Chapter 38

"Why won't you die, you zombie scum?" I snarled as I bashed in the head of the approaching corpse with a well-thrown boulder.

Exhaustion was getting the better of me, though. Even if I couldn't feel the pain of my injuries, I was still mortal, and I'd lost too much blood. After Dahlia had lost control of the undead army, the battle, such that it was, had definitely shifted. Villagers were no longer coming after Blackwood's residents. Instead all of the living had allied against the dead. Unfortunately, the dead didn't seem to want to, well, die.

Instinct warned me this was a losing battle. How could one defeat an opponent that couldn't be bested?

My gaze swept the chaos, and I caught sight of Kai, naked, bleeding freely, and not faring much better than I. Hook stumbled into view in front of me, one hand clutching his chest, blood pouring from between his fingers.

"What happened to you, pirate?"

"Nicked by an iron dagger. It's just a flesh wound."

"You're bleeding profusely, Hook. That's no flesh wound," I said with a frown. It was unlike the pirate to downplay any situation. That told me more than anything he could say about his injury.

"So are you." He gestured at my body. "Where's the off button for these nightmare creatures?"

The two of us stood our ground, watching the horde of zombies creep up the slight hill where we'd gained the high ground. I had to admit, if I wasn't stitched up soon, I'd lose consciousness. I'd be a veritable feast for the undead.

I shuddered just as Kai cried out from where he was fighting a zombie. He hadn't been able to return to his other form due to the iron lodged in his body, so he'd been left on the ground with the rest of us. Unfortunately for him, the iron was like a slow poison. Not only did it hurt like hell and cut him off from his dragon—and consequently his dragon's fire—but the longer it remained, the slower his reactions became. Which was likely why he didn't notice the half a corpse crawling up on him until after it had taken a chunk out of his leg.

"Bitten?" Hook whispered. "Poor sod. That's the end of him. Unless you know of anything we can do?"

I stared on, shaking my head. "It's doubtful we have the time. And look at the battlefield. We're not going to win this fight. We're vastly outnumbered."

"Then what are we supposed to do, just lay down and die?"

"No. We fight to the bloody, bitter end. And when we reach Valhalla, all I can hope is that Dahlia eventually joins us there."

"Dahlia," he said, her name filled with unmistakable longing. "I should have known a happy ending wasn't in my future. The captain always goes down with his ship."

Hook and I readied ourselves to fight as three shamblers and a crawler approached. Reaching down, the pirate plucked a blade out of the chest of one of the villagers' bodies and gave it a flashy twirl.

"If we're gonna fight, we might as well make it stylish," he murmured. "I'll see you on the other side, brother."

He looked at me expectantly, and I realized he was waiting for a similar sentiment. I clapped him on the shoulder. "You weren't as useless as I once suspected. It will be my honor to die on this battlefield by your side."

His lip curled, but then he laughed. "If we manage to survive, I'm going to teach you how to give a proper compliment, Viking."

I wanted to toss back a barb, but my vision went gray and my knees weakened, causing me to sway like a tree in a windstorm.

"Easy there," Hook grunted as I stumbled into him.

An apology died before ever leaving my lips, my legs failing to support me as I knocked us both to the ground. I struggled to push myself upright, but I was no longer in control of my body. My mind went dark and hazy, my consciousness seeming to float away. The last thing I recall before going still was a feeling not unlike knuckles brushing over my cheek.

K?rasta.

As soon as the word took shape, there was a terrible pain in my chest, like someone had wrapped their fist around it and tugged. Then all sense of her was gone. Vanished. Our bond severed. There was only one way that could happen. I let the darkness take me, hoping when I woke, I would be in Valhalla with my K?rasta.

* * *

Hook

The last thingI thought I'd be doing tonight was spending time underneath a giant Viking. But here we were, him nearly crushing me with his weight, zombies approaching with their disgusting teeth gnashing, and rancid breath strong enough to fell a tree. They were going to eat me. I just knew it. I was a delicious delicacy, you know? Pirates were rare and so well-seasoned. All that sea salt.

I didn't know which was worse, though. Dying of iron poisoning or dying by zombie attack. Both were horrifically embarrassing. I think I might prefer the crocodile, truth be told. Was that still an option?

The crawler had his one remaining eye on me, his fingers digging into the ground as he closed the distance between us. Surprisingly, I was more focused on the agony ripping through my chest as Tor's body went limp atop me. It felt worse than the dagger as that stupid villager ran me through. Something was wrong with my Dahlia. She was gone from my senses, her presence snuffed out as though she never existed at all.

"No," I whispered, struggling with all my might to dislodge the heavy weight across me.

I was no match for his bulk, and I could do nothing but watch in mounting horror as the crawler inched ever closer.

"Not like this. Captain Caspian James Hook cannot go out this way. Where's the dignity? The honor?"

Before I could finish my well-deserved rant, several shadow tendrils snaked around us, wrapping both Tor and me up and plucking us up off the ground as if we weighed nothing at all.

"Hades?"

The god stood at the top of the short bank of stairs leading to the entry of Blackwood. His eyes blazed with divine fury as shadows worked to bring Kai, Tor, and me all to him. He had a knee-high wall of shadow fire between him and the horde, and he was using a combination of said fire and his shadows to dispatch as many of the creatures as he could.

"Took you long enough," I grumbled.

"Should I have left you there to die? It's not too late, you know. I can toss your ass back through the barrier here and now."

I shook my head, letting out a pained oof as he dropped us on the stoop. Kai followed, his labored breathing and already necrotic blackened leg revealing he was worse off than any of us.

"She's gone," he rasped.

"I felt it too," Hades said, anger making his voice brittle.

"Is she dead?" I asked. If anyone would know, surely it was the god of the damn dead.

"I can't see her soul. I'm not sure. There's no way to know until I return to the underworld."

I coughed, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth. "I'm halfway there. I suppose I'll find her first."

He shot me a withering look, but truly, the three of us were pathetic, mostly dead, lying on the steps of our prison.

"Say, you don't suppose there's anything you can do about that, can you? Being a god and all. Can't you use your fancy powers and patch us back up, good as new?"

He shook his head, looking sincerely apologetic. "My power is tied to death, not life. There's nothing I can do for any of you right now."

I coughed again, my spittle foamy and pink as it hit the stone. "Well, I guess... now you will have her all to yourself... like you always wanted." I sucked in a ragged breath. "You prick."

"Stop," Kai growled, though it came out more kitten than dragon. He was barely holding on. "You cannae talk like it's over."

Without warning, the ground beneath us shuddered, then began a terrible quaking. "Oh, gods, what now?" I muttered.

"What the blazes is that?" Hades glanced up, his face illuminated by something coming from the estate.

Doing my best impersonation of a crawler, I... well, I crawled to where he was standing and rolled to my back so I could see whatever it was he was looking at. A shocked gasp left me. Blackwood's facade cracked right down the middle as I watched, and a column of light burst from the roof.

"Bloody hell."

"You're more on the nose than you think," Hades mumbled.

"Meaning?"

"Last time I saw something like this, the gates of hell had just been opened."

I blinked at him, certain the blood loss was making me stupid. "What are you saying?"

"Pretty sure the world is ending, kid."

"Don't call me kid. I'm a captain."

* * *

Kai

"What happened?"I asked, every word labored. It was getting harder and harder to speak through the crippling pain. Tor's Berserker gift had been no match for the iron, and I was fading fast.

The air pressure changed rapidly, my ears popping just like they did when I ascended to the sky as a dragon.

"Obviously good triumphed over evil, and the gates were closed." The dry tone of the man standing over us didn't match the current dire straits we were in.

"Are you..." I started, my eyelids heavy.

Fuck, I was tired.

"Who are you?" I finally managed, trying hard to keep my eyes locked on him. They kept going in and out of focus, and there were currently two blond men in leather pants wiggling around.

"You really didn't tell him?" he asked Hades. Scoffing, he spread his arms out as a golden glow emanated from all around him. "I am Gabriel, messenger of?—"

"We got it. Unless you're here to save us, you can sod off, mate."

Gabriel scowled at Hook. "Did you know it's considered terribly rude to interrupt someone?"

"Hello, pirate," Hook sang before devolving into a series of painfully wet coughs.

The angel rolled his eyes. "Did you never think to try and rise above your station?"

"Why would I want to? Pirates have all the fun."

"What are you doing here, Gabriel?" Hades interjected. The suspicion radiating from the god put me on alert. Or on as much alert as it could.

I hadn't heard my dragon's voice in my mind since I fell from the sky, and each blink of my eyes lasted longer and longer. I feared the worst. That he was gone, and I was soon to follow.

"I already warned you about this, Hades. I gave you, Caspian, and Tor chances to keep this from happening. But you were all too selfish to see past your obsession with Dahlia. You could have cut this off before it became a problem. Thwarted Death's plot. Saved the world. But no, you had to think with your dicks. Father save me from oversexed mated creatures."

"Why didn't you come... to me?" I asked, confused that he would have approached the others but not bothered with me. Not that I'd have left her, but still. They'd had an opportunity to prove their love and commitment to her, and I'd have appreciated the same.

"The wards only just dropped, and you never left the grounds," he said matter-of-factly.

That made me feel mildly better.

"Where is she?" Hades asked, his voice harsher than I've ever heard.

"I can take you to her. We have to stop Death from finishing her ritual."

"What... good are we to... her... like this?" Caspian choked out.

The fucking angel illuminated from within and the world went white, burning heat engulfing me for only a moment. When the flash of pain was gone and the light dimmed, I felt... strong again.

And not just me. My dragon woke, mentally stretching his wings in my mind.

I never thought I'd say it, but I'm grateful you're alive.

"I'm harder to kill than ye'd imagine."

"Bloody brilliant, you are! You know, I've never been a praying man, but I'll light a candle in your honor, Gabe," Hook crowed, getting to his feet.

"Gabriel," the angel corrected, emphasizing the second half of his name.

"Whatever."

The angel cleared his throat and held out a bundle of clothes for me. "You might want to put that away. Something tells me you don't want to walk into a fight fully nude."

"Handy guy to have around," Cas said with a whistle. "See, Hades? He's more of a god than you."

"Stuff it, pirate," Hades said as I pulled on my clothes. He was the only one of us who seemed nonplussed. The god was still staring at Gabriel, arms crossed over his chest. "Why should any of us believe anything you have to say? By your own admission, you tried to make us leave her. Why should we believe you're just going to willingly take us to Dahlia now?"

"Have you looked at the sky lately, my lord Hades?" Caspian asked. "That looks pretty fucking believable to me."

"Precisely. If you recall, I tried to mitigate the problem. You, in turn, caused it. Now you have to clean up your mess, and we need to put the genie back in the bottle, as it were. Dahlia needs you."

Tor got to his feet, his eyes immediately finding mine, before he said, "Where is she?"

"Finally, someone talking sense. Who would have thought it was the Berserker? Not me, I can assure you."

"Focus, Clarence," Hades drawled. His intolerance of the angel was not hard to pick up on. Whatever history the two of them had, it wasn't a pleasant one.

"You wish you were Jimmy Stewart," Gabriel sneered.

Tor stalked over to him, wasting no time before grasping Gabriel's jacket. "I asked you a question, angel. Stop fucking around and take me to my mate. Right. Fucking. Now!" he roared.

Gabriel's eyes flashed with his angelic power, but he reined it in. Likely because Tor was ultimately giving him the opening he'd been after. "Gather together. You'll need to touch each other's shoulders before I take you where you're going."

"What about them?" Hades asked, his focus going to the zombies kept at bay solely by his dwindling blue flame barrier.

"I'll handle them."

Standing in a circle with Gabriel in the center, we did as he said. He reached out and touched my forehead, and the world around us swirled as though we were inside a cyclone. When everything was set right, I found myself staring down a dark staircase, the sound of the song "The Final Countdown" by eighties hair band Europe filtering through the corridor.

"What the actual fuck?"

* * *

Hades

The words leftmy mouth as the music grated against my ears. The rapid shift from battlefield to stairwell was disorienting, even for me. It was akin to jumping into a pool during a raging party and the water silencing everything aside from the pounding bass.

"What are we waiting for?" Tor asked, his voice a harsh whisper.

"Before we go charging down there, maybe we take a second to get the lay of the land," I said. Despite my phrasing, I made it clear that it was not a suggestion. "The last thing we want is to spook her while she"s got a knife to Dahlia's throat or something."

A growl was Tor's only response, but Kai and Hook both nodded.

"How do you suggest we do that without giving ourselves away?" Kai asked, voice barely audible over the music.

"You stay put. I've got this." I sent my shadows creeping down the stairs and through the hall.

As my helpful spies slithered into the room, I took stock of what we were up against. Set deep underground, Dahlia was being held in a cement bunker of sorts. It reminded me of a large bomb or storm shelter. Low ceilings, no natural light—in fact, the main source of light came from the portal of pulsing energy in the ceiling—and mostly bare walls. The only decoration, in addition to the four containment cells made of what looked like glass, were the handful of needlepoints with odd platitudes, each one more snide than the last. Cell sweet cell. Death is my homegirl. Your mother lied; you aren't special. Life is like a box of chocolates; they both have expiration dates.

What a fucking piece of work. I'd admire her if she didn't have my Dahlia trussed up like she was an offering. She'd been latched to a crucifix, arms stretched out on either side and held up by bits of rope. She was arched back, her head lifted to the portal though I don't think she was trying to get a look at it, so much as it was an involuntary act.

Concerning as it was, that wasn't what held my attention.

A constant bolt of energy was being pulled straight from her chest and into Death. It melded with the same flow that came from each of the cells. Death was using them all to get what she wanted as she became the conduit that powered the tear in reality above her.

My shadows wanted to remain focused on Dahlia, but I needed to know who else was being sacrificed for Death's power play. One by one, the horsemen of the apocalypse came into view. Each of them arched in pain as their energy was siphoned from them.

"Oh, fuck," I whispered, pulling my tendrils back before Death noticed them. "So much for the horsemen being in on it." Guess my theory about Grim coming to collect on a gambling debt hadn't been quite right. Then again, I'd been wrong about a few things, so I wasn't exactly batting a thousand here.

"What is it?" Kai asked.

"Some kind of ritual. She's draining them."

"Them?" Tor asked. "She's got more than Dahlia down there?"

I nodded. "Four other supernaturals. They're locked up. It looks like she was collecting them."

"What like a zoo?" Hook asked.

"Maybe."

"Did you recognize them?" Tor asked.

I blew out a breath, wishing I could avoid answering, but knowing there was no way around it without flat out lying. "Yeah. It's the four horsemen."

"Do you think they'd help us if we freed them?" he pressed.

"It's possible," I hedged. The horsemen were hardly what I'd consider good guys, but at least I had somewhat of a relationship with them. Better the devil you know. "Right now, they're supercharging her and fueling whatever spell she's doing to open that portal. It might be draining them, but more importantly, it's killing our girl. We need to stop her."

Tor snarled, ready to burst in there and crack skulls. One specific skull, to be clear, but I stopped him with a shadow around his wrist. "You said we have to stop her. I will tear her head from her shoulders and crush her skull with my boot."

"She's a horsewoman of the apocalypse. There's no way your usual methods are going to work here."

"All right, what do you recommend, boss man?" Hook prompted.

I rubbed a hand over my chin, shaking my head. Truth was, I had no fucking clue. But she'd been one hundred percent focused on her ritual, so at least we'd have that going for us. At the very least we'd have the element of surprise on our side.

What I did know was what I'd learned from the other horsemen. If she was anything like her counterpart, she wasn't one who enjoyed getting her hands dirty. Grim preferred using others to do the dirty work for him. His smug superiority meant that he assumed he was above that kind of thing. Unlike Chaos, who loved a good fight, as you might expect from the Horseman of War. But the same couldn't be said for the others. Death came quietly through nefarious means. Meaning she might not be as skilled in an actual fight. So maybe if we could restrain her, we might win.

Maybe? Might? I grimaced at the amount of uncertainty in my plan. Unfortunately, it was the only one I had.

"She's distracted right now, her focus solely on that portal she opened above her. Clearly that's what she needs. She's summoning something, and I think if we can stop her before she's successful, the world will be saved."

"You mean Dahlia will be?" Kai asked, his dragon front and center in his question.

"Is there anyone else who is our world?" I asked drily.

"Just making sure."

"One of us must prioritize getting Dahlia down from that fucking cross," I started.

"Me." Tor didn't leave room for argument, and I offered him a curt nod.

"I'll take Death down because one touch from her on any of you and you will be meeting me in the underworld."

"Are we leaving the horsemen in their cells or freeing them?" Kai asked.

"There is a risk if they're freed, but I think it's minimal. They're more likely to side with us since she took them hostage."

"You don't think they'll just finish what she started?" Hook inquired in an unexpected display of forethought.

I shook my head. "No, that would mean they'd have to admit she helped them. If they're going to start an apocalypse, they'll do it themselves when the time comes."

"Guess it's a good thing I held on to this then," the pirate said, plucking a key out of his pocket.

"Is that..." Kai started.

Hook nodded. "Masterson's skeleton key. She thought she took it back, but I made sure to recover it."

"Will it open the cells?"

"Only one way to find out, but it stands to reason that it would. It's bespelled to open literally anything."

"What do you want me to do?" Kai asked.

"Death loves to have others fight her battles for her, so keep an eye out for any unexpected guests."

"Got it."

"You guys ready?" I asked.

They nodded, and I could feel the purpose rolling off them.

"Let's go."

I didn't even pay attention to the men at my side as we rushed down the stairs and into Death's bunker. I trusted that they'd do their assigned jobs to the letter. The music blared as Death's face glowed from the power racing through her, her eyes open but sightless as the energy overtook her.

Not wanting to get too close to her, I sent my shadows to wrap around her waist in an attempt to yank her bodily out of position and break the circuit. But my fucking shadow power didn't work on her. The tendrils went straight through her.

Grim's strained voice came from the cell nearest where I was standing. "Use your fire, Hades. Now!"

I wasn't going to look a gift horseman in the mouth. If anyone knew what would take her down, it was her mirror.

Drawing on the full extent of my power, I channeled a massive bolt of the deep purple flame her way. It collided with the golden beam of energy she'd siphoned from the others, cutting off the stream and sending all five of them to the ground, Dahlia sagging in her bindings while Tor got to work undoing them.

I didn't let up, even as the portal closed above her head, even as the spell was clearly interrupted.

I couldn't believe she was able to force out any words with the power I was hitting her with, but as she slowly turned to nothing but charred dust, her voice filled the room. "I... still... beat... them."

"You may have beat them, but I beat you." She might have been Death, but I was Hades God of the damned Dead and that meant she'd always answer to me.

My fire didn't let up until there was nothing left of her. I couldn't stop, not until I was sure she was vanquished.

"She's gone, mate." Hook's hand on my shoulder made me flinch.

"For now," Chaos said. The horseman looked like he'd been ridden hard and put away wet. All of them did. Whatever Death had stolen from them came at one hell of a price. There was no knowing if they'd recover it, or how long it might take before they did.

"Still, we did it," Hook persisted, his attention shifted to where Tor cradled Dahlia. "We saved the world."

Our girl was a little worse off than I'd like, but her eyes were open and she was alert. Face pale and brow dotted with sweat, she appeared like she'd been on the wrong side of a fight with consumption.

"You okay, baby doll?" I asked, rushing to her, just like the other two.

"You stopped her."

"Of course we did. We've all told you we'd burn the world down for you. Do you believe us now?"

"I didn't think you meant literally," she teased with a raspy chuckle.

A tug on the back of my shirt had me unwillingly turning away from my goddess. "What?" I snapped.

Sin held up his hands. "Don't bite my head off. We just wanted to say thank you."

"I didn't do it for you."

"No, but you still freed us. Consider your debt to me repaid," Grim said, his eyes bruised with exhaustion.

"For a minute there, I thought this was all you coming to collect. I'm really glad it wasn't."

"Aw, would you look at that? Hades got his heart back," Malice teased, his voice warm, but his expression haggard.

"What will you four do now? Get the band back together?" I asked.

Sin exchanged a meaningful look with the others. "No. I don't think so."

"We have other business to attend to," Chaos added.

"You gonna fill me in?"

"It doesn't concern you." Grim's pointed stare told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to leave it alone.

"You're right. I don't want to know."

The horsemen left us, not looking back as they made their way down the corridor.

"Should we be worried about that?" Tor asked, pointing in the direction the horsemen had disappeared.

The four of them being who they were, there was no simple answer to that question. Because of that, I just shrugged. "Guess we'll find out."

"Is it really over?" Dahlia asked from her place in Tor's arms.

"It seemed a wee bit too easy, don't you think, lads?" Kai stared down at what used to be Death, except the ashes were already gone.

Caspian shoved him. "Would you bite your tongue? Everyone knows that's the quickest way to invite bad luck." He glanced nervously around the room as if expecting Death to jump out of the shadows.

"She's not permanently gone. Death can't die. But we stopped whatever she was doing and at least delayed her for a while."

"She was my mother, I think. Unless she lied about that too," Dahlia said, her eyes finding mine.

"She didn't. That was what Adonis and Gabriel had been trying to tell us."

She heaved a sigh, her thoughts turning inward for a second before she seemed to shrug them off, not ready to dwell on what all that meant for her just yet, if I had to guess.

"How did you find me?" Dahlia asked, wriggling until Tor put her down, his beast really not liking that. "I don't even know where we are."

"Special messenger." Hook's quip wasn't lost on me.

"What?"

Hook smirked. "Divine intervention in the form of an angel, love. Dressed in leather, if you'd believe that."

Tor leaned down, nuzzling Dahlia's neck and taking in her scent as she spoke to Hook. "Tor, why are you doing that? I'm fine. You saved me."

"I nearly lost you twice tonight. I need to calm the beast. I was holding you as much for my benefit as yours."

She turned to him, taking him by the face and pulling him in for a kiss. "Let's get out of this place and find somewhere we can go. Then I'll let you hold me all night long."

Tor let out a rumbling purr. "It's a deal, beauty."

"Me too. Don't forget about your captain, darling girl," Hook interjected.

Dahlia smiled. "As if you'd let me. I'll need all of you tonight. Every night."

"It's a good thing the feeling's mutual, then, isn't it?" Kai added, leaning in to press a kiss to the top of her head.

"Come, then, baby doll." I led the way up the stairs, not looking back for her because I knew she'd always be with me. "Let's see what's left above ground."