I clamped my mouth shut. The two men had disappeared. I stood alone. Ahead of me the trail nearly vanished too, all but melted into a bog about fifty feet wide. On both sides, black water slicked blacker mud. Massive black trees bordered the bog, their branches braiding high above me like the fingers of two hands interlaced into a single fist.

Apparently, Chernobog wanted privacy for this conversation. Calling for either Roman or Teddy Jo would do no good. This was his forest and he made this happen. I could stand here, at the edge of the bog, or I could move forward and get on with it.

I stepped into the mud. It squelched under my weight with a wet sucking noise. Step, another step, a few more . . .

Something watched me from the depths of the woods. My skin felt too tight from the pressure of its gaze.

When alone in a dark forest waiting for an audience with an evil god, the most prudent course of action is to be quiet and wait. “Prudent” wasn’t one of my favorite words.

“Hello? I’ve come to borrow a cup of sugar. Anybody? Perhaps there is an old woman with a house made of candy who could help me?”

“Marrying for love isn’t wise.”

The voice came from somewhere to the left. Melodious, but not soft, definitely female and charged with a promise of hidden power. Something told me that hearing her scream would end very badly for me.

I stopped and pivoted toward the voice.

“Marry for safety. Marry for power. But only fools marry for love.”

When a strange voice talks to you in the black woods, only idiots answer.

I was that idiot. “Thank you, counselor. How much do I owe you for this session?”

Mud squelched. Small twigs broke with dry snaps. Something moved behind the trees, on the very edge of my vision. Something dark and very large.

“Love fades. Love is beauty, youth, and good health. Love is sharing a moment in time. Bodies fatten, sag, and wrinkle.”

And she kept going with her spiel. That’s the trouble with ancient gods. No sense of humor.

A long sinuous body slithered behind the trees, enormous, taller than me, wide like a dump truck. It didn’t end; more and more of it kept coming, sliding through the bog. The voice was on the left, the slithering darkness on the right.

“Youth passes you by, and before you know it, the two of you are walking two different roads. Then comes pain, disappointment, and often betrayal.”

“Fascinating,” I said. “Is there a point to this, or did you go through the trouble of stealing Thanatos’s sword to discuss my impending marriage?”

Brush rustled. The massive creature slid behind me, circling the rim of the bog. Peachy. Just peachy.