Better Off Dead: The Lily Harper Series, Book 1

by H. P. Mallory

  “Aye,” he answered robotically before continuing forward, as though to discourage any more questions. Bill and I watched him walk onto the dirt road and proceed toward the shadows of the clouds. Then he simply disappeared on the horizon, at the same spot where the road vanished into the clouds.

  “Well, it was nice knowin’ him,” Bill said with a shrug as he spun around on his heel and started back for the forest.

  “Come on, Bill, you know we have to follow him,” I called out. I had to run the few steps that separated us, so I could grab the back of his collar and yank him to a stop. I wasn’t sure what was worse, following the unknown dirt road or traveling back through the skeleton forest with the monster spiders.

  Bill sighed, shaking his head. “All right, nips, ladies first,” he said, holding his arm out in front of him theatrically.

  I started toward the dirt road, looking back to make sure he was right behind me. He was. I took a deep breath, gave Bill an encouraging smile, and stepped onto the path. My heart was in my throat as Bill and I walked side by side, neither of us knowing what to expect. Strangely enough, both of us were completely silent, as if our own thoughts were distraction enough. My own mind was completely racing, plaguing me with questions I didn’t have the answers to …

  What happened when Tallis disappeared? Did he just materialize somewhere else? And if so, where? My thoughts collided in my brain until I wanted to scream with frustration. Instead, I strained to see the end of the road, where it simply disappeared into the nether. My heart climbed into my throat.

  “This is it,” Bill said in a low tone, frowning as he faced me. “Ready, Betty?”

  “I guess so,” I answered, looking toward the end of the road, which simply T-boned into a black wall of nothing.

  “Aye, we’ll be back!” Bill said in a crummy imitation of Tallis combined with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

  “You do realize that line isn’t from Conan, right?”

  “What you talkin’ ’bout, yo?” Bill asked, shaking his head, like I was the one with my movies crossed.

  “That line was from The Terminator.”

  Bill waved me away with an unconcerned hand. “Whatevs, Terminator, Conan, they both fit Tallis to a T. Maybe I’ll just start calling him the bitchmaster instead. Get it? Beastmaster … bitchmaster?” Then he erupted into a roar of chuckles.

  “I’m sure he’ll love that,” I grumbled as I reached for his hand, and together we stepped forward. Seconds later, I blinked and found a completely different landscape around me. Luckily, Tallis was present, off to our right side. His hands were propped on his hips as he glared at us, no doubt unimpressed by our cowardice. But I couldn’t say my attention was wholly centered on Tallis, beyond the relief at knowing he was still with us. Nope, I was much more interested in the Underground City.

  It was comprised of large high-rise buildings, maybe twenty-five or so, all of which stood huddled together amid a backdrop of parched desert. In fact, the earth was so dehydrated, deep valleys pitted the ground, imbuing the landscape with the look of very old skin. The sky was an ugly, muted burnt shade of dark orange, with a lighter area of yellow centered over the city. It looked like the sky was on fire.

  “Coome,” Tallis said as he started forward.

  I dropped Bill’s hand and inhaling the dry air deeply, followed Tallis. I had to be careful as I walked so as to avoid catching my toes in the deep fissures of the earth. Sprain my ankle or break my leg and I’d be SOL for sure. I sincerely doubted there were any doctors in hell.

  The closer we walked to the Underground City, the colder the air became. It seemed the temperature dropped by five degrees with every step we took. “It’s freezing!” I announced as I tightened my grip on the fur around my shoulders. I could see my breath on the air.

  “Aye,” Tallis answered. “Warmth doesnae exist in th’ Oonderground. Oonly th’ cauld ah despair.”

  “And on that happy note, let’s get this party started!” Bill said in a chipper voice as I tried to calm my frantic heart.

  Tallis faced Bill and me with a dour expression. “An’ hoo dae ye propose tae find thess sool we moost retrieve?”

  “Ah, shit!” Bill called out with a laugh as he slapped his thigh like the joke was on him. “I almost forgot, yo!” He reached inside his pants pocket and pulled out the pack of pills we first took when we entered Tallis’s forest, and I thought Bill was taking illegal narcotics. He flipped open the tin and handed a green pill to me and one to Tallis, before taking one himself.

  “Whit is this?” Tallis demanded, eyeing the pill with suspicion.

  Bill shrugged. “Skeletor said to take it before each of our missions.”

  With that, Tallis threw his on the ground. It rolled off the edge of the parched earth, only to vanish into a deep ravine. I had yet to swallow mine and faced Tallis with the question of whether or not I should written on my face.

  “I doona troost Streethorn,” he said simply, before facing Bill. “Furthermair, ye, as an angel, hae nae need tae take the pills what’re intended fur human coonsumption.”

  “How do you know?” Bill eyed him warily.

  “Aye ken,” Tallis answered, his jaw tight and his expression warning he wasn’t in the mood to argue.

  “I, Barbie,” Bill challenged, narrowing one eye on Tallis. Then he simply shrugged as he faced me. “I just thought they might taste good. So hurry the hell up an’ take yours, sugar loaves! You heard Frankenstein—they’re for human consumption.”

  Before I could so much as open my mouth to speak, Tallis slapped the pill out of my hand. “Ye dooonae need it.”

  And that took care of that. Bill and I just looked at Tallis in surprise. “Okay,” I said as I turned to face Bill, putting to rest the subject of taking pills. “So where are we going and how will we know when we get there?”

  Bill chewed on his lip while he reached into his back pocket and retrieved his phone. With all the grey duct tape holding the thing together, I was amazed it even worked. He powered it on and clicked a few buttons. I glanced over his shoulder and noticed he was reading through text messages. “What are you doing?” I demanded.

  “Checking my messages. Amazing, but I got service here.” Then he focused on his phone again before shrugging at me. “All from my common-law girlfriend.”

  “What does …?” I started.

  He shrugged. “We been hookin’ up for a long time, but neither of us wants to call it a relationship, ya know? We just can’t seem to shake each other though,” he finished with a sigh.

  “Bill!” I yelled at him, feeling frustration up to my ears. “I don’t care! Back to the subject! How are we going to find the soul to retrieve?”

  “Cool your panties, sweetie,” he said, holding out the palm of his hand as if he were stopping an enraged bull. “Skeletor told me he programmed my phone with a sensor or something. I’m trying to make sure the damn thing downloaded. Now just busy yourself with Mr. Party over there”—he pointed to Tallis—“while I figure this shit out, namsay?”

  “What?” I snapped.

  “Ugh,” Bill scowled at me and drooped his shoulders. “Know. What. I. Am. Saying?” Then he arched his eyebrows to see if I followed him. “Namsay?”

  “Yes, I get it!” I grumbled back at him. “Just download the freaking sensor already.”

  “Workin’ on it, sweetcheeks.” Then he continued to click buttons and appeared, for all intents and purposes, like he had no idea what he was doing.

  Annoyed, tired, scared to death, and in no mood to end my life in the Underground City, I huffed out a breath of impatience and eyed Tallis. He was standing a few feet away from me, his arms crossed against his chest, observing Bill and me with the whisper of a smile on his lips. “What are you so amused about?” I asked gruffly.

  “Atween th’ two ah ye, Ah doubt ye coods navigate tae yer oown feit!” He chuckled loudly as he shook his head, as though pitying Bill and me.

  “Shut it, Conan,” Bill said and shot Tal
lis a discouraging glare. Moments later, he started to hop around while twirling his hips. “That’s right! Big daddy Billy just got the sensor to work!” After thrusting his pelvis forward repeatedly, and looking like he was having sex with the air, he broke into the running man.

  “’E looks as if ’e’s havin’ ah seizure,” Tallis said as he observed Bill.

  Bill mistakenly took the comment as an invitation to dance in Tallis’s personal space. He continued thrusting his abdomen forward, only in much closer proximity to Tallis, who recoiled with repulsion. “That’s right! Bill found the spirit to retrieve! That’s right!” he sang as he squatted down and got onto his hands and toes. He appeared to be mounting the dirt.

  Tallis stepped backward while I wrenched the phone from Bill’s grip. Peering down at it, I noticed what looked like a map. Directly east, there was a glowing white dot that seemed to move back and forth, as if it were a person walking on screen. I looked at Tallis who was busy trying to swat Bill away. The much smaller man was bent over, gripping his thighs while pumping his bottom up and down, and singing the wrong words to “I’m Sexy and I Know It.”

  “Bill, will you quit that?” I yelled at him as I handed the phone to Tallis. “I think the white dot is our spirit, but do you know where he or she is?”

  Tallis inspected the screen for a few moments and then nodded. “Freak Shoow,” he answered as if either Bill or I had a clue what he was talking about.

  “Um, come again?” Bill asked between pants, apparently winded from his terrible dance moves.

  “The amoosement park,” Tallis continued.

  “There’s an amusement park called Freak Show in the Underground City?” I asked, sounding completely baffled.

  “Aye, the Oonderground City is jist that, ah city. Everyfin’ you’d expect tae find in ah normal city, ye will find haur.”

  “But Dante’s Inferno says there are levels of hell!” I continued, perplexed at how this could be.

  “Each level is ah destination within th’ city,” Tallis explained.

  I shook my head. “But Dante never described an amusement park!” Then I saw the skyscrapers in the distance. “And he definitely didn’t describe modern buildings!”

  Tallis looked like it was taking every last ounce of his self-control to remain patient with me. “Jist as th’ wurld evoolves, sae does th’ Oonderground City.”

  “So can we, like, go on some rides, yo?” Bill chimed in.

  “And after he had laid his hand on mine with joyful mien, whence I was comforted, he led me in among the secret things.”

  — Dante’s Inferno

  THIRTEEN

  “So, dude,” Bill started, glancing down at the copy of Dante’s Inferno, which he held in his hands open to Canto Three, “it looks like we, uh, missed a few stops along the way.”

  “What are you talking about, Bill?” I asked, even though I couldn’t say my attention was wholly focused on him. Instead, I stood gaping at the entryway to the Underground City, gulping despondently. The entry was comprised of an iron and brick gate that towered over us, maybe twenty feet high. The iron, a bluish-grey color, looked incredibly aged and worn, while inside the ironwork were layers of bricks. The bricks also looked ancient, as if they’d vanish into dust if you so much as swiped your finger across their rough surfaces. The remains of long dead and sticky vines clung to the gate and bricks, making the macabre reliefs of animal and human faces appear even more gruesome.

  The black clouds overhead were moving on fast-forward, and the light of the moon refracted in rays of jaundiced illumination. Try as I might, I could not tear my repelled fascination from the sculptures that flanked the entry. Crowning the gate was an urn, guarded on either side by two enormous snails. Just beneath the urn was a woman’s expressionless face, positioned so the rays of the moon arced out behind her. Below her was an antique-looking oval window, the color of algae. The ornate iron pattern on the glass resembled a spider’s web, even though a few of the glass panes were broken. On either side of the window were two lion heads, with their mouths wide open in a roar. The largest of the reliefs was that of a man, perhaps in his late fifties. He sported a close-cropped beard, had a furrowed brow and wore a hood that looked like a lion’s mouth mid-roar. I couldn’t tell whether it was meant to appear as if the lion was eating his head, or if the man was simply modeling a lion’s carcass. As I gawked at the morose sculptures, I had the uncanny feeling that the relief of the man was staring right back at me.

  “I’m talking about Dante’s directions, yo,” Bill said, snapping my attention back to him. He even stepped in front of me and waved, obviously intent on grabbing my attention. “I’m thinkin’ we mighta taken a wrong turn somewhere.”

  “Why?” I asked, now fully focused because his information was alarming.

  “’Cause Dante was talking about some place called Limbo and then some other place, which was ’sposed ta come before the Acheron River but …”

  “Aye, booth are jist prooducts ah Dante’s imagination,” Tallis interrupted with a frown, shaking his head. He wore an uptight expression and raised one brow, looking completely irritated with Bill. “Ye dinnae need ta consult th’ book as Ah ken thess city as well as Ah ken th’ back ah mah oown hain.”

  “Well, if it’s just the same to you, Conan,” Bill spat out, puffing up his chest like a powder pigeon and imitating Tallis in a highfalutin way, “I’d like to see what Dante has to say about this place,” he added before facing Tallis with a mirrored expression of annoyance.

  “Then doonae boother me wif one mair ah yer bludy questions!” Tallis railed back at him, shaking his head in exasperation.

  “Enough!” I shouted, giving both of them warning glances before settling my attention on Bill. “We made it to the Underground, right?”

  “Yeah,” Bill admitted, albeit reluctantly.

  “Right!” I continued, unable to hide my exasperation. “At this point, we have more important things to worry about than that book!” I caught my breath and exhaled deeply before facing Tallis. “Are we going into the city now or what?”

  “Aye,” he answered with a stiff jaw as he pushed past me, and approached the immense gate. He paused in front of it and then turned to me. “Afore we enter, ye take yer sword,” he said, unsheathing my sword from the scabbard across his chest and handing it to me.

  “Okay,” I started but he interrupted me with just a look. The intensity of his gaze was so riveting, I felt my heartbeat increase and my breath caught in my throat. Any other words I was about to say simply died on my tongue. His eyes were so focused on me, it almost seemed as if he could see right through me.

  “Dinnae, fur even ah second, release yer sword,” he said in a steely voice. “Keep it attached tae ye.” He paused for a few seconds, just staring at me in his soul-searching way. “Do ye oonderstand?”

  I nodded as the meaning of his words sank in. If I lost my sword, I was as good as dead against whatever awaited us in the Underground City. I could read as much in Tallis’s eyes and that realization, the possibility of losing my life as soon as we stepped behind the double gates, left me completely breathless.

  Gripping the sword as tightly as I could, I began to think of it as my only lifeline, the one protection from impending doom, aside from Tallis, himself. How the sword could protect me when I still had no idea how to use it, I didn’t know. But I figured Tallis had more surprises up his sleeve, so his word was good enough for me.

  I suddenly felt light-headed, even dizzy, as the gravity of my predicament rained down on me. But fear would do me no good. I had no choice—I had to proceed, and enter the Underground in order to retrieve my first soul. Otherwise, Shade awaited me …

  Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive. I spoke Don Miguel Ruiz’s words in my head, closing my eyes tightly in order to concentrate. Whether or not I was unsuccessful in this first mission, I would do my damndest to rescue the soul and to survive. If I failed, it w
as completely up to fate; but there was no way I would go down without a hard fight.

  I opened my eyes and took a deep breath, centering myself. Then I focused on Tallis, who took off his shield, followed by his backpack. Rummaging through his pack, he found what he was looking for, and using both hands, reached into the large sack and pulled out what looked like a human skull, except there were two horns protruding from the top of its head. The horns were incredibly long, maybe two feet and very shiny. Ridges circled the horns from the base, where they blended into the bone of the skull, all the way up to their glossy black tips. The thing was so hideous that my heart began pounding as soon as I saw it.

  “What the fucking fuck!!!!” Bill screamed in a high pitch, nearly doubling over on himself to get away from it. He took a breath, his eyes wide as he addressed Tallis, shaking his head. “You just carry around random …” he inspected the skull again, trying to figure out what it was, “goat heads?”

  “That is no goat,” I announced, pointing at it with obvious repulsion on my face.

  “Aye,” Tallis answered with a slight smile curving his lips.

  “So what is it?” I managed, trying my best not to look at it. With the almost obscene way its lower jaw met the upper, it looked like it was smiling at me, and I wanted nothing to do with it.

  “Conan is one crazy ass bitch,” Bill muttered beneath his breath, as he shook his head and stepped away from us. He acted like the horned skull was going to come after him or something.

  “’Tis prootection,” Tallis answered simply, completely ignoring our outbursts. Instead, he took out a long piece of rope from his backpack. He wound the rope around the skull’s horns, knotting it to ensure a tight fit around each horn. Then he slid his arms through his backpack, and followed with his shield. Looping the rope over his head, he turned and faced me. “Ah need ye tae hauld it against mah back, lass.”

  I looked at the dreadful thing again which, even in death, seemed to be amused. That was when I noticed the two long fangs where its canines should have been. The fangs were incredibly sharp at the tips and so long, they reached its lower jaw. “Protection against what?” I asked as I leaned down and, resigning myself to my task, placed both of my hands on either side of the skull and lifted it. The thing had to weigh twenty pounds! Holding it above my head, which was no easy feat, I placed it against the middle of Tallis’s back, doing my best to avert my eyes.