by SM Reine
Hope worked herself to exhaustion. She was as dedicated a lawyer as she had been a law student.
And her business was a complete failure.
No clients. No money.
Nothing worthy of her time.
“The work will come,” Fritz said one night, while they were in the bed they shared at the joint condo. It took him three tries to say a full sentence, since he was recovering from a recent fight. His lung had been collapsed. Three ribs were cracked.
“I’ve been getting inquiries.” She was naked beside him, resting on her belly, sipping from an extremely large glass of champagne.
“Inquiries are good.”
“Not these ones. They’re common criminals. Ordinary white-collar bullshit.”
She appreciated that Fritz didn’t ask her why she wasn’t taking those cases. He was the first to understand that Hope needed work that was worthy of her time. “If you don’t want to handle common criminals or ordinary white-collar bullshit, then what do you want?”
“I want names people recognize,” Hope said. “Or crimes nasty enough that people will come to recognize the names of the criminals.”
He rolled onto his back with only the faintest wince. He was naked aside from the bandages. “What should I do about it?”
The question touched her. Made her heart feel all soft and squishy. But it also, strangely, made her feel a little bit alarmed. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all.”
“Good, because I can’t breathe anyway. Probably won’t be very useful for a week or two.”
“That’s fine. I don’t need anything from you, professionally or otherwise.”
He kissed the inside of her wrist. “You never do.” And he actually sounded affectionate when he said it, not insulted.
Hope had expected Fritz would be more overbearing, more…well, more like the rest of the Friederlings. They were dynastic, imperialistic, like Genghis Khans of modern business. She’d thought that getting married into his family would mean that Fritz would force her to use all their resources. Even the nastier ones.
But he never crossed those lines. He was supportive, not aggressive.
It made Hope feel guilty.
The money kept dwindling, business remained quiet, and no interesting cases came through her door. Finances became grim. She wouldn’t be able to last much longer without reaching into her husband’s accounts to pay for her half of things—a trivial issue for him, but a deal breaker for her.
It wasn’t until Hope’s money ran out that she took a job far below her. A woman had been accused of murder, and not even an interesting one. She had allegedly shot her husband in a domestic dispute.
Hope was hired to represent the husband. The so-called victim of the crime. He was a vegetable with a bullet in his brain, and as far as Hope could tell, he completely deserved it. He was a batterer. He’d been tossing his wife into walls and slamming her head in the refrigerator for months before she finally snapped.
And Hope was defending the asshole who had smacked his wife around.
Boring. Unbefitting.
The defendant, Benita Morrice, was a sweet older woman. The story she told about her husband was heartbreaking. How he would get drunk and hit her. The daily fights. The constant gaslighting.
Benita’s defense was good enough to present a real challenge. Hope didn’t particularly care for trying to prosecute a victim of such violence, but it gave her something to do. Plus, rent was due, and at least Hope didn’t have to deal with the husband directly. He wasn’t capable of eating without a gastric tube, much less speaking in his defense.
Some weeks into the case, though, Hope got a strange feeling about Benita. Her answers were too good. She was too sympathetic.
And she was obviously lying about something.
Nobody was as sweet and sympathetic as Benita. Especially not in New York. Plus, when her husband asphyxiated to death in the hospital due to a supposed equipment failure, Benita looked very sad about it—sadder than anyone had a right to be about their abuser.
Hope didn’t believe Benita’s story anymore.
She hadn’t used her powers of necrocognition to gather more information for a case before, but Benita Morrice was lying. And the only person who might know what she was lying about had already died.
Luckily, a client’s death wasn’t much of a deterrent for Hope.
She bribed a morgue attendant with a chunk of the retainer that Lewis Morrice’s family paid her. She pulled the dead, abusive husband out of a refrigerator. And she asked him all the questions she hadn’t been able to ask him while he was alive and comatose.
Lewis Morrice told a very different story than Benita. A story involving an affair on Benita’s part, and how angry she’d been when he discovered it and demanded a divorce.
Benita had killed her husband so she could be with her lover.
The dead couldn’t lie. If Lewis said that Benita had been throwing herself into walls and going to the hospital to document the fake abuse, then that was true. If he said that he found pictures of Benita in bed with another man, then that was also true.
And his claim that Benita had surprised him in the kitchen with a gun had to be true, too.
The dead couldn’t lie.
But they also couldn’t testify in court.
“What would you do about it?” she asked Fritz that weekend, after Lewis had been buried and Benita was about to walk free.
“Nothing,” Fritz said. “The defendant is, what, sixty years old? She doesn’t exactly present a public threat. Her only victim has already died and you can’t bring him back to life. So I wouldn’t do anything about it.”
Hope glared at him. “If you had a soul, what would you do?”
He laughed. She wasn’t sure if he thought she was joking or if he enjoyed pushing her buttons. “Justice is complicated, Emmeline.” He always called her by her middle name when he was trying to be cute. “Can justice be served when the victim has already died?”
“Benita Morrice isn’t dead. She can still be punished.”
“Then punish the murderer, but don’t tell yourself that it will make anything better.” Fritz poured a glass of wine for her, and when she took it, he rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. The lingering touch sent goosebumps cascading down her spine. “On the other hand, if you make an example of Benita Morrice, this could turn into exactly the kind of case you’ve always wanted.”
Those words stuck in Hope’s head: Make an example of Benita Morrice.
Fritz was right. There was nothing she could do to bring justice to Lewis Morrice.
But Hope could turn the case to her favor anyway.
So she had.
Hope tipped off the police. The case changed, and so did Hope’s career.
And soon, all the newspapers in New York were printing Benita Morrice’s name—with Hope Jimenez’s alongside it.
Voices slid in and out of Isobel’s periphery, making the memory ripple and disperse.
“Why isn’t she waking up? It’s been hours…”
“Adjusting to Hell is more difficult for some than others. It’s especially difficult when the body is already weak.”
“Strengthen her…bring her back…”
More memories swam around her, each one less distinct than the one before.
Isobel remembered dozens of Hope’s cases. Once she had success talking to Lewis Morrice post-mortem, she started breaking more and more cases like that.
It was amazing how often people lied in court.
But if dead bodies were involved, nobody could lie to Hope Jimenez.
Isobel tumbled through the memories. She relived the heady thrills of increasing success, hiring new staff, bringing in partners to grow her business. She remembered when Fritz had a scrapbook of headlines sent to her for their first anniversary—all of them related to high-profile cases that she’d handled.
The jewelry and flowers and yachts and vacations were unimportant. That scrapbook was the most romanti
c gift he ever gave her.
They’d been married for a whole year, and that scrapbook was the moment that Hope realized that she really did love Fritz Friederling, and she might have even loved him from the moment he proposed to her on the Friederling X.
And then Ander had walked through her door again.
Just remembering him filled Isobel with a jolt of shock. Those catlike eyes, the well-fitted suit. They still terrified her.
She clawed her way toward consciousness, fleeing that meeting with Ander.
Isobel woke up in Hell.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WATER TRICKLED DOWN ISOBEL’S temple. She flinched away from it, trying to sit up.
A delicate hand touched her shoulder. “Don’t move. It’s okay. You’re safe.”
Isobel’s vision cleared slowly. Blinking was hard—her eyelids felt like they had shriveled to raisins.
Once she could see, Isobel found a woman sitting at her bedside. Her face was touched by age lines though her skin was still firm, full breasts lifted by a corset dress. She was definitely human even though she dressed like a demon. Above the waist, her dress was little more than strips of leather connected to a snug collar. Voluminous black layers draped below the hips.
A gorgeous woman, all things considered, but she wasn’t anyone that Isobel knew. The sight of her didn’t even stir any of Hope’s memories.
“Who are you?” Isobel finally asked.
“I’m the hostess for the Palace of Dis. My name is Ariane. I handle all the human visitors.” She dipped a washcloth in a bowl of water and then stroked it over Isobel’s forehead again. The cool moisture helped. It really did.
Isobel relaxed back against the pillows. She was in a room that looked like it had been carved from obsidian, though the decorations were as human as the woman taking care of her. It looked like everything had been ordered out of a catalogue.
“I’m thirsty,” Isobel rasped.
“Of course you are.” Ariane twisted the top off of a small water bottle and put it in Isobel’s hand. “Drink slowly. We ration water here.”
“Here…in Hell.”
“Yes. The City of Dis.”
Isobel dribbled the water over her lips. It tasted good but didn’t make her feel much more hydrated. Like her soft tissues just didn’t want to produce saliva now.
“If you’re worried, your reaction to the transition between dimensions is completely normal,” Ariane said, setting the bottle on the bedside table and standing. The corset pinched her waist to an impossibly narrow hourglass. “It’s a bit of a shock for all of us. You’ll adjust soon.”
The door opened and Fritz entered. His face was flushed red. His clothes were rumpled, dust caught in his sleeves and lapels. It looked like he’d just been sandblasted. “How is she?” he asked Ariane.
“Ask her yourself, silly man.” She swatted him lightly on the chest. Yet another woman who showed a little too much familiarity with Fritz. Isobel didn’t find the strength to be remotely surprised about it. “How do you feel? Adjusting well?” She pulled his mouth open, peered into his eyes.
“I’m fine. It’s not my first visit.”
“Your first in months,” Ariane said. “We’ve missed you. I don’t think Isaac’s found as fun a sparring partner in the interim.”
Isobel gave Fritz a questioning look, which he ignored.
“I doubt Isaac’s noticed. In any case, I’m not equal to sparring with kopides anymore.” He hiked up the leg of his pants to reveal the prosthesis that had replaced one foot. He’d lost the appendage in a fight against a fallen angel. Fritz acted so normally that Isobel often forgot about it.
“If that’s slowing you down, then it’s because you’ve succumbed to the Friederling curse, not because you’re missing a foot. You’re driving hard for money and power rather than training as much as you should.” Ariane tweaked the collar of his shirt. “Look at you. Wearing a suit and everything. And working with the Union? What would Grandpa Friederling think?”
Fritz’s eye twitched. “I need to speak to Judge Abraxas.”
Ariane’s hands dropped, toying with the belt on her bodice. “Is that so?”
“As soon as possible. I’m told that you’re helping make appointments with him these days.”
“Sometimes,” Ariane said.
She was edging away from Fritz now, moving toward the door.
He caught her wrist. “It’s urgent, Ariane.”
“It’s always urgent. This is Hell. Everything is life and death.” The playful teasing had vanished from her tone. “What do you need?”
“Contract dissolution. Easy enough for the resident Judge,” Fritz said. “Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes of his time.”
Ariane’s lips thinned. She glanced at Isobel, then back to Fritz. “Minutes may be too much when his seconds are so valuable.”
“Just tell him. Abraxas knows me. He’d give me hours if I needed it.”
“I can’t make guarantees,” she said, and then she was gone, vanishing from the room without so much as a hint of promise.
Fritz looked tempted to follow her, but he settled for removing his jacket, hanging it on a hook by the door. Apparently, the unsettlingly normal-looking bedroom in Hell belonged to him.
“That sounds bad,” Isobel said.
“Ariane’s flighty and useless. Don’t worry about her.” Fritz raked his hands through his hair, shaking orange dust out of his blond locks. “How do you feel?”
“Like a magical contract is beating my ass,” she said, grimacing as she got out of bed. “Every time I fall asleep…” She bit off the rest of her response. She wasn’t ready to discuss what she’d been remembering.
“Abraxas will see us,” Fritz said firmly. “And he’ll do it quickly. He has a standing relationship with my family. He owes us, in fact. As long as that idiot woman gets to him quickly enough…”
“Six days,” Isobel said.
“It’ll only take a few minutes, as I said. Don’t worry about the time.” Fritz shot a look at the wall. “It’s closer to five days now, though.”
His clock was divided into seven sections, measuring time by the days on Earth rather than hours.
Isobel’s heart plummeted. It had felt like she had slept for a long time—a full night of rest, at the very least. But a full night of rest in Dis meant losing a lot more time on Earth.
She wondered if Cèsar had noticed that Fritz was gone yet.
“What am I supposed to do now?” Isobel asked. “I can’t wait for this Abraxas guy to decide he’s ready to see us. I’m running out of time. I have to do something.”
Fritz arched an eyebrow. “Well, then…how about a tour?”
Fritz led Isobel through the Palace. The whole compound sort of looked like Tim Burton’s medieval nightmare, with all its spiked portcullises and spindly towers, though she could barely make out its shape against the darkness of the city beyond. Everything was shadows against shadows, layers of darkness cloaked in smoke.
His room had been in one of the central buildings. It was connected to the others by narrow bridges with frail railings that she felt might snap if she leaned on them.
The instant they stepped onto one of those bridges, Isobel was grateful for the leather outfit that Fritz had given her. The hot wind battered at her exposed flesh. If she’d had any more skin showing, she might have been flayed.
“Take advantage of the local fashion,” Fritz shouted over the wind, handing a bundle of black veils to her.
Isobel wrapped them around her head as he hiked his jacket up around his ears again. She covered her nose, mouth, and hair, leaving only a narrow eye slit. The wind tried to jerk the veils away from her. She clutched them tightly under her jaw.
“This is awful,” Isobel said. She had to yell back at him to be able to hear her own voice. “Is it always like this?”
“It’s Hell. What do you think?”
Fritz walked briskly toward the next tower, hanging on to the railing as t
hough he weren’t at all concerned by its apparent fragility. His suit whipped around him. He’d only put a few steps between them when the gusting smoke and dust made him difficult to see.
Isobel hurried to keep up, but she kept catching herself stopping to stare beyond the Palace battlements.
The City of Dis, as seen from the bridge, was the darkest, most miserable place that Isobel recalled ever being in her life. That said a lot. She had lived for months in curtained isolation within Ander’s house, and then months more in Helltown. Isobel knew dark, miserable places.
Everything was much more industrial than she’d expected. Half of the buildings she could see were belching sticky black smoke into the air to be jerked away on the wind, which smelled of human meat. Judging by the faint flicker of gaslight, the outlying neighborhoods climbed all the way into the mountains, which were a cruel black line etched against the crimson sky.
The streets looked like they were seething, too. It was hard to tell. She was very high, and the air was very clogged, and everything was so dark.
Isobel didn’t mind demons. The quality of their company and trustworthiness were as variable as with any human. A lot of them were terrible, but then, so were mortals. The fact that demons tended to have a taste for flesh, violence, and chaos wasn’t a big deal.
But an entire city of them—an entire city of hellborn, just like Ander…
If she fell off the bridge, she might drown in the misery of that city.
Fritz was halfway to the next tower now. She fixed her eyes to the bridge and picked up her pace. Her choppy breaths were hot against her face, trapped within the veils.
Entering the opposite tower was a relief. The air felt a thousand times more breathable. Isobel ripped the veils down and sucked in a long gasp of it.
“You’ll get used to it,” Fritz said, shaking sand off of his jacket. “It’s not too bad inside. I just wish they’d cover the bridges.”