* * *
“I have a job for you, my son.”
Jaral stood strong, his hands clasped behind his back and his face carefully blank. One never knew what to expect when standing in this particular throne room.
Black marble shone beneath his feet, robbing the room of any warmth it might have had. Dark tapestries depicting bloody battles and screaming mortals lined the walls. Several courtiers and soldiers milled about the edges of the room, hoping for a tasty morsel of gossip, no doubt. He didn’t care about them.
All he cared about was the man lounging on the throne before him.
“Anything, Father,” he replied. It wasn’t often the king publicly addressed him as son. If he was in the mood to be parental, Jaral would play along.
Abaddon, King of the Demons, shifted on his black throne. “Something interesting has occurred.”
Jaral waited. He knew better than to ask his father questions he wasn’t ready to answer. Information is power, Abaddon had told him once after beating him to a pulp for overstepping his bounds. Never give it away without cause. Jaral had been a child at the time. Never again in the centuries since had he made the same mistake.
“Spirits are escaping the Netherworld.”
Interesting. Jaral frowned.
Abaddon watched him with a cruel smile playing around his lips as he leaned forward. “Not going to ask me how, son?”
“If you wish me to know, Father, I am pleased to listen.”
The king settled back into his throne. “Well said. You learn better than your brothers.”
Jaral thought of his countless siblings. Demons were prolific and his father had always been eager to do his duty and provide heirs and spares. He counted himself lucky to be one of the chosen few his father hadn’t slaughtered for showing weakness as a child.
“That bitch who killed your brother changed things,” Abaddon said. “She broke something in the rules governing our world, and it interests me.”
The king’s concern wasn’t out of any latent paternal feelings. His brother, Ward, hadn’t been a shining example of demonhood but his death at a hunter’s hands was still cause for shame. The fact that the hunter who killed him had also bested Abaddon didn’t help matters.
“Perhaps the Lord of the Spirits knows what is going on,” Jaral offered.
“My brother would never deign to answer my questions, not after I nearly killed his mortal queen,” Abaddon said.
Jaral inclined his head in understanding. His uncle, Arawn, had taken the hunter who’d killed Ward as his wife. Jaral had heard the woman was human once, before his father had done his best to kill her. How the spirit lord had managed to wrestle his beloved back from the edge of death he didn’t know nor did he particularly care. A mate was a liability, as his uncle would no doubt learn.
Still, if spirits were escaping the Netherworld, Arawn would know why. He ruled his subjects with an iron fist. They would not be leaking into the mortal world without his uncle’s knowledge.
But Jaral wasn’t suicidal enough to repeat the suggestion. The Netherworld had been divided equally between his father and uncle eons ago. While Arawn seemed content to rule his ghostly minions, Abaddon had never been satisfied with only half of their dark world. He wanted it all. Jaral knew there was no love lost between the brothers, not that they could do much about it. While the demons might be able to cross into the human realm at will, neither brother shared the ability. They were both bound by magical laws allowing them only one night a year to enter the mortal world. Except for Halloween, they were forced to live in the Netherworld. Jaral had often wondered why his father was bound to this realm while the rest of their brethren were not. Perhaps it was nature’s way of maintaining balance. Or perhaps Abaddon shared more in common with his spirit brother than he’d let on. The power allowing the brothers to reign no doubt came with strings his father didn’t want anyone to know of. Whatever the reason, Abaddon was deadly enough with one realm to rule. Access to the human world would lead to the annihilation of the mortals.
If the spells holding their worlds in check were changing, however, those old laws might have splintered as well.
His father having free rein to enter the human world did not bode well for the mortals.
“I need you, son, to get my answers for me.”
His father’s voice pulled him from his musings. “Command and it will be so,” Jaral said evenly.
“Go to the mortal world and find out if the rumors are true. If that damned hunter did change the magic ruling our world then perhaps we can use it to our advantage.”
“Find the rift the spirits are using to escape and attack Lord Arawn through the rip before he has a chance to prepare for war.”