BURN IN HADES by Michael L. Martin Jr.

flask itself remained empty. The smoky, syrupy flavor of Peacock whiskey, his absolute favorite brand of bourbon, touched his tongue and fell smoothly down his throat. It tasted better than he even remembered.
    And with that shared drink, he knew she had recruited him to be her partner—an unequal partner, but a partner still. It was better than burning to Nothing. He tugged his Latin cross, oddly confident that he was either going to steal all her objects from her or convince her to at least share them with him evenly.
    “My neck is on the line,” he said. “Next time I want more objects. More than half.”
    “You may deserve more, but when a job isn’t worth my while, I seek out other employment opportunities. Sometimes that hunt interferes with my current position. And I don’t think you want me to be late for your execution.”
    “Well, if you’re late, you better not even show up. No one crosses me. Souls that try find out why they call me Cross. Eventually, they all get nailed.”
    The two of them could fight off enemies and steal their objects better together than alone, but they weren’t friends. It was in his best interest to go with the flow of things for a while in order to get his hands on more objects of the dead, whether they were new or stolen from the Raven. He needed to collect as many useful objects as he could to help him break into paradise so that he could finally drink from the River Lethe and wipe all his memories away. Then all the damned would leave him alone.

    A sting in his palm brought the sign he had been dreading for weeks. He squeezed the splinter from his skin and plucked it out knowing that it meant Cottontail had finally burned. She was a tough little cookie to have survived so long after being swallowed by a worm.
    He didn’t count the periods of sleep since the worm had swallowed her, but he guessed that it must’ve been about seventy of them ago, give or take. He regretted giving up on her so easily. He was disgusted with himself. After all that time, he could have searched each of the one hundred eighty-two worm stomachs. She could have been with him.
    Her second death would not go in vain though. In the name of Cottontail’s memory he vowed to himself to complete his journey no matter how difficult or who he had to cross.

    He spent about a total of two months’ worth of sleeping and waking periods living with the Raven in the canyons, all the while keeping his eye on the burlap sack filled with all those useful the objects.
    None of the objects in the Raven’s sack packed any of the fire power he would need to break into paradise, but he could have improvised and used the salamanders to light some explosives and maybe blow a hole in the great wall. He would just have to steal some explosives from one of the warring gangs. Since the compass attracted metal, he could use it to remove any bolts or hinges that stood in his way, possibly even buckle entire entrances, or relieve the guards of their weapons.
    Every now and then, the Raven would throw on her justaucorps and fly off somewhere taking the sack of objects with her. He contemplated running away, but she would only find him. Then, the next time they ran their con she’d give him zero objects.
    He also tried to line his sleep cycles up with hers so that they would both sleep and be awake at the same time, but she didn’t keep consistent sleeping patterns. He found himself falling asleep while she was still wide awake. When they slept at the same time, he would wake up to discover her up and about.
    They lived as a team in the canyons of Viņsaule and developed a strange chemistry between them. She hunted and he gathered barbot. Her rope dart snatched barbot out of the sky as if she were pulling fish from a shallow pond. Very few things could swim in the lake of fire that was the sky. Barbots were one of them.
    The underworld itself seemed to also decide that barbots would never become a Nothing. There was no official