Bounty: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Solumancer Cycle Book 3)

by J. C. Staudt

  Githryx cackles, though he clearly doesn’t get the joke.

  “Why is the fountain flowing with mud?”

  “Not mud.”

  “The river we crossed was mud though, right?”

  “Not mud,” he repeats.

  “Gross.”

  “Soul juice. Squeeze. Squeeze from soul, get juice. Juice flow through underworld. Make power. Power for the seven lords. Use for make control over mortals.”

  “They power their demonic influence with rivers of shit?”

  “No shit. Soul juice.”

  “Whatever. If it looks like shit and smells like shit, it ain’t chocolate cake.”

  “You soul clean?” the imp asks. “I squeeze, you make clear water?”

  “No, I guess not. My soul’s as filthy as they come.”

  “See? Clean soul not come here. You learn quick. Next I take you to crossroads. We make path there. Come.”

  Beyond the crest of the hill stretches a deep valley where a maze of jagged rocks lies steeped in fog. It’s actual fog this time, not trash-fog. Wisps of black smoke rise from every sharp point, so thick it looks like the rocks themselves are dissolving into the stratosphere. The smoke and fog obscure everything in the distance, but I follow Githryx, trusting in his sense of direction.

  “What is this place?” I ask as we wind through the strange dissolving rocks.

  “Karst of Wasted Time,” says Githryx.

  “Finding a way through this maze is a waste of time.”

  The imp gestures. “You see, it have good name.”

  If it were me alone in here, I would’ve gotten lost and wandered this maze until I died. Githryx knows every turn, and when he doesn’t he flies up for a bird’s eye view. When we emerge on the far side an hour later, I look like a coal miner; a layer of soot has accumulated over the refuse I’ve already gathered. Every time I try to wipe away the garbage clinging to my skin, something pops to release its gooey insides and make an even bigger mess.

  At a junction where several footpaths intersect before snaking over the hills into the hazy distance stands a tall wooden signpost with handwritten arrow placards pointing in every direction. Reading them gives me a sense of what the underworld has to offer. The Cliffs of Unrequited Love. The Caldera of Unmet Expectations. The Highway of Disabled Vehicles. The Bog of Mysterious Aches and Pains. The Waterfall of Suddenly-Cold Showers. The Chamber of Botched Routine Medical Procedures. The Grove of Shattered Dreams. The Mountain of Discouragement. The Cave of Uncertain Futures. And a mere stone’s throw beyond the border lies the Department of Monstrous Vulgarities.

  “So this whole place is like a slightly less-sucky version of hell,” I observe, and double over coughing until I hack up a gob of black sooty mucous.

  A sad frown blooms on the imp’s face. “Underworld was once proud. Now mere shadow of former self.”

  “It’s doing a hell of a job being a shadow. No puns.” I continue reading the signs. “That was the Landfill of Environmentally-Harmful Pollutants we crossed back there, huh? No wonder the ground was spongy. I was walking across a giant field of garbage, and probably pumping all that floating junk to the surface with every step. I don’t think I can take much more of this. How much further?”

  “We pass Furnace of Poor Investments, make left at Pit of Dietary Disruption, then cross Wasteland of Bad Advice.”

  “Sounds like a long way.”

  “It okay. I take you shortcut.”

  “Shortcut through where?”

  “We go fast. Licky-split.”

  “Through where, Githryx?”

  He hesitates. “Lava Tubes of Betrayal.”

  “That doesn’t sound too bad.”

  “It bad. But it shortest way.”

  “Fine. Let’s tube it up.”

  Chapter 23

  The Lava Tubes of Betrayal are smooth black stone, a substance I find startling and beautiful despite its dire implications. Tunnels of various girth descend into the subterranean depths and twist away into darkness. Githryx stops to consider our possible avenues before selecting one. His face is a mask of fearful determination, which makes me wonder what this place has in store for us.

  “Why did you bring me this way?” I ask him.

  “For make journey fast,” he says. “And for face our forsaken.”

  “Our forsaken?”

  “I forbid to say what wrong I do. This only way you ever know.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You do soon,” he says. “Walk.”

  I walk. Githryx flutters to the ground and walks beside me on digitigrade feet, refraining from flight for the first time since we’ve been down here. He sets his gaze straight ahead, his concentration fixed. Voices echo, coming closer. Two of them, one focused on each of us.

  Githryx doesn’t stop, so I don’t either. We descend until the darkness tempts my heavy eyelids to close. I’m afraid, though. Afraid of what’s coming, and unsure where the betrayal part of the lava tubes comes in. I decide to let myself be afraid, if for no other reason than to keep myself awake.

  “Got a light?” I ask Githryx as the last of the surface glow dissipates behind us.

  “No light,” says the imp. “Only seeing.”

  “I can’t see.”

  “You will,” he says. “You will. Keep move. Keep move.”

  I reach out to guide myself along the smooth curving wall, adjusting my speed to stay beside Githryx. As we round the next bend, a pair of ghostly figures come into sight, floating toward us. Curiosity overtakes the fear tugging at my mind. The figure on the left is someone I can’t make out, even as they draw near. The one on the right, I instantly recognize.

  Arden Savage. Not me looking like and pretending to be Arden Savage, but the actual Arden Savage himself—or some disparate form of him. I can now officially report that the underworld sucks balls. All the discomfort I’ve faced thus far has been physical. I’m not prepared to be tormented in other ways.

  “It’s you,” he says. “What’s your name, again?”

  What is my name? I’m drawing a blank. “Cade Cadigan,” I blurt.

  “You sent me here, you clumsy fuck.”

  “It’s really you?” I stammer.

  “Who the fuck does it look like? I’m the guy you fucked over, and who you’re now masquerading as. What do you think is going to happen? You’re just gonna live as me forever, and no one’ll find out what you did?”

  “No one’s found out so far.”

  “They will.” He paces in front of me. “Oh-ho, boy. They will.”

  “I don’t understand how you’re here, or how you know what I did after you died.”

  “I’m not dead. This is my soul, motherfucker. You’re in the Lava Tubes of Betrayal. You betrayed me. Do the fucking math.”

  “What did you expect me to do? You were going to deliver me to a satyr with a footlong between his legs.”

  “It was a job. Nothing personal.”

  “Neither was banishing your soul. It was an accident.”

  Githryx is having his own conversation with the blurry translucent figure in front of him, but Arden Savage’s eidolon is consuming every available scrap of my attention.

  Arden studies me. “Was it an accident when you moved into my apartment? Started driving my cars around? Dumped my girlfriend and bilked my brother and sister out of my share of our inheritance?”

  “I had no choice.”

  “Yeah, bullshit you had no choice. You just didn’t want to do the right thing.”

  “If I confess to your murder, I’ll go to prison for the rest of my life.”

  “Tough shit. You’re not me. You’re a fucking window-licker with a fancy disguise.”

  “Look. I don’t know if you’re real, or a hallucination of the lava tubes, or whatever. I’m sorry for what I’ve done. I’ll keep being sorry for as long as I keep doing it, and a long time afterward, if not the rest of my life. But I’m not going to stop. I’m going to keep being you.”
r />   Arden shakes his head in disbelief. “You bastard. You pathetic, unbelievable bastard. You stole everything from me.”

  He takes a swing. I flinch, but his ethereal hand passes harmlessly through my face. He lunges, digging his hands into my neck. The whole of him floats through me with only the faintest breeze, like one of Satielle’s high-fives. He flies into a rage, driving punch after punch into my chest. Angry tears stream down his cheeks as he grunts and groans with every futile strike.

  How can this be an apparition? How can frustration this near and visceral come from a figment of my imagination? I don’t want to believe this is the real Arden Savage, but if it isn’t, what is it? Has my exhaustion allowed me to transcend metaphysical thought and conjure true, living entities?

  I consider telling him I’m sorry again, but that would be about as effective as the punches he’s trying to land. Truth is, Arden has made me understand something about myself. Something anyone around me could’ve told me a long time ago, and probably has several times.

  I’m a stubborn jackass.

  I’m not going to change. I’m not going to stop what I’m doing. If the grief-stricken cries of a soul trapped outside the mortal world can’t appeal to my better nature, nothing will. In fact, Arden Savage’s grief solidifies the way forward for me. Piteous and heartrending as it is to witness, it also brings clarity. It shows me what I have to do. I have to stop straddling this fence. Stop trying to be two people at once.

  As Githryx and I reach parity with our respective apparitions, they fade and evaporate until we’re left once again in silent darkness. We press on, both too stunned by the experiences we’ve just had to speak.

  “You see?” Githryx finally asks. “You hear?”

  I think back. Although it was only a few moments ago, I don’t remember anything about Githryx’s apparition. All I can remember is Arden and his desperate, wasted rage. “I don’t think I would’ve been able to see yours if I tried. It was there for you.”

  A heavy sigh. “I was hope you would.”

  “Did you see mine?”

  “I see, but blurry. I not know who was.”

  “It was Arden Savage. The victim of my most profound betrayal. Who was yours?”

  Githryx says nothing.

  “Why can’t you just tell me?”

  “I am sworn.”

  “Sworn? Did you strike a pact with someone?”

  “I do not say. Bad thing happen if I say.”

  “What bad thing? Githryx, if someone’s holding something over your head, you’ve got to tell me.”

  No answer.

  “Githryx?” I listen out. The footsteps which until a moment ago were padding along beside mine are no more. The tunnel air ripples in a rush of leathery wings, and I stumble through the darkness after him. Where the tunnel ends, the imp’s flapping silhouette comes into view against a diffused pink glow.

  I call his name as I emerge onto a stone ledge overlooking a lake of boiling oil. A series of circular pedestals, each shorter than the last, dot the lake from one end to the other with the gentle curve of a skipping stone. Narrow rocky bridges connect each platform to its neighbor. Githryx ignores the pedestals and flies straight to the massive circular ledge at the far end, where fangs of rock encircle a gigantic metal throne.

  The creature seated upon that throne is bigger even at this distance than I can at first believe. Her burnished orange skin is crawling with tiny reddish ants. Above the bubbling oil I make out the trickle of offbeat music, metallic and roughshod. I start across the first stone bridge as Githryx lands on the throned ledge and steps behind one of the tall stone fangs. The creature on the throne neither addresses him nor acknowledges his presence.

  Each connecting bridge narrows as it descends toward the throne. Soon I’m holding my arms out for balance and teetering across the final thin stretch, inches from the oil’s surface. Boiling bubbles pop and spatter on my filthy clothes, leaving tiny holes in my pants below the knee. It feels like being inside a giant frying pan.

  When I finally make it to the last platform, I find the reddish ants aren’t ants, but minor demons like the ones I encountered in the orphanage last summer. Malanx the Tyrant, Demon Princess of the Underworld, sits upon a gigantic throne of chiseled steel mottled with rust. The tiny demons roost and fidget all over her body, nesting in her tangled black hair, perching on her shoulders, slithering up her legs, even burrowing into the putrid furs covering her crotch.

  A trio of musicians in motley stand at the platform’s center, tooting and tapping on some of the strangest-looking and worst-sounding instruments I’ve ever heard while Malanx bobs her head side to side. I stand at the back and wait, disinclined to interrupt and wondering whether she’ll notice me.

  For a time Malanx appears content to ignore my presence and listen to the noise which must pass for music down here. Then a smile creeps onto the Demon Princess’s face. Without the slightest hint of misgiving she lifts an enormous calloused foot and stomps the trio of musicians flat. Their instruments wheeze and bonk alongside the squishy crunch of their bones. She slides her heel across the platform to scrape them off the bottom of her foot, sending dozens of demons diving out of the way and leaving a bloody smear behind. Then she clears her throat and speaks in a voice so big and deep and booming it rumbles in my chest.

  “Step forward, mortal.”

  I make my way through the scattered crowds and stop just shy of the blood. The top of my head barely reaches the height of her knee. Demons mumble and skitter around me, making vulgar comments about my pretty human flesh. Malanx speaks again.

  “Kneel.”

  I’m not here to worship the lady, but I’m not trying to increase my chances of being squashed like a bug, either. I bow my head, but that’s as low as I go.

  Malanx has other ideas. She stamps her foot, and the platform quakes.

  I lose my balance and stumble to one knee.

  “Now,” she commands, “kiss the ground at my feet.”

  The ground is smeared with demon blood. I hesitate at first, until I remember this stuff sells for thousands per vial on the supernatural black market. Durlan still hasn’t come through for me; this might be a convenient way to fuel my sleep-deprived mind through the next few dangerous hours of my life.

  I bend my other knee and lay my palms flat on the floor, lowering my face to the crimson-washed stone. I slide my tongue across its roughness to lap up a few sips of blood before planting a kiss on it. The blood’s got that familiar taste—raw sewage with a hint of lavender.

  “Stand,” Malanx commands.

  I do, and wipe the blood off my chin.

  “Who are you, and why have you come?”

  “I’m Cade Cadigan. I’m here because I need your help.”

  She grunts. “Help? I help no one but myself.”

  “One of your servants has helped me a lot. His name is Calyxto.”

  “My most prolific soul-stealer.”

  “Is he here?”

  “He was, until recently. He’s gone off, I don’t know where. He told you I was his master, did he? I’ll pull him in half.”

  “There’s no reason to punish him. He didn’t tell me. I found out from someone else—Elona Anarian, sidhe of the Fae Council.”

  “The hatred I bear for that woman cannot be expressed in words.”

  “I feel the same way. Word on the streets is you’ve made a deal with a small vampire coven northeast of New Detroit. Souls for blood.”

  “That is correct.”

  “You want to make more of those deals, don’t you? The stronger your foothold in the mortal realm, the more freedom you have to move in power there.”

  “Why would you concern yourself with such things?”

  “Because I have a vested interest in seeing Elona Anarian fail. She’s sanctioning the murder of supernatural creatures as they cross through the fabric of worlds. Fewer othersiders means less magic, which means someday soon it will become very hard for normals to summon you
and your minions into the mortal realm. If you don’t step in, that’s going to be your reality.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “I’m suggesting we do something about it.”

  Chapter 24

  The Demon Princess studies me as she thinks it over. “You speak of stepping in as if I might leave this realm of my own accord. You must know I cannot simply cross the barrier to the mortal world without being called forth.”

  “I’m aware of that. You leave the summoning part to me. I’ve called a demon or two in my day. I just wanted to make sure you’re up for it.”

  “What is it you believe I can do?”

  “If this goes according to plan, you won’t have to do anything.”

  “And if it doesn’t?”

  “Gather your armies and lay siege to the Gryphon Enterprises campus. Cut wires. Scramble broadcast signals. Cause havoc. Make the Fae Council’s worst nightmare come true—a supernatural event on a scale they’ve never imagined, and the inability to do jack shit to cover it up.”

  “You are a pernicious soul, Cade Cadigan,” says Malanx with a smile.

  “No. Just a tired one who’s done letting psychopaths rule the world.”

  “You claim you have summoned demons before. Yet I have not been called to the mortal realm in a thousand years. How is it you intend to do so?”

  “The details aren’t important.”

  “And you would forfeit a third sliver of your soul in addition to the two Calyxto has already obtained?”

  “Desperate times.”

  Malanx flares her nostrils. “I shall cherish it while I await the day upon which I receive the remainder.”

  “So you’ll do it, then. If I call you forth, you’ll muster your armies. And if the sidhe and her accomplices won’t back down, you’ll lay siege to Gryphon Enterprises.”

  “On one condition.”

  I love conditions. “What’s that?”

  “When our job is done, you will permit me to remain in the mortal realm. It’s so seldom I get the chance to see it for myself. I am told it has changed.”

  “In the last thousand years? Uh, yeah. It’s changed. How long would you like to stay for?”