly.
I am your maker, said Hades, sounding cold and severe. Gabe blinked at him a few times, as if he expected the ebony skeleton to abruptly disappear, or maybe burst into flames.
“Yeah,” I said, feeling like I was apologizing for what my racist grandma said aloud in a restaurant. Sorry, she’s just like that sometimes.
“It’s a long story.”
“No kidding,” Gabe replied absently, peering around me to gawk at the God of the Underworld. “Think it’s a long story we should hear?”
“Probably,” I said. “But not right now. We’ve got bigger problems.”
“Bigger problems than Hades?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Meg.”
The lights under Gabe’s skin flickered like dying bulbs. “Oh. Shit.”
“Right?”
“I thought she was dead?”
“Yeah, not so much.”
“So, what’s she trying to do now?”
“To end the world or something.”
“Or something?” asked Gabe.
Around us, Lokis were groaning and cursing as they recovered from whatever magic the gong used to bring them here. “Yeah. That’s what all this is for.” I spun my finger in a circle in the air, indicating everyone around us.
She has bound herself to a darkness that is beyond even my ken, Hades intoned. I’d never heard anyone say something I could label as intoning before, but his words were so long and oily, and they sounded less like an answer and more like a prayer or a prophecy. In practice, it may have been both.
“Okay,” said Gabe. “And?”
And, Hades continued, she is prepared to unleash its full fury upon the world.
“Full fury… meaning what, exactly?” asked a Loki I didn’t recognize. He was tall and broad, like all of us were, with dark hair and olive skin. He glared at Hades unashamedly with his arms crossed. The way he was standing, while staring daggers into the god, reminded me so much of Dulcie. His stance was slightly different, and his eyes were all wrong, and even if he wasn’t as righteously angry as she definitely would have been, if she and Hades ever crossed paths, his sheer attitude brought her to my mind.
She’d no doubt hate this and probably laugh in my face if I told her I was preparing to lead a whole army of Lokis into battle. She’d say something snarky about my poor impulse control and how Lokis can’t listen to anybody but themselves, which was absolutely true. Then she’d laugh and kiss me and I’d kiss her and… fuck.
I forgot for half a second what had happened between us and where we now stood--nowhere. Now Dulcie was way more likely to slap me or, worse, just ignore me than to smile at me, let alone, do anything more. My stomach sank into my heels and the cold I felt came from the inside out.
Full fury means hordes upon hordes of monsters only you can kill, said Hades. His fingers clicked against his staff. I began to think his finger clicking was an old habit, something he did when his creations acted really fucking stupid.
“Just us? We’re the only ones that can kill Meg’s monsters?” asked Gabe.
Yes. They originate from the place where I was born. Only those born of my fire can banish them permanently. We must rip out their hearts of stone and crush the shadows within to dust. Other creatures may slay the bodies, but the corrupted soul will simply abandon its shell and find another to occupy.
“Rip out their hearts,” I said.
“So like,” said Gabe, scratching his head, “why can’t you just get rid of them?”
It is not within my capability.
“Of course it isn’t,” I grumbled. Hades didn’t dignify me with a response.
“Aren’t you a god?” Gabe asked.
Of course.
“So?”
Gods can lead. Gods can advise. Gods can summon. But they cannot get their hands dirty.
Gabe looked at me. “Is he for real?”
“Yeah.”
Gabe raised his eyebrows. “Well. All right.” He blinked a few times as his eyes got wider. “Whoa.”
“What?” I said.
“Dude, has your hair always been that dark and your skin is like gold…”
I looked at Hades. “How long will it take them to pull out of this?”
Hades surveyed the stumbling crowd. Not long. Seconds more.
He didn’t move, but I got the distinct impression he was smiling. I am sure.
It only took another minute for everyone to recover from their transport-induced stupor. After plenty of cursing and blinking, everyone looked like they had the mother of all hangovers, but eventually we got the plan, such as it was, into everybody’s head. Go back, find Meg, and kick her ass. Or something to that effect. Everyone already knew who she was. It was pretty much impossible not to know, regardless of where you lived or worked.
Hades stood at the edge of the pit, staring at me, his impatience oozing like toothpaste.
“Okay,” I said, gesturing to the disgruntled glowing masses. “I’ve got my army. Now, how do we get back?”
Hades tilted his head at me, at all of us really, and turned slowly toward t
he magma pool that was gurgling far below. His skeleton became a burning crimson from beneath, and he stared into it like a hawk stares into a field for a mouse. He was searching for something none of us had any hope of seeing at this distance.
He spoke to me. Jump.
I blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”
Hades was unamused. Jump into the volcano.
“Jump into the volcano,” repeated Gabe.
Yes.
“This volcano?”
Yes.
“Are you fucking insane?”
Hades looked at him, the embers in his eyes flaring with irritation. You. Are. Fireproof.
“Fire and lava are two very different things, my dude,” said Gabe.
I blinked and Hades was suddenly in front of him, the hollow of his nose barely inches from Gabe’s face. You were forged in the fires of Hades. These fires. You were born here. Your bones were carved from these walls, your soul was distilled from the heart of the mountain below. He pointed behind him. Jump. Into. The. Fucking. Volcano.
I laughed uncomfortably. It was the first time I’d heard Hades curse. So it was kind of funny.
Go, he said. His voice had the rumbling undercurrent of a pissed off thundercloud.
“A’right, dude, just chill,” said Gabe. He rubbed his hands together and smiled at me. “Viva la Pluto.” He jumped in with a “Woo-hoo!” and disappeared beneath the lava.
“Is he going to be okay?” I asked Hades.
I would not have dragged you all this way if my only intent was to kill you.
“I wouldn’t put anything past you,” I responded.
Hades made a deep grumbling sound and his eyes sparked violently red.
I held up my hands. “I jest.”
Just jump.
I turned to the rest of the Lokis and clapped once. “Let’s move.”
“Right,” someone said, leaning over the edge, “into the volcano.” He shook his head and stepped back, saying, “What the hell,” before he took a running leap into the lava.
###
Ten minutes later, everyone was successfully through.
“That’s all of us,” I said.
No, said Hades as he held up a hand. No. Not yet. We must wait.
What Screams May Come Page 13