Page 70 of Half Dead

“I would consider it a rare treat.”

“Tell me about the curse. Is there a way to break it?”

“I once believed so, such is the nature of curses.”

“But not anymore?”

“Not anymore,” he confirmed with a heavy sadness.

“I have a bit of experience with curses,” I said. I told him about Otto and Goran. “Otto seems genuinely content with his fate, whereas Goran seems more resigned.”

“A prince who was cursed,” the monster mused. “The opposite of me.”

“In a sense. I wish I had access to the library from here.” My palm flattened against my pocket, where I felt the hard contour of my phone. “Do you think I can get reception in here?”

“Reception?”

I pulled out my phone and held it up. “I have a library right at my fingertips.” I could try to access the internet, and if that didn’t work, I could call Hailey Jones, the Fairhaven librarian.

“You would use your remaining hours to help me?” Kumbhakara’s voice grew rough with emotion.

“Why not? I’m not eager to admit defeat to Lucifer. Might as well offset the impending bad with something good.”

The creature observed me with a long look. “Are you the goddess of rainbows?”

I snorted. “I wish. Try death and darkness. Ghosts. All the gloom and doom.”

“I do not feel gloom and doom in your presence. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“Thank you. The underworld is my original home.” I smiled. “I have a dog there; his name is Cerberus. People think he’s a monster because he has three heads with glowing red eyes and his saliva can kill you.” Okay, maybe it was a fair assessment.

Kumbhakara chuckled. “No wonder you have no fear of me when you have a companion like him.” He paused. “You said the underworld is your original home. Where is it now?”

“The human realm. A town called Fairhaven.” I typed on my phone to see if I could access the internet. A search for ‘Kumbhakara’ yielded a page of results. “Yes! It works.” Terrible service at the Castle, amazing service in a magical realm. Typical.

“You found something about the curse?”

“Not yet. Just a lot of misinformation about you.” It didn’t surprise me; myths and legends changed throughout history, depending on the speaker or writer. “Does your curse have a name?”

“The Sleeping Curse, I believe. That is what the wizard called it, anyway.”

“I hope it isn’t similar to Sleeping Beauty’s or Snow White’s because the odds of securing true love’s kiss in the next nine hours are slim.” Not to mention I couldn’t leave the lair until I was ready to face Lucifer.

“It would not work anyway. True love is a myth,” Kumbhakara declared.

My gaze fastened on his. “Excuse me?”

“The idea of true love, soul mates. Mere myths designed to give us hope, false though it may be.”

“I can understand your cynicism given your situation.”

“It surprises me that someone of your stature would believe such nonsense.”

“I don’t know about soul mates, but true love seems reasonable.”

“I suppose it depends on your definition. If you treat it as a mystical, transcendent concept…”

I considered his point. “No, I don’t. I guess when I think of true love, I’m talking about love that is genuine and runs all the way to your core.”

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