As Darkness Falls by Riley Storm
Chapter Thirty-Five
The first thing I noticed was the heat. The Realm of the Undead had been a dry heat. Not unbearable because there was no sun to bake the rocks, but also no wind to bring moisture. The Underworld, however, was hot. A wet heat that blasted me the second I came through the doors. I immediately regretted wearing leather.
I’d come through the door screaming, my eyes closed, because that’s the sort of brave, warrior badass I was. When nothing immediately sliced me in half, I opened my eyes wide, taking in the ugly red sun, the dead trees, the overwhelming smell of sulfur that hooked itself into my nostrils and didn’t let go, and the monkey-frogs.
Basically, it was exactly the way I’d imagined it.
I shouted and lowered my shoulder as one of the monkey-frogs came flying at me, the sounds of battle erupting all around, but the thing was denser than it looked. The giant feet slammed into me like a kangaroo’s legs, hurling me backward.
Spinning around, I bounced off the red, rocky ground, rolling several times. My leather outfit protected my skin from the worst of it. I got to my feet as the monkey head let out a chittering blast of noises that sounded very much like taunting.
“Fuck this,” I snarled and yanked the front zipper down, stripping naked in a nanosecond as I shed the leather, my skin already sweating from every pore in the unyielding heat.
My wolf surged up through me, and we joined as one while the monkey-frog stared at us in confusion, likely wondering if we had gone insane.
Anything but, we thought, surging forward as our white fur absorbed the light. We darted toward the monkey-frog’s rear-canted leg, our jaw slicing flesh as we passed. The creature screamed its monkey scream, the furry upper half twisting, trying to grab us with its teeth while simultaneously trying to strike us with its thick-fingered fists.
We darted out of the way and continued onward. Another of the monkey-frogs had Dave by the ropes, pushing him back as it tried to overwhelm the vampire. We raced up, unnoticed, and ripped a much larger chunk of muscle and tendon from one of its legs as it rose to strike. The leg buckled, and Dave roared, going on the attack.
Just like that, we raced on, not sticking around to watch the results. Nearby, Vir was in full-god mode, fighting several of them off at once. We ducked behind one just as he hit it, the monkey-frog falling on its back as we acted like a tripping hazard. Again, we raced on, charging off to the right where Aaron had just gone down under a trio of the biggest monkey-frogs.
Claws out, we leaped on its back, raking our forelegs like we were burrowing deep into the creature's skin. Its flesh tore, black blood pouring down its side as it did from our jaws. As we desired more, our jaws darted down and ripped half the thing’s throat out. The creature died, and we rode it to the ground, spitting the flesh aside and howling in victory.
Flush with battle lust, we turned, a lean, mean, killing machine. Another monkey-frog went down as Alexi whipped a dagger through its lower jaw and into its brain. Pieter, meanwhile, was like a human monkey-frog. Slippery and sliding, he squirmed out of the hold one of the demons had on him and got onto its back before using a flat-bladed hand to crush its windpipe.
Something screeched and hit us from the side, taking us down in a snarling, chittering mass of wolf, monkey, and frog limbs. Heat blossomed along our front right shoulder as the demon got the better of us. We rolled and lashed out with our hind legs, driving it off us, but not far. The creature rebounded on its thick, bouncy rear legs and made to come in at us again.
It leaped–and was spitted mid-air by a golden spear. Vir roared as he lifted the demon clear of us and then slammed it into the ground, its bones crunching with ease.
Just like that, the fight was over. It was swift, brutal, and in hindsight, probably lasted no more than a minute, though it had felt like much longer. The entire team, us included, were breathing hard. A few cuts and wounds dotted the group, but nobody was down or out.
We were in the clear.
Snarling, we turned, surveying the blasted landscape for more enemies.
“It’s over,” Aaron said, wiping black blood from his face as he strode toward us. “They’re down. Nothing more to fight. For now.”
We growled in anticipation, ready for whatever might come our way.
“Pieter, Jaxton, hide the bodies behind that outcropping,” Aaron said, starting to bark commands. “Alexi, do your best to clean this up, so it looks like less of a fight. Dave, watch the doors from the far side. Fred, you guard this side.”
His men jumped to obey while we watched, impressed with the tactical fluidity with which they operated. Aaron seemed to know which people were best suited for which jobs, and none of them complained as they worked. The time for that was passed, we realized. This was the big leagues, and there was no time to delay.
“You.”
We looked up at Aaron.
“Either get dressed or go take a lap. See what you can see. The more notice we have of anything nearby, any surprises, the better. Fred will keep a watch out for anything easily visible. Spot us any traps or ambushes. Anything that would explain this.”
We weren’t quite sure what he meant by that, but we knew one thing for sure: we didn’t want to put leather back on. So, we took off at a trot, taking in our surroundings. The doors opened up into a relatively flat area. Rocks jutted up from the ground, a deeper ochre than the more blood-red setting of the rest of the Underworld.
To the left of the doors was a large rocky outcropping that Pieter and Jaxton were currently busy dumping bodies into, putting them into the middle where they would be most easily hidden. We raced over to that and jumped up to the top, surveying the land around us.
Behind the doors, it was completely flat, heading out into what seemed like a never-ending desert. In front, however, the rocks grew more prevalent as they lead into a mountain range. However, we couldn’t see past them as a layer of fog blocked our view after more than a few miles.
Nothing moved, not on the ground or in the sky. It was empty and dead, just like the realm we’d come from.
“See anything?” Aaron called from down below.
We shook our head in the negative, but the truth was, we’d never been to the Underworld before. Monkey-frogs weren’t something we’d expected, and we weren’t sure what else might be out there. Dead trees dotted the landscape ahead of us. Were they actually trees? Or maybe they were living guardians that would attack us with their branches?
We didn’t know.
“Okay, come on, then,” Aaron said.
Descending back to the rocky plain itself, we saw Alexi dragging some of the branches from a dead tree behind him, obscuring the signs of battle, particularly the blood–though to our eyes, it seemed like the land itself was swiftly absorbing that.
“Looks like the coast is clear,” Aaron said, his jaw twitching as he tried to suppress a frown and didn’t entirely succeed.
We almost sighed. What was wrong with him now? We were out of his realm. This was the hard part, but it should be easier for him now, shouldn’t it?
“Fred, you’re with us,” he said. “Everyone else, get scarce. We’ll collect you on the way back.”
We whined, pawing gently at the ground–we didn’t want to mess up Alexi’s work–in question. Why was Aaron leaving the others here?
“Someone needs to guard our exit,” Aaron explained. “Ensure that when we get back here, we can get out easily.”
We nodded. Something scratched behind our ears, and we twitched in surprise. Looking back, we saw Dave smiling down at us. He winked.
“Don’t worry. We got this. Besides, we have the easy job. You get all the fun.”
We huffed a sigh and trotted off, following the group as we wandered through the landscape, heading more or less toward the mountains. Eventually, the rocks grew solid around us, revealing that we were on a path. Path’s led places. This was a good sign.
Until we came to a fork.
“Fred,” Aaron rumbled.
To our utter surprise, Fred stepped into the lead and guided us down the right-hand path. Now, why was Fred the one in the know? That bore some thinking about, but our wolf-human mesh wasn’t up to that much critical thinking.
We kept our eyes roving and our nose sniffing, staying wary. It seemed unlikely that in this, the most dangerous part of the plan, we wouldn’t be attacked again. In fact, our human mind expected a near-constant battle as we got nearer to Hades’s lair in the Pits of Tartarus.
Yet the more we walked, the more peaceful everything became. Our attack hadn’t set off any alarms, as far as we could tell.
In time, we began to think that maybe we could do this after all.
