As Darkness Falls by Riley Storm

Chapter Thirty-One

Despite Aaron’s misgivings, we continued on, moving swiftly through the darkened sewers. As he put it, “this is the smartest time to be this stupid.” Whatever that meant.

I thought that the idea of robbing Hades was actually diabolically clever. After all, who would expect such a thing? Everyone knew that Hades was a volatile, temperamental son of a gun and that you didn’t want to get caught by him. Or so they told me. I had no choice but to believe them, given that, unlike my main companions, I had never met Hades.

And if we do things right, I never will. Unless I get sent there at the end. Wouldn’t that suck?

So far, I’d put off dealing with the little things like contemplating my future in the afterlife. Would it be this one or true Hell under Lucifer, which apparently also existed. As did, it seemed, every realm that was powered by human belief. Which is why I didn’t want to bring the subject up. I knew I had literal days’ worth of questions that would keep Aaron and Vir occupied, and we simply did not have time for that. Not yet.

“Here.”

The voice broke through the quiet and was loud enough to make me start in surprise. I came to a stop alongside Aaron. He was facing the sidewall, where a chunk of concrete was missing, revealing nothing but blackness. Even the blue light Vir was casting didn’t penetrate the wall.

“This is it? Our entrance?” I asked quietly.

Aaron nodded, still staring, fixated on the spot.

I opened my mouth to get us moving, but a hand on my elbow stopped me. It was Fred. He’d come up on my other side and was gently shaking his head. I frowned. Patience, Fred mouthed at me, moving his lips slowly so I could follow in the dark.

There wasn’t time for patience, I wanted to yell back. Lars had my parents, and every minute we wasted watching the wall was a minute longer that they would be suffering. I had no idea what he was doing to them, but he’d had them for three-quarters of a year now. They needed to be freed.

Fred didn’t repeat himself, just settled into a comfortable stance, ready to wait for as long as necessary. My teeth ground together as I tried to force myself to do the same. Why the hell did we have to wait? This was his realm. Couldn’t he just open the door for us?

And if he could open the door, why was he so uncomfortable with the idea of going home?

My mind started to wander down that line of questioning, but before it could go far, Aaron sucked in a sharp breath.

“Stay close,” he said, taking my hand. “Whatever you do, don’t get left behind.”

I glanced over at Vir to see him staring at Aaron and my hands, a low growl escaping his lips. He didn’t like seeing the vampire touch me.

Because he thinks that I belong to him. I really need to disabuse him of that notion. I belong to no one, and he needs to stop thinking he has a claim on me.

Maybe it was petty and childish, but at the time, I couldn’t think of anything better to do. So, I stepped closer to Aaron. Basking in the slight cooling effect his presence had on my Soulbond with Vir. Being this close to the other half of the bond left Aaron’s impact muted, no matter how near I stood. But something was better than nothing.

“Ready when you are,” I whispered.

“Yeah,” Aaron muttered. “Sure.”

Then, he ran toward the black spot on the wall. I cringed and tried to shy away, not prepared to run into a solid wall, but Aaron’s hand tightened around mine, giving me no choice as he pulled me along behind him.

“Ahhh,” I managed to get out before we plunged into the darkness–

Aaron muttered a word I did not recognize.

And out the other side we came.

I came to a stumbling halt.

“Keep running,” Aaron snapped. “Or–”

“Hey!” I barked as hands wrapped around my stomach and lifted me clear off the ground. “Paws off, buster!”

“Relax,” Vir said as we immediately slowed. “It was either that, or I run you over. You stopped right in front of the exit.”

Oh.

“Oops,” I muttered, slapping at Vir’s hands, which were starting to slide precariously high up my stomach, all while I slid farther down his. It was not a recipe for anything I wanted to recreate here in public.

“Quiet,” Aaron hissed as his team fanned out around him. “Both of you. Noise will attract attention.”

I looked at Aaron, confused. “I thought just my being here would bring attention to us. Wasn’t that the whole spiel? A living being in the Realm of the Undead, or the dead, brings notice?”

I kept my voice low, despite the irateness of my tone, which was spurred by a stronger-than-ever reaction to Vir’s hands on me.

“Yes,” Aaron whispered. “But slowly. The realm itself will react to you. Noise carries far in here, however. It will bring us attention much quicker. If we’re lucky, we’ll get in and out before that happens.

I kept my mouth shut. It was better not to voice such statements as “I think we all know that’s not how our luck works” and similar things.

I glanced at Aaron’s eyes, seemingly more vivid here in his homeland, and knew he was thinking the same.

His homeland. Right. We were in the Realm of the Undead.

Dragging my attention away from the others, I swept my gaze across the blasted landscape in front of us, rather surprised at what I saw. It wasn’t dark and scary like the Direen was.

“It’s so bright,” I whispered, trying to come to terms with it, given how at odds it was with my expectations.

There wasn’t much in the way of light, but everything in sight was in shades of white, cream, and ivory. Even the ground was a bone-white color, the rock and sand the same all the way through.

To our left, a giant cliff face rose high above us, running for miles in either direction. It was a creamy color, more white than what was underfoot, but still with the vaguest hints of yellow. Almost like French Vanilla ice cream. It was the best way I could describe it, though it didn’t do it justice.

In the sky, there was no sun, but also no stars. It was just…a sandy white ceiling. It could be ten feet above us or a thousand miles. There was no way to tell. It was pretty, in its own way.

On our right, various stone structures rose from the ground. Not houses, but more like formations. Giant rocks of various shades of white. I couldn’t tell what they were, but they were all different; that much was obvious. Some were squat and wide, others taller and narrower. Some in a circle, others long rectangles. There was even one dome-like structure nearer the center. All of them bright.

“This isn’t that spooky,” I said quietly to no one in particular as we milled around, waiting for Aaron to lead us on.

“What did you expect?” Jaxton replied from next to me in an equally low voice that wouldn’t carry.

“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “But on Earth, where I’m from, vampires have a bit of a reputation, you know. You’re supposed to be creepy creatures of the night and all that. So, I guess I expected it would be more along those lines. Dark and foreboding?”

“Just wait,” Fred said dryly from nearby.

I only had time to give him a look of confusion before Aaron silenced us all and pointed. He took us in a direction that passed by the giant stone structures but didn’t go through them.

We walked, and I kept at least one or two team members between Vir, who watched our left flank, and me. He had a glare on his face that promised violence to anyone who pissed him off, and I didn’t want to know what it was all about. I figured he was harboring a grudge against Aaron for taking my hand earlier. Part of me wanted to call him out, say that he got his own licks in by copping a feel when he snatched me up just seconds after, but I didn’t have the energy. The two of them were becoming annoying in their claims over me.

Maybe I should just pick neither of them, I thought to myself, looking at Fred out of the corner of my eye. He was a mystery, a conundrum that I had yet to puzzle out. A member of Aaron’s team, yes, but he seemed to be more than that as well. Would I ever find out what? Probably not.

Looking away, I surveyed the landscape as we walked, trying to catalog the differences between here and Earth. It wasn’t long before I noted something else about this place.

There was nothing alive around us. Just nothing at all. No animals skittered out of our way. No birds took off into the sky to announce our presence. No bushes broke up the monotony of the stone landscape. No trees swayed in the wind.

I frowned.

There was no wind either. Not even a breeze. For the Realm of the Undead, it sure felt more like the realm of the dead.

We passed by the last of the rock structures, and then we descended into a gorge, following the path down until walls rose high on both sides of us, blocking the view of the landscape. I frowned, feeling uncomfortable about it.

Despite my irritation at him, I moved up to walk next to Vir as we made our way through the deep cut in the earth. The sides continued to close up around us.

“Does he really know how to get there?” I asked, speaking my words so quietly that only Vir should be able to hear.

The shifter god nodded.

“Is it far?” I wanted to know.

“Why?” Fred asked from beside me, his usual flippancy gone. “Starting to get spooked?”

I glared at him, not realizing he’d come up next to me. “Maybe,” I said. “It’s odd here. With nothing at all. Not even wind. Is there truly nothing here but us?”

“Be glad it’s that way,” Aaron said sharply from up ahead, declining to elaborate any more than that.

I glared at his back as we hurried along, the pace picking up. I had so many questions about this place, our destination. And about Aaron. I didn’t ask them, though. Even Fred seemed on edge. Not that I could see a reason why.

There was no reason to be spooked. There was literally nothing here.

The canyon ahead of us abruptly came to an end, spitting us out on a tiny ledge that sat high up in the mountains. How did I know?

It was easy. Before us, and thousands of feet below, a giant city complex was spread out. I thought back to the cliff that had towered over us when we’d first arrived, trying to put that into context against the distance to the city below.

Conclusion: we were really fricking high up.

And I was perfectly okay with it. Because we were in the land of the vampires. And we’d just come to a city. Where I would be the only living thing, surrounded by a likely teeming mass of bloodsuckers.

Gulp.