The Underworld (Rhyn Eternal) (5 page)

“Time does not pass in Hell as it does here.”

Gabriel glanced over his shoulder at Darkyn, who was eyeing the sky with suspicion. The suns had gone down and popped back up in less than two hours only to remain in the same place in the sky for over ten hours. The night – if it could be called such – lasted less than forty-five minutes. A full day had passed while a second day seemed stuck.

“You get used to it.” Gabriel almost smiled at the demon lord’s discomfort and faced forward again, focused on the trail at his feet. The Underworld wasn’t resisting his plunge into the forests, but it wasn’t exactly helping much, either. As he expected, branches and bushes shifted to create a path for him to walk.

But they moved so slowly, he’d thought twice about abandoning the path and using his sword to hack through the trees.

“These are not real trees,” Darkyn added, smashing the hilt of his dagger into a snakelike branch that got too close.

“The trees are a defense mechanism. Normally, they tear demons a part, limb from limb,” Gabriel said. “Show a little respect, Darkyn. They’re being relatively civil with you.”

The demon lord growled from deep in his chest. He was a generally tolerable companion, one who remained quiet, for the most part, and helped push stubborn bushes or branches out of the path when needed.

In truth, Gabriel wasn’t certain why the trees hadn’t attacked the demon. It was nothing he had done. He’d tried asking the trees for help getting to the palace. The most they were willing to do was grudgingly move out of the way – and it was clear they weren’t happy about it. If they wanted to tear Darkyn a part, they weren’t about to listen to Gabriel telling them to stop.

As if aware of his resentment, the path disappeared.

Gabriel looked up and froze.

The trees had formed a wall before him, blocking the direct route to the palace completely.

“You –” Darkyn started.

“Don’t say a fucking word, demon,” Gabriel snapped, frustrated. “How the fuck do I get to where I need to be when my own underworld won’t listen to me?” He placed his hands on his hips, unable to imagine his predecessors running into any sort of problems like he had since taking over as Death. “Is it because I’m of human origin? Are you working for Harmony now?” The words were directed at the wall of foliage before them.

Darkyn’s dark chuckle was amused. “Baby god, can you not see what is before you?”

Gabriel clenched his teeth, resisting the urge to smash a fist into the face of the creature who had helped upheave his life.

“Your domain lives. It talks, and when you fail to listen, it will demand,” the Dark One said. “This path is not the right one.”

“It’s the most direct route!”

“You misunderstand. This path is not the one your underworld wishes you to take.”

Gabriel absorbed the words, not wanting to listen to the latest deity telling him he was doing it wrong. No part of him wanted to ask Darkyn of all creatures to help him understand.

Facing Darkyn, he was about to pull his sword free and start hacking, when he saw the Dark One studying him.

“What?” he growled.

“I have an observation to make about you of human birth.” Darkyn tilted his head to the side. He was pale beneath his tanned skin, a sign of the strain he faced without his bloodmate. “Your ego is that of a god while your understanding is that of a child.”

“Great. Thanks.” Gabriel blew out a breath. “You’re saying I’m too stubborn to ask you for help.”

“Correct.”

Gabriel turned his gaze to the sky, thinking hard. It was hard to deny that the Dark One had been around longer than any deity or Immortal Gabriel knew, and even harder to admit that he might know a thing or two that Gabriel needed.

“I don’t trust you,” he said.

“It is not about trust. It is about winning. You do not owe me trust, and I do not owe you assistance. But right now, we have somewhere to be and no way to get there, if you do not use what I know.”

It felt like a trap. Given what Gabriel knew of the Dark One, he doubted any information was going to be provided free of charge, even if Darkyn didn’t ask for anything in return.

Yet.

“Okay. What am I missing?” he asked grudgingly.

“Your underworld is telling you something. Ask the right question, and it will answer.”

“You think my underworld is … what? Going to talk to me?”

“In its own way, yes. Every deity with a domain has a bond to his realm. It’s what allows him to reign,” Darkyn said. “You clearly have no bond, and yet, your underworld is trying to guide you.”

“It’s not this way with Hell?”

“Hell is strictly won or lost, passed from victor to victor. Your domain has patience. Almost like it chooses you, instead of you winning the right to rule.” Darkyn was eyeing another branch that snaked too close.

“I imagine it would’ve chosen someone not of human origin, if what everyone keeps telling me is true,” Gabriel grunted.

“Does that matter now?” Darkyn snapped.

No.
Gabriel faced the wall of branches and trees. He’d spent millennia in the underworld among the trees beneath the grey sky. He existed as another living being among the forest and now, he was the master. His relationship with his surroundings had changed. The trees realized it long before the idea occurred to him.

Your domain lives.

He knew there was life in the underworld, but he’d never quite thought of the collective life as being one large, living creature, one capable of
choosing
who ruled it. It was almost too farfetched for him to accept.

Then again, Fate had claimed the same about the Immortal Codes that were flexible to deities and no one else.

“Sometimes the souls best equipped are those of human origin,” Darkyn added. “Frail creatures whose lives are over in a blink. Nonetheless, your kind has its occasional uses.”

Gabriel regarded the Dark One with quiet amusement. “She surprised you. You didn’t expect to keep her around, did you?”

“Not at first.” Darkyn was licking one of his fangs almost absently. “She is like your underworld. Different.”

“That they are.”

“Ask it the right question.”

“The right question.” Gabriel faced off with the wall of foliage. “You don’t want me to take this path,” he said. “What path should I take?”

The trees and three-winged birds overlooking him went still. An eerie silence fell, and he sensed the magic of the underworld around him, shifting and moving, even if it remained out of his reach.

It’s talking.
Or maybe, thinking. His underworld was debating what to do and what to tell him.

Gabriel shivered. He’d never looked at the underworld the way the deity Fate taught him to view the Immortal Code: as a person, one that could be negotiated with. At most, he’d thought of his home as being something obligated to obey him, because of his position as Death.

The silence passed, and a trail opened to his left, cutting through the forest for at least a mile.

“It’s not the way to the palace,” he murmured, frowning.

“Your domain will not betray its master.”

Gabriel took a step towards the new pathway, his insides twisting in concern for those trapped with the death dealers. “I’m trusting you,” he said under his breath to his surroundings.

Gabriel quickened to a trot and then a run. The forest made no move to stop him again, instead opening the trail far ahead, a sign he was meant to go the way it wanted him to.

Darkyn trailed, running at his heels.

The trail wound through low hills and dips that ran along the eastern floor of the forest, through small fields and larger clearings, in a direction Gabriel soon recognized.

The forest was taking him to the Lake of Souls, located not too far from the palace. His pace quickened when he realized where the underworld led him, and he began to worry something else had gone wrong with the souls that hadn’t yet bled through to the lakes in the human world.

The green glow above the lake – visible during daylight or night – was soon ahead.

Branches snaked into his path and blocked the trail, a sign he needed to slow.

Gabriel did so and unsheathed his sword. The branches left the path.

“I smell them,” Darkyn said quietly, drawing abreast of him. His long daggers were drawn. “Four.”

“Easy. Where are they?”

The demon lifted his nose to the air and breathed in deeply. “Three right, one left at the mouth of the trail.”

“I’ll take the three,” Gabriel said, cold fury resurfacing at the idea of confronting those who betrayed him and put the entire world in danger.

Darkyn slapped the flat of one dagger across his chest as he started forward. “I need the food.”

Gabriel hesitated at the ragged note in the demon lord’s voice. Unwilling to pity the source of evil in the universe, he at least acknowledged that he needed the Dark One at full strength if they were to take on a few hundred death dealers.

“Bon appetit,” he responded.

Darkyn started forward at a trot.

Gabriel gave him a head start of a few feet, not about to cross swords with the blood maddened demon yet. Darkyn launched out of the forest without a second look, throwing himself into the midst of the three death dealers huddled together, talking.

With a quick glance at his surroundings, Gabriel ignored the sounds of a demon slaughtering and eating his prey and instead, faced the remaining death dealer.

The man’s eyes widened, and he raised his sword too late.

Gabriel severed his head with one stroke of his massive sword and sheathed the weapon before kneeling beside the body.

“One fate for traitors,” he said, feeling no sympathy whatsoever for the betrayer.

Green fog lifted from the dead dealer’s body, swirling and snaking towards Gabriel.

He held out his hand. A small emerald – the Immortal’s soul – formed in the palm of his hand. There was a time when he’d regret having to punish a traitor, when it hurt him as much as the soul to crush it and send it to an eternity in Hell.

That time was gone, another shred of his humanity taken when his mate and Deidre were kidnapped. If anything, he hesitated only because he doubted he had too many threads of humanity left in him.

I never want to be the Death she was.
Yet the more he learned, he more he realized why she’d done some of what she did, and how little alike they truly were. Past-Death had known no mercy or kindness as a goddess and viewed his as weaknesses. She executed her duty with cold devotion. While he recognized her effectiveness, he also knew that she lacked empathy and respect for those she served.

It was human to provide those that failed the first time a second chance to make things right. Deities didn’t understand the concept. He was a mix of both, capable of giving second chances or stripping that right away.

Gabriel debated for a moment. He’d shown leniency on the human plane to those death dealers that sought to betray him. A quick death and not sending their souls to Hell was the only second chance he’d offer.

But here … in his underworld, knowing what he did about Harmony’s plan to kidnap his mate and Deidre, he didn’t feel anywhere near as generous. There were times when second chances weren’t warranted, and the heartless wrath of a god was.

Protecting those who deserved his compassion from those who did not was his priority now. The lines were more cleanly drawn in the underworld. He could no longer view punishing his former colleagues with regret for what they’d done to disrupt the balance of life and death and endanger so many innocent souls.

He roused himself and stood. The sounds of Darkyn gorging on the bodies of the Immortals ceased, and Gabriel turned.

Looks like someone exploded.
None of the remaining pieces of the three men were in chunks larger than the size of his hand, and blood was splattered everywhere, dripping down Darkyn’s chin and coating the ground at his feet.

“This is yours,” Gabriel said and tossed him the soul.

Darkyn caught it.

Gabriel went to the edge of the Lake of Souls and crouched beside it, gazing into the waters. Souls rested in the bottom or floated in currents – billions, perhaps trillions, of them. The leaking of souls into the mortal plane was unprecedented. While the relative percentage was small, it never should’ve been possible for the souls to bleed over in the first place. He risked the souls being captured by the Dark One or other souleaters who might want the emeralds for reasons other than to protect the dead.

The waters were still. The last time he’d been here, the Lake was bubbling and boiling, in clear turmoil.

Wind swept through the trees. Rather than the slithering of snakelike branches, he heard something different, faint, sad. A mournful call, the unified sorrow of the trees and millions of life forms that existed in the underworld.

“You’re in pain,” he whispered, startled to realize his home was capable of emotion as well as communicating with him.

Gabriel shifted to his knees, concerned, and placed his hands in the shallow waters nearest him. The suffering was here, too, and he closed his eyes to listen.