Prisoner

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty

I was quickly learning something about bad guys.

They were not good at hiding. I mean, it seemed like that at first, but really all you had to do was look for the biggest house in the neighborhood, surrounded by a cemetery a mile wide, and with a flaming river bubbling and spitting nearby.

It took a matter of minutes to get to Abbadon's place, thanks to River teleporting us, which of course, he didn't want to do, but I was also learning River had a weakness and that weakness was me. All I had to do was look at him and ask and he melted on the spot.

This marriage was gonna work out even better than I had hoped!

"I really do not think this is a good idea," River said as he stood beside me while I scoped out the house from down the gravel path. He kept repeating the same things, so at this point, his whining was just background noise that joined the rumble and hissing of the river nearby. It was funny to me that the River Phlegethon was nothing more than a river of lava with flames shooting up into the sky every so often. I hoped there was a river full of pudding around here because this place was just earning all the points.

"Are we in Tartarus?" I asked, pausing to look around at the landscape around us. It wasn't really a hellfire or anything. It was just sparse. Just a few other houses spotted the rolling dark green hills of the underworld, glinting in the lightning that shot across the dark sky overhead. Not too many trees or bushes or foliage or anything. Most of it was just empty fields.

"Close," River muttered, glancing toward a rocky hill range that sat just a few miles within the mountainous border of Hades, "The river dumps off into Tartarus down that way."

"We should go there next."

"We absolutely should not."

"I take it Abbadon isn't big on neighbors?" I asked as I proceeded down the path that led over a dinky little cobblestone bridge that went over a moat made of lava. This cheesy motherfucker. Man, if Apollyon saw his clan now, he'd probably vomit. So far, Abbadon was turning out to be like the villain in the 80s movies Cerberus liked so much. I'm not sure if 80s referred to, like, the literal 80s CE or if it was a reference to a specific 80s. He never explained that part.

"Those are probably homes that belong to my cousins," River said, making me glance at him, "Some of the more traditional families prefer to live as close to Tartarus as they can, others have moved closer to the cities to make more money on their own."

"Wow," I said, pausing to look over at the houses, then looked at River, "So you have a big family, right? The Windstorm clan is pretty powerful. It would be weird if it was just these guys." River frowned.

"Yes, the Windstorm clan is quite large and has its fingers in just about everything in Hades, from stocks to a couple working as actors in Elysium. My father's particular side sticks to Inferi because we've gotten along with Malachi for generations, but my uncle's family resides in Styx."

"Your dad has a brother?" I asked. River stared at me.

"My father has two brothers, Branch and Ashton. He also has a sister named Heather."

"Your family has some weird fucking names."

"It's traditional to name your child after something found in nature," River said with a shrug, "I have three step brothers named Fox, Grey, and Malachite."

"Okay, well, thank fuck we're not having any kids, because I would not let you name them something like fuckin' Gravel or-or Rock," I muttered. River laughed out loud at that and I scowled, turning to look at him and he shook his head with a polite chuckle now as he straightened his tie.