As Darkness Falls by Riley Storm

Chapter Forty-Four

“Don’t look at me,” Fred said as my gaze landed on him. He had the Idol clutched to him tightly still.

“Maybe we should keep running?” I suggested. “You know, what with angry fire-god back there.”

Vir shook his head. “No. Hades won’t dare follow us out here. Not if everything he said about Irr was true. He’ll be away from his realm, which means he and I will be on even terms. If Irr has left him weakened, then he won’t stand a chance against me.”

“Well, that’s reassuring at least,” I said. “But what do we do?”

“I’m not sure,” Vir said quietly.

“Well, that doesn’t sound good,” I muttered. “When a god isn’t sure of something, that really goes a long way to reassuring us mere mortals.”

Vir shot me a look, but I just stared at him blankly.

“It looks like we’re back in Aaron’s realm,” Vir said.

“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it,” I said. “That was my first thought, too.”

We were surrounded by a building. The light stone walls rose on all four sides of us. Yet, there was something different about it as well. It was a tall building, but not giant. Some of the towers I’d seen in the rest of the city had been truly magnificent, easily five or six stories high, which for stone was massive.

Not this one. It topped out at three, if I had to guess, but that wasn’t what caught my full attention. The walls were smooth, but they lacked the chipping, tired look of much of the rest of the city. These walls looked polished. Well-cared for.

Like whoever owned it had money.

“Vir,” I said quietly, remembering what I’d seen on the far side of the courtyard we’d used to enter the Underworld. The gentle upward slope, where the buildings had grown fancier.

“Yes?”

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably, “If we traveled from the heart of Hades’s realm to a related realm–”

I really hated this train of logic, but it made too much sense.

“Yes?” Vir said when I stalled.

“What are the odds, then, that we traveled to the heart of Aaron’s realm?” I managed to finish, my voice only slightly squeaking at the end.

Vir was silent for a long time. But I didn’t need him to answer me. We shared a link, the two of us. I’d not had much time to think about it lately, but I could feel him through it if I focused. I did now, and I felt his unease.

“I’d say that the odds are pretty high that you’re right,” he said quietly.

“Sometimes, I really hate being right,” I whispered. “Do you think anyone knows we’re here?”

“No,” Fred said, speaking up.

I looked at him.

“This doorway hasn’t been used in a very, very long time,” he said, looking anywhere but at Vir and me. “Nobody monitors it. If we’re quiet, we should be safe for a bit.”

I glanced at Vir. Neither of us decided to ask Fred to clarify how he knew that. It didn’t seem worth it. Whatever, or whoever, Fred was, he liked his privacy, and until he gave me a reason not to respect that, I would continue to give it to him.

“Then, what do we do?” I asked the duo. “Our guide is…charbroiled.”

“There is one option,” Vir said, and the way he glanced at Fred set my spine tingling to the point I clamped a hand over my nudity, suddenly uneasy about everything.

“Don’t look at me,” Fred said. “You know I can’t. And I’m not gonna suggest it.”

Vir frowned.

“Suggest what?” I asked, looking between the two of them. “What are you talking about?”

“We need a guide,” Vir explained.

“Yes, and?” I said. “He’s a little extra crispy at the moment. Not much help.”

“We can fix that,” Vir said, and now he too wouldn’t meet my gaze.

“What the hell are the two of you talking about?” I growled. “Someone stop being a coward and spit it out.”

“He needs blood,” Vir said when Fred continued to shake his head. “Mortal blood.”

“My blood,” I whispered in sudden understanding, making sense of why the other two were so uncomfortable at the suggestion.

“Yes,” Vir said heavily. “If you give him some blood, he will heal faster. And help us out of here.”

“We got through here fine the first time,” I said. “Why can’t we just leave? Nobody wanted to fight us.”

“You don’t know where we are,” Fred hissed. “If sh–if anyone finds us, it would be bad. They might think we did that to him.”

I glared at him. Who was this “she” that he’d almost said? He stared back.

“Fine.” I looked at Vir. “How do we do this?”

“Drip it into his mouth,” Vir said. “Don’t let him bite you. I will hold his hands back.”

“That’s not very comforting,” I growled. “Now, how do I–oh, thanks.”

“No problem,” Fred said as I took the offered knife from his hand. “Least I can do.”

“You did a lot,” I told him. “Thanks to you, we have the Idol. That’s big, in my books, at least. So thank you.”

Fred shrugged, unhappy at the attention, and stepped away.

Grimacing at what I was about to do, I stepped up to where Vir was holding Aaron and held my arm over Aaron’s mouth. Bracing against the pain, I dug the blade into the underside of my arm and opened the skin.

“This is disgusting,” I said as the first droplets fell into Aaron’s blackened mouth.

The reaction was immediate. Fangs jutted down from his upper jaw, and his head lunged for my arm with blinding speed.

“Sonofabitch!” I shouted, yanking my arm away. “Why didn’t you warn me!”

“I did,” Vir said. “I told you not to let him bite you.”

“Not about that, about the–” I sighed. “Never mind.”

It wasn’t worth arguing over. I positioned my arm farther out of reach and let the blood continue to drip for a few moments more before he tried again.

“Okay, I’m done,” I said, pulling away, dropping the knife, and using my free hand to pinch the wound closed while my shifter healing stopped the bleeding. “That’s too much for me.”

“I’m–cough–I’m sorry,” Aaron said from where he lay in Vir’s arms. “Sometime—sometimes, I cannot control myself when I’m so weakened.”

I whipped my head around, stunned at how fast he was healing. Color had already returned to his entire head and much of his neck. Yet, he still didn’t move.

“You still look weak,” I pointed out.

“Yes,” he agreed sourly. “But I am coherent again. So, thank you. I…owe you.”

“Don’t mention it,” I said, still majorly creeped out by his vampness. I should have been ready for it, but I hadn’t been, and now it was giving me the heebie-jeebies. “Just make it worthwhile. Get us out of here as fast as you can.”

“Can you survive about a mile-long hike?” he asked. “We are quite close to an exit.”

“Do I have to do it in this form?” I asked, covering my nudity. “I’m getting really tired of all my naughty bits being on display.

Especially after Aaron’s vamping out. I was positively uncomfortable now.

“No,” Aaron said as if sensing the chasm that had appeared between us.

“Good,” I said and fell into my wolf. This time I embraced the pain of the shift, because it meant I was no longer naked. We were no longer vulnerable.

Following Aaron’s directions, we hurried through darkened passages of the massive building we had emerged into. Our senses were alert, but our attention elsewhere. We had the Idol. Now we had but one focus.

It was time to get our parents back.