"Damien?" I turn, searching the blackness. He was here. I know he was. I feel eyes watching me as I continue to wade through the veil.
"Wake up, Trina!"
There. He is there, not fifty feet from me. I race to him, calling his name. The bane of my existence is my savior. I reach my hand through the void and he stands there, staring at me. His eyes are so distant like he's here with me, but only in thought. My mind doesn't comprehend this until I reach out and try to touch him and he disappears again. I whirl around gazing into the abyss again. A figure stands about one hundred feet away this time. It isn't Damien though. Is it…
"Fiona?" I race to her, shouting. Is no one in this place real? Am I real? I look down at myself and hug my stomach. I still feel like I'm real. In terms of levels of torture, this one is the surest way to drive someone crazy. I look back up and see Fiona staring at me the same way Damien was.
"Fiona!" I continue to run to her. Somehow she survived the collision or there never was a collision, or what if, I was the never was?
The same thing happens when I reach Fiona and I stop running, staring wildly around, finally understanding what this place is. The Abyss, the place where nothing exists and no one is real. This is the place people go when they have no one to think about them after they die. As if the very thought gives power to the souls who are here, I stop and start seeing shapes in the fog. Profiles appear like shadows around me as I look at the forgotten. They are nameless, faceless souls, but the mere fact someone has remembered they once existed at all is enough to give them cause to rise.
I see Damien now. He's standing next to Fiona, which is peculiar because she should be running from him, terrified. But then I realize why they are here. They think of me. Fiona I can understand. Although with the falling out we once had, I assume she thinks of me with loathing and disgust, but Damien? It is strange the son of Satan would think of me when I'm gone. Why? For that matter, I turn and look at the shapes again, searching. I see them now, the Hellcats. Tabitha, Leona, and Faline. A fourth figure hangs back in the distance, Tora, even the new girl thinks of me when I am carried to this place. It brings me some hope, knowing I won't be forgotten like the rest of the souls here and I understand now why Lucifer hasn't succeeded in completely miring me in this nightmare. He underestimated the power of the people who do remember me.
I run for Fiona again. This time I know when I reach her, touching her isn't the way to rouse myself from this dream. Provoking her memories is. The more I talk to her, make her remember, the stronger I get.
"Fiona! Look at me! Fiona!"
"Trina, wake up! Trina!" Someone is shaking me. As I open my eyes and claw at her chest, trying to grab ahold, I realize I am contorted on a bed somewhere. I feel the sheen of sweat on my forehead and I see the rapid rise and fall of my chest as I claw at myself making sure I'm actually here.
"Fiona!"
"I know. You were dreaming.” Leo lets go of my wrists as my hands curl in on themselves and I struggle to catch my breath.
"Drudes. The Drudes have caught up with us,” I pant. My breath is coming in short bursts.
"What?" Lowell is standing beside the bed and looking down at me. He's trying to hide the concern in his face, but he needs work on his passive face.
"Drudes are demons of nightmares. Satan is sending us a message. He's aware we've flown the coop and he is going to start coming after us,” Leo fills him in. “What I want to know is, why were you dreaming about Fiona?" Her eyes flash when she looks at me.
"It's nothing. It was just a dream," I mutter and sit up. My head is splitting and I stumble into the bathroom, slamming the door as I hear Lowell answer her. Seeing my sister again, up close and so personal, is perhaps the hardest part of this waking memory. I usually forget my dreams. There are things in Hell I really don't want to dwell on. But Fiona and Damien? Why was Damien there? Does he think about me that much? I splash water on my face. Probably only to think of ways he can trap me forever. I hear Lowell answer Leo's questions and I know I'll have some fire to face later.
"Catriona's sister. What do you think it means?"
When I stand up, I wince and gasp. Then I lift my shirt. My chest felt tight and sore when I got off the bed. I figured it was the memory and residual aspects of the dream, but there is a red line like a bar having been pressed to my chest. It's going to leave a nasty bruise, but message received Lucifer. I yank my shirt back down and push open the door to the bedroom.
"We can't stay here much longer. I think Satan knows about the deal. How rested are Tabby and Fae?"
"Good to go. Tora said James and Marty didn't give them any grief. Trina…your sister?"
"Not now, Leo. Later. What about you though? You good to ride?" I look at the dark circles under her eyes and wonder how much longer she'll be able to push on.
"I'll be alright. The coffee pot over there brews sludge so I'm caffeinated up and good to go.”
I pull my colors back on and we leave the motel. The attendant at the front desk is relieved to see us leave. When I'd checked in for two rooms, he looked like he wanted to turn us away, but something on my face must have told him not to push his luck.
He sends an assistant, a young kid, out to check the rooms and when the teen comes back and tells him there has been no damage, he looks mildly surprised.
"We don't get a lot of your type who don't trash the place.” He runs the credit card, Satan stamped and issued, and his fingers fumble with the buttons. I lean forward, reading his nametag.
"Aaron, this place is trashy enough. Why waste my energy on something that can't get any worse?" My unrestful sleep has left me in a bad mood and he's pushing the line into my sandbox of rude and detached.
Aaron, being the middle-aged meddler he is, doesn't say anything. He pushes his glasses up on his face and swipes his curly brown hair back from his eyes and hands my card back to me. The little sound on the card machine pings and indicates the charge has been accepted. I wonder how long it will take Lucifer to cancel my card? What bank does the Underworld use? I look at the thin black plastic card with a symbol of some horns on it, the chip and the horns are both stamped in gold. I shove it in my pocket. I decide not to question my luck.
Just as we are pulling out of the Stayside Motel’s parking lot, I glance back and see Aaron silhouetted in the doorway. His profile shimmers and then bursts open, revealing a hooded figure with a black abyss of a face. I almost run Sugar off the road, but Aaron, the Drude makes no move to follow us. I kick Sugar into high gear anyway and it takes a good fifty miles and a lot of craning my neck around to make sure he isn’t following us. So he’s the Drude who sucked me into the nightmare. My girls squint at me and then behind us as we continue to ride. I’ll have to fill them in later, but Aaron probably returned to the Underworld to inform Satan he met us on our journey heading east.
Feeling better with each mile I put behind us and with dawn approaching on the second day, we make time as we drive into the northeast of America. It always takes my breath away as we watch the flatlands become spotted with trees and shrubs and develop into thick forests teeming with woodland wildlife. Deer are always my favorite and they are everywhere as we drive through Pennsylvania and make our way east to the coast through southern New York. The one positive in this gig is getting to see how vast this country really is. Normally we would have portal hopped from the Midwest, saving a bit of a drive, but with the travel ban in effect for us wayward types, the drive has been as refreshing as it has been chaotic.
As we enter the outskirts of the city by midafternoon, the stop and go traffic begins to agitate me as all we can do is sit with the rest of the influx of vehicles. It gives me time to start worrying about the big fat set up this feels like with Damien. No doubt this is the perfect opportunity for Damien to rat me out and tell Daddy-O exactly where I'll be and at what time, so he can come get me. And yet, he was there, in my dream. The thing bugging me is this is all his idea. Yakking it up with Dante, getting his errand boy
Phil to call in the divine favor. How's this all going to play out? I honestly don't see him playing this one straight, but I just can't see his end game.
The heat of the day is on us as we finally ride up into the parking lot of the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. It sits halfway between Neptune Ave and Surf Ave. We take the Shell Road Entrance and park at the far end of the lot.
I look around. Figures Damien and crew aren't here yet. My bet on finding wherever Zeke is laying low will be at his Gigi's old camp on the Ogden River in Eden, Utah. Gigi left the camp to Lowell and Zeke when she passed and the brothers took me up there to spread her ashes. The camp is breathtaking and as Heavenly a place as the town it resides in. She owned a modest log cabin on the river surrounded by mountain views and the lake below. The Pineview Reservoir is so vast; it's almost like staring at the ocean.
As Lowell, Marty, and James walk into the DMV for a bathroom break, I’m given the opportunity to catch up with my girls.
“A Drude? You don’t think it followed us?” Fae looks back down the street from where we came.
“That’s the thing. Drudes can pop up anywhere. As long as there is a sleeping person.” I hear the exhaustion in my own voice and see Leo’s eyes drooping. She didn’t rest at all. I have to think of something that will keep them all awake, just in case the Drude has latched on.
“So, Tora, a hospice nurse, huh?”
Leo’s eyes snap open. It’s been a long time since she has been interested in another soul. Occasionally, like the rest of us, she picks one up from Limbo, has her fun, and then brings them back upstairs when she’s done messing around, no one the wiser the soul ever left Limbo. She turns on her seat to twist around and look at Tora, who shrugs and blushes.
“Yeah, but I wasn’t a very good one. As you know.”
I think about this. There are very few of us who get the chance at redemption. Sure, she screwed up big time, but it didn’t make her a bad nurse.
“I don’t know about that. We’ve all stepped in it, but if our intentions weren’t at least lined up with a smidgen of good, we wouldn’t be in this gig. Might as well tell you now; the man we are hunting down is my ex. He used to sell drugs while I stood by and watched him. I told myself he was just doing it to take care of us. But I made no move to stop him.” I bite my lip, waiting to see if Tora will make a beeline for the exit. Or rather, away from us and back to Auntie J to renegotiate her terms.
“I was a pharmaceutical clinician. I ran tests with drugs that would have helped with cancer, but the results came back with more negative effects than positive ones. I kept on with my research, hoping it would yield better results. I ignored the fact the patients who signed up for the tests were terminal anyway, but even my efforts to save thousands didn’t make it right.” I gape at Faline, as do the rest of my girls. We never have the share your feelings circle. Tora plays with her t-shirt and nods, but I can see in her eyes the relief. We are our own worst judges. Even with judgement having passed on us already, we still have to live the afterlife for the things we did.
“I stole from my mob boss to pay for my sick brother’s medical treatments. I was a hitwoman for a London syndicate and Higgins never respected me as a woman. It didn’t make killing all those crooks ok, but he never paid me what he paid the others, and Gavin needed treatment outside Britain’s medical capabilities, which means it had to be paid for. Higgins found out what I did and I kicked it on this bike when I was on the run from him.” Leo pats her bike and Tora jumps, looking down at the machine under her. I suppress a grin as does Tabby and Fae. Leo pets her bike like I do Sugar. Besides our gang, they are our tickets to freedom from time to time.
All four of us turn and look at Tabby who is braiding the leather straps on her handlebars like she would if it was a prized horse about to enter a dressage show. She looks up.
“What?”
“It’s share time, Tabby. We’re bonding with the pledge.” Fae’s tone is as dry as the late afternoon heat.
“Oh. I was a prostitute.” Tabby winks at Tora who looks uncomfortable. Everyone waits. Tabby continues to grin. She’s like a puppy with no morals. Adorable and you want to scold her, but you know she doesn’t know any better for humping the pillow.
“Tabby had it rough growing up. She turned tricks to survive.”
Tabby doesn’t seem to take offense to this. She once told me she felt no qualms about it because she did what she had to. I don’t blame her. Survival makes people do what is necessary. I do have to wonder while she’s working to atone for her sins if her heart is really in it. She’s taking a different soul to her room most every night. It kind of feels like offsetting the books somehow, but it’s between her and Auntie J, I suppose.
Thinking of Auntie J makes me angry. I can’t believe she’s just thrown the towel in and not stepped in to help fix this one. I don’t bother looking at my phone again. As I look at my girls and see all their vulnerabilities shared in between the circle, I realize the ones who have my back when shit gets real are right here. Newbie or not, Tora’s proving she can hold her own. Leo’s as loyal as they come and Fae is the smarts of the group. Putting us in check with her practicality. Tabby? Well, I guess Tabby is my comic relief. Each of us is unique and brings something to the fold we all need. I can’t have Fiona back in my life; that will never happen. But I have them and it’s everything I need. I realize with a start, when Damien grants their pardons after all this is done and they go to Heaven while I stay behind, how much I am going to miss them. I don’t see myself bonding with Charles. Or trusting Doug and Dick. Maybe I’ll fall in tight with the kid though. Damien, well, I suppose there is a level of trust needing to be built to co-rule if we survive this, but it’s going to take a long time. But my gang is going to be one of those places in my head where I stow the heartache and pain for a while until I can take the memory of each of them out, relish it, and remind myself someday, if I ever get out of my stint ruling Hell, I will be able to join them in Heaven. It’s a nice thought.
We all fall into a stupor after Tabby tries to dish on some of the details of her Johns. No one is so desperate for bonding we need to know how size doesn’t matter, or in her case, apparently it does. I let my head loll onto my chest, but don’t want to fall asleep and keep jerking awake and looking up. Lowell, James, and Marty return and sit at the beat-up green picnic table reserved for DMV employees on their lunch. They must figure seeing all of us loitering here, eating in the break room is a good idea.
The parking lot of the DMV shimmers in the afternoon heat and my eyes begin to deceive me. I see the effect a lot on the highway and the open road out west in the desert, but here with the smell of ocean air blowing in over Staten Island, although it is warm, it is by no means an inferno of heat.
I should have known my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. In one instant I am staring at an empty parking lot, save for the poor schlub who has to lock up at five-fifteen on a Friday night, and in the next moment, five monstrous motorcycles are rolling into the parking lot just having appeared from the haze.
I hear Tora chuckle at the reaction of the DMV guy's face as he rubs his eyes. Must have been a long week, poor dude. He looks around and then spots me and the girls and all but trips over himself as he makes a beeline for his car.
For a man who is supposed to uphold the laws of the road, he peels out of the lot faster than a monkey on a banana.
I turn my attention back to the Hounds as they ride up. In the garage down under, their bikes are impressive for sure, but out on the open road, it has never occurred to me just how terrifying they really are. It's as if Satan picked their rides based on their personalities. The Ducati, the Italian bike screams arrogant, as is its rider Charles. The gothic style hearse attached to the back of a nondescript black Harley is being driven by Doug and an elaborate silver coffin can be seen through the glass panels on the side of the hearse as he circles around. The only reason I know it's Doug is because word got around about a year ago he attack
ed one of the Satyrs and used it as a chew toy. As a punishment when Charles came on board, Satan made him trick out his own ride so Charles' coffin could be towed around for the long hauls. Being the ass he is, Charles went Hella fancy, which is the exact opposite of Doug's plain and simple vibe. The only thing I haven't been able to figure out is, no matter how much I taunt him about it, no one will tell me what the Satyr did to piss him off so much to be provoked.
"That is beyond freaky.” Lowell leans into my ear and I nod.
"So, talking to me now?" I turn my head slightly.
"I might as well. This is all going down whether I want it to or not. Just how do they not draw attention to themselves toting around a vampire coffin?"
"That's the point, Lowell. They do draw attention. They don't give a damn. Would you walk up to them and start something if you didn't know they were demons?"
"Oh, Hell no.”
"Point made.”
I watch as Dick, who can almost be Doug's twin, rides in on his BMW bike. The only reason he marred the side of his bike with the logo of a Hellhound skull is probably because he was ordered to by the higher-ups.
I find I am happy to see Phil on his own wheels. It doesn't have the Hounds’ logo on it yet, but they must have picked up the spare bike on the way when they portal hopped through the garage. There’d been nothing stopping Damien from returning home. It took Lucifer a couple of days to figure out the coup de grace going on under his nose. So the cross-country trip would have been easy for Damien and his crew.
The small navy-blue Enduro is the perfect size for Phil, and although I don't have a maternal bone in my demonic body, I'm glad Damien didn't try to force him on a ride he can't handle. I'm still trying to get past the idea of a teenager rolling with a biker gang, but there's nothing I can do about it. He'd resent me for stepping in and end up in a world of trouble and pain if I tried. Demons are the worst bullies.
Highway to Hell Page 12