Read Underworlds #3: Revenge of the Scorpion King for Free Online Page A

next to Dana, Jon, and Sydney, hundreds of feet above the ground, while the dark Babylonian Underworld stretched for miles beneath us.
    Loki shouted at the top of his lungs from the level below. A flash of silver light arced over the summit.
    Then Birdman appeared overhead, a rune around his neck. With a screech, he dived down to the ground below, where the five other beasts stood with Fenrir. I knew they all had runes around their necks now. They were all under Loki’s power.
    “Loki’s close,” said Jon.
    “Kingu,” said Dana, stepping up to face the Scorpion King. “Loki’s used his runes to subdue every beast so far, but if he gets the Tablets of Destiny, he’ll control them forever. Don’t betray us. Help us stop him —”
    Before she could finish, the tower shook, the air rippled with energy, and Loki appeared. He stared at Kingu, then at us, then at the carved stone in the floor.
    “And here we are,” said Loki. He had obviously waited until he had an audience to slide his reclaimed glove on his hand. It enveloped his arm and sent a ripple of energy across his armor from head to toe. “Ah. Complete at last. My armor restored.”
    “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to happen,” Sydney whispered.
    “It’s the Underworld,” said Loki, his thin lips curling into a grin. “Nothing works the way you want it to. Come with me, Dana Runson. I have not finished with you.” He grabbed her bleeding hand.
    Jon, Sydney, and I stepped toward him, but Loki raised his glowing fist menacingly. “Don’t be foolish. You children have already lost.” He circled us slowly, pulling Dana with him. “With both the Scorpion King and me against you, you have no choice but to submit to our power.”
    Nearby, the Scorpion King’s stingers hovered like a pair of deadly puppets on strings. The points were swollen with venom. We’d already seen what damage they could do.
    They were two gods of awesome power, each with his own mission of revenge.
    And we were smack in the middle.
    “And now to the real business,” Loki said. “Kingu, where are the seventh beast and the Tablets you promised?”

    Without lifting his head, the Scorpion King spoke. “That is the saddest part of my curse. The seventh beast is my own son, Ullikummi, Man of Stone.”
    “And where is he?” asked Loki. His armor gleamed coldly in the last threads of moonlight, and the air around him was as icy as a freezer.
    “Ullikummi joined me in battle,” Kingu said. “He was cursed to this place with me. But the great god Marduk’s spite was such that he sealed my son here, in a tomb on this summit. A tomb I have not seen until this day. My Ullikummi.”
    Kingu spoke his son’s name as if it were an incantation. Ullikummi.
    “A sad story, no doubt,” said Loki with a sneer. “I shall regret not having your son join me. But I am here for the Tablets of Destiny. Where are they?”
    Kingu’s great pincers clenched and unclenched as he spoke. “The Tablets of Destiny lie under the stones in Ullikummi’s arms, lost to me, lost to the world, lost …”
    In that moment, Loki’s expression turned from fake sympathy to a cold, hard, deadly look of rage. “What do you mean, under the stones ?”
    Kingu did not respond. He only repeated his last word over and over softly until it drifted into silence.
    Lost … lost … lost …
    Panu looked at me then at the lyre, and I swear my brain flashed with lightning.
    Lost?
    Only what is lost can be found.
    Kingu didn’t shift his dark eyes from the stone. “I have not seen his grave since I was cursed. By subduing the beasts to your power, Loki, you have made it possible for me to ascend the tower. I must thank you….”
    “ Thank me?” Loki spat. “You can thank me by giving me the Tablets of Destiny! Raise them up from the ground if you have to —”
    “Can you raise the dead?” said Kingu.
    Standing with his back to the falling moon, Kingu was deep in shadow, his eyes invisible under the helmet