by Maggie Walsh
“What?” Thomas asked in surprise.
“You heard me,” Jesse answered, keeping his eyes on Envy.
“I was sent to the Underworld upon my death. That is where the gods resurrected me. I was trying to find my way out when these heathens started chasing me,” Thomas explained.
“That makes no sense,” Jesse said and looked back to Thomas. Their eyes clashed for a brief moment before Thomas covered up his anger. “If the gods resurrected you then why did they just leave you there? Why didn’t they take you from the Underworld?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you should ask them,” Thomas tried to keep his voice even, but Jesse heard the slight hiss.
“Envy, do you know this man?” Jesse asked.
“No,” he answered simply, but Jesse could sense he was lying.
“Is this the evil one?”
“No, he not the one.”
“He is not the one, but he is the servant, isn’t he?” Envy remained silent. That was answer enough for Jesse. He untangled himself from Micah’s arms and took a step toward Thomas. “You are Malachi’s servant,” Jesse accused.
Thomas’s eyes turned dark. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. Everything you say is a lie.”
“Jesse, what happened in my former life is the past. I swear to you, the gods brought me back so that I can help you with the prophecy. Would you let your bitter jealousies threaten all of our futures and deny me from finding my mate?”
“My bitter jealousies?” Jesse asked in disgust. “You are the one who was jealous of me being Micah’s mate. You were the one who tried to kill me. You were the one who betrayed Micah and your brothers,” Jesse said angrily through clenched teeth.
“You’re right. But that was before. I’m not that person anymore,” Thomas pleaded.
“Taylor,” Jesse said and held out his hand. Taylor came to stand next to Jesse. His face a mask of rage. “Project my thoughts,” Jesse said using the pack link. Taylor gave him a smirk and closed his eyes.
Suddenly a vision appeared between them and Thomas. It showed Jesse and Micah making love and claiming each other. Then it shifted to them wrapped in each other’s arms as they lay in bed talking and laughing. Jesse watched Thomas’s face as his facade began to crack and his eyes got darker as he stared at the vision. The images changed and Micah and Jesse were dancing in their room, both naked as they held each other close in a very tender, loving moment, as they swayed to the music.
A scowl of anger crossed Thomas’s face and he began to breathe heavy. His jaw clenched and his eyes raged. Thomas moved fast, surprising Phenex. He pulled away from Phenex and launched himself in Jesse’s direction. At the same time, Envy pulled away from Laylen and threw himself at Thomas. Thomas grabbed Jesse’s leg as he was going down. The room lit up from a bolt of lightning and then the lights flickered off. The room went black for a few seconds before the lights flickered back on, and they were gone. Jesse, Taylor, Thomas, and Envy were all gone. The wolves began to growl.
* * * *
Jesse, Taylor, Thomas, and Envy appeared in the vast open expanse known as the Desolate Road. The place looked exactly the same as it did the last time they were here in the Underworld. The large, dark mountains loomed in the distance, the dry cracked ground below their feet, and nothing around as far as the eye could see. It looked like they had stepped into a black-and-white movie and the only colors came from them.
“How did we get here?” Thomas asked in fear.
“I brought us here,” Jesse answered as he and Taylor stood together and faced off against Thomas.
“You stupid fuck,” Thomas spat. “Do you know where you have brought us?”
“Yes. I know exactly where we are. This is exactly where I wanted you.” Jesse smiled evilly.
“This is the fucking Desolate Road. There is nothing here in this god damned wasteland. There is no way out. Anyone who enters here is never heard from again, except for the Legion Warriors. You stupid fucking whore!” Thomas yelled at Jesse and turned, running his fingers through his hair.
“So nice to see that you have changed, Thomas,” Taylor said in a cold voice.
Thomas spun back to face them, his eyes open wide. “I have changed. The gods saved me so that I can help you. I don’t know any other way to make you believe me except to talk to the gods. But now that can’t happen because this stupid piece of shit dropped us here.”
“Envy, now that we are here and away from the Legion, is this man Malachi’s servant that you spoke of?” Jesse asked calmly.
Envy eyed Thomas with pure hatred. Thomas gave him a nasty look as if to say, “Keep your mouth shut.” Envy snarled at Thomas. “I cannots tell you one way or the other,” Envy replied.
“If I promise to get you out of here, can you tell me then?”
“Don’t listen to him. He’s lying. He can’t get you out of here, you know that. No one leaves the Desolate Road,” Thomas said angrily.
“He’s wrong, Envy. I can get us out of here. Taylor and I have been here before and we got out. That is how I knew how to get here in the first place.”
Envy stared at Jesse with his cold, lifeless, evil eyes, as if studying him. After a few moments he turned his gaze on Thomas and the two stared into each other’s eyes. Thomas looked like he was trying to relay a message of warning without words. Envy broke his gaze from Thomas and looked back at Jesse. “The Heart can gets us from this place?”
“Yes, I can.”
“He is―” Envy was cut off when Thomas attacked him and tackled him to the ground. Envy’s four long, spindly legs wrapped around Thomas as the two rolled around on the ground trying to beat the other.
“Stop!” the yell came from behind Taylor and Jesse. They spun around, surprised to hear the voice in this place. When their eyes locked on who stood there, neither of them could talk. Taylor reached out and grasped Jesse’s hand as they stood shoulder-to-shoulder against their biggest foe. Malachi stood there with a look of satisfaction on his face. Thomas and Envy stopped fighting and moved to stand by Malachi’s side. “Hello, Heart, Guardian. It’s so nice of you to drop by, and without your protectors.”
“Who said we didn’t have our family with us?” Jesse’s voice came out sure and steady, surprising even him. “Micah! Malachi is in the Desolate Road! Bring everyone!” Jesse screamed in his head, hoping Micah could hear him. He kept his facial expression neutral as he screamed to Micah. At the same time he heard Taylor yelling the same message to Gabriel in his mind.
Malachi opened his arms wide and twisted his body left, then right, while looking around. “This is the Desolate Road and I see no one but you two thorns.”
“Just because your eyes are lying to you doesn’t mean that they aren’t here,” Jesse said back in a cold, steady voice.
A husky, evil laughed escaped Malachi’s lips. “My eyes are lying to me? That is a good one, Heart, but your bluff won’t work on me.”
“You can believe it is a bluff all you want, there is no skin off my ass. But there will be some off of yours.”
“You think too highly of yourself, chosen one. That will only make me enjoy your death more,” Malachi sneered.
“My death? You can’t kill me, Malachi and you know it. Otherwise you would have already tried as we stand here, as you say, unprotected.” Jesse smiled as the smile fell from Malachi’s face. He knew he had him. Malachi may be a powerful demigod, but he was not as powerful as he was.
“First I will give you to the creature Envy to do with you as he wishes. Then I will slowly peel the skin from your bones, and when you start to beg me for mercy, I will hand you over to Thomas to finally do away with you.”
“Okay. Go ahead,” Jesse challenged. Malachi remained where he stood but his face filled with disbelief and fear. That knowledge let Jesse know he was right. Malachi couldn’t hurt him.
Malachi recovered from his shock and an evil snarled crossed his lips. “I can and will defeat you, Heart. W
ho do you think brought you here in the first place? I had to get you away from your protectors so that I could destroy you.”
“Wrong. I brought us here. You just managed to follow us. What were you doing, watching through the window at the pack house?” Malachi’s eyes widened slightly before he caught himself.
“So you’re telling me this disgusting demigod has been reduced to a Peeping Tom?” Taylor asked in amusement.
“How did you―” Thomas began but was cut off by Malachi.
“Shut up, you stupid fool,” he seethed at Thomas.
“Yes, Master,” Thomas said shyly and looked down.
“Oh this is rich,” Taylor said. “In your death, you have been reduced to a servant of Malachi and have to do whatever he says and call him master. See, Jesse, karma works.”
“Fuck you, whore,” Thomas yelled to Taylor.
“I may be a whore, but at least I’m not stupid. You can’t fix stupid,” Taylor said cheerfully.
“I’m stupid? You’re the ones that don’t even realize that while you are here―” Thomas was again cut off, but this time by Malachi’s hand as he wrapped his fingers around Thomas’s throat and began to squeeze.
Jesse tried hard to keep his face stone still and his eyes cold. He thought of what Thomas’s implied words could mean. They separated them. They had played them. Malachi may not have realized that Jesse would bring them to the Desolate Road, but he had Thomas get captured by Phenex. He knew that Phen would bring Thomas to Micah, and that Jesse would do everything to get Thomas away from his mate, his family. He also guessed right in figuring Jesse would bring Taylor with him. It had all been a setup. Well not all of it. They couldn’t have figured that two stupid bank-robbing morons would be at the house when Thomas purposely got himself caught. He shifted his gaze from Thomas’s blue face and looked to the creature Envy. At some point during their exchange, he had sneaked away. Jesse looked into the distance and saw the creature’s figure moving through the deserted land.
“Envy is getting away,” Taylor said through their pack link.
“He won’t get far. Besides, I’m more worried about Micah, Gabriel, and the rest of them. This was a setup. We need to get out of here.”
“What’s your plan? Do we face these fuckers or run like hell toward the mountain?”
“How about plan C?” Jesse asked with a hint of mischief in his voice. Jesse closed his eyes and thought of two special someones and called to them to come to him. He wasn’t sure if it would work, but he hoped what his fathers told him about his powers were true. He opened his eyes when he heard Taylor gasp. Standing about ten feet behind Thomas was Cass, and he had three rogues on him. Behind Cass about six feet was Micah and he, too, was fighting four rogues.
Jesse looked at Malachi and realized the idiot was so focused on reprimanding Thomas that he didn’t even notice that they had been joined by others. The demigod just kept yelling in Thomas’s face as he squeezed his throat and Thomas’s face became even paler.
Jesse held up his hands toward the rogues on Cass and waved his hand as if shooing off a fly. The rogues were thrown from Cass. He turned and spotted Jesse, Taylor, Thomas, and Malachi. His eyes went wide before turning feral. “Spear,” Jesse said simply and Cass nodded at him.
Taylor and Jesse watched as a ball of metal appeared in Cass’s palm and quickly spun, then grew and morphed into a silver spear. Cass grasped the spear tightly in his hand, cocked his arm back, and threw the spear as hard as he could in Thomas’s direction. Their eyes followed the spears path as it made purchase with its mark. The spear impaled Thomas straight through the center of his back, coming out the front and impaling Malachi. The point of the spear was just visible as it made a peak on Malachi’s back, showing through his shirt.
Jesse flicked his wrist in Micah’s direction and the four rogues that were attacking Micah flew away from him as if they weighed nothing. Micah spun and looked to Jesse. Then his eyes flicked to Thomas and Malachi.
Malachi’s eyes were open wide in shock as he released Thomas’s throat and looked down at the spear that impaled them both. His eyes were full of disbelief and fear. Malachi grabbed Thomas’s shoulders and pushed the man away from him. The spear made a sickening slurping sound as it slid from Malachi’s body. Once he was free of it, he took a step back away from Thomas and placed his hands over the blood-soaked wound. He looked down at his red hands in disbelief and then raised his head and looked at Jesse. “How? How are you so powerful? The Heart should not be this powerful. My visions never showed us this. How do you have the powers of a demigod? One who is stronger than me and―” He cut himself off as he began to cough and blood sprayed from his mouth. “You are a demigod”―he coughed again―”but how?”
Malachi took a step in Jesse’s direction and his eyes filled with hatred and rage. “How did you come to be? Tell me!” Malachi yelled as he got to within two feet of Jesse.
Jesse watched as Micah slowly approached behind Malachi carefully, soundlessly and then stopped as he stood directly behind him.
Bodies suddenly appeared behind Micah and Cass, and Jesse breathed a sigh of relief. His family had arrived and they were all accounted for.
“Don’t you know by now that good always has a way of winning over evil?” Jesse asked.
“Answer me, Heart. How are you so powerful?” Malachi asked in a near whisper as his voice grew softer, the blood flowing through his fingers, and his bloody coughs growing louder.
“Maybe my fathers should explain that to you,” Jesse answered with an evil smile and nodded his head in the direction behind Malachi. Malachi slowly turned to look over his shoulder. He spotted Micah right behind him as well as the rest of Jesse’s family, minus the fae. They couldn’t come to the Underworld.
“Phenex,” Malachi bit out through clenched teeth.
“Rat, pig,” Phenex said with an evil smirk. “Seeing as you are about to die, maybe I should tell you. But I think that it would be a greater punishment to you if you didn’t know.”
“You may have finally gotten me, Heart,” Malachi said roughly as he turned back to look at Jesse. “But you will never defeat him.”
“And who would that be? The man I saw in the Underworld? The man with the beard?” Jesse asked nonchalantly. When Malachi didn’t respond, Jesse continued. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, Malachi”―Jesse stepped a bit closer and leaned in until his lips were close to Malachi’s ear―”he doesn’t scare me either. He may be a demigod, too, but he is not more powerful than me. I saw the fear in his eyes. I will kill him, too.” Jesse pulled his head back slightly to look into Malachi’s eyes, their faces only inches apart. Suddenly Malachi’s eyes opened wide in shock and filled with pain, as blood ran from his mouth. “Aurora is my mother. As well as Noah’s,” Jesse whispered in Malachi’s face and saw the complete surprise in Malachi’s eyes before the light went out in them and his lifeless body crumpled to the ground.
Jesse looked up and met Micah’s gaze. Micah still stood where he had been standing behind Malachi, but now he held the demigod’s dripping heart in his hand. “I don’t know of any creature who can live without a heart beating inside them,” Micah said and dropped the vile organ.
“Very true, Alpha Prime,” Lucifer’s voice came to them. Micah and Jesse both looked to the man. He gave them both a warm smile. “It is not possible for any of the Gods’ creatures to live without a heart, but down here it’s different. I have thousands without hearts that cause trouble every day.” Lucifer looked to Phenex. “Commander, will you personally take that worthless heart to the Phlegethon River and drop it in? I will be taking the former demigod to a very special place in my kingdom reserved for certain types.”
“It would be my honor, Lord Lucifer,” Phenex answered and bowed his head.
“What of Brighton’s request for Malachi to be returned to Tartarus for him to play with?” Nuriel asked with a smirk.
“Since when do the guilty get to make such requests of me? It will add
to Brighton’s pain and suffering. Which is what this place is for. Come, Malachi, your new hellmates await your arrival with anticipation. When I told Adolf who would be joining us, it was the first time the man smiled since he arrived. Of course I made that disappear quickly,” Lucifer explained with a sadistic smile.
“Adolf?” Taylor asked, eyebrows raised.
Lucifer just gave him a mischievous smile, then turned his attention back to Jesse and Micah. “No fear, Heart, no one has ever escaped my personal chamber. Malachi will spend all of eternity there with me and the damned ones.”
“How about a two-for-one sale today?” Jesse asked and motioned to Thomas who was now on his knees, watching them. He still had the spear through him and blood ran down his body.
Lucifer looked at Thomas thoughtfully and then turned back to Jesse and smiled. “I thought you may want to play with him for a while.”
Jesse shook his head. “I only wish to never see him again as long as I live and for him to pay for his sins.”
“Your wish is my command, Heart. So it has been wished, so shall it be.” Lucifer raised his hands and both Malachi and Thomas rose to their feet. Malachi’s eyes opened and stared in terror at Lucifer. “Yes, Malachi, your time has finally come. With full blessings from our father.” In the blink of an eye the three were gone.
Phenex bent and picked up the lifeless heart that Micah had dropped. He straightened and looked to Jesse. “Tell your ada that I will be home soon.” Phenex turned and ran toward the mountain. He ran so fast that he was gone in a millisecond.
