BURN IN HADES (22 page)

Cross and the draggles followed the black tunnel for an hour before they encountered any light, but at the end of the tunnel, they found blinding light. It came from every angle and touched everything. The draggles bounced ahead, leaping through the air and flipping about. They had finally escaped the gloomy haze of the underworld.

They passed under plateaus covered in an endless emerald green, and between mountain ranges that reached above the glorious trees. For hours they strolled through the peaceful pastures without happening across a soul.

Never once did Cross tire or break a sweat. He never needed rest. He was consistently energized and upbeat. The air was so pure it gave him life. Drinking from crystal clear waterfalls was more of a luxury than an act of quenching his thirst. He splashed around in the pools with the draggles and frolicked in the glowing purple groves until they reached a strangely familiar town.

Every building in the town was made of earthly materials as if the town had grown out of the ground, organically. He had only been to that town once in his afterlife, many hundreds of years ago, but he recalled that the River Lethe ran through it. Sinuhe had once told him that the realm of Elysium was specifically built around the river.

The roads crawled with fallen angels with tattered wings just like the Raven’s. They mingled with the righteous while Tribulation soldiers marched through the road, hauling their trebuchets. They seemed to be preparing for a huge battle.

Cross and the draggles blended in with the crowd and found the River Lethe in all its glory. Just as he remembered it, the water was nearly invisible; he could see the smooth river bottom. Only water so clear could wash away one’s memories.

A gathering of brand new souls drank their lives away as ordered by the Ankou. The past life escaped the minds of the new spirits in the manifestation of pink orbs. The orbs resembled the dead ones he had seen in the canyons of Viņsaule, only brighter and alive. They emitted their own light. Some orbs loitered around while others soared up into the burning skies. All the orbs floated and moved with intelligence, a sense of awareness of themselves and others around them. They maneuvered around spirits, carriages, and buildings in an obvious effort to avoid collisions.

A locomotive with hundreds of boxcars lined behind it waited behind the group of new spirits. The smoke stack pumped out thick exhaust resembling a black cloak flapping on the locomotives shoulders. It was the dirtiest thing in paradise. Dingy lettering painted on the side of the locomotive read: Charon. It was named after its conductor, and could travel throughout the underworld without the need for railroad tracks.

After drinking from the river and releasing their past, the damned boarded the soiled box cars, and the Charon chugged them away into the underworld to drop them off to their respective destinations. The Ankou ferried the righteous in horse-drawn boats across the shimmering ocean to the islands of paradise.

Cross stood there, a few yards away from the river, unable to bring himself any closer. It had been the only thing he had focused in achieving for so many sleep cycles, and now it was finally in his grasp. What if it made him forget his time in the underworld? He wouldn’t remember Gimlet or the draggles or Cottontail. Would he become like that bone builder and Ms. Blankface, living in a looped bliss? Their existence was nearly as bad as a Nothing’s. What if it also removed his magic touch? He’d never be able to communicate with animals in his special way.

An Ankou glided over to him, silently. Like all the ferryman, it stood at a height that would make Cross appear to be a child standing beside it. The gaunt spirit was covered in black robes, and there seemed to be nothing beneath them. Its pointy hood pulled high above its head gave it an extra devilish demeanor.

The Ankou extended a cloaked arm, and led Cross over to the waters. He paced slowly and hesitantly over to the gentle river, the Ankou guiding his every step, the draggles trickling behind.

He met the river’s edge. The Ankou dipped a wooden cup into the river, carelessly soaking the sleeve of its robe.

Cross took the cup from its skeletal hand and gazed into the pure water for seconds on end. He was afraid to lose his memories now. Erasing his past was like cutting off one of his limbs. It was a part of him. But they were also a burden.

He always wanted a clean slate. Every spirit got a chance to start fresh except him. Souls weren’t meant to undertake life and death at the same time. The same way that the living weren’t supposed to know the truth about death, the dead weren’t supposed to know about life. That was the fairest rule of the underworld.

Hanging onto his past—both the good and bad moments—prevented him from moving forward and inhibited the rest of the damned from reaching their potential because they were all chasing him for the memories they thought they could steal from him. Funny how the living can be so intrigued by mystery of death, while the dead are so intrigued by enigma of life. It might be best for everyone if he drank Lethe’s mind altering waters.

He brought the cup up to his lips.

Behind him, there was a distinct roar; a familiar grunt, one he had come to know very well. It was the voice of his Roaring Gimlet. He spun around and spotted his cornurus standing outside of a hotel called Eirenos Inn. The Raven must’ve been inside. Cross dropped his cup and sprinted over to the inn.

Before he could reach Gimlet, a squal with a bandage wrapped around its head exited the inn. Cross ducked behind a post on a porch across the road, wondering how such a miserable soul got into paradise. Was it searching for him? It had all its limbs so it wasn’t the one-armed squal, who had most likely burned by now after drinking the poisonous calabash, and he knew for sure he had burned the other two squals back in Xibalbá.

The bandaged squal stalked down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. Gimlet snapped at the squal. It hunkered back and hissed at the cornurus before continuing down the sidewalk. Cross smirked, happy to see Gimlet attacking a squal.

He jerked his head, commanding the draggles to follow him. They crept around the back of Eirenos Inn and snuck inside.

Chapter 11 - Midnight Dreary

The Raven sat at the table in her room, sharpening her dart
to the symphony of wagons and carriages rolling outside. Her new partner Forfax had just left the room, and it sounded as if he had gotten into a little skirmish with Gimlet outside.

The rogue squal didn’t talk as much as Cross. Forfax’s demeanor was more like hers—subdued, soft spoken, and introverted, which was the exact opposite of normal squal behavior. That’s why she had somewhat of a soft spot in her heart for Cross. The rotten scoundrel had character. He was an impressive actor, and together they had formed a team greater than any other soul she had ever aligned herself with. None of her old partners ever survived a second con. Cross was the first one she ever had to get rid of personally.

After spending so many months together, she was bound to have grown fond of him in some capacity. When sharing the company of someone for an extended period like she had with him, it’s easy to fall in like with them—unless you’ve become so sick of the person that you’d want to strangle them. But, interestingly, she had never wanted to strangle Cross, even when he opened that foul mouth of his.

He was indignant and loud, but she saw through his bravado and into his charm. All his tough talk was a facade. He hid behind the cocky attitude, to keep everyone else at bay. With all the distrustful spirits that populated the underworld, including her, she didn’t blame him for that behavior. She harbored the exact same suspicious credo. The two of them just had different approaches. Because of that, they complimented each other’s song, and they danced as equals. She would’ve never admitted that to him though. That confession would have caused her to lose the upper hand in their relationship. She’d be the one roaming Sheol for all eternity instead of him.

Every time she began to care for one of the damned she ended up making stupid moves. Not only did ridding herself of him suit her best interest of not becoming a Nothing and remaining alone, but it was the right thing to do for the greater good of the underworld—if there was a such thing. She felt a sense of accomplishment, as if she made up for some past misdeed by preventing spirits from stealing his memories. No soul, not even Cross, deserved to remember.

She nicked her finger on her now sharpened dart and slipped her finger in her mouth, tasting the lifeless waste that was her spirit blood. It was thick and lumpy like spoiled milk and the aftertaste was just as sour.

Outside her window, barbot wings smacked the wind. For a moment, the birds squawked as though they were fleeing the skies due to some impending holocaust, and then all the outside noises halted. The Tribulation wagons and carriages no longer crunched across the cobblestone road. The marching stopped. All was quiet except for a small scuttering outside her door.

Klickety klick
went claws on the wood. She knew that sound. Cross’s draggles! If they were outside her door, Cross wasn’t too far behind. That bastard just wouldn’t burn.

She remained still in order to avoid warning her intruders of her presence, listening ever so closely. The soldiers outside resumed their march and the wagons beat at the road again. In haste, she worked to rethread the rope into the dart.

Three draggles burst through the door. She tied the last loop of the rope and sent the dart hurling at the draggles. She struck one down, swung the rope around, and plunged the dart into a second one. The third draggle leapt. She yanked the rope toward it. Black blood exploded from the last draggle’s stomach as the dart impaled it through its back. It, and draggle number two, shriveled to Nothing, but the first draggle survived its injuries. It struggled to lift its knees off the ground and knelt in a pool of its own black blood before joining its companions as a Nothing.

“They were the nicest little critters I ever met in this goddess-forsaken place.”

She spun around to find Cross sitting in the window sill. If only he weren’t there to burn her, she might have smiled at the bastard’s presence. He was the only man who had ever made her
want
to smile.

She could have burned him right there, but for reasons she couldn’t explain to herself, she gave him time to mourn his lost. He plucked three splinters from his palm, flicked them to the floor, and stared at the three dead draggles as if she weren’t in the room at all. He crossed himself and then aimed the tip of a closed parasol at her as if it were a gun.

It was clearly a woman’s accessory with its pink cloth and flowery stitching, and she knew it must’ve been an object of the dead, but had no idea of its ability. If Cross was carrying it around, it had to have been dangerous.

“I’ve heard that it’s bad luck to open those things inside,” she said.

“I don’t have to open it.” He pointed the parasol at the bed. Lightning struck the pillows. The bed-spread caught fire. “Get rid of Ropey,” he said.

She released her rope dart, and it clunked lifeless to the floor. “You’re already in paradise,” she said. “You don’t need any objects to break in. The River Lethe is right outside.”

“It’s not going anywhere,” he said. “You and I have some business to settle first.”

The sky thundered, the ground rumbled, and the hotel waffled. Cross held the obsidian blade up and peeked an eye through its peephole. “You remember this blade don’t you? You let me keep it in case I decided to fall on it. You’re just full of great ideas.”

He tossed the blade to her. She caught it.

“Wedge the grip into the floor,” he said.

She jammed the skinny handle in between the wood logs that made up the puncheon floor.

“Very good,” he said. “Nice and straight. It has to cut the throat of a buzzard. Now, lie across the table face down.”

She lay across the table, the triangular blades pointed toward her neck.

“That’s it,” he said. “Right over it. Now, I have another system. A little different than yours. I don’t shoot the blade. I shoot the legs off the table.” He crossed himself.

“You cross yourself,” she said, “yet you believe in the Great Goddess.”

“So?”

“You can’t mix religions where they contradict.”

“Religions contradict where the Great Goddess doesn’t,” said Cross. ”There may be many mythologies, but there’s only one Magna Mater. And she’s more than one thing at a time. All things at once. Her wings spread far too wide to fit in your little bird-house.”

“Either way, if the Great Goddess cared about your primitive rituals, you wouldn’t be in the underworld with the damned.”

“If you believe that, then you nothing about her, you stinkin’ buzzard.” He aimed the umbrella in a fit of rage.

A whistle soared through the air outside. Molten rock crashed through the window. The force bowled her over and away from the blade. Her rope dart landed at her side.

The lava ate the floor and created a gap between her and Cross. The entire hotel buckled and whimpered. Cross’s half of the room detached from the rest of the building and he sank to the bottom floor.