Page 31 of Another Underworld

Abaddon was staring at the table with a perplexed expression. “Is there a reason you have thirty grenades and a vibrator?” he asked, with a raised brow and a naughty twinkle in his eyes.

“Yes,” I replied with a laugh. “That electric banana, also known as a pocket peter, snatch blaster and the ever lovely portable peepee, is a gift from Cher. It’s actually a poisonousdart gun. It can knock even the strongest Immortal into unconsciousness for one minute.”

“You’re joking,” he said, leaning down and looking at it.

“Nope,” I told him. “Unless Cher was pulling my leg, we have a battery-operated cucumber weapon.”

Abaddon laughed. “Never a dull day with you, my love.”

“True that,” I replied. “I say we get moving.”

And we did. All one thousand and three of us ventured out into the night in search of more of our people. So far, so good. It just needed to stay that way.

CHAPTER TEN

Our attackson the first two of the three remaining camps went as smoothly as any battle could go. Amazingly, we’d suffered no casualties on our side. The same could not be said for the enemy. Their bloody demises had left me emotionless. The way they’d treated my people at the command of their false God was deplorable. They’d gotten what they’d deserved. You play… you pay.

Seeing my followers beaten down and starving had fractured something in my heart. I worried a bit at how little I felt for the slain, but I was living in a different world now. Demons were not inherently good, but they weren’t inherently bad either. At some point in their long lives, they had a choice—mostly good or all the way bad. It wasn’t much different from the human dilemma. The big difference was the Demons had magic and lived for an unfathomably long time. Logically, I knew that some of the guards had gone along with the false God out of fear for their own safety. Hearing their final pleas of “we didn’t know” and “we were only following orders” only made me angrier. They had been complicit in every horrific act that had been perpetrated on our people.

Nothing in the Darkness was black or white, only different shades of gray.

Even so, I tried to remember how important it was to keep my humanity while I protected those who called me their Goddess. If I lost it, I would lose myself. That’s what had happened to Pandora. She hadn’t started out as an evil Goddess who ruled the Darkness with fear, but she’d let pain turn her into an all-powerful being of nightmares. Turning into someone who forsook everyone and everything for revenge, well...that was unacceptable.

Living forever was still something I was trying to wrap my head around. Making sense of it seemed impossible. I was forty. Until recently, I thought I was embarking on middle age. Now? Not so much. I was a baby to the people I kept company with. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to live forever. Outliving man-mom, Sean and Lilith made me sad. I tried not to think about it. If I did, I’d cry. Pandora would have a heyday with that. I didn’t want to give the woman any more ammunition. She had enough as it was.

She was making small strides with our people. I’d made sure the word had spread that the first battle plan to save the prisoners was hers. Pandora was pissed, but it was the only thing that gave the bitch a little positive street cred with the Demons. She still had a long way to go. Her crappy habits were ingrained and difficult to unlearn. Goddess Pandora needed to break them or they would eventually break her. Most of the time, the hope she’d absorbed was difficult to see, but I knew it was there. I caught glimpses in the most unexpected moments.

Onward and upward. There was no going back.

Each camp looked like the last. The statue with the outsized genitals was the featured highlight of each one. My people had destroyed the statue in camps two and three. I was bummed wehadn’t thought about that before we’d left camp one. Whatever. It would be far more satisfying to destroy the real thing.

We’d walked through the night and arrived at the second camp before sunset. The third we’d taken at noon. The assassins had earned their keep. Neither Pandora, Abaddon, nor I even had to wield a fire sword. As expected, after the liberation, the Demon prisoners were suspicious of Pandora, but no one left us because of it. We were at three thousand troops now.

One thousand more to go.

“My Goddess,” Tiny said, moving up to walk with Abaddon and me in the front as we made our way to the final target before we went after the fake dude who thought he was in charge. “Your people have a request.”

The smile on his face was positively naughty. It was all I could do not to laugh.

I paused my forward motion and looked at him. “And what would that request be?”

He chuckled. “We’ve chosen names for the false God. We’d like your take on them.”

I was a little confused, but Tiny’s excitement was contagious.

“What do you think?” I asked Abaddon. “Is it safe to take a quick break?”

He looked up at the red sun in the inky purple sky and nodded. “If it’s for morale, then yes.”

“Definitely would raise morale,” Tiny assured us, bouncing on his toes.

For such a vicious warrior the man was like a little boy. “Then by all means, let’s stop for a bit,” I told him with a laugh.

Demons were such odd folks.

Tiny turned and ran back to the masses. The cheers from the crowd were a little unsettling. What in the hell had they named the God?

“This is absurd,” Pandora huffed with disdain.

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