Page 53 of Monsters of Mayhem

Now I felt like Ryder was angry at me and worse than that, I felt he deserved to be.

“I’ll come through last,” Ratchet said.

Ryder gripped my elbow and it wasn’t a soft comforting grip. It was a ‘we’re going through the portal’ grip. I could tell his trust for me had been damaged by my visit to the DGC. There was nothing I could say. I had gone there for one reason and one reason only and I’d gotten distracted. I had suddenly thought the wedding rings could recommit our relationship. I had made that decision without consulting him. I had made that decision without talking to the one man who it really mattered to.

Worse than that, I had put the entire world in danger.

Ryder strode forcefully forward and I tried hard to keep up as we jumped through the portal together.

Going through a portal was sickening. It felt like my stomach flew up through my throat, but then it settled back down immediately upon landing on the other side.

We stood on a precipice of black lava rock. Ryder’s grip on my hand tightened.

“The big island,” Ryder said. “It’s the home of Cade, the child of Vulcan.

“Is he in on this idea with Magnus?” I asked. “Is he trying to get the monsters across the rift?”

“That’s what we’re about to find out,” Ryder said as the rest of the team appeared on our side of the portal. We stood at the entrance to a chamber that led to a cave which I presumed led into the demigod’s realm.

“Why does everything have to be so dangerous?” I asked.

“Because this isn’t the human world,” Ryder growled. “In the human world you live in a dangerous place but you don’t recognize it. You all want to live in your happy space and you make rules and laws that try to control the danger, but it is eminent in everyday life. You get behind the wheels of your cars and you don’t know you’re taking your life into your own hands. You avoid the reality of death like it’s the plague.”

“That’s really cheery,” Laney said, catching Ryder‘s last words. “What if we like the way it is? What if it doesn’t have to be doom and gloom all the time?”

“Come on. We need to go and talk to Cade.” Ryder ignored Laney’s questions.

I had been expecting to land and find a bunch of monsters attacking, but instead we walked as a crowd through the dark bowels of the earth inside a volcano.

The hallways were large as if bored by a giant earthworm. I imagined they were lava tubes like ones I’d walked through in Oregon when I’d been out there on a business trip. The walls were smooth and black and the floor had a layer of fine ground sand.

Laney took a deep breath. “It’s beautiful in here.”

I glanced over at her, and my jaw dropped.

“You’re glowing,” I said.

“I’m not surprised. I feel so good on the inside,” she said.

“No, I mean you’re really glowing, like your skin’s luminescent,” I said. Everyone turned to look at Laney in surprise.

“A firefly,” Lady Albright murmured.

“We study those in school,” Elle said.

“Great. Just what we need is another new supernatural,” Ratchet ground out.

“It’s true?” Laney said so loudly it echoed in the hallways. She held out her hands, looking at them and turning them over in her vision. “I’m glowing!” she exclaimed. “What power is this?” She flung her hand out waiting to see if it would shoot darts or something, I supposed.

“You’re a firefly,” Eunice said.

“What the hell is a firefly?” Laney asked. “I mean, I don’t care what it is. It’s cool as all shit.”

“You bring light to the darkness,” Lady Albright said.

“That’s it?” Laney asked.

“It’s not a bad skill to have.” Eunice commented.

---