Page 78 of As Darkness Fall
Fred used one hand to pull himself up and over with far more ease than I had managed, and he promptly sat in the front before anyone else could take the position.
Vir sat in a seat next to me while Aaron moved closer to the rear. I expected him to glare at Vir as he passed us, but he didn’t. He simply took up a position two rows in front of our ferryman and sat quietly.
Was he that focused on what we were doing? Or had something passed between the two of them? I almost got up to sit next to Aaron, but the boat lurched and took off from the red sand beach before I could move.
“This was a bad idea,” Aaron muttered from behind Vir and me.
“You shouldn’t have given the Idol to the big guy,” I pointed out.
Beside me, Vir opened his mouth.
“And you shouldn’t have let me get Soulbound to you,” I said, shutting Vir up before he could pile on to Aaron.
Something was bugging the vampire, and I didn’t want Vir to make it worse. Not now. We needed to be on the same team until we got out of the Underworld. Then maybe Aaron would return to his usual self.
Vir’s mouth snapped shut, but only for a moment. “I didn’tletit happen,” he ground out. “I was protecting you. Stopping Johnathan from rebinding his link with yours, if you recall. This wasn’t what Iwanted, Dani. I didn’t know it was possible. It shouldn’t have been.”
There was a long pause as he stared at me.
Then he looked away. “I’m sorry.”
My eyebrows shot up in line with my guilt. Now I felt bad because I’d been shitting on Vir for the Soulbound business when I’d known he hadn’t intended for this to happen. I was just covering up my insecurities.
Feeling bad, I started to tell Vir that I was sorry as well. And that we should probably talk about what had happened. Figure out what we were going to do going forward since there was no way it was actually going to work between a mortal and an immortal.
“You should see this.”
My head swiveled to the front of the boat. Fred was standing, his finger twitching nervously at his side, going slowly for the knife at his hip, then dropping away.
I glanced back at Vir. Fredneverspoke up like that. He usually only spoke to one of us when we addressed him. He was content to come along and help as needed. If he was interrupting us, however…
All three of us rushed to the front of the boat.
“What is it?” I asked, not seeing anything in front of us. The mist blocked everything beyond twenty feet or so from sight. I wondered briefly how the ferryman could see.
“There.”
I followed Fred’s finger down into the murky waters just in time to see a body go past, the legs ending in cloven hoofs. A moment later, another passed, and then another.
“Um,” I said uncomfortably. “Experienced realm traveler dudes. Is this normal?”
“No.” I got the answer back in unison from all three of them.
“So, what, uh, what are we looking at? Why are there bodies in the water?”
“A battle,” Fred said quietly. “Fighting happened here. Those are Axotl. Minor demons, foot soldiers, you might call them.”
“Who would they be fighting?” I asked nervously.
At that moment, the mists cleared, revealing the far side of the River Styx. It was covered in bodies. A carpet of dead bodies that stretched out to either side and a few hundred feet up the slope.
Many of the bodies were human. They were all soldiers, I could tell. Some of them wore modern-looking army gear. Mottled camouflage, bucket helmets, rifles strapped to their bodies. Others on the banks wore silver suits of armor, straight out of medieval times. To my left, a company of British redcoats lay slaughtered. Elsewhere, soldiers from the bronze and iron ages were present as well. I thought some of them looked like Romans, but I wasn’t certain.
Mixed in among them were the bodies of the Axotl, as Fred called them, beast men with a human body, cloven hoof feet, and a face covered in fur. Two tusk-like fangs jutted up from their bottom lips, and their noses were smushed flat. Not a pleasant sight. Oh, and they had tails.
Other beings were mixed in, some larger. Some smaller. All of them dead. As far as I could see, nothing moved. It was beyond eerie. If I’d been scared before, I was terrified now.
“What are all those other creatures?” I asked. “The non-humans.”
