Crown of Crimson (Underworld Gods 2)

So I do what I can.

Using some waiting energy from my core, something I’ve accessed before, I put my training to use and envision what needs to be done.

Then I do it.

Pick up the sword and try again.

I flick my wrist with all my strength and watch as the dagger goes soaring through the air toward the opposite wall.

Right before it collides with the stone, it flips around like a boomerang on steroids and comes sailing right back to me.

Or, should I say, sailing right into Louhi’s back.

Even though Death’s Shadow Self was wearing the same outfit as Death, including a type of suit and heavy leather cloak, the selenite knife pierces through the material with ease, sinking through into his muscles.

He roars and it sounds more like Louhi’s high-pitched ghoulish scream than anything. I drop to the ground, jump out of the way of the flames, then twirl around, doing a dance that unfortunately puts me right back into the flames again.

I pluck the knife from the Shadow Self’s back and Louhi screams again.

Then I stab her in the side, under the ribs.

Then the back of her head.

Then the base of the spine, severing the spinal cord.

The whole time I feel like a madwoman because I really have to go to another place in order to get this done. I have to make sure she’s dead as can be before I try to find where Death really is. But each time the knife cuts into him, I think I’m giving myself trauma that I’ll be unpacking for a really long time.

I’m stabbing the love of my life to death.

The realization, the big one, the deep one—love—makes me want to cry.

But there’s no time for tears. The fire is climbing my body now, my dress going up in flames, but for some reason isn’t burning my skin. I can’t dwell on it; anything goes at this point.

Death’s Shadow Self finally collapses to the ground, Louhi letting out a haunting scream. It finally catches the interest of the spider person, who is now perched on the wall to avoid the fire, bony spider-leg hands and feet stuck in the cracks. It starts moving fast toward the body, sideways on the wall, in a way that’s so disturbingly familiar, like I’ve seen it recently but I can’t place it.

I get out of the way, the spider person more interested in eating the Shadow Self’s body than mine. Death turns his head to look at me with pleading eyes.

“How could you do this to me? Hanna?”

The anguish and sincerity in his voice nearly makes me fall to the ground.

His eyes twinkle, beautiful gray, as the life is drained from him.

The life I took.

But no, no, it’s not him.

It’s still Louhi. She’s somewhere else though, somewhere safe, controlling him from there. His eyes close and he goes still, black blood spilling out around him, making the flames leap even higher. Death isn’t inside the body anymore. Neither is Louhi.

I turn and run.

My dress is half-burned off and my shoes melted away, but because the spider person is still staring at the body, debating if it should take a bite, and I know fire can’t hurt me, I run in the opposite direction we came from. I need to find the dungeon.

I keep running, bare feet slapping the dirty ground, passing by rooms that hold sights I wish I could scrub from my brain—humans and creatures in all levels of deformity, depravity, and anguish. No wonder they want to be Deadhands so badly, anything to escape Inmost.

I keep going, the passageway starting to slope down, so I know I’m on the right track. Or possibly going to an even worse place. When you’re in Hell, the last thing you want to do is go down.

Finally, the passageway starts to fill with the sound of voices, cheering and booing, and I know I must be close to the ring.

Hope leaps in my heart. Maybe Death got knocked out somehow, maybe his cloaking magic got him in trouble, maybe it made it hard to maintain connection in his Shadow Self’s body.

Maybe he’s alive.

He’s the God of Death, King of the Underworld. He can’t die.

But he can, I remind myself. Another God can do it.

Louhi probably reached him first.

I try not to think about it, running along still, going past jail cells full of Inmost dwellers chained up, past holding rooms where they practice fighting. They all look at me when I pass but I don’t want to ask them where Death is. Even though they’re all trying to become his soldiers, I know they all want Death out of the picture. They’re the ones in Hell, who don’t believe they belong here. They want to punish the God that put them here, even though they did this to themselves.