Ch. 126: Enter Death’s Gaper
Miss Sin slithered ahead of us, her serpentine form winding effortlessly through the narrow aisles of her twisted collection of cabinets. Strange artifacts floated in jars, ancient and unnatural, casting eerie shadows that danced on the walls. The air was thick with a sense of mystery, but one detail gnawed at me— Miss Sin had yet to state her price for aiding us. We were deep into her domain, and yet, no cost had been demanded.
At last, she stopped before a massive mirror framed in silver, its surface swirling with black mist, as if the mirror held within it all the nightmares of the underworld.
“This,” she said, her voice a hiss on the edge of amusement, “is my Hell’s Gateway. Know this: I will only open it for you this once. There will be no second time.” Her eyes gleamed with a predatory sharpness. “You can pay me when you return. That’s acceptable, I assume?”
Her tone had shifted from cunning to accommodating, which only made my stomach twist tighter. So, in the end, we’d have to find another way back? No telling what chaos lay ahead.
“It’s fine,” Arman replied without hesitation, his voice unyielding.
Miss Sin’s gaze lingered on me, longer than usual. Her eyes seemed to pierce through my skin as if she were unearthing secrets I hadn’t even known I held.
“Is there something the matter?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
A smile slithered onto her lips. She snapped her fingers, and with a small flourish, a black cap appeared in her hand, which she then extended toward me. “You’ll want to cover that handsome face of yours. It’s a concealment cap. To anyone who doesn’t know you personally, it will alter your appearance significantly. Would not want you drawing any warranted attention now, would we?”
I hesitated, eyeing the cap with suspicion. “And what does this cost me?” I asked.
Her chuckle was soft but laced with venom. “Oh, darling, that’s just an add-on to the compensation you’ll owe. Nothing in hell is free. Not even death.”
I took the cap, feeling its strange energy pulse through my hand. There was nothing inherently wrong with it, so I slipped it on. A strange sensation crawled over me, and in the reflection of the mirror, I saw a different man. My hair had turned black and short, my eyes cold and dark. The transformation made me look more like a ghoul— an image befitting Hades.
“Well, well,” Miss Sin purred. “Quite the improvement, don’t you think?” She snapped her fingers, and the mirror reacted, its surface pulsing like a heartbeat, slowly turning into a pool of dark ink. “Off you go.”
Arman slithered forward without a word and passed through the gateway. Miss Sin waved something in my face, her tone growing playful. “Take this.” She handed me a black card. “You’ll need it if you wish to call me again or just advertise my business, whichever you see fit. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of each other, dearie ”
I glanced down at the card, my heart freezing at the name etched into it: “Medusa.” My mind raced, connecting dots far too quickly. No wonder she had that aura— a Gorgon, hiding in plain sight. And no ordinary gorgon at that too.
She turned and started to slither away. “My work here is done. See you soon.”
Before I could dwell too long on the revelation, the gateway pulled at me, and I felt myself being swallowed whole. A violent force tugged at my chest, and then everything went black.
When the light returned, I emerged into an entirely different world. The sky above was a deep, unnatural purple, casting a gloom over the bustling market grounds. There was no sign of the gateway behind me. It was as though I had stepped into a dark fantasy— a medieval market, the air reeking of ash and molten steel. The air buzzed with life, but not the kind you would find in any mortal realm.
Arman was already ahead, his snake-like form positioned with power and authority. I looked about noticing creatures of all shapes and sizes that wandered through the market. Cyclops with misshapen faces bartered for goods, shadowy figures drifted in and out of the crowd, horrific beings that were formless, and above them all floated grim reapers— dark, cloaked beings with gleaming scythes. They hovered over the marketplace like vultures, their hollow eyes watching every transaction.
“Grim reapers?” I muttered under my breath.
“They’re not like the ones that bow to you feet,” Arman replied, glancing over his shoulder. “These are rogue reapers. They work for the high hand that controls this place. It’s best that you out of their way, no one here will give a shit who you are.”
I followed him, tucking my hands into my jacket. My mind lingered on the cap— I could feel its magic at work, not just altering how others saw me but changing me physically. It wasn’t an illusion; it was real. Why had Medusa given me something so powerful? What did she stand to gain?
“So, how are we supposed to find this guy?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the shadows.
Arman led us through a towering stone archway into what felt like the heart of Death’s Gaper. The air here was heavier, the smell of ash stronger, and the feeling of being watched more acute. “An informant tipped us off,” Arman said, his voice low. “The traitor will be meeting someone here to sell black amber. But our informant was killed before we could get more details.”
My heart sank. “So we’re wandering through a market full of monsters, hoping to find a needle in a hellish haystack?”
“The drop-off is supposed to happen within a little over an hour, we would have had more time had the old hag not been to her usual shenanigans.” Arman said, his voice tight. “But it’ll be hard to find him before that time. We need to lay low, keep our eyes open.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Great plan. For all we know, we could already missed him on the way here.”
Arman’s gaze darkened, and his forked tongue flicked with irritation. “I didn’t have much of a choice, being here was the best I could do.”
“Where do we even start?” I posed the question. “What are we looking for anyway? Or how did I know this guy, does he have a beard or something?”
I noticed other serpentine slithering around and was clueless as to who or what I was meant to be looking for. Arman’s face became a bit more serious at the mention of my question, “The traitor we are looking for is a serpentine called Anox, he’s over a few hundred years old and a powerful sorcerer. Unfortunately he is also my uncle.”
The words hit me harder than I’d expected. Family betrayals always carried extra weight in the underworld even though it was a norm. “Lovely. Family issues mixed with a black market of rogue reapers. What’s next, a pit of souls?”
We walked past towering trees that seemed almost skeletal, their black bark twisted and their leaves shimmering faintly likes glowing moss. Their shadows stretched over the ground like skeletal hands. The deeper we ventured into the market, the more intense the air became— thicker with tension and darker in every sense.
“How are we even sure he’s here?” I asked. “Why would he take the risk?”
“Black amber is forbidden,” Arman said quietly. “And Anox has no loyalty left, not to me or anyone else. He’ll do whatever it takes to get what he wants.”
“What about the formula? Surely others could make it if it’s that valuable.” I asked. “He can’t just be the only one that knows about it.”
“There is no formula, not really. It’s ancient magic, long forgotten by most. Only sorcerers like him can create it.” His eyes never once left the surrounding crowd.
There was another thing on my mind. “And how’d he get out after you imprisoned him?”
Arman’s face darkened. “Sorcery. It’s unpredictable, untamable. It bends the rules of reality in ways that one can only hope to comprehend.”
I sighed heavily. “In other words, you have no clue.”
“Yes,” Arman admitted, his tone bitter. “I don’t.”
We continued to weave through the narrow alleys, the buildings here looming over us like skeletal ruins. The market grew darker the deeper we went. Arman’s pace quickened as we approached what seemed like the innermost center of Death’s Gaper— a place where the air itself felt cursed.
“If Anox is here,” Arman said, his voice barely audible, “he’ll be hiding in the deepest shadows. That’s where the real monsters dwell.”
I glanced around at the marketplace’s twisted structures and the creatures lurking within. There was a chill in the air, and a sense of dread that gnawed at my bones.
My stomach tightened. Something was wrong— this was more than just a transaction. We weren’t just walking into a simple deal. We were stepping into the jaws of something much darker.
I had high hopes that if I could apprehend black amber from the source I would prevent the events of the future.
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