“Rough night?” Kiki asked as they stepped into the shadow world.
“Let’s get this over with. We’re going to find Rhyn. Then what?” Kris asked. “We try to talk some sense into him? Kill him?”
“Kill?” Kiki snorted. “We wouldn’t have a chance.”
“We would if we had Andre’s dagger. It was fashioned by Death. He’d die-dead if we – “
“You’re serious.” Kiki stopped walking.
“Come on, Kiki,” Kris said, continuing onward. “I’m sure it won’t come to that.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’ll do whatever I must to protect the Council and Immortals. If Rhyn tries to kill Death or something stupid … “
“Rhyn is the only one who has half a chance of keeping the Council together,” Kiki replied. “If you’re serious about not splitting, you need him.”
His words were an echo of Death’s assertion. They struck Kris bone-deep. Kiki’s doubt was apparent for the second time that day. Kris watched Kiki pass him and disappear through the portal to the underworld. Kris stepped through, distracted from his dark thoughts by the new world. They stood on a small rise overlooking a jungle-like forest edged in the distance by an ocean of black water.
“So this is the underworld,” Kiki said. “Where the fuck do we start?”
Kris caught a glimpse of what looked like a shopping mall west of them. His gaze lingered. As far as he knew, no Immortal voluntarily came to Death’s underworld.
“That way,” he said, pointing. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s a place to start.”
“Do you feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“Feels like our power is gone. I tried to open a portal and couldn’t.”
Kris attempted to summon a portal. Nothing happened.
“You think Death knows we’re here?” Kiki asked.
“It wouldn’t surprise me.”
“At some point, we’ll have to ask her to help us out of here.”
Kris didn’t answer, not wanting to think of how that conversation would go with the deity. He tested his power again. Kiki was right; they had none.
“Kris?”