Sins of the Flesh

He didn’t need to see her face to know it was a perfectly lovely shade of green. He took a circumspect step to the left, just in case she hurled. No sense putting his shoes in harm’s way. “All right, then?” he asked, and shot his cuffs so a bit of white showed beyond the charcoal-gray merino wool of his jacket.

She held up one hand, palm forward, and waved him away.

“Sugar’ll help,” he said. He fished around in his pocket and came away with an English toffee caramel.

“It won’t. Not fast enough. Just kill me now.” But she took the candy. Then, “I will get used to that.”

“You will,” he said. In about twenty years, he didn’t say. Traveling via portal between Topworld and Underworld took a bit of getting used to. Why squelch her optimism? “It’s an acquired taste.”

Straightening, she shot him a pained look. “Like opera.”

He’d been right. She was green.

His brows rose. “I like opera.”

“I know. My tenants know. The whole neighborhood knows. Morning, noon and night.” She blew out a breath and glanced around.

Following her gaze, he evaluated their surroundings and realized that Naphré wasn’t the only thing that was green. They stood on overgrown grass. Before them was a shack with a skewed roof and a door that hung on by a single hinge. Towering over that was a massive tree whose canopy stretched so wide it obscured the sky. What appeared to be a thin layer of fungus or moss clung to every spare inch. They stood in a monochromatic world painted the muddied color of old mashed peas.

“We in the right place?” Naphré asked, her brow furrowed as she looked around.

“Yes.” Alastor had no doubt of that. He could feel the faint surge of energy that had been Lokan. Some part of his dead brother was here.

And that left him breathless.

He and Mal and Dagan had failed in every attempt to locate Lokan’s remains. Now, after so many weeks of failure, at last, success.

The air around them was still and thick, humid, like a Southern swamp in the middle of July. And Alastor felt certain they weren’t alone. He stepped closer to Naphré, crowding her.

With a sigh, she shot him a long-suffering look over her shoulder, but she didn’t argue. They’d been over this before. She knew he needed to be in control, needed to protect and defend her, needed to know she was safe.

As safe as he could make her in a place that was neither Underworld nor Topworld, a place he had no real knowledge of.

“I’ll take the shack. You poke around out here,” Naphré said.

“Right. About that…” Alastor caught her wrist and held her in place. She wanted to be an equal partner in their relationship, and he was having trouble with that. He’d thought this would be an easy trip, safe, a sort of middle ground where they could each do a little learning about give-and-take. He’d been wrong. The vibe he was getting here was manky.

Her lips tightened. He recognized that look. It didn’t bode well for his peace of mind. He worked hard at maintaining rigid control at all times, and Naphré Kurata shattered it like a sledgehammer on Wedgwood.

“Fine,” she said. “We’ll stay together.”

“Bloody hell. It isn’t safe,” he clipped. “I’ll send you back—”

“To wait for you, barefoot in the kitchen,” Naphré muttered. “Are we going to have this argument every time there is the slightest whisper of danger? Because if we are, it’s going to get old fa—”

She broke off and looked around warily, obviously feeling what he felt. His skin crawled with the sensation of being watched.

Tipping his head back, he stared up at the umbrella of branches and leaves that arced overhead.

A multitude of slitted amber eyes stared back at him.

“We have company, love,” he murmured.

“So I see. You have any clue what they are?”

“None.” Given where they were—a limbo that was technically neither Topworld nor Underworld, unclaimed as territory by any god or demigod—there should be nothing here, just as there had been nothing in Jigoku, the purgatory he and Naphré had almost been consigned to for eternity. It was that experience that had made him think of looking for other “null” pockets. In a place where time passed but did not pass, a place that was devoid of life, a soul reaper’s remains would go unnoticed.

The thing was, he’d figured it was relatively safe to bring her here. When they’d been in Jigoku, the only threat had been their own perception of the passage of time. Armed with that knowledge, he’d erroneously assumed that would be true of all such null places. Obviously, a mistake.

“Best we complete our business before they decide it’s polite to come and introduce themselves,” he said.

The sound of claws and nails scrabbling against bark accompanied a shifting of dark bodies that emerged from the shadows then faded back just as quickly.

“Roof.” Naphré dipped her chin toward the sagging hut.

He looked. What had been empty a moment past was now covered by massive creatures that bore resemblance to both a rodent and an arthropod. Their bodies were armored in a jointed, bony exoskeleton while their limbs were covered in sleek, shiny fur, like a seal’s. They clung to the branches and the roof of the hut, eerily still.