Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mayhem
Her hands reach up, and she rubs my lips, no doubt removing some blood that’s there, and then she cups my cheeks.
I cautiously place my other, clean hand on her back, although I don’t want to pull her any closer because I’m covered in blood, and I keep my other arm extended out to the side, the soul still struggling in my grip.
Her eyes connect with mine, and I’m surprised to see no hate or disgust.
“Thank you, Mayhem,” she tells me softly as she moves up onto her tiptoes and her lips meet mine in a fierce kiss.
When she pulls back, I’m momentarily dazed, as I smile like an idiot at her.
Her expression becomes serious, and she adds, “You don’t ever need to hide any part of you from me.
None of it will change the way that I feel about you. Got it?”
I nod, stunned by her easy acceptance of, well, all of me. “Got it.”
She grins, kisses me once more and then steps back, “Good.” Looking at my extended arm in confusion, she asks, “What is that?”
“It’s Godfrey’s soul,” Hades replies, sounding shocked.
“What?” Kill asks.
I sigh and explain, “I can manipulate and hold souls.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone being able to do that,” Hades says. “Apart from me, and those who are on the Soul Side of the Underworld and need to be able to keep the souls in line and even they can’t affect souls outside of the Soul Side of the Underworld.”
I shrug, “I didn’t want his soul to escape again, or be turned into a Wraith by the princes again, so I thought I would personally deliver it to you.”
“So the princes are behind the Wraiths then?” Reaper asks.
I nod and quickly explain everything that I found out, including where the book is.
“So we need to find this Kronos guy then. The Order have done a lot of damage in the realms already,” Rival suggests.
Zev’s eyes turn white, and we all wait while his vision lasts longer than normal.
“Kronos isn’t an issue for us. He’s going to be dealt with pretty soon, and so will the Order. We need to focus on the main God,” Zev explains.
“Well, I can’t say I’m not relieved about that. We’ve got enough on our plate,” Loki replies with a smile.
“Speaking of,” Khaos starts. “I’m so sorry, but we need to get back to the Underworld. We sort of left in the middle of a really important meeting, and everyone is going to be wondering where we are.”
Farren pouts and tucks herself into Khaos’ side.
“I hate this,” she mutters.
“We do too,” Hades replies.
“It won’t be long until we’re all together again properly,” Zev says. He looks at Hades and Khaos, “You need to get the basics in the Underworld in place as quickly as you can. Otherwise, there will be absolute chaos when we all have to go away for a while.”
“Understood. We’re actually almost there, it shouldn’t take us much longer at all to get the minimum measures in place,” Hades says.
He looks at me with a proud grin, “Hand me his soul and I’ll send him to purgatory.
No god, or anything else for that matter, is able to get into purgatory. He won’t be going anywhere.”
“Perfect,” I say as I hand the soul over to Hades.
We all say our goodbyes, and then the two of them disappear. I have to admit that I don’t like being separated from them either. It doesn’t feel right. They’re a part of our family, and at the moment, it just doesn’t feel right for us to be in different realms.
“Right, let's get this book and get the fuck out of here,” Storm grins.
“Wait,” I say. Rubbing a hand on the back of my neck, I add, “I’m really sorry that I didn’t tell you guys about my ability with the Souls before. There was already so much that made me different, I didn’t want to add something else.”
“You were worried that we’d drop you because of it?” Kill asks incredulously.
I nod even though I have to admit that now he’s said it out loud, it does sound pretty ridiculous. I mean, I wouldn’t drop one of them because of something like this.
“You fucking spanner,” Loki grins. “That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard. You didn’t leave me when you found out that I could heal, even though I shouldn’t be able to because I’m a vampire.”
I chuckle, “Yeah, I know. Now that I've mentioned it, it does seem a bit ridiculous.”
“I told you, brother,” Rival smirks.
“I know.”
“Alright, where’s this book?” Kill asks, thankfully changing the subject.
Farren
I smile. These guys are awesome. It’s clearly something that Mayhem has been worrying about for a while, and they have immediately squashed his worries.
Mayhem points to the painting on the wall that hides my father's safe.
“Well, that makes sense,” I say as I move over to it and move the painting out of the way.
“Please tell me that you know how to get into that,” Zev mutters as he looks at the complicated door.
I nod, “Yeah, it’s not actually locked. He’s got so many dangerous and deadly spells layered over the top of it, that no one could touch it anyway.”
Reaching out with my magic, I easily slice through all of the spells and then reach my hand out, pulling the door to the safe open and revealing the room behind.
It’s not as big as Hades' safe at his castle, but it is big.
“I wonder how much of this stuff has been stolen?” Reaper asks curiously as we move inside to search for the book.
“Most of it probably,” I reply.
“Well, at least the room isn’t as big as the library,” Kill mutters as we spread out through the room to search for the book.
“Thank fuck for that,” Loki grins.
“Considering this is all supposed to be things that are important to him, he didn’t exactly keep the place in good shape,” Reaper frowns as he looks around at what can only be described as an unorganised mess.
“I found it!” Storm exclaims.
He holds up a book that I have to admit looks like a storybook.
“Well, it doesn’t look that promising,” Zev says with a frown. “It certainly doesn’t look like it’s going to be able to tell us how to get into a forgotten realm.”
“No, it really doesn’t,” Storm says as he turns the book over in his hands. “Come on, let’s get it back to the academy. We can go over it all then, and see if it does have any interesting information in it for us.”
“I find it difficult to believe that Ignatius would go to the trouble of telling us about a book that can save their realm and stop the balance from being thrown off, only for it to turn out to be a storybook,” Zev replies.
“Agreed,” Reaper nods.
“He did tell us that most of the information in the book was wrong,” I point out.
“To be honest, it’s a really good way of making sure that information doesn’t get into the wrong hands,” Rival adds thoughtfully. “You disguise it in a book that looks like a children’s book.”
“Good point,” Kill agrees.
“Let’s head back to the academy. I want to see what’s in it. Hopefully, we can get into this realm fairly easily with the information in the book,” Mayhem suggests.
“That would be nice,” I grin. “Something tells me that it’s probably not going to turn out that way though. Is everyone holding on?”
They all confirm that they are, and I open the Void, stepping inside and finding myself grateful that I’ve left that house for hopefully the last time.
I would honestly be perfectly happy if the whole place burned to the ground, except for maybe the library.
I’m sure that there are a lot of books in there that are priceless, and it would be a shame for them to burn.
Plus, I think Rival would have a coronary.
When I pull up the door to take us into our dorm room at the academy, something feels slightly off about it.
Not like it’s been tampered with though, and I can’t quite put my finger on why it feels so strange. By the time I’ve noticed that there is something wrong with the door, it’s too late, and we’re all walking through it.
“Well, that explains why the door felt weird,” I mutter as I look around.
“You mean you didn’t mean to bring us all here?” Storm asks, and an edge to his voice as he looks around at the hallway that we’re standing in.
“We’re in the academy, right?” Loki asks, his eyebrows dipping down into a frown.
Kill nods, “Yeah, we are. Maybe we stepped through the wrong door?”
I shake my head, “Not possible. I created it to go to the dorm room.”
“You created it?” Rival asks. “That’s not how the Void is supposed to work. There are millions of doors, but you shouldn’t be able to create them, although that does explain how you can just pop up behind people. I’ve been meaning to ask you how you do that.”
“My Void magic doesn’t work like it’s supposed to,” I reply simply.
“Clearly not,” Rival replies.
“Okay, before we get into this, maybe we should head back to the room. We don’t want to be caught with the book,” Storm suggests.
“Good point,” Reaper replies.
We all start to walk around the corner, only to come face to face with Aldrastos. Fantastic, that’s just what we need.
“What are you doing up so late?” He asks, his gaze travelling over us quickly. “Why are you covered in blood?”
“Er, it’s a long story,” Mayhem replies vaguely.
Aldrastos’ gaze narrows, and he opens his mouth to reply, but then he catches sight of the book in Storm’s hands.
“Where did you get that?” He demands as he steps forward.
We all share a look. How the fuck are we going to explain this? Actually, more to the point, why is he so interested in it?
“You’re all hiding your true strength somehow, aren’t you?” Aldrastos shocks me by asking. “So well, in fact, that I can’t even tell that you are masking it.”
“We all need to drop the cloak on our magic,” Zev states seriously. He looks at me, “You too, Farren.”
“I don’t normally question you, but are you sure?” Storm asks him.
Zev nods, “One hundred percent.”
Storm nods and immediately drops the guard that was stopping his true strength from being shown. We all follow his lead.
Aldrastos’ eyes widen with shock, then knowledge and determination fill his gaze.
“Fuck,” he curses. “We need to have a conversation, come with me.”
“Why?” Storm asks, as we all lock down our magic again, and none of us make a move to follow him.
Aldrastos sighs, “Because the book you’re holding is about my realm, and I need your help to save it.”
My eyebrows hit my hairline.
Storm simply nods, and we all follow him around the corner and into his office.
Isn’t it curious that the Void happened to drop us right near his office when I had asked for it to take us to the dorm room?
I’ve said before that I don’t believe in coincidences, but I do have to wonder who exactly is pulling the strings here because Monty said that the Fates had no idea what the delay to going to the Dragon Realm was, so I would be hesitant to think that they were the ones that stopped the Void from taking me where I wanted to go, and instead had it bring us to where we needed to be.
But if it wasn’t them, then who was it?
Maybe the Void itself.
No one sits down as we get to the office instead, everyone remains standing for a moment and just stares at each other.
“I think you may need to explain what you mean about this book being about your realm,” Reaper starts.
“Because, according to our knowledge, this book is about a dying realm, one that has no one surviving in it apart from those who told me about it. Instead, the creatures that helped destroy the realm now use it as a hunting ground, and the whole realm is in darkness,” I add.
He knows more than he should already, but we really don’t have the time to mess around and walk on eggshells around each other.
“You really do know,” he mutters.
“We don’t know as much as we would like,” Kill replies pointedly.
Aldrastos sighs, “You’re right. Although I have no idea how you know what you do, because, as you said, no one has been able to get in or out of my realm for more than a thousand years.”
“It’s complicated,” Storm replies, taking the decision of whether to tell him or not out of my hands.
“Fair enough. My realm, Siorraidh, has been known by many names. Most recently, although that isn’t saying much, your realms have known it as the In-Between,” Aldrastos starts.
“Whoa, hold up,” I reply. Hades and Khaos need to be here for this, because something tells me that I won’t be able to explain this again, even if I wanted to.
“Guys, we need you,” I say over the bondlines. By the time that I’ve caught them up on the events so far, they both appear in the office.