Chapter Eight #2
“I’m not quite sure what to say to that other than OK,” I told him, about to continue when a brief flutter of white ahead of us caught my eye. I stood still, narrowing my eyes on the trees that lined one side of the road.
Hunter was looking at my hair, but immediately moved in front of me when I stopped. He, too, noticed the white movement.
“Stay back,” he said, holding a hand up when I tried to move alongside him.
“Are you kidding?” I whispered, even though the white flutter was half a block ahead of us. “And let that bird vision thing creep up on me when you’re not here to be a badass dragon? No, thank you.”
He pulled out his sword, and I clutched the back of his shirt, content to let him lead the way.
As we crept forward silently, a faint sound carried back to us.
Hunter paused for a few seconds, his head cocked as he listened. All I could hear was a voice speaking, but what it said and who was speaking were unknown. To my surprise, Hunter relaxed, and pulled me to his side, his arm around me although he kept his sword in his right hand.
“Who is it?” I whispered as we approached what appeared to be a very old tree located a few yards off the road. Gnarled roots poked up out of the ground here and there, while a wide leafy canopy spread above.
“Not the other lord, unless he is currently in the form of a female,” he answered.
I didn’t share his sense of comfort with simply striding up to the person who was obviously standing on the other side of the tree, but figured Hunter hadn’t lived as long as he had if he took stupid chances, and trusted he knew what he was doing.
“—said to him that was all wrong, and I was innocent, but you know how gossip spreads. Speaking of that, did you ever find out who turned you in?”
We rounded the tree and stopped at the sight of a woman clad in a gauzy white sundress, the sort I remembered from 1970s feminine-hygiene commercials, only this woman wasn’t cavorting in a meadow of flowers, but was instead bound to the trunk of the massive tree.
Next to her, also bound to the tree, was a giant owl, almost as large as the woman.
“Er ...” She looked first at Hunter, then at me. “Hullo.”
“Greetings,” Hunter said, eyeing both her and the owl before he turned to me. “This is Mabel. She is a reaper. I am Hunter, master of the Shadow Tribe.”
“A dragon?” The woman looked delighted. “In Xibalba. Derry, a dragon is here with a reaper. Have you ever seen such a thing?”
The owl cocked its head at us, and blinked its yellow eyes before squawking.
“Me, either,” the woman said, turning back to us with a worried expression. “You have a sword. Would you please cut us free? We were bound here by One-Death when he caught us trying to escape, and all because he’s angry I broke things off with him after my sons were born.”
Hunter stepped forward and made quick work of the hemp ropes binding them to the tree. “As we wish to avoid One-Death, as well, I am happy to help. You wouldn’t happen to know a former Sovereign, would you?”
The big owl named Derry flapped its wings a couple of times while hopping, no doubt getting blood back into its extremities.
I’d seen a lot of oddities in the various underworlds I’d visited in the course of my reaper duties, but never had I come across giant owls, vision serpents, and ancient Mesoamerican gods.
“Sally!” the woman said, clapping her hands with delight. “Derry, they know Sally. You do know her, don’t you?”
“We do. In fact, we were sent to help you leave the Hour, assuming you are Dawn,” I answered, guessing what Hunter had evidently realized before me. “Sally said you were stuck here. If you’d please tell me that you’d like to leave, we can escort you out.”
“You want me to tell you that I’m being held captive?” she asked, glancing at the owl, who I swore raised its eyebrows. I didn’t know until that moment that owls had tufts of feathers that looked like eyebrows, but this one beetled his eyebrow feathers at me in an oddly fascinating manner.
“It’s a legality,” I answered, glancing at Hunter, who had spun around and was peering down the road like he’d heard something worrisome. “The Akashic League made a law about seventy years ago that we have to have a formal request, or we can’t help.”
“Oh. Well, recently I was sent here by an Egyptian goddess. Against my will, mind you. I wasn’t happy about that, although I had hoped that while I was here I could see my sons, but since they are off in the mortal world, I do not wish to remain,” she answered, expectation brightening her expression.
“I’ll be sure to thank Sally for sending you to help Derry and me. ”
“Your sons?” Hunter asked, his attention now on her. “Are you talking about the Hero Twins?”
“Yes,” she said, then took a few steps toward the road. “Shall we get moving? I don’t want to tell you how to do your jobs, but my ex can be a pain in the butt when he wants to, and he always wants to.”
“Your ex being ... ?” Hunter asked.
“He prefers to be called One-Death, but he has a variety of names. Regardless of that, he is diligent about his morning patrols on the ring road, and I’d really prefer to avoid seeing him again.
The last time he found me, he made a big scene about what he called my roving eye, and he set his owl guards upon me, and thankfully, Derry realized how wrong it was, and defended me, instead. He’s just so very problematic.”
“I can see that,” I said, wondering about the reality TV–level drama to be found in an underworld.
“An Egyptian god banished you here?” Hunter asked as we continued in the direction his map showed led to an exit. “Why here?”
“And which god?” I asked, feeling it was better to be warned of bad gods.
“Asfet is the one who banished me, which was just rude, because I was having a lovely time visiting friends in the Duat, and I can only think she wanted me here because she knew I’d be made miserable with One-Death’s insistence that I pay for some silly pranks my boys pulled on him and his brothers.
” She waved away the idea of gods pranking each other, while I was beyond nervous and kept casting glances behind us.
“What did your sons do?” I couldn’t help but ask, more because I was trying to distract myself from the worry that filled my stomach like iron chains than anything else.
“They turned their half brothers into howler monkeys.” She gave a little smile that was filled with affection.
“Once my sons are in residence, it’s a wonderful place to regroup and recover.
But alas, we still have four months until that time, so I will have a thing or two to say to that traitorous Asfet when I get out. ”
“Asfet,” Hunter said softly, his dark-chocolate brows pulled together. I fought the urge to brush back a strand of hair that had fallen over his forehead, but was uncomfortable to make what I thought of as an intimate gesture in front of strangers.
“Do you know her?” I asked him, curling my fingers so I wouldn’t be tempted to touch him.
“Who, Asfet?” He shook his head. “But the wyverns had a run-in with her a few months ago. She was assisting ... er ... someone else.”
I wondered what he was reticent to say, and couldn’t decide if it was because we were with Dawn and her owl buddy, or if it was to me he wished to avoid spilling information. Either way, I was annoyed.
“Dawn—” I started to say, but she shot me a curious look.
“Why do you call me—oh, Sally.” She smiled, the expression softening her face, and making me feel like I was suddenly standing under the noon sun on an August day.
“She started calling me by that name fifty or so years ago. She said it would be safer that way, although I don’t see what she’s afraid of.
One-Death obviously knows who I am, and me telling him to call me Dawn isn’t going to change anything. ”
“What is your name?” Hunter asked while consulting his map, glancing up to eye a split in the road. “I believe we go to the left. It shouldn’t be too much farther, if Sip’s map is accurate.”
“Sip!” Dawn said, clapping her hands again.
Derry ruffled his feathers and made a few hopping steps as we continued forward.
“She’s back? I haven’t seen her in ages, positively ages!
How is she? Does she still have the fat cheetah who loves to lay on his back and have you scratch his gigantic belly?
I wish I’d known she was in the Hour—I would have gone to stay with her, since One-Death can’t get into her domain. ”
“He’s a jaguar, and yes, Sip is here,” I answered. “She put us up last night when a giant bird vision-snake thing chased us.”
“Monty,” she said with a nod and a twist of her lips.
Derry added a few sharp squawks to the commentary.
“He’s a right bastard. Most vision serpents are, but Monty’s especially assholerish.
He drives a golf cart with those metal testicles that hang off the back.
The kind men with small penises love to put on their trucks. He gets that from One-Death.”
“A small penis?” I couldn’t help but ask, both fascinated and horrified by the things she was mentioning so casually.
“No, no.” She waved away my question. “He gets the asshattery from One-Death. The small penis and golf cart testicles are all his own thing. Look, there’s the exit to the mortal plane. Excellent. We made it without One-Death noticing you were here.”
We took the left branch in the road, and my spirits rose when I saw a familiar swirly mass hanging in the air between two tall cacti, but before I could say anything, a screech sounded behind us that had the fine hairs on my arms standing on end, just like I was in the middle of a static storm.