Descendant

Fennrys and Maddox stood there, uncertain as to what to do next. Then the air seemed to start to quiver all around them. It was as if someone had plucked a massive harp string somewhere and the vibrations were reaching them before the sound. And then the sound did reach them. . . .

But it was nothing musical like a harp.

This sounded more like one of those car-masher machines in a junkyard, chewing through the engine compartment of an SUV . . . only it was a distressingly organic sound. The horrible gnashing and roaring echoed off what sounded like cavern walls in the darkened distance. And it was getting closer.

“You know what this reminds me of?” Maddox asked.

“I dunno,” Fennrys said, loosening the blade in the sheath he’d strapped to his leg. “The good ol’ days?”

“Exactly! Especially that one time—when that Jack-in-Irons tried to get through the Samhain Gate. Remember that?”

“What was good about that?” Fennrys glared sideways at Maddox. “That pit-spawned monstrosity almost tore my arms off, and it put you in Auberon’s infirmary for the better part of a mortal year.”

“Good times . . .” Maddox sighed, pulling a stout length of silvery chain from a pouch at his belt. As he swung it in circles, the chain lengthened and grew spikes that whistled through the dank air.

Fennrys drew the loaner sword. “I miss my ax,” he muttered.

And then the ground shook as the thing that would be the first test in their descent into the underworld came barreling out of the darkness in front of them. Armored with scales the size of pancakes, greenish-gray and wafting a swampy stench that was an assault on the senses, the crocodile was maybe thirty feet long. Its massive, cumbersome body was carried along on short, stumpy legs, but even with all its ungainly girth, the thing moved swiftly.

Seeing what was coming, Fennrys resheathed his blade.

It would do him no good. In the Lands of the Dead, death itself was something to be employed extremely judiciously.

Fennrys glanced over to see that Rafe stood off to one side, arms crossed over his broad, furred chest. His stare was impassive, and Fennrys understood in that moment that there would be no help coming to him or Maddox. They would have to pass this test—prove their worthiness—on their own. It was just one of those unwritten rules of quests, Fennrys supposed. His shifted his gaze to Maddox, who stood loose and ready, the enspelled chain dangling from his fingers, swinging gently back and forth, and a grim smile of anticipation bending the corners of his mouth. He had no doubt that they probably could, between the two of them, put an end to the beast. But Fennrys decided that a bit of nonlethal diplomacy would serve them better.

“Madd!” he called out. “Let’s do this one up rodeo-style.”

“Ha!” Maddox barked a laugh. “All right—I call clown-in-the-barrel.”

Fennrys grinned and took a step back as Maddox stalked forward, positioning himself just to the right of one of the lotus columns—the mighty stone support was the circumference of a decent-sized giant redwood tree.

“Look sharp,” Fenn said, ducking behind a statue.

“Yo, ugly!” Madd stepped out and waved his arms in a wide arc over his head. “Over here!”

Jaws snapping, legs churning, the croc swung its massive head from side to side as it thundered down the great hall, its tiny eyes narrowing to focus on the movement in its field of vision. Once it zeroed in on Maddox, the thing charged straight for him, moving with blinding speed. Maddox was a fraction of a second faster. He sprinted for the pillar, skidded into a hairpin turn, and disappeared around the other side.

The beast’s momentum carried it past the lotus column as its claws scrabbled for purchase on the polished floor. Its powerful neck muscles contracted, whipping its head to one side, as its enormous tail scythed to the other, compensating for the centrifugal force that slewed the creature’s massive bulk in a half circle. It gathered its flailing legs underneath it again and, aiming its snout in the direction Maddox had fled, launched itself forward again.

The two Janus had the beast right where they wanted it.

Its momentum squandered, and its back end pointing to where Fennrys crouched behind the base of a statue of Horus, the croc was entirely focused on running down Maddox, who jumped nimbly for the mouth of one of the huge alabaster jars—and disappeared down inside, clown-in-a-barrel rodeo-style. Fennrys took the opportunity to sprint after the creature as the thing’s shoulder glanced off the urn, spinning it like a top.

Fennrys leaped, landing deftly on the croc’s broad, scaly tail, and ran up the creature’s back, toward its head. He was halfway there when a flick of the croc’s tail sent him forward in a shoulder roll along the uneven surface of the armored hide.

As the croc scrambled to a second stop, Fenn grabbed for a ridge of dorsal spikes and desperately pulled himself up along the reptile’s enormous body to lunge for its head. If he fell, he’d be dead before he hit the ground, snapped in half by those terrible jaws. Inching forward, he managed to loop one arm around the beast’s sensitive snout and, with his other arm wrapped around the top, threw all his weight behind keeping the jagged- toothed mandibles shut tight. As the croc thrashed and snarled beneath him, he struggled to keep the massive creature from tearing off his arm.

In that instant, Maddox popped out of his jar with his magickally malleable chain weapon fashioned into a functional lasso. With a deft throw and a sharp snap of his wrist, Maddox snared the great beast’s muzzle, pulling as tight as he could. The creature thrashed and roared deep in its throat, outraged. Fennrys reached down and grabbed first one stubby front leg and then the other, pulling them back like a calf roper as Maddox ducked in again and used the rest of the chain length to secure the scaly, taloned appendages, tying them off with all the showy aplomb of an experienced rodeo hand.

From where he stood, Rafe sauntered toward them, shaking his canine head, an amused sneer curling one side of his muzzle to reveal a sharply pointed fang, gleaming white in the gloom. Fennrys and Maddox made way as he circled around to the front of the crocodile and crouched on his haunches to stare the beast directly in its unblinking eyes.

“Sobek,” Rafe tsk-tsked. “You are the lamest excuse for a watchdog I have ever had the misfortune of encountering. You realize you just embarrassed yourself in front of a couple of Janus Guards. Don’t you have any professional pride? I mean, seriously.”

The crocodile snarled gutturally around the chain snare that clamped his jaws shut tight.

“That,” he growled through his teeth, “was not a fair fight. I am bound to keep the living from crossing over. That one’s already dead.” He jerked his head in Fenn’s direction.

Rafe snorted in derision. “Yeah, whatever. The Wolf is only sort of dead.”

“Whatever he is . . . he’s in the wrong afterlife!”

“Not the first time,” Fennrys muttered.

“I was only trying to fulfill my mandate according to your rules, Anubis.” Sobek writhed on the dusty ground, glaring at Rafe. “Let me up.”

“So you can eat my friends?” Rafe barked a laugh. “I left my kingdom behind, Sobek. Not my brain.” He stood and, hands on linen-draped hips, cast a surveying glance around the place. His lips curled back from his teeth in displeasure. “Where are my baboons? Why isn’t anyone tending the Lake of Fire?”

Fennrys looked in the direction of Rafe’s glance, but all was shadowy darkness to his eyes. He certainly couldn’t see any flaming lake, although that was probably because it had extinguished through lack of tending, he supposed. Whatever the case, he wasn’t going to complain about the absence of fiery obstacles.

Rafe shook his head and turned to glare back down at the giant croc. “I should have known my brother would let things fall to pieces once I left. . . .”

“Things have changed, lord. There just aren’t any believers left to mistakenly wander this way. Nothing to keep us going.” Sobek wriggled again, clearly uncomfortable, and for a moment, the facade of ponderous dignity cracked. “Let me up,” he complained piteously. “I’m getting a cramp.”

Rafe turned to the two Janus Guards and lifted a questioning eyebrow.

“I can help you,” Sobek said.

Fennrys clenched a fist. He was rapidly running out of patience. He knew how these things went. You didn’t rush a quest—if that’s what this truly was—you ran the gauntlet, accepted all challenges, vanquished foes,