Hell's Hinges

by S. M. Reine

  God, but Lincoln wanted to talk to him. Really talk to him. The lump in his throat made it hurt to swallow. “Let’s start by doing a grid search of the area,” he said gruffly. “Expand until you see signs of Sophie. Check in with me in twelve hours.” He hesitated, then added, “Don’t get caught, all right?”

  The gargoyle swept off of the hillside. The thrust of his wings beat Lincoln’s hair against his forehead, and Junior’s form quickly dwindled against the clouds.

  Lincoln got up and dusted off his pants. He wasn’t far from North Virginia. It only took a minute to get to the road and head back into the heart of the Reno-that-was. A Reno entirely unlike the one where he’d woken up after Genesis.

  It couldn’t have been an accident. There was no way that he’d landed in Reno after the apocalypse and also after time traveling by accident .

  For some reason, Lincoln was meant to be there, heading toward the dorms at the same time as drunk University of Nevada students. The Fleischmann Planetarium’s pupil remained fixed on him through its windows as he spiraled past Lawlor, a parking garage echoing with laughing voices, and Manzanita Lake with its fountains gone silent. He was supposed to fear that every shadow belonged to Neuma, Elise’s future-general. He was meant to jump when a black-haired college girl brushed against him accidentally.

  The population was less youthful south of campus. Even before a demon apocalypse struck Reno in 2009, the city hadn’t been a good place for a lot of people. Wages were low. Jobs were vanishing. Pay-by-the-week motels were always full of the working poor, and there weren’t enough homeless shelters for the ones who didn’t fit. That left people on the sidewalks, in the gutters, between bushes. Lincoln spotted them camping on the banks of the Truckee when he crossed it through Wingfield.

  In the future, Reno was an icon of perseverance and a transport hub. But now it was just a city of poverty. A city of demons that were seductive succubi one moment and horrors the next.

  A city that Elise Kavanagh had once made home.

  There must have been something that called to her—something other than sex stores, pawn shops, and trash-strewn streets. Maybe she liked the Bruka theater, which was advertising its 2006 season on posters everywhere. Maybe she liked Art Town’s parades and galleries. Or maybe she liked the warm summer nights in a desert teeming with jackrabbits. Lincoln could have found her and asked.

  He could have asked Elise for help, too. If anyone could find a missing time traveler and a Historian, it would be Elise Kavanagh.

  No.

  He quickened his pace, hugging the wall so that he got blasted in the face by the smell of Awful Awfuls passing the Little Nugget. He’d have been starving if he weren’t so twisted up in knots over the idea of stepping wrong, breathing wrong, and breaking the timeline.

  He couldn’t stop to eat, and he couldn’t seek out Elise Kavanagh for any reason. Lincoln needed to lay low.

  Eloquent Blood was out, but that didn’t rule out all bars. He passed quite a few that looked too busy before ending up at a busted hole-in-the-wall on the corner of Caliente and Virginia. There was no parking, and there wasn’t a lot of noise coming out of the door that was propped open. That was the kind of dive he needed.

  Lincoln stepped inside, and a woman shaved bald stopped him at a rope. She carded him before he could continue. He hadn’t done that one in a while.

  The bar was unremarkable. A dark room with a lot of liquor and some janky tables. Lincoln took a wobbling stool at the end of the bar top, even though he could have kept standing for hours. He had no aches to relieve from spending so much time running around. His young body almost itched to get back on the streets. Lincoln had forgotten what it was like to be able to run so long without sleeping.

  He flagged down the bartender for a beer. “Whatever’s cheap.” God only knew how long he’d have to make those twenties in his wallet last.

  The bartender laughed. “Man of expensive tastes, I see.”

  “I take what I can get.”

  Lincoln pretended not to notice the male bartender eyeballing him when he took the glass. He felt too conspicuous. Like everybody was going to recognize him as an intruder.

  I just look like a visiting human student. Nobody suspects me of being a time traveler in the wrong year, wrong city, wrong fucking genesis.

  He angled himself so he could watch the TV in the corner. When the news came back from commercials, he nearly did a spit-take. KOLO 8 had sent a reporter down to the river, near the craters that Lincoln and Junior had made.

  “I’m standing at the site of a surprising and unusual accident that occurred this morning,” she said. “As you can see, it looks like a meteor struck First Street. In fact, there was an impact, but not from space rocks—from the space station. The International Space Station is now missing one of its panels. Calculations had showed the de-orbited equipment landing in the ocean, and NASA is as surprised as we are by debris reaching as far as Reno.”

  Lincoln went from wanting to spit his cheap beer out to gulping it down, draining the glass. “Another,” he rasped to the bartender.

  They cut to an interview with someone from the University of Nevada’s physics department. A man in a lab coat showed the camera a tiny piece of metal inside a clear acrylic dish. They attributed the two big craters to that little piece of metal.

  “Luckily, there were no injuries in this incident, but traffic has been diverted until the road can be repaired,” the reporter went on. “Local businesses anticipate remaining open during construction. Back to you, Nathan.”

  “Thanks for the report, Phyllis,” a mustached man with beady eyes replied from back at the station.

  “Probably owe thanks to Friederling for that,” Lincoln muttered. If NASA was making statements about debris that didn’t exist, then covering up Lincoln’s arrival had to be the work of the Office of Preternatural Affairs. Fritz Friederling didn’t yet know he owed a debt to Lincoln, but he’d paid it off retroactively anyway.

  If there had only been craters on First Street, then did that mean that Sophie and the Traveler had landed somewhere else?

  “Drinking alone?”

  A new beer had appeared in Lincoln’s hand. He drank the second just as fast as the first, and he wiped his mouth dry on the back of his hand.

  A woman had taken the stool beside him, her tawny blond hair tumbling over one shoulder. She wore a tank top that was a couple of sizes too small, and her eyes were brown, not demon black.

  “Ideally,” Lincoln said, turning away from the television. He hadn’t been expecting this kind of company in this kind of bar. “To be honest, ma’am, I’m fixing to spend my night alone like this.”

  Her eyes brightened. “What kind of accent is that ?”

  “I’m not from these parts.” The less information, the better. Right?

  “What brings you here to my parts, then?” she asked, propping her chin on her hand.

  He hadn’t meant to talk to her, but there was something so open and honest about her face. “To tell you the truth, I’m lost.”

  “Ooh. A lost boy?” She took her beer from the bartender and sipped at it. “Are you lost, or are you looking?” Her toe bumped his shin.

  Lincoln couldn’t help but chuckle into his beer. Not so much at the lady, but at his youthful body’s reaction. Neuma had been his wettest of wet dreams brought to reality, but that was like sandblasting a soup cracker. It didn’t take much to get a guy in his early twenties going. Just a pretty girl and a nudge from her toe.

  “Sorry, that’s probably forward where you come from,” she said, but she didn’t stop nudging, and she didn’t stop smiling.

  Maybe that was what Reno girls were like. Elise had been real forward with Lincoln when they’d met, too.

  Stop thinking about Elise.

  “Forward’s not always bad.” He held out his hand. “My name’s Lincoln.”

  “Elizabeth. Elizabeth Beatty.” She giggled when they shook hands. “You’re such a gentleman! What d
o you do when you’re not lost?”

  What had Lincoln been doing back then? “Sometimes I play football.” Actually, he’d spent hours every day practicing, and traveled extensively to make out with cheerleaders for other teams. “Mostly I do a lot of studying.”

  “What’s your major?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Criminal justice and theology. You?”

  “Microbiology,” she said. “I’m a grad student, actually. Working on my thesis at UNR. I don’t think you go to my school, though. If I’d seen Paul Walker wandering around UNR, I’d remember it.” So she was one of those kinds of women.

  The bartender swung by to switch out Lincoln’s glass. He gave Lincoln a quick once-over and then a smirk.

  Jesus . Everyone in Reno was out for him in one way or another. Even the men.

  “Did you just scoff because you got checked out by a bartender at a gay bar?” Elizabeth asked.

  Lincoln choked on his drink. “What? This is a gay bar?”

  She burst into laughter, bright and joyous. “You really aren’t from around here!”

  Great . Lincoln had gone from a demon club to a gay bar. And these weren’t the boring married gay types, like Friederling and Cèsar. The guys out on the dance floor sure were wearing a lot of sleeveless shirts. Lincoln hadn’t even noticed. “I’ve had a real bitch of a week. Call me distracted.”

  “Do you wanna talk about it?” she asked, swirling her glass.

  He didn’t.

  But he opened his mouth and it came out anyway. “I learned my dad wasn’t the man I thought he was. I learned my brother-in-law, Noah, was exactly the man I thought he was. And both of these discoveries just about ruined me.” Now this. Reno in the 2000s. Hiding from the police and Elise and praying to find Sophie alive. He hadn’t had a minute to breathe since everything went afoul in Mortise, and now it felt like he was suffocating.

  “Oh, Linc.” Elizabeth rested her hand atop his. “You really are a Lost Boy. I’m sorry. That sounds awful.”

  “I’m lucky enough that my terrible week’s ending in a pleasant talk,” Lincoln said.

  “It could end even better.”

  Her smile was infectious. He gave a grudging laugh. “Why’d you hit on me if I’m at a gay bar?”

  “You could be bisexual. I like to play my odds.” She took a healthy swig of her beer. “Tell you the truth, I just came here to decompress after work. I wasn’t looking for a hook-up.” But she seemed to be looking for one now.

  Lincoln probably would have been more horrified under other circumstances. A girl like this, approaching men like him? And dressed like that ? It was dangerous. Yet he wasn’t going to hear from Junior for another ten hours, and Lincoln did need to lay low. Laying low with the woman whose foot was sliding up the inside of his knee sounded appealing.

  He’d had a hell of a week.

  “I’m afraid I just wouldn’t be good company tonight,” Lincoln said. “I’m on my fourth beer, and I’m fixing to have a few more.”

  Her smile turned sympathetic. “Then drink the beers first. I don’t mind if you’re hurting and want a band-aid. We can still have a nice time if you want.” She shrugged. “Just saying, I’m definitely game.”

  It was hard not to feel the same when looking down at her curves. She wore a cut-off denim skirt that rode up to expose all the dimples on her thighs, and her breasts were practically falling out of her shirt. Lincoln normally wasn’t one for fat girls. But there was just something about this fat girl.

  “I don’t have a car,” he said frankly.

  “I live at the end of the street,” she said.

  They each drank two more beers, and then Lincoln followed Elizabeth home.

  The night unfurled from there in the most familiar of ways. Lincoln had never met Elizabeth before, but this was a play that he had performed countless times in college. Most often, when celebrating football games won, or lamenting football games lost, and usually with cheerful sorority sisters happy to help him work through his feelings.

  Elizabeth was deft, even in her intoxication. She put a condom on him before her mouth touched any privates and encouraged him to pull her hair while she blew him. Raw enthusiasm compensated for clumsy technique. She was happy to have him pinned against her bedroom wall, her breasts against his knees, her big eyes focused on him while he fisted her blond locks.

  And after a condom change, Elizabeth walked him through exactly what she wanted him to do. She pushed him down to sit on his face. She put his hands where she wanted them, rode his mouth with her pussy, and then navigated his cock inside the kinds of places good Christian girls kept off-limits. A couple different places.

  Elizabeth laughed every time she orgasmed—a cascade of giggles smothered into her palm, with her thighs shaking beside Lincoln’s ears.

  And she snored very loudly after promptly falling asleep.

  Lincoln didn’t mean to fall asleep too, but God, he needed it. He’d felt invulnerable until the alcohol sank in. Now he felt like he would die if he tried to roll away from the sweat-cooled skin of Elizabeth, microbiology grad student in a year and city where Lincoln Marshall did not belong.

  He woke alone in bed with a hangover.

  Blazing yellow sunrise punched into Elizabeth’s bedroom and straight through his skull. “Oh God,” Lincoln groaned, throwing an arm over his eyes.

  “We deserve this punishment,” Elizabeth said. He peered under the shadow of his wrist at her. She was nudging the door open with her toe, since her hands were occupied by holding a breakfast tray. She wore his graphic tee over nothing else. “We drank way too much cheap beer last night. This is how Xenu tells us we’ve done him raw.”

  “Who is Xenu?”

  “Exactly.” She’d brought two single-serving boxes of Froot Loops and bottled Starbucks lattes. She set them on the table next to him before jumping onto him, all heavy and soft and adorably giggly.

  “This’d be a hell of a lot more pleasant if I didn’t wanna die,” Lincoln grumbled underneath his arm.

  “Vanilla lattes are the hangover cure nobody talks about because everyone’s got a hate-on for Starbucks. Here, try it.” She popped one open and handed it to him. When she bent forward, her deep cleavage was just inches from his face.

  It tasted like burned, bitter sugar water. “Mmm,” he said. It could have been a mumble of agreement.

  “I had a super great night,” Elizabeth murmured, kissing him along his chin. “And I don’t want to rush you out of here, but I’m going on a weekend trip to King’s Beach with my coven for the esbat, and I really gotta pack. So…”

  “It’s all right, I don’t…” His brain was slow to catch up with everything she’d said. He’d been expecting to escape her bed soon. He hadn’t been expecting that last information. “You’re in a coven?”

  “Oh, I forgot, you’re like a Southern boy,” Elizabeth said. “Yeah. A coven. For witches. It’s just a little thing—nothing to do with Satan. We don’t even get skyclad for the rituals.” She rolled her eyes.

  “I know about witches. My family’s full of them,” Lincoln said.

  Her eyes brightened. “Really? Ooh! That’s amazing!” Then she seemed to remember their talk from the night before. “Wait, your family sucks, right? Does their coven suck too?”

  “Oh yeah,” he said.

  “Which coven are they with? I’m not going to hex them, but maybe I’ll throw an evil eye or two their way.” She jabbed the air with forked fingers and stuck out her tongue.

  His family used to be a satellite of the White Ash Coven, and chances were good that Elizabeth would have heard of them. He couldn’t tell her that. “I dunno, it’s nothing serious. I just grew up with witches, and I don’t think you’re Satanic.”

  “That’s nice. Okay.” It sounded like she didn’t actually care what he thought of her.

  Right. She wants me gone . He was only a couple hours from meeting up with Junior, and even a witch in this era would have been shocked to see the gargoyle. “I
’ll get out of here. Let me find my clothes.” Lincoln took another drink of the coffee, set it aside, and rolled out from under Elizabeth.

  His clothes were everywhere. She watched him dress from the bed, bare legs folded underneath her.

  “Well, actually, if you’re cool with witches…” Elizabeth twisted the hem of his shirt in her hands. “My boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—Asshole Mark was supposed to come on the esbat trip with me. I paid for a double room in the cabin at Lake Tahoe. But we broke up a couple days ago, so…if the Lost Boy doesn’t have anywhere to be…” She grinned.

  Lincoln had already done too much to risk the timeline. A one-night-stand was probably harmless, especially considering how safe they’d been with condoms (in addition to Elizabeth’s IUD, which she’d disclosed to him, despite the fact he didn’t wanna know). But he couldn’t waste any time finding Sophie and the Traveler.

  He shimmied into his pants. “That’s a real kind offer from you, but…”

  “You’re not good company right now?” Elizabeth filled in.

  “I’m not just in town because of my family. I’m looking for a friend,” Lincoln said.

  “Well, the offer to join me on an all-expenses-paid witchy beach trip stands for the next hour-ish.” Elizabeth peeled his shirt off and tossed it to him. Disappointingly, she was wearing her tank top underneath, so she wasn’t totally naked. His shirt smelled like her skin.

  A door slammed elsewhere in the duplex. A voice called from the front.

  “Betty!”

  Elizabeth looked apologetic. “Sorry. My friend is picking me up for the trip, and I thought you’d be gone before she showed.”

  “I can sneak out back.” Lincoln lifted an eyebrow at her. “Betty?”

  She laughed. “I thought Elizabeth might sound more impressive. I usually go by Betty. And you don’t have to sneak out back—Elise knows I’m Slutty McSlut. Go out the front. Nice to meet you. Bye!”

  Betty shoved him into the hallway.