Page 29 of Of Monsters and Mazes

The long, smooth rods, the hollow spheres with eye inlets, and the rounded, broken cages were one thousand percent not sticks. I swallowed hard as I clattered through the pile of bones, swimming through death to get further away from the nightmare.

Nightmare.

What if this was just Theron messing with me again? The last thing I’d done before everything went wrong was land on top of him. Was that how he transferred a vision into my mind? None of this could possibly exist otherwise, so maybe this was some strange manifestation of my insecurities again.

I didn’t know what psychological disturbances, mental health issues, or low self-esteem, would appear as a man with one-hundred arms, but with how terrifying my life had been lately, it wouldn’t surprise me if my brain had started to craft something weird. I’d never imagined getting fucked while nails pinned me to a table either, so why couldn’t this be another highly disturbed image he was feeding me? The hands were probably a metaphor of some kind. Maybe something about how I never ask for help, or some pretentious reference to feeling held back.

The last dream had felt at least this vivid anyway, so that was all within reason.

Nice theory, but just in case it was real, I still kept scrambling and looking for a weapon.

In my frantic escape, I started making a list of what I knew that might help me come up with something.

1) It only has a sense of touch and taste. I doubted it could smell, considering how much this place reeked of rot and old, sweaty, unwashed beast.

2) It didn’t move very fast. Short legs, a big body, and two tons worth of arm muscles all seemed to slow it down.

3) It could scream despite not being able to hear. Maybe that was some sort of echolocation based on vibration instead of sound?

4) It could swim, but still lived in a cave with air, so it presumably needed to breathe.

5) It ate people, obviously.

None of this seemed terribly helpful at the moment, while I swam through dead people like a highly disturbing ball pit. I knocked a skull with my foot, and heard the sound of it tumbling down the pile. It hit the dirt with a thunk, then the rolling stopped short.

That was a fraction of a second before a giant icy hand wrapped around my ankle, and I was dragged violently and rapidly across the pile of bones towards the mouth of the waiting monster.

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Chapter 13

Bubbles trailed my nostrils, while the water warped around me, warming into steam then re-gathering into liquid as it slid over my skin. Though my immortality meant I couldn’t drown or suffocate, I could still reach a level of asphyxiation that would render me unconscious, and it would be a problem if I blacked out beneath the ice slab of the Blue Sector.

At best, I’d be lucky enough to float back to the top, and my natural body heat would melt through the ice ceiling so I could get a reviving breath. At worst I would sink to the bottom and remain unconscious until Jericho or Aegaeon decided to show me mercy. Neither of which were devils I would want to count on.

So it was imperative that I got down far, I got down fast, and I did it in a single breath. But fuck, Aegaeon lived deep. I’d only been in his decaying death cave once before, and if I’d never had to again, that would have been enough. That asshole was lucky he didn’t have a nose.

The entrance to his dwelling came into view, and I made the final stride to the atmospheric bubble at the entrance. There was no oxygen left in my lungs by the time I reached the lip of the stone opening, and I was thankful for even the putrid air as I swung into the dry space. I slicked back my wet hair to get it out of my eyes, then I focused my sight, absorbing the little light available, and saving it for once I was navigating absolute darkness.

The Centimane wasn’t in the main chamber, which meant he more likely carried her to his feeding den. I would have thought Jericho had given him orders not to kill her, but then again, the thing had more hands than IQ. It wouldn’t surprise me if he ignored all sense and order and had already digested the tribute.

I sighed aloud, not looking forward to whatever punishment came with my so called failure to protect her. All I could say in Jericho’s defense was that, while he may technically be king of the realm, not even he could actually control much of anyone. Not the fallen titans, not the wildlife, and barely even the devils who were linked to him by blood and heart. Hell, I knew a certain fox who made an active point to keep anarchy alive in Tartarus, should I ever forget that.

My heels clacked on the random stones and thunked in the dirt, yet it was otherwise eerily quiet in the Centimane’s lair. I neared his feeding chamber, where the smell only intensified, and light rustling pulled my attention to the massive pile of bones. There, Aegaeon was hunched over the pile. The arms on his back undulated slowly with each heavy inhale and exhale. The arms that climbed down his sides were all bracing himself on the floor, while he looked to be playing with something under the canopy of his oversized body.

One more sigh, and I approached the titan. As I had expected, Butterfly was trapped beneath the beast. What I hadn’t expected was that twenty of those hundred hands were feeling around her body, as if more interested in memorizing her shape than tearing her apart.

A twinge of irritation sparked in my mind, and I immediately dismissed it as dread for having to deal with this mess in order to help some pointless tribute.

Aegaeon slid his fingers down her arm, and I could tell he was enjoying the way she felt. The previous irritation surged in my stomach when he reached the marks on her wrists. A wave of emotion crashed through my headspace. My teeth clamped hard, and my eyes narrowed.

He lingered over her forearm, and he danced his many fingertips over the speckling of dots I’d engraved into her skin.

Red.

That was the only color I could see now, as her feelings of fear, distress, and hopelessness translated through our bond.