BURN IN HADES (39 page)

The blue light bloomed. It was close enough now that he could partially see the sea beast, Grum, approaching steadily closer. The blue beacon hung from an antenna on its head and partially lit its ugly face that had scales peeling off it and bones protruding out of its gills.

Grum’s cold eyes peered at Cross, and the giant fish gaped its mouth. The threshold could fit the Carson’s mansion through it. Water sucked into the opening and dragged Cross along for the ride.

He swam away as hard as he could, but he couldn’t pull the weight of the giant, who was falling into Grum’s mouth. If only Ignatius had turned to Nothing, he could escape.

The giant must not have burned after all. Maybe he had only passed out. Cross shook the giant in an attempt to wake him, but it was too late.

Grum’s teeth hung above his head and jutted up below. They were the size and shape of church steeples. Cross waited for the teeth to come within inches of closing, and at the last second, he kicked off of Ignatius’s chest. The giant fell behind Grum’s teeth, which chomped down on the chain. It snapped.

Cross swam furiously back to the surface of the water and gulped in frigid, soulless air. Waves crashed on his head and there was no land in sight. There was only one way back to land that would prevent him from succumbing to the cold or becoming chum for the monsters that lurked in Oceanus. It could possibly get him to Skull Hill before Diamond Tooth, depending on how far she had already traveled. He assumed she had already beaten the name of the skull out of the Raven. That is, if the Raven had talked.

Somehow, he knew she hadn’t. She wasn’t a talker like him.

He gathered the half chain dangling at his wrist, inhaled deeply, and swam back underwater. Grum’s blue glow was swimming away, but the beast must’ve sensed his return. The giant fish whipped around as Cross had hoped. The dead eyes of the sea beast drew closer with increasing speed, seemingly determined to make a meal out of Cross.

He swam upward, and just as he planned, Grum chased, swimming at such a speed that the water pushed upward instead of sucking back into the beast’s mouth. Cross positioned himself at Grum’s lips and planted his feet.

Grum broke the surface of the water and launched into the air. Cross dove for the blue beacon and wrapped the chain around the antennas.

Grum plunged back into the water with Cross on its spine, tugging on the antenna, using them as reins. Grum bucked and swam deeper into the ocean. Down, down, down into the black depths.

Cross had anticipated that too. Most wild beasts reacted the same way when something tried to ride them, and there wasn’t a beast in the living world or the underworld than he couldn’t tame. He stroked Grum’s antenna and the sea monster quit fighting.

Chapter 19 - The Dreameater

Finally, out in the warm light of the underworld
, standing at the edge of Fon-Ewe Forest, the Raven got a closer look at Diamond Tooth’s band of demons. The six young men and women appeared more creatural than Diamond Tooth, and much more demonic with their pointy ears and wrinkled faces. They all seemed to be in the middle of a transition, as if they hadn’t quite grown into themselves fully.

Each had his or her own distinct horns sticking out of his or her skulls. The smallest female demon had puny horns poking out her forehead. Without those horns, she could have been mistaken for a human, just like Diamond Tooth. The two of them strikingly resembled each other in an odd way.

One male and one female had thick ram-like horns curling around their ears. And that was the extent of their beastly characteristic features. They could have passed for humans as well. But another two of the demons appeared wooden, as if they were half tree; their skin was bark-like and their horns were brown like a cone-shaped branch with a hint of leafy moss at the tip.

The ugliest of all the demons was so emaciated it could have been a member of the Loa tribe. It had the most horns of all the demons. They protruded out all over its naked skeletal frame. Prickly thorns pointed out from its lips, and horns replaced its teeth and fingernails.

The demons themselves weren’t necessarily an odd sight for the Raven. She’d seen more bizarre creatures, but she studied them longer than usual because somehow each of their facial features was familiar to her, as though she had met them before somewhere else besides Camp Erutrot. Their eyes, jaw bone structure, and nose all resembled familiar faces, but she couldn’t peg who they were exactly.

That kind of verging recall had been happening to her frequently enough in the past few weeks that she made desperate efforts to pay close attention and attempt to remember whatever information that was trying burrow its way out of the depths of her subconscious.

The Loa returned the heard of scorpions and dispersed each object to its rightful owner. The bagh nakhs of course went to Diamond Tooth. One demon took a cane—the cane that the Amenthesians had given to the Raven. She had never tested it out and didn’t know its ability. A female demon grabbed a lantern that the Raven had never seen before. The daintiest of the three female demons took the pink parasol.

Cross had shoved that exact umbrella in the Raven’s face enough times, she remembered it distinctly. Apparently, the demons were aware of the blanket’s ability. That was the only way they could have gotten it or the amphora that the fourth demon tucked under her arm. It was the same amphora the squals had given to the Raven as bounty for turning Cross in to them.

The Raven couldn’t figure out if the skeletal demon was male or female. It holstered the hammer in his spiky hip. She knew the hammer’s power. It had knocked her feathers off near the Asphodel Meadows when she tested it out. She had never used it again because she preferred the precision of her rope dart. The hammer was more suitable for demolishing something large. Unfortunately, it couldn’t have been in worse possible hands.

Ropey returned to the Raven’s waist, and she shoved her battered top hat on her head. Her burlap sack, stuffed with the blanket, was hooked onto Diamond Tooth’s scorpion. With all the objects evenly dispersed—or unevenly from the Raven’s outnumbered perspective, the clan of eight each saddled their own respective scorpion and headed out of Guinee.

They journeyed into Lokantarika, a town within Naraka. The village could have fit in with the sparkling cities of paradise once, but the wars smeared its grimy hands over everything in it. Holes littered the Stupa of Nirvana, and at the other end of the long road, the wooden pagoda bled smoke.

Explosions boomed in the outskirts of the village. Flashes in the distance lit up the dark clouds. A whistle scraped through the sky from the east. Globs of lava splashed onto the pagoda. Brimstone plopped in front of her and the demons, drowning the road.

The Raven and the demons hopped off their scorpions. The ground crunched under their feet as though they had stepped on crispy leaves. When the Raven glanced down, she spotted souls the size of insects, scrambling away, trying to avoid getting smashed.

All the demons except Diamond Tooth purposely stomped the tiny spirits, making a game out of it and laughing. The Raven tip-toed over the souls but couldn’t avoid crushing some by accident. She cringed at each splat under her boots.

“Raec, take care of the scorpions,” said Diamond Tooth.

Raec, one of the two ram-horned demons, rounded up the scorpions. The rest of them sought shelter in the abandoned stupa. Diamond Tooth lay down on the only cot available. It drooped, on its last leg.

Outside, crowds of spirits fled the ragged buildings. They clumped together like several locomotives made of hundreds of legs, arms, and heads. They merged with one another, and burst out of each other’s chests, causing their own dismemberment and beheadings. Headless bodies raced away, leaving their heads behind calling for their masters to return.

Diamond Tooth’s disgusting demons kicked the heads around as a game and used the leftover limbs that littered the road as cruel whacking sticks to smack the heads over the buildings. The demons sought a vile joy in who could send a head the farthest. The heads pleaded and screamed as they sailed away over the roofs. The heads that didn’t clear the stupa, rolled back down the rounded heap of a building, and were subject to more bashing.

Unable to watch the sick game any longer, the Raven returned to the stupa and sat in a chair, contemplating her next move. She suspected that Diamond Tooth and her demons were planning to burn her once they found out the name of the skull. It’s what the Raven would have done in their boots, and she was in no position to do anything about it. Even with her rope dart, she couldn’t defeat them all. They each had objects and had owned them long enough to have played around with them and figured out how to use them lethally. That’s perhaps why Diamond Tooth felt comfortable enough to sleep in the same room as the Raven.

Running away and forgetting about the last Toran wasn’t an option. Reaching it was worth the risk. She just hated not being in control and lacking a plan.

Raec returned from rounding up the scorpions, and the marching cadence of souls who were running scared, fleeing the town had subsided until the only things that occupied Lokantarika was the Raven, the seven demons and silence.

A furry animal wandered into their hideout. It was a Baku, a child’s pet that ate nightmares and harsh dreams.

Diamond Tooth slumbered away, but the other six demons reached for the creature with hungry eyes. It scurried away from them. They lunged after it. The dreameater darted for the Raven and hopped into her lap as if it knew she would protect it. She embraced the cuddly Baku, and it trembled in her arms.

The demons stalked with glowing eyes. The Raven stared the demons down, welcoming any challenge, but they wouldn’t attack her. They needed her cooperation. She was the only one who knew the name of the skull that the Toran was buried under.

They scoffed at her and backed away. She caressed the Baku and stroked it until it stopped shaking. It nudged its head under her palm, purring, and sniffed her enthusiastically with its snout. It gave her the kind of respect she had witnessed between Cross and Gimlet. It was very unfortunate what happened to those two.

A four beat drum-like pattern played outside, interrupting her from her brief sorrow. It sounded like four bullet rounds and judging by its muffled tone, it originated from inside a building at the other end of the road. The demons, too busy playing their twisted games with the heads, didn’t hear the noise. They couldn’t have heard it at that distance anyway. They could see in the dark, but only she could hear at that distance.

Those shots weren’t from just any gun though. Every gun had its own tune, and that melody was familiar. She knew it distinctly because she had heard it up close and personal right before her walk through Yomi. Ever since Cross’s Peacemaker had emptied her canteen, the sound remained imprinted in her mind, just like every other sound she had ever heard.

She recalled seeing Ignatius with the Peacemaker back at Camp Erutrot, but the giant would have never been able to get his arm-sized finger through the trigger guard. It wouldn’t surprise her if the shots came from Cross. That bastard was a survivor.

But anyone could steal objects. It may not have been him at all. She hoped it was Cross. For both their sakes, it had better be him. A tingle sensation danced in her stomach at the thought of seeing him again.

She carried the Baku in between the demons. They all watched her step over the rubble and exit the stupa through the massive hole in the wall. Once outside and safe, she released the Baku. It scurried away, and she waited till it was out of danger. She headed in the direction where the gunshots originated, toward the pagoda at the other end of the road, still exhaling smoke like a pipe.

Lokantarika was ghostly quiet. The scrape of her boots across the gravel accompanied the faint wisp of wind swirling dust. The capriccio of war was still not too far away. Somewhere in the heart of Naraka, there was a giant battle taking place. The beat of foot-to-earth played out the elegy of each individual soul’s finale in that war, and that orchestra was pouncing closer.

A new sound pattered behind her. She had expected to be followed, but not so obviously. Those demons couldn’t sneak up on a drummer during a parade. They sounded like Raec’s clunky footsteps, and he was alone, which was stupid of him but perfect for her.

She cut around the side of a building and about-faced. Raec turned the corner. She grabbed his ram-like horns and slammed him face first onto the ground. He rolled to his back. Her rope dart launched down at him. He deflected it with a simple wave of his wrist.

The Raven paused, severely taken aback, as no one had ever simply waved her rope dart away before. Ropey wrapped around her waist in retreat.

Raec clutched an object in his palm, and an unknown force lifted his back horizontally off the ground. He floated upright and slowly glided down to his toes, soles and then heels. A swirling aura molded around his frame, glowing green with a hint of purple.

She launched her rope dart at him again. The dart bashed into his chest with the force of a bullet, and on impact the green aurora sparked around his body like electricity. But amazingly, the dart failed to pierce him. It merely clung to the aura surrounding him.