earned.” He pictured his target... flashed to a small log cabin. Despite the light cast by multiple kerosene lamps, doom-and-gloom tainted the air—or maybe the blame was the scent of rot.
Baden strode into the kitchen...found a dead body strapped to a long wooden table, the chest cavity opened, and several organs removed.
His target perched at the end of the table, eating what looked to be a liver. Nice. He was talking to the corpse.
“—was nekkid as a jaybird. I almost spit my soda—” He noticed Baden and grabbed the rifle propped against his chair. “You stay right thar, now, you heer.”
Baden flashed to his side, grabbed the gun and slammed the handle into his temple, then his yellowed teeth. Jab, jab. Impact sent him tumbling to the floor, but he wasn’t out for the count. He crab-walked backward, blood trickling down his face, catching in his dirty beard.
“Don’t be hurtin’ me. Please.” He tried to stealthily reach inside his boot, where a dagger hilt peeked out.
Thinks to stab me?
Baden flashed over and stomped on his hand, breaking the bones.
As a scream of agony cut through the air, Destruction laughed with delight—so did Baden. Then the man pissed himself, and one of the beast’s memories knocked on the door of Baden’s mind.
He fought to remain in the present...but he...he...the cabin was replaced by a cell. No longer a child but finally a man, he stalked to the first person he’d seen in centuries. The lord of the castle. The one who’d paid his mother a few measly coins for the privilege of “taming” him. The one who’d ordered his imprisonment when he’d resisted the taming.
The lord was draped in expensive velvets, with different medals pinned to his shoulders and chest. How many battles had he won? Countless. And yet, he urinated as the distance between them vanished, knew his time had come—
In the present, Baden’s feet were knocked out from under him. He blinked and shook his head, breaking the tight grip of the past. His target stabbed him in the chest and raced toward the front door.
Baden grabbed his ankle, tripping him. His jaw shattered, blood and what remained of his teeth spewing over the wood panels.
Smiling, Baden removed the dagger and stood. The man stayed down.
What gives you the right to be judge, jury and executioner?
Act. Now, Destruction demanded.
Survival first, nothing else second.
“You showed no mercy to your victims. Now I show no mercy to you.” Baden seized a fistful of the man’s hair, lifted his head—just do it!—and sliced the dagger across his throat. Blood spurted from the wound, and down below, the male’s bowels released.
Death was never pretty.
Baden hacked through the remaining tendon and bone, the head detaching. As he straightened, a dark mist rose from the body. The presence he’d seen in the ash-vision.
A set of neon red eyes found him, and crimson lips parted with a hiss. Baden reached out, expecting a fight. But the darkness lunged at him—and sank inside his arm. Before his eyes, one of the lines etched into his flesh thickened.
He ground his molars, a white-hot burn searing him. What. The. Hell?
He stomped through the kitchen, searching for a garbage bag. He found a potato sack, stuffed the head inside and flashed to Hades’s throne room.
Destruction went silent, as usual. Pandora was gone. The king stood in a half circle with a group of warriors Baden had never met. They were tatted up, pierced and radiated the kind of acerbity he’d only ever encountered from Hades and William.
They were young, looked to be Baden’s age, a mere four or five millennia.
A spark of memory—of recognition—courtesy of Destruction. Most of the supernatural world believed there were only three realms in hell. There were actually nine. The other realms had always preferred to remain hidden. No longer. They had taken sides in the war.
These four men were kings of their own realms. The tallest was known as the Iron Fist; he was the reason the phrase existed. The others were equally notorious. Merciless killers. Coveted by lovers. Powerful in the most wicked of ways.
“—to win,” Hades was saying, only to stiffen.
They all stiffened. In unison, they turned to face Baden.
Don’t want me here? Too bad. He tossed the sack at Hades’s feet. “I’ve earned my point.”
Hades gazed at the bolder mark on Baden’s arm, satisfaction glinting in his eyes. “Yes, I can see that.”
So. The king had known the presence would attach itself to Baden, had even wanted it to happen. “What is