Page 76 of As Darkness Fall
The final member of our party shook his head. “No, ma’am,” he said respectfully. “I’d like to know more about what happened here.”
I had already started to turn away when Fred added those last words. Something in them made me give him a double-take. He stared back at me, his face still relaxed. Not giving away a thing.
Just another mystery, then. He was coming with us, however, and that was all that mattered.
“Good,” I said, and this time when I started up again, the others all fell into step around me without hesitation.
Okay, you got them all moving, I thought to myself as we marched through the desolate reddish landscape.Now, what the fuck am I supposed to do?
I pondered that question over and over again until we rounded a corner in our little confined pathway and were abruptly dumped out at the top of a gentle slope. The land on either side of us was flat, and the rocky terrain smoothed down into what looked like sand. But that wasn’t what caught my attention.
At the base of the slope, a slow-moving morass of black liquid stretched from left to right, running as far as even my sharp eyes could see. The far side was shrouded in a bank of slate-gray mist that seemed to hover in place.
“A river,” I remarked. “In the land of the dead.”
“The River Styx,” Vir supplied as he stopped next to me, our arms nearly touching.
I didn’t move away this time. My Soulbond was relatively quiet here in the Underworld, but just then, I felt like moving closer to Vir. I was scared, despite the front I was putting on, and a part of me wanted to take solace in his presence. Oddly enough, I didn’t think it was my Soulbond that was pushing me in that direction either.
“Of course,” I muttered, staring at the river. “So then, where’s Charon the Ferryman, hmm? I don’t see any boats anywhere.”
“No boats needed if no Souls are crossing,” Aaron pointed out from on my left.
I didn’t have a good answer to that.
“Something is seriously wrong here,” Aaron continued when nobody else spoke.
“Maybe the Souls just go to he–to thatotherplace, now?” I suggested. “Instead of coming here?”
Aaron had started to open his mouth to stop me from speaking that other name, but I caught myself in time.
“It doesn’t work like that,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “Care to explain how itdoeswork, then?”
“No,” he said, not rising to the bait. “But Tartarus ispermanent, Dani. It’s always here. It will always be here. I can say that much. And therefore, so should the Souls. Or their Guardians. Where are the demons? We should have seen them by now. Seensomething.”
Everyone was silent, contemplating how messed up things must be in the Underworld for it to be this empty.
“Think of it this way,” I said, deciding to try and keep the mood light. “There’s nobody to report that we’re coming to rob you-know-who.”
Aaron didn’t smile.
“I thought it was funny,” I muttered.
“Same,” Fred said quietly from behind me.
“Don’t encourage her,” Aaron grumbled, but there was no emphasis on his words.
“Alright, well,” I said, looking at Aaron, who stood a few feet off to the side, “where does he like to hang out? Where can we find him?”
“His palace,” Vir said, speaking first.
“Right,” I said, turning back to stare up at my god friend. Acquaintance. Guy who I knew. Whatever. “And where is that?”
“At the center of the Pits themselves,” Aaron said.
I turned back to him. Were they playing a game here? If Vir was the next one to speak…
