revelations 01 - on a red horse Read online

  Tyr turned to glare at her. “Has that bastard touched you?”

  She laughed at the absurdity. Hades hadn’t touched anyone or anything, including himself, for over two millennia. “No, but the man is beautiful and not a soul living or dead can refute it.”

  He nodded. The trust he had for her even after she’d left him, after she’d accused him of sleeping around on the day he’d returned, and after almost bedding him in her gym astounded her. “If you will not come back with me, I’ll stay here with you.”

  “You can’t stay here. The prophecy is one thing to consider and then there is the fact that after some time you will begin stepping on humans just to be rid of them.”

  “I could not step on them. I am not that tall.”

  “I was being a smart ass.”

  “And the prophecy is of little consequence. I went to the Underworld and nothing happened. Not a hellhound in sight.”

  “You went to the Underworld!” She jumped up and turned away in an attempt to burn some of the fire that shot through her. He went to the Underworld. The man went to the Underworld. What person in his right mind went there of his own free will? “You’re prophesied to be killed by a hellhound. Why would you go there?”

  “To find you.”

  “Why would I go to the Underworld?”

  “I thought maybe to get away because you figured I would not follow you there.”

  “What made you think I didn’t want to be with you?”

  “How about the waking up in our bed, in our home, alone? And the three year absence that followed.”

  “You’re an idiot. Please promise me you won’t go there again.”

  “Only if you promise you will not make me leave and shut me out of your life again.”

  A draw. The very thing she’d feared when he came there. He asked the only thing she had vowed she wouldn’t give him when she left work. She’d barely got any work done at all between her coworkers constant gossip about the events that took place and the fact that she could think of nothing but Tyr. After he’d left, she considered taking a leave of absence, but that would be doing the opposite of keeping her life on track. No, she would press on, business as usual, until Tyr left.

  “You can stay with me. We can figure this out.” More words spoken she would likely regret. She really needed to learn to think things through before she spoke.

  “Are we sparring or not?” He stood up.

  “I don’t feel like it anymore. I need a cold shower.”

  “Why?”

  “You haven’t taken a cold shower in the last three years?” Scarlet stopped speaking. She didn’t want to know what he’d done or not done since she left. It wasn’t her business who he spent his time with once she’d given him up.

  “Why would I want to cascade myself with chilled water?”

  She shook her head. “It’s something I learned here actually. When I feel the need to have sex but not the desire to satiate myself or find a partner, I take a cold shower.”

  A chill entered the room and gooseflesh broke out on her arms. He rarely showed any magical ability even while living in Asgard. To do so now showed an extreme lack of control. “And how many bed partners have you had since you left me?”

  “None, okay. Hence the cold shower.”

  He stared at her before nodding weighing her words, no doubt for truth. Yet another of his abilities.

  “And you,” she demanded, “how many women have had the pleasure of your bed since I have been gone?”

  He had the gall to look affronted. “If you must know, none. Not that there were no offers. That is when I went in search of you. I could not stand their pity for my disability before and even more so because my woman left me.”

  The man always had a way of making her feel terrible. Especially when he was in the right. Justice indeed. “I didn’t mean to cause you heartache. I honestly should have said something. I didn’t exactly want to leave, but you know even with all of us out of the void it is still our charge to protect the seals. We can only do that together, where our powers are strongest.”

  Tyr continued on his soapbox now that he was up there. “And do the others punish themselves as you do? Do the others hold a job with a boss to command them?”

  Scarlet sighed, “Well Katherine owns a café downtown, Bianca works with Katherine, and Cloris still holds her duties as Death. She couldn’t really let people stop dying.”

  “And Hades?” he prompted.

  “We don’t see him that often. Usually only when Cloris commands his presence. So I have seen him maybe five times in the last three years. I think he started his own business as well, but again, I don’t know much about it.”

  Tyr shook his head and clenched his fist against his knee. “Even now, when you gave up everything for your companions, they shut you out.”

  “It’s not them who shut me out. I shut myself out to keep them from seeing how unhappy I am here.” Another sentence spoken before proper thought. Thinking it and admitting it out loud were two different things. “I’m unhappy,” she said again. “I’m unhappy.”

  Saying it sucked the rest of her remaining energy as if they held all the anguish she’d suffered for the last three years, or maybe that was Tyr. Either way, she liked not being alone and not feeling like a manic-depressive with anger issues. Well, the anger issues would stay, no helping that.

  The thought flitted into her mind, and she couldn’t stop it from blooming once it planted. Could Tyr still love her after everything she’d put him though? Or was this some sort of revenge scheme to pay her back for three years of torture. And which did she hope was the truth?

  Chapter Four

  TYR WAS CERTAIN THEY’D made some progress. She wasn’t making him leave, but she also wasn’t inviting him back into her life. It was a start. Her admission of her own unhappiness would help his cause in the end. They donned their clothes respectively and left the gym, under the heavy stares of the rest of the gym patrons. No doubt the desk staff saw what happened between them in the sparring room, not that he minded. He wanted the entire world to know she belonged to him.

  “Come on. I’ll take you to a hotel,” she said, pulling him toward the curb to hail a cab.

  He disengaged his arm and shook his head. “No, I go with you.”

  “My apartment is barely large enough to fit me and the few meager possessions I have let alone another person almost twice my size.”

  Tyr skimmed his hand down the front of his suit jacket. “I am not twice your size.”

  Her mouth tipped in a tiny grin, and he realized she was teasing him. “Fine, Siren, treat me that way. I will get my revenge.”

  “Bring it, Justice.”

  Hearing her refer to him by the nickname she’d given him on the first night they’d met warmed his heart. He rubbed his suit coat on the outside right over his heart as if it might dull the ache there.

  The cab pulled up, and they climbed inside. Overall it was a short trip to her apartment, and barely five minutes after getting into the taxi, they got out. The conveyance made him doubt his immortality, but that was a moral dilemma for another day.

  Once they stepped onto the curb a man in a trench coat approached them, and Scarlet froze. The rigidness of her posture put Tyr on alert as he turned to face the man. That’s when he noticed the smell of brimstone. He swallowed to ensure his voice didn’t break when he spoke. “What do you want, hellhound?”

  The man’s mouth spread into a feral grin, a smile of half-madness, before he spoke in a thick, gravelly voice. “Hel requests your presence.”

  Scarlet stepped in front of Tyr. “He’s not going anywhere.”

  Tyr gently put his hand on her arm but addressed the hellhound. “She is right. I concluded my business with Hel months ago. I have no business in the under realms.”

  The hellhound tilted his head and leaned forward as if trying to catch their scent. “If you don’t come with me now, I’ll shift and tear out the throat of every human I co
me across. Do you want your precious human life upset so much?”

  He didn’t doubt if Scarlet had her sword she would have cut the dog’s head clean off in the middle of the street.

  “Fine,” Scarlet said. “But she better have a damn good reason for requesting our presence, or I’ll kill her. Goddess or not, human life or not, I’m still War embodied and all that entails.”

  Tyr swallowed. He heard the conviction in her voice and knew she would do exactly that. Scarlet had never given him cause to fear her, but sometimes he feared for others in her wake.

  The dog turned around and headed down an alley to a small open door toward the back. They descended into a basement, and when darkness enclosed them completely, they heard him snap his fingers. Suddenly they stood before the gates of the Underworld. The great, gleaming black gates opened as they approached. He wondered if they could bar those Hel didn’t want to gain entry as well.

  The boat sat waiting, a long boat with rows of seats. There were no oarsmen, just a withered old man in a hood and cape at the head of the boat. They climbed in but didn’t move until Tyr remembered something. He stood to place two gold coins in the wrinkled, outstretched hand of their host.

  As they crossed the River Styxx toward the palace beyond, Tyr watched the murky water wondering what kind of spirit or beast could live there. He couldn’t see any shadows moving below the surface, but with that much water, how could it be empty? Tyr already saw many of the wonders of the Underworld during his last visit. He didn’t need to do any sightseeing, but Scarlet looked out over the landscape, no doubt trying to formulate an exit strategy.

  The palace loomed ahead as if it were meant for a fairy tale, the original twisted stories, not the fluffy ones with blundering princesses and charming princes. The walls were made of onyx as were the steps that led inside. The main floors looked to be black marble with light veins throughout. Tyr would have to ask Hades how he’d built such a spectacular dwelling the next time he saw him.

  When they finally reached the throne room, a throne that had once belonged to Hades, they stopped. Hel was an oddly tall woman with a too long face that showed her age more than most deities. She wore long, flowing robes of gauzy white that did nothing for her figure except accentuate the length of her torso and arms. He could see the blush of her nipples through the fabric, a sight he dearly wanted to forget. The hellhound that sat at her feet was another he recognized well, although he hadn’t seen him once on his previous sojourn to the Underworld

  “What do you want, Hel?” Scarlet asked taking the lead. At least she took his focus off Hel’s body.

  “Oh, my dear, you did not bring your sword with you. I would have so loved to see such a relic,” Hel said, a mocking tone of reproach in her voice.

  “My sword is gone as I no longer hold the position of Horseman.”

  “You have abdicated your position, and yet you still claim to be War?”

  Scarlet looked confused, and Tyr grabbed her hand to keep her calm.

  “How do you...?” Scarlet began but the other woman cut in.

  “I hear everything my hounds hear.”

  The hellhound that accompanied them sat at her feet in his true form. The situation made Tyr uneasy, but he showed no fear. Hel was the kind of woman who would take advantage of any weakness.

  “I’m War. Regardless of where I live, or if I carry the sword, I still have the power to turn men upon one another and take peace from the Earth. That is who I am, and it will not change until the prophecy gains enough power to call upon four new Horsemen.”

  “What else is within your power, child?” She held up her hand to stop them. “Wait, what is the prophecy? Let me see if I get it right,” she said to herself more than them. “When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, ‘Come and see.’ And another, a red horse, went out; and to him who sat on it, it was granted to take peace from the earth, and that men would slay one another; and a great sword was given to him.”

  They all knew the prophecy, and they knew she knew the prophecy. Scarlet grew visibly impatient with Hel. He saw it in the flex of her fingers and the set of her shoulders.

  “Why are you so curious? What do you want with me, and what do you want with Tyr? I don’t like games.”

  Hel’s eyes shifted to Tyr for the first time. “My darling, how good of you to come back to me. I so missed you when you left.”

  He tightened his grip on Scarlet’s hand, and she returned it. “I did not have a choice, it would seem.”

  “You look so delectable too. Will you not stay here once your friend goes home?”

  “She is not my friend nor my lover nor my acquaintance. As I told you before, she is my wife.”

  “And yet, she left you. I feel that says something.”

  “We have since renewed our relationship, and under the eyes of all the realms she is my wife still.”

  Hel opened her mouth to speak again, but Scarlet interrupted. “What do you want Hel? We don’t have all day to stand here. I’m tired. If we are going to fight, get on with it.”

  Hel rose from her black throne. No, Hades’ black throne, Tyr reminded himself as they watched her descend. She was almost as tall as Tyr and almost as masculine.

  “I know how unhappy you are in the human world,” she said to Scarlet. “I know you wish for a different life. I’m here to offer it to you in exchange for something I want.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Hades.”

  Scarlet burst into laughter. Completely uncharacteristic of her. “You think I command Hades? You’re insane.”

  Hel continued to smile, and Tyr grew more uncomfortable. “I know you don’t control Hades, but you have influence with his keeper, Death.” Hel said the name in a growl, and wind ripped through the palace tearing at their hair and clothing. “Besides, if they knew of your marriage and how you left the man you love so they could be happy, they will feel indebted to you. You would simply need to ask for what you want.”

  “Not what I want, what you want. And while Hades follows Cloris, he does not take orders from anyone, especially her. I don’t think they even speak.”

  “Then perhaps he would welcome the opportunity to come home.”

  Tyr tried to recall the last time he laid eyes on Hades. He barely saw the man in the void while the group lived there but definitely crossed paths with him. Hades wasn’t easily forgettable. So beautiful he was unable to show his true form to humans, so lovely every goddess, immortal, and semi-deity threw themselves at his feet. There was a time Tyr wanted such things, to be a whole man and have goddesses lining up to enter his bed. When he thought about it, he pitied Hades.

  Scarlet spoke again. “I don’t know what he wants or doesn’t want. I have spoken to him five times tops in the last three years. I’ll relay your message.”

  Scarlet turned to go but the hellhound jumped down and circled her with a growl. She gave it the look of death and crouched before it. “With one touch I can make your friends your enemies. With one touch I can make you turn on your own pack, your own goddess. Get out of my way, dog.”

  She straightened and walked toward the door before turning back and leveling Tyr with a cold stare. He glanced down at the dog who moved back to Hel’s side and then followed Scarlet from the chamber. They were ferried back across the river and then exited the same alleyway they’d come, finding themselves back on the busy New York City streets.

  Scarlet took a deep breath of city air, fresher than the stench of the Underworld, as she stood in the middle of the sidewalk. “I have to see the others, and I’m going to have to tell them about you.”

  “Good. Maybe they will show you the error of your ways.”

  “I’m not in the mood right now, Tyr,” she said digging a phone from her jacket and quickly pressing keys. After a few moments, she hailed a cab, and they both climbed in.

  They proceeded uptown to a brownstone with a festive front porch. Tyr looked around for more hellhounds a
s they climbed the steps. Scarlet rang the bell, and they entered to the sound of a small, yapping animal. He almost stepped on the beast as he entered, but it had apparently become adept at not getting trampled.

  He followed Scarlet into a sitting area. Two gray couches sat against the outer walls and bookshelves lined the wall across from the windows. Tyr wanted to look at the titles, but Scarlet’s look had him turning toward the assembled collective. He had only seen the group together a few times and never really spoke to them. He only visited the void out of necessity and then only to see Scarlet when she requested his presence. They married in Asgard with his family present.

  “Everyone,” Scarlet said and then gestured toward Tyr. “This is my husband.”

  He raised his hand and waved, unsure of what to say.

  “You have one hand.” A small girl who looked no more than seventeen said from the end of the couch. She had her legs drawn up to her chest and her big, round eyes fixed on him. He couldn’t be sure which of the horsemen she was.

  “Tyr, Bianca. Bianca, Tyr.”

  He gave her a regal nod and turned toward the others. Death he recognized as she traveled all the realms. Hades he also recognized, leaving Katherine. She was the motherly one of the group, but he’d heard nasty rumors that she harbored a much darker side. Her dark brown, curly hair was held atop her head by some sticks, and as she surveyed him he almost thought he saw her eyes shift. After a moment, he shook it off, gave her a similar nod, and looked away.

  He took a seat near Hades. He didn’t particularly want to sit near the man, but to be honest it was probably the safest place in the room.

  “So when exactly did you get married?” Bianca asked.

  “Tyr and I were married a little while before we decided to leave the void.”

  “You did not think to tell us?” Cloris said, her voice low and seductive, even though she most certainly didn’t look like she meant it to be.

  “It wasn’t relevant,” Scarlet said. “You all decided we were leaving. I had no choice but to follow. Even if we don’t reside in the void, the seals are still our responsibility, and we can only protect them together.”