Overhead, there was a rumble of thunder, and Fennrys wondered if the storm was returning. He cast an eye skyward and realized that he had lost all track of the time in the hours since Mason’s disastrous fencing competition when he’d made a grave mistake and let her walk away from him, distraught. She hadn’t been thinking straight. Off her guard. An easy target for those who might seek to harm her … even if they were her own flesh and blood.
“Will you two please stop screwing around and come on?”
Rafe poked his dreadlocked head back out of the solid wood-and-iron door through which he’d apparently walked, quite unimpeded, when Fennrys wasn’t paying attention.
“I don’t have to hold your hand or anything, do I?” Fennrys asked, eyeing the very solid-looking door skeptically.
“The door is ‘open’ because they opened it,” Rafe said, gesturing to the stone lions. “They are the guardians of this place. You keep wasting time out here and they’ll just shut it in your face. And then probably eat your face.”
Fennrys and Maddox exchanged a glance.
“And please,” Rafe continued. “I know that at this very moment you’re eager to get your girl back, and probably tempted to say something like, ‘They can try’ …” He pegged
Fennrys with a stone-cold serious stare. “Don’t.”
Fenn nodded and uncurled his fingers—which had knotted into fists of their own accord.
Rafe stepped all the way back through the door. “Where we are now, the places we’re going to … the things we’re about to do,” he said quietly, “they go beyond what you boys have fought against in the past. No disrespect to the Fair Folk—ever, and I mean that sincerely—but this is a whole different playing field, Fennrys Wolf. I hope you’re ready, because this is going to be a very different kind of fight. There are things where we’re going—powers—that can not only kill you … they can obliterate you. Wipe you from the universe, body and soul, as if you’d never been. Do you understand?”
Fenn glanced back at the stone guardians. One of the lions was sitting up now, head attentively cocked in their direction, as if waiting to hear what he said. The other one had relaxed into a recumbent pose, head resting on its massive stone paws. But Fennrys noticed it still kept one ear flicked in their direction, and the stone muscles sliding beneath the marble skin were coiled and ready to spring.
“I understand. And I’m not going anywhere but forward, Lord Anubis,” he said quietly. “But I thank you for your concern. And for the gracious welcome of your guardians in letting me pass even so far as this.”
Rafe raised a slow eyebrow at Fennrys, and one corner of his elegant mouth lifted in a half smile of approval. The subsonic thunder-rumble growl of the guardian turned into a definite purr—Fennrys could feel it through the soles of his boots—and so it seemed as if he had, somehow, passed some kind of a test. Probably the first of many. Rafe stepped aside and gestured to the solid-seeming door in front of them.
“After you, then,” he said.
Behind him, Fennrys heard Maddox’s whispered sigh of relief.
Inside the library, everything was dark. Quiet.
“Before the reservoir was built,” Fenn mused quietly as they walked through the halls, footsteps echoing, “I seem to recall the land here was used for something else.”
Rafe nodded. “It was a potter’s field. A mass, unmarked grave for soldiers and the poor. Kind of set a precedent as an ideal place for an entrance into the underworld, wouldn’t you say?”
Maddox glanced around, suddenly on edge, as if the ghosts of the dead were about to descend upon them.
Rafe grinned and said, “Don’t look so nervous. There’s nothing to fear here anymore. Well … not from those poor souls, anyway.”
“They dug up the bodies before they built the reservoir foundation,” Fennrys explained. “I remember it was a fairly massive undertaking, but they moved them all.”
“They did,” Rafe said. “Tens of thousands of them.”
“Where did they move them to?” Fennrys asked.
Rafe shrugged. “Dunno. It was a long time ago.”
Maddox frowned. “For a god?”
“For a god who has better things to remember, yes,” Rafe said tartly.
“But you’re a god of the dead,” Fennrys pointed out. “That seems like rather a lot of dead to lose track of—”
“Listen. When I lost my kingdom, I made myself a part of the land of the living. I’m much more interested in that now, if it’s all right with you two,” Rafe rebuked them both with a sharp glare.
Maddox muttered an apology, and Fennrys gestured for Rafe to lead on.
The red eyes of closed-circuit cameras gazed unblinking at them from ceiling corners, and they passed through security checkpoints, but Rafe didn’t pause or so much as bat an eyelash, and Fennrys knew that they were protected from such mundane, human precautions while in the presence of the man-god. The gloom of the after-hours Astor Hall was sepulchral. Veering left, Rafe walked swiftly toward a staircase that, according to signage, led down to some kind of lecture hall. It was roped off, and another standing sign declared it politely off-limits to the general public. Rafe unhooked the rope and stood aside to let Fennrys and Maddox pass.
Bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet, ready for a fight, Fennrys led the way down the staircase. The steps were made of frosted glass, suspended in a stairwell that seemed to have been built not of the same polished marble as the rest of the library building, but of rough-hewn blocks of grim, gray granite. As Fenn and Maddox reached the landing at the midpoint turning of the stairs, Rafe called for them to stop where they were and not go any farther. They did as they were told, waiting for the Jackal God to catch up.
Faint golden illumination seemed to be filtering upward from beneath them, making it appear as if they stood poised on a gently glowing square made of solid light. Rafe reached them and leaned out over the railing. He placed the palm of his hand on the rough contours of the granite and sighed.
“Home sweet home,” he murmured. “It’s been far too long… .”
Fennrys and Maddox stepped back as Rafe’s appearance suddenly began to blur and the outlines of his face and body altered drastically, shifting into his intermediary form, between man and wolf. Fennrys was familiar with the transformation, but Maddox backpedaled almost off the edge of the landing in surprise.
“Whoa!” he exclaimed.
Fennrys thrust out a hand to keep him from tumbling all the way down to the museum’s lower level.
“That’s … wow.” Maddox whistled low. “That’s pretty cool, actually.”
Rafe—Anubis—turned and raised one black-furred eyebrow at the Janus Guard. It was a bit disconcerting to see such a human expression on the canine visage. His nose and ears had lengthened and tapered into the finely pointed features of the figure universally recognized as the Egyptian god of the dead. His body was covered head to toe in a sleek black pelt, and a wide gold collar circled his neck, resting like wings on his broadly muscled shoulders. Gold beads shone throughout the helmet of dreadlocks he still wore in his transitional form, and gold rings pierced his ears. Aside from the winged collar and jeweled bands circling his wrists and ankles, the Jackal God was naked except for the crisply pleated, embroidered white linen loincloth that draped around his hips.
He was easily one of the most regal figures Fennrys and Maddox had ever encountered. And for a couple of boys who were used to hanging out with Fae royalty on a regular basis, that was saying something. Rafe stalked past them, stepping to the edge of the platform, and placed a lapis-taloned hand on either railing. He began to speak in a language so old, it hadn’t been properly heard by human ears for thousands and thousands of years. The words thrummed through the air, the railings glowed, shimmered, and then vanished. The glass stairs hung in space, now truly suspended but by what means, Fennrys couldn’t perceive.
Like a king returning to his realm after a long absence, the Jackal God strode majestically
down the stairs, head high, chest out. Challenger and conqueror, both. As Rafe’s bare foot landed on the ground below the stairs, the darkness shimmered like a mirage. Suddenly, they found themselves standing in a vast, torch-lit hall. Massive columns, fluted to look like lotus flowers, soared into the vaulting, star-spattered darkness over their heads that was reflected in the gleaming, polished marble floor. Black granite statues of gods, alternating with massive translucent alabaster urns, appeared as if they were marching in rows off into the invisible distance. The whole place had an air of austere opulence.
It was the entryway to the home of a god.
Fennrys and Maddox stood there, uncertain as to what to do next. Then the air seemed to start to quiver all around them. It was as if someone had plucked a massive harp string somewhere and the vibrations were reaching them before the sound. And then the sound did reach them… .
But it was nothing musical like a harp.
This sounded more like one of those car-masher machines in a junkyard, chewing through the engine compartment of an SUV … only it was a distressingly organic sound. The horrible gnashing and roaring echoed off what sounded like cavern walls in the darkened distance. And it was getting closer.
“You know what this reminds me of?” Maddox asked.
“I dunno,” Fennrys said, loosening the blade in the sheath he’d strapped to his leg. “The good ol’ days?”
“Exactly! Especially that one time—when that Jack-in-Irons tried to get through the Samhain Gate. Remember that?”
“What was good about that?” Fennrys glared sideways at Maddox. “That pit-spawned monstrosity almost tore my arms off, and it put you in Auberon’s infirmary for the better part of a mortal year.”
“Good times …” Maddox sighed, pulling a stout length of silvery chain from a pouch at his belt. As he swung it in circles, the chain lengthened and grew spikes that whistled through the dank air.
Fennrys drew the loaner sword. “I miss my ax,” he muttered.
And then the ground shook as the thing that would be the first test in their descent into the underworld came barreling out of the darkness in front of them. Armored with scales the size of pancakes, greenish-gray and wafting a swampy stench that was an assault on the senses, the crocodile was maybe thirty feet long. Its massive, cumbersome body was carried along on short, stumpy legs, but even with all its ungainly girth, the thing moved swiftly.
Seeing what was coming, Fennrys resheathed his blade.
It would do him no good. In the Lands of the Dead, death itself was something to be employed extremely judiciously.
Fennrys glanced over to see that Rafe stood off to one side, arms crossed over his broad, furred chest. His stare was impassive, and Fennrys understood in that moment that there would be no help coming to him or Maddox. They would have to pass this test—prove their worthiness—on their own. It was just one of those unwritten rules of quests, Fennrys supposed. His shifted his gaze to Maddox, who stood loose and ready, the enspelled chain dangling from his fingers, swinging gently back and forth, and a grim smile of anticipation bending the corners of his mouth. He had no doubt that they probably could, between the two of them, put an end to the beast. But Fennrys decided that a bit of nonlethal diplomacy would serve them better.
“Madd!” he called out. “Let’s do this one up rodeo-style.”
“Ha!” Maddox barked a laugh. “All right—I call clown-in-the-barrel.”
Fennrys grinned and took a step back as Maddox stalked forward, positioning himself just to the right of one of the lotus columns—the mighty stone support was the circumference of a decent-sized giant redwood tree.
“Look sharp,” Fenn said, ducking behind a statue.
“Yo, ugly!” Madd stepped out and waved his arms in a wide arc over his head. “Over here!”
Jaws snapping, legs churning, the croc swung its massive head from side to side as it thundered down the great hall, its tiny eyes narrowing to focus on the movement in its field of vision. Once it zeroed in on Maddox, the thing charged straight for him, moving with blinding speed. Maddox was a fraction of a second faster. He sprinted for the pillar, skidded into a hairpin turn, and disappeared around the other side.
The beast’s momentum carried it past the lotus column as its claws scrabbled for purchase on the polished floor. Its powerful neck muscles contracted, whipping its head to one side, as its enormous tail scythed to the other, compensating for the centrifugal force that slewed the creature’s massive bulk in a half circle. It gathered its flailing legs underneath it again and, aiming its snout in the direction Maddox had fled, launched itself forward again.
The two Janus had the beast right where they wanted it.
Its momentum squandered, and its back end pointing to where Fennrys crouched behind the base of a statue of Horus, the croc was entirely focused on running down Maddox, who jumped nimbly for the mouth of one of the huge alabaster jars—and disappeared down inside, clown-in-a-barrel rodeo-style. Fennrys took the opportunity to sprint after the creature as the thing’s shoulder glanced off the urn, spinning it like a top.
Fennrys leaped, landing deftly on the croc’s broad, scaly tail, and ran up the creature’s back, toward its head. He was halfway there when a flick of the croc’s tail sent him forward in a shoulder roll along the uneven surface of the armored hide.
As the croc scrambled to a second stop, Fenn grabbed for a ridge of dorsal spikes and desperately pulled himself up along the reptile’s enormous body to lunge for its head. If he fell, he’d be dead before he hit the ground, snapped in half by those terrible jaws. Inching forward, he managed to loop one arm around the beast’s sensitive snout and, with his other arm wrapped around the top, threw all his weight behind keeping the jagged-toothed mandibles shut tight. As the croc thrashed and snarled beneath him, he struggled to keep the massive creature from tearing off his arm.
In that instant, Maddox popped out of his jar with his magickally malleable chain weapon fashioned into a functional lasso. With a deft throw and a sharp snap of his wrist, Maddox snared the great beast’s muzzle, pulling as tight as he could. The creature thrashed and roared deep in its throat, outraged. Fennrys reached down and grabbed first one stubby front leg and then the other, pulling them back like a calf roper as Maddox ducked in again and used the rest of the chain length to secure the scaly, taloned appendages, tying them off with all the showy aplomb of an experienced rodeo hand.
From where he stood, Rafe sauntered toward them, shaking his canine head, an amused sneer curling one side of his muzzle to reveal a sharply pointed fang, gleaming white in the gloom. Fennrys and Maddox made way as he circled around to the front of the crocodile and crouched on his haunches to stare the beast directly in its unblinking eyes.
“Sobek,” Rafe tsk-tsked. “You are the lamest excuse for a watchdog I have ever had the misfortune of encountering. You realize you just embarrassed yourself in front of a couple of Janus Guards. Don’t you have any professional pride? I mean, seriously.”
The crocodile snarled gutturally around the chain snare that clamped his jaws shut tight.
“That,” he growled through his teeth, “was not a fair fight. I am bound to keep the living from crossing over. That one’s already dead.” He jerked his head in Fenn’s direction.
Rafe snorted in derision. “Yeah, whatever. The Wolf is only sort of dead.”
“Whatever he is … he’s in the wrong afterlife!”
“Not the first time,” Fennrys muttered.
“I was only trying to fulfill my mandate according to your rules, Anubis.” Sobek writhed on the dusty ground, glaring at Rafe. “Let me up.”
“So you can eat my friends?” Rafe barked a laugh. “I left my kingdom behind, Sobek. Not my brain.” He stood and, hands on linen-draped hips, cast a surveying glance around the place. His lips curled back from his teeth in displeasure. “Where are my baboons? Why isn’t anyone tending the Lake of Fire?”
Fennrys looked in the direction of Rafe’s glance, b
ut all was shadowy darkness to his eyes. He certainly couldn’t see any flaming lake, although that was probably because it had extinguished through lack of tending, he supposed. Whatever the case, he wasn’t going to complain about the absence of fiery obstacles.
Rafe shook his head and turned to glare back down at the giant croc. “I should have known my brother would let things fall to pieces once I left… .”
“Things have changed, lord. There just aren’t any believers left to mistakenly wander this way. Nothing to keep us going.” Sobek wriggled again, clearly uncomfortable, and for a moment, the facade of ponderous dignity cracked. “Let me up,” he complained piteously. “I’m getting a cramp.”
Rafe turned to the two Janus Guards and lifted a questioning eyebrow.
“I can help you,” Sobek said.
Fennrys clenched a fist. He was rapidly running out of patience. He knew how these things went. You didn’t rush a quest—if that’s what this truly was—you ran the gauntlet, accepted all challenges, vanquished foes, answered riddles, jumped through the hoops, danced to the tunes… . In short, you played by the rules. Fennrys had never been very good at playing by the rules. But Mason was down there, somewhere, caught in an infernal realm, and that was the only thing that mattered. He needed to find her. And if a talking crocodile had any useful insights, he’d spare a minute and listen. But only a minute.
“Let him up,” he said to Maddox. “We’ll just take him out again if he gets frisky. In a less gentle fashion.”
Once freed, Sobek’s reptilian form began to shimmer and twist, and then, suddenly, a man—bald, stocky, with a craggy complexion and blunt features—stood before them, garbed in a somewhat shabbier version of Rafe’s glittering, elegant accoutrements. Sobek brushed the dust from his loincloth and turned to Fennrys, his eyes narrowing.
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