Hardboiled: Not Your Average Detective Story (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 5) (13 page)

“Uh, yeah.” Thes smirked at me and gestured with the meat again. “Eat this, or I’ll shove it down your throat. I had to rip off a centaur’s leg, and it wasn’t exactly pleasant, let me tell you.”

“I’m not eating that, and you can’t make me,” I replied, at which point Thes jammed the meat in my face. I tried to cry out, which was a mistake because he shoved it into my mouth and clamped his hand over the top.

“Don’t make me pinch your nose,” he said when I refused to chew. I’m ashamed to say it, but I chewed and swallowed like a good little girl. I didn’t even put up much of a fight. The worst part? He was right. It wasn’t bad. In fact, it was pretty much the best tasting meat I’d ever eaten. That made me feel even worse.

“Was that so bad?” he asked when I finished. “You don’t have to answer. I know you’ll lie and say that it was horrible, when it wasn’t.”

I nodded curtly at him before climbing to my feet and taking one swaying step toward Connor. He was lying slumped on the spongey pink ground beside the river’s edge. It seemed like a precarious position, but the distance between the two rivers was only about five meters or so. No matter where he was, he’d be close to the edge.

I bent down next to him as Thes ripped off another chunk of meat and popped it into his mouth. “It’s not as good raw,” he said as I put my hand on Connor’s forehead. He felt cold, too cold for it to be good. It sort of reminded me of how people felt before they turned into vampires, except I could still feel his pulse beating. Besides, we hadn’t fought any vampires. Turning only took a few minutes. If he’d been turned, he’d have woken up a long time ago.

“I have no idea what to do about him either,” I replied as Thes flopped down next to me and offered me his meaty haunch.

“Eat more,” he said, ignoring me.

I gave him a look that meant ‘we’re on a different subject now,’ and he smirked at me.

“I’m fairly certain that you’d have healed him hours ago if you could have,” Thes said, poking me in the cheek with the leg of centaur, which I’ll be honest, seemed a little obscene. “I think all we can do is make him comfortable until it wears off, or we find someone who can fix it.” He smiled, baring his teeth into a grin that was just this side of sinister. “Now eat more so we can get the hell out of here.”

I shoved the haunch away from my face and stared at it for a long time. Then I reached out and ripped off a chunk of warm flesh and sighed. “I think you just killed a small part of me,” I said before shoving it into my mouth. It sort of tasted like really well marbled steak mixed with expensive mushrooms.

“Is it the part that never thought you’d eat a sentient being who was trying to murder you in your sleep?” Thes asked as centaur juice dripped down his chin and spattered on his bare leg. “Cause that part of you was pretty lame.”

I stopped mid-chew and stared at him for a long while. “We were attacked? How long was I out?”

“I’m not sure,” he said, glancing at his wrist pedometer. “Time stopped working when we got down here, but if I had to guess? Long enough for us to be attacked by a centaur, me to rip off its leg and throw it in the river, cook and eat it?”

“So like twenty minutes?” I asked, taking another bite.

“Try six hours, easy.” He shook his head. “I tried keeping count, but I kept getting distracted around the four minute mark.”

“Well, I was tired.”

“You should be tired, Lillim.” Thes’ voice dropped a couple octaves as he said it. He looked away, staring out at the Phlegethon as fire leapt across its surface. “You just transformed the mythical fire river of Tartarus into ice and made it into a bridge. I didn’t even know that could be done.”

“Neither did I,” I replied, getting to my feet. I wasn’t quite sure why, but I suddenly felt a lot better. Maybe centaur meat had magical properties? Or maybe I was just starving after using so much magic.

“Somehow,” Thes said, standing and swinging the haunch over his shoulder like a prehistoric caveman, “that doesn’t surprise me. Let me guess, you get chastised a lot for doing things half-cocked.”

I blushed and looked away as he bent down and threw Connor over his other shoulder. It was partially because he was right, and I disliked he was right so much. I mean, he was a teenage boy. Wasn’t he supposed to be wrong by definition? The other problem was that standing there in nearly nothing, all bulging muscles and tanned skin he looked a little too… primal.

Standing there, he didn’t seem like someone I’d want to date or anything. No, he was the type of guy I’d want to pull on top of me for a one night stand… if I was into that sort of thing. It made me feel a little bad for him because as far as I was concerned, even without being furry, he wasn’t boyfriend material… and if I’d had that thought… well… others probably had as well.

“You look like you’re having some deep thoughts,” Thes said as he stepped up next to me. “I can tell because you’re chewing on your lip.”

“No one likes you,” I blurted and took a step past him and glared at the bubbling river Styx because I wasn’t flirting with him, dammit. “Isn’t there supposed to be a boatman that takes you across this to Hades?”

“I have no idea,” Thes replied, evidently deciding to ignore my comment. “And everyone loves me.” Or not…

I grumbled at him as we started walking upriver. I’m not sure why we chose that direction, but I briefly remembered something about the source of the river coming from the underworld which was actually above us. It was as far over us as heaven was above earth. That would be one hell of a climb, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.

“Is the river Styx the one Achilles used to become invulnerable?” Thes asked, after we’d been walking for what felt like hours and was probably actually hours judging from the way my feet hurt.

Those little blue shoes Connor had gotten me were definitely not made for walking, and I’d long since taken them off and slung them over my shoulder. So yeah, I was hiking across the spongy, glistening pink surface of Tartarus barefoot, and it sort of reminded me of walking through a marsh only without the mud between my toes.

“Yeah, I think so,” I replied and Thes’ eyes got huge as he stared at the bubbling river next to us.

“Don’t even think about it,” I replied, resisting the urge to punch him in the arm as horrible thoughts swam through his eyes.

“I could be Superman,” he murmured, voice not quite right.

“You do know that would give you a weak spot that if injured will kill you, right? You’re a werewolf. You heal pretty much anything. That’s a horrible tradeoff.”

“So you say.”

I was about to respond to him when the scenery around us changed. The pink fleshy walls and floor vanished, leaving us standing in a cavern of white marble. Little flecks of pink glittered within the stone like dancing starlight as we moved.

“Well that was weird,” Thes said, glancing around, his nostrils flaring. “Even the scents changed.”

“Maybe we should go back?” I offered even though I knew we wouldn’t be going back.

“Welcome to my humble home.” The words thrummed outward over me from everywhere, bristling across my flesh and driving me to my knees. I fell, clutching my ears, blood seeping through my fingers. I looked around for the source of the words as they faded away, like wisps in the wind that still echoed in my mind.

There was a loud thunk next to me as Connor slipped off Thes’ shoulders and hit the marble with a wet sound that couldn’t be good. Thes writhed, eyes crazy as he whirled around, his haunch braced in front of him like a club.

“Apologies. I have not spoken to mortals in a very long time,” the voice said, but this time it was less… harsh. The clink, clink sound of chains smacking against marble filled my ears as a huge creature emerged from the shadows to my left.

I spun toward it, my hands out in front of me, ready to attack when a soft reptilian hiss in the back of my mind told me, “No.”

“No?” I thought, and the bangles around my hands pulsed once as if winking at me.

“Who are you?” Thes asked, voice confused and angry. His meaty club was raised up like a baseball bat, but even from here, I could see his hands were trembling.

“I am Kronos,” the creature said as it stepped into the light. He was huge in the way that an elephant was huge, and his skin had that same grey color. Huge ears stuck out from the side of his head, so that it looked like if he caught a strong breeze he might take flight. He reached up and stroked a bedraggled grey beard with one hand, yellowed nails cracked and split. “I used to be a god.”

“Kronos… as in the father of Zeus?” I asked like a dumbass because what other chained up old Titan would be in Tartarus claiming to be Kronos. Then again, there were supposedly a boatload of Titans down here, and it wasn’t like they were above impersonation and trickery.

“Yes, that is I,” he replied, settling down onto the floor in front of us. Huge legs crossed in front of him as he leaned backward on his palms. His limbs were encircled by huge black chains, the links so big around that they reminded me of the ones used to haul in ocean liners. “I am pleased that I have not been forgotten. That is the nature of time after all, to sweep everything away until all is lost and nothing of the past remains.”

Thes glanced at me, a questioning look on his face, and I shrugged. Thes sighed and wiped his face with his hand. “Okay, so… sorry about trying to brain you with my centaur leg,” he said, and I had to resist the urge to laugh hysterically at him as a sheepish grin spread across his face.

Kronos waved one huge hand at us, eyes sparkling like silver flecked emeralds. “It’s okay, but you shouldn’t eat meat,” he said. “So what brings you to Tartarus? I know it is lovely this time of year, but even though I put out brochures, no one ever comes to visit.”

I smirked at him as a grin spread across his huge black lips to reveal a set of baleen. You know, the kind of teeth that those giant whales have.

“You’re a vegetarian?” Thes asked. “I thought all gods like feasted on the blood of their enemies and sacrifices and what not.”

“Perhaps they do now, but when I was in charge no man sought hunger and no beast was killed to sate him. Animals spoke with human voices and frolicked through the land as equals.”

“So you were a bunch of hippies,” Thes said before clamping a hand over his mouth.

Laughter boomed from the Titan, spreading out over me like caramel and satin, rich and sultry with hints of more to come. I shivered. That was a scary sound… scary because I could see myself getting addicted to it. In fact, if he asked me to give up meat in that voice, I might just do it.

“You might say that,” Kronos said a moment later. “But you still haven’t told me why you are here.”

“Because a magician sent us into the labyrinth and muscles over there,” I jerked my thumb at Thes, “killed it and got us sucked in here.”

Kronos’ huge eyes widened a fraction of an inch, the movement so quick I almost didn’t catch it as he stroked his gross beard. “Interesting,” he murmured, almost to himself, eyes staring off into the distance.

“Hey since you’re a god, can you fix my friend?” Thes asked, setting down his centaur leg and kneeling next to Connor. “We’re not quite sure what’s wrong with him.”

Kronos glanced at Connor and narrowed his eyes into slits. “No,” he said, tossing his chin up indignantly.

“Uh… why?” I asked as Thes’ face contorted into several emotions all at once. Disbelief, rage, sadness, worry…

“Because he is trapped in time by the Blue Prince. I cannot interfere in his domain… at least not anymore,” Kronos exhaled angrily. “Once it was that I could bend time to my will, break it over my knee, suck the juices from within, but no more.” He raised his hands, gesturing to his bound chains.

“So if we freed you—”

“No!” I snapped, interrupting Thes in mid-sentence. “We’re not letting him out. He’s a Titan.”

Kronos sighed liked he expected this answer. “When my brothers and sisters rise, you’ll remember my offer and feel really foolish. When you return, I may deign to not help you.”

I bit back the response I was going to say because it would have been unladylike. Besides, if he was right, I didn’t want to piss him off.

“So how do I free him from time?” Thes asked, glancing from the Titan to me and back again.

“Go to ancient Egypt and free his soul from the clutches of the dark one. Do that and it will snap back to his body,” he grinned, “like magic.”

“How the hell do I get to Ancient Egypt to save him?” Thes growled in exasperation. Thankfully, his comment wasn’t really directed at the Titan because I was pretty sure that if Kronos could make my ears explode by talking, he could do a lot worse with his giant fists. Hell, for all I knew, he had eye lasers.

“There may be a way to enter through the halls of the dead. If you manage to get up above into my son’s abode, you could cross from the Greek land of the dead to the Egyptian one. It is within that crossover chamber that you will find the one who can help you,” Kronos replied, a peculiar smile crossing his face and revealing a mouthful of baleen.

“What’s the catch?” I asked, glancing from the old god to Thes. He seemed more than willing to jump into the land of the dead in Ancient Egypt.

“You won’t be able to come back very easily,” Kronos said, smug satisfaction in his voice that rippled out over me like warm cotton candy. “I won’t say it will be impossible, but it will be very,
very
difficult.”

I swallowed, glancing at Connor’s unconscious form and shook my head just a touch. I knew I should go after his soul. I
should
do it because I was a Dioscuri. I was a good guy, at least I was pretty sure I was a good guy. But, honestly, I didn’t want to do it. Sure, I liked Connor, maybe even a little too much. But there was no way in hell I was going to risk getting trapped in Ancient Egypt for him. If I did that, there’d be no one to save Caleb or stop the warlock inhabiting Lang.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured because with those words I was, in essence, abandoning him. The thought made my heart hurt and my stomach clench, but there it was. I, Lillim Cortez Callina, was not going to risk being trapped in Ancient Egypt to save Connor. I tried to tell myself it was because I was too busy, but deep down I knew it was because I didn’t want to risk it. Did that make me a bad person?