BURN IN HADES Read Online Free PDF

damned, he had to eat fast, find Gimlet and shin out. He was determined to reach the River Lethe and wipe his mind before any miserable soul could get their dirty claws on his memories.
    A calabash fell out of the barbots neck and sizzled on the cooking pan he was preparing. Sneaky old Skullface must’ve hid it in there. Cross grabbed the fruit before its poisonous juices could empty into the pan. He sat the fruit on the wooden tray with no intention of eating it, but he kept it around just in case he found a use for it.
    He fried the rest of the chucks of meat. The warm scent almost covered up the palace’s musty smell of years of neglect. Barbot meat was the closest he had ever come to the taste of chicken in the underworld. How ironic that the only meat the damned could eat tasted the same as one of the best meats enjoyed by the living.
    He carried the meat and calabash on the wooden tray, and on his way into the dining hall, he tossed the barbot legs to the mysterious critters that lurked in the shadows. It was Cottontail’s idea to feed them, and out of respect for her, that’s what he did. They clunked and scraped on the hard surface as they munched in the darkness, but they were much quieter than those annoying weepers so he didn’t mind doing something nice for them.
    He didn’t know how many there were and could only hope that it was enough food for them all. He had never once seen the draggles up close and he preferred it that way. Not that he was afraid of the creatures. They behaved as if they were more afraid of him than he was of them. It was just better to keep everyone and everything at a distance as much as possible.
    The draggles seemed friendly enough. If they wanted to eat him, they would have attacked long ago. He nicknamed them draggles because they followed him from realm to realm as if they were his apostles. The thought seemed fitting in that moment, as barbot might one day be his last supper.
    Unfortunately, they posed a potentially huge problem to his survival. They might’ve been the reason others spirits, like the squals, kept finding him in all of his hideouts. He never suspected the draggles were spies, but their stealth didn’t go beyond remaining hidden in the shadows. He always knew of their presence, and if he knew they were following him, then everyone else knew too.
    In the dining hall, dull light beams poked through the tattered animal hide that covered the glassless windows in the tower and landed on sections of a long slab of stone that formed the dining table.
    He lingered over the roughly carved table for a moment. Cottontail had already blown away the webs of decay that littered the pottery and wiped the dust out of the forgotten ceramic bowls, all left behind by the ancient gods and goddesses who had once feasted at that table. She had made everything almost new again.
    The two of them had even crowned themselves King and Princess of Xibalbá and its abandoned kingdom just for fun. Once again, that came from Cottontail’s imagination. Getting him to act childish was her way of brightening up all the gloom. No matter how hard he resisted the sentiment he always enjoyed those moments.
    The candle holder she had found and polished rested on the table. He lifted it up and held the candle wicks within the concentrated beams of light until the candles sparked and lit. He sat at the head of the table and raised a cup of devil’s water to the imagined dignitaries that sat around the table with him.
    “To Cottontail,” he said. “May the Great Goddess have mercy on her soul.” The lonely king drank and promised himself that he’d never break his number one rule again. No more companions.
    He tucked an old tattered rag into his shirt as a bib, and once the critters had finished chomping on their bone and settled down, he listened for any suspicious sounds. Only the fiery lake that was the sky crackled outside.
    His mouth watered at the sight of the barbot wing. It was bigger