The answer left him, pulled out by the power of the king’s command.
Hades thought for a moment, nodded. “Very well. I’ll even aid you. Pippin, if you please...”
Another piece of the tablet provided a map of the nine underworld realms and the ability to flash anywhere within them. The only location forbidden to him was inside Lucifer’s palace, the walls mystically blocked.
But there were ways around that. Or there would be by the time he finished.
When a weight pulled at the waist of his pants, he looked down. A grenade hung from every belt loop. He grinned. Here was the way.
Like for like. Lucifer destroyed his home, now Baden would destroy his.
He flashed to the outskirts of the male’s palace. A towering monstrosity built from blood and bones. The surrounding moat was a mix of acid and the tears of the damned. Above, dragons flew through a sky of smoke and fire.
The scent of sulfur and brimstone pervaded, blending with the fetid stench of death. A thousand screams of pain and fear created a gruesome soundtrack—far worse than anything he’d ever heard in Hades’s domain.
Armed guards patrolled the palace parapet. They spotted him and activated a shrill alarm. Baden lobbed a grenade. Boom! As the parapet crumbled in a burst of fire and debris, he flashed to the other side of the palace and lobbed a second grenade. He continued the assault until his belt loops were empty. Took a total of ten minutes, but during that time more than one guard managed to pinpoint his location. They pitched spears in his direction while others pitched spears everywhere else so that, when he flashed to a new location, one of those spears would find and gouge him.
Which it did.
On impact, he lost the ability to flash, was pinioned by an invisible barrier, Destruction roaring. Every guard focused on him then, throwing more spears. Just before the avalanche reached him, the beast was able to free him from the immobility.
He flashed again, intending to grab a handful of discarded spears, but he reappeared atop a steel trap—one made for flashers. Metal teeth snapped closed around his ankle, preventing him from dematerializing. The lines that marked every kill he’d made for Hades began to burn and blister, as if the beast breathed fire on them from the inside. Smoke actually rose from his skin, soon forming a wall around him.
Not smoke, he realized, but the creatures that had once lived inside his victims.
Shock clouted him in the chest. He’d witnessed the rise of shadows from Hades, had even seen a hint of the shadows when he’d dealt with the Berserker, but he’d never expected this.
An army took shape around him.
What the hell was he supposed to do? The humans who’d once hosted the creatures hadn’t known how to utilize them, Hades had said. Baden had no idea how to utilize them, either...and yet they were...helping him?
They were. The creatures separated from him, though an invisible tether kept them bound to his soul, preventing them from going too far. They stopped every weapon tossed his way—even a grenade. As fire blazed around him, unable to touch him, he reeled. Within seconds, the shadows were able to eat through the metal clamp, freeing him.
Be ready, Destruction said.
The very moment the shadows reabsorbed in his arms, Baden flashed home...but the fire leaped at him and he ended up taking multiple embers with him. They kindled on the carpet and curtains in the sitting room. He rushed to stomp them out before they could spread. When he finished, smoke filled the room. True smoke.
He wasn’t going to think about the shadows, or what they were capable of doing. Not now. He had too much to do.
Where was Katarina?
He stalked through the home. A stronghold in a desert realm where no one else would ever dare venture. The only patch of grass was located in a gated oasis found in the backyard. When wheeling and dealing with Galen, he’d insisted on a place for the dogs to run and play. Because. Just because. Galen had delivered, in his own unique way. Other than the palace and the oasis, the realm offered mile after mile of glaring sun, burning rocks, and black sand dunes.
Welcome to the Realm of the Forgotten.
To enter, you needed a key. Only Baden and Galen had one.
The longer he stayed here, the more likely his memory was to fade from the minds of everyone he’d ever met. A calculated risk. He didn’t want Hades to forget him. More missions meant more points.
In return for the key, Baden had to arrange a date between Galen and Legion. Or Honey. Or whatever the demon-girl-turned-human called herself these days.
Aeron loved her like a daughter. After the terrible abuse she’d suffered in hell, the male had done everything in his power to heal her mind as well as her body. While he’d had no trouble with the latter, he’d had no luck with the former. She suffered still. Maybe Galen was the answer. He and the girl had history.