“Because you have rage issues?” she offered, turning away from me. She snatched a book off the shelf and dropped it onto the table. It looked old, and worse still, the cover was leather bound, but not in a leather I’d ever seen before. It almost looked like human skin, but it wasn’t quite right for that either. The thought made me feel better although I didn’t know why. A creepy book could still be really fucking creepy no matter what it was bound in. Just ask Stephen King.
“I do not have rage issues,” I said, crossing the distance between us as she flipped open the book to reveal a picture of a calico cat. Those same symbols on my arm were written on the page next to it, followed by what looked like GPS coordinates. Only most GPS’s had two numbers, longitude and latitude. This address had six numbers. Had that been where she sent me? Interesting.
“Tell it to this.” She rubbed her forehead in my general direction before pointing at the page. “Did you see her?”
I opened my mouth to reply, but as I did, my right hand came up like it had a mind of its own. The symbols emblazoned on my flesh lit up like bloody Christmas lights, casting her in a hellish glow.
“Ignis!” I cried even though I hadn’t meant to say anything at all.
As the word left my lips, Hellfire exploded from my palm and shot outward, engulfing the book in her hands a second before it burned a basketball-sized hole in her torso. She flopped backward onto the ground, the smell of burning meat filling my nose as the Hellfire hit the wall behind her. Flames engulfed the side of the room as the cat’s presence filled my head like a scratch, scratch at the back of my brain.
I wasn’t sure why that had happened exactly, but as I watched flame engulf the gypsy’s tome, I knew one thing to be certain. I had fucked up. Bad.
Things were definitely in motion, and I was definitely playing the part of stupid fucking pawn. Maybe there was still time to stop whatever was happening, but that’d have to wait until I got home. I glanced at the ring on my right hand. That’d happen soon.
22
“You were just supposed to get the heart stone, not light the place on fire,” Sam said as I walked out of the gypsy’s shop. The smell of smoke clung to my clothes, but otherwise, I just couldn’t find myself caring very much. I mean, she had tried to transport me to my certain doom. Speaking of which…
“How did you know I wouldn’t die when she sent me to the temple?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. He was sitting in the limo with the window rolled down, looking quite comfy. It made me hate him more.
“It’s a secret.” He smiled at me, and as he did, I remembered what my cat had said when she’d done whatever the fuck she’d done. “Don’t trust the one you call Sam.” I wasn’t sure how she knew about him, maybe the communication between us was one way? It made me smirk. She’d probably been throwing beer cans at her Mac-o-vision in frustration this whole time.
“Well, make it an un-secret,” I said, approaching the limo as the chauffeur came out to let me in. As he opened the door, a blast of cold air hit me, and I shivered.
“No.” Sam shook his head as he slid over on the seat to let me in. Jenna lay on the seat along the wall sound asleep, and in this light she almost looked peaceful. Well, as peaceful as one could look sleeping in H.E. Double Hockey Sticks. Sorry, I’ve been wanting to say it like that for a long time now.
“Why?” I asked, raising an eyebrow as the chauffeur shut the door and sealed us in the back of the limo.
“I don’t want to?” he replied, peering at me. “What’s with the twenty questions? We had a thing going. You don’t ask questions. I do cool shit. We get out of Hell. Why are you fucking with it?” He sidled close to me and threw an arm over my shoulder. He was so close, I could smell his aftershave, and it immediately made me think of those Old Spice commercials. The ones with Isaiah Mustafa, not Terry Crews. Let’s just say he was definitely a timber sort of guy.
“It’s not that at all,” I said, shoving him off, while wishing I could scream “Bearglove!” and make him explode. Yes, that was another Old Spice joke. I’m done now. Promise.
“Is it because the being who lives there scared the bejesus out of you?” Sam asked, watching me in the way a scientist might regard a particularly interesting alien right before ignoring the creature’s pleas for mercy and dissecting him.
“No…” I said, and he nodded fractionally.
“Then you either didn’t meet her or you’re a fool.” He huffed out a breath. “Only time will tell.”
The way he said it made me suddenly very uncomfortable. Did he suspect I’d been cursed by said demon? Had he known that the whole time, and what’s more, did he know who she was?
Part of me wanted to ask him, but some niggling feeling made me think that’d be a bad idea. So far Sam had been helpful, but I was starting to think he was a lot more than he let on. It was almost as if anytime anything got serious he had an answer, but it was immediately buried beneath a façade of annoyance, stupid jokes, and inane decisions. It made me think he was hiding something, but I wasn’t sure what it could be.
“Anyway, we’ve got to charge the heart stone up or it won’t do us any good.” He gestured at the ring on my hand before throwing himself off the couch and scrambling toward the glass separating us from the driver. He knocked on it a few times, and as it slid open, he shoved himself through the opening before shutting it behind him which seemed all sorts of weird.
A moment later we took off in a screech of tires. A cry filled my ears, and I glanced through the left window to see the chauffeur rolling off into the street as we sped off. Had Sam tossed him out?
As the realization settled over me, I wasn’t sure why I’d even doubted it. For some reason, it seemed like a Sam kind of thing to do.
A sigh I couldn’t contain rippled out of me as I stared at the ring on my finger. I could tell it’d once been nice, but the scarlet metal was so tarnished, it didn’t look valuable anymore. Part of me had expected it to feel powerful, but I didn’t feel anything at all. Was that just because we were in Hell or because it wasn’t charged up? I wasn’t sure, but I really wanted to know before I wound up hooking battery cables to it or whatever.
“Hey, Sam,” I called, moving toward the still open privacy window as we zoomed down the highway. “How do we charge it up, anyway?”
“It’s no biggie,” Sam replied, glancing over his shoulder to look at me. He was wearing the chauffeur’s hat but was otherwise still clothed in Asmodai’s shiny clothes. “I’ll take care of it.”
“How?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. So far I’d had to do almost all the heavy lifting. It was somewhat surprising and concerning he wanted to do it himself because he was the type of guy I couldn’t throw very far.
He sighed in a way that made me think he was tired of explaining himself to me, but would do it so I’d leave him the fuck alone.
“We’re going to drive to the Highway to Hell.” He gestured toward the street. “It’s a ways away so you may want to take a nap.”
“You mean we’re just going to drive out of here?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “That seems a touch…”
“Easy?” He shrugged. “Once we get there. We’ll join the Death Race. It’s sort of like that Jason Statham movie. If we win, we’ll get a token toward a pardon.” He waved it away. “That’s not important. What is important is that when you win, a bolt of pure Hellion energy rips out of the sky and hits the trike. It’s not quite as good as going to the forges imbued with the fires of Hell, but it’s way safer.”
“So we’re going to enter a Death Race?” I took a deep breath and watched him to see if he was fucking with me. “In Hell?”
“Well, not you.” He smirked and his eyes flashed in the rearview mirror. “Jenna and I will do the actual racing. Your job is to sit in the stands, look pretty, and make sure we fucking win.” He twisted to look at me, and I was immediately glad no other cars were on this lonely stretch of road. “It’s going to be awhile before we get there though, so you ma
y as well take a nap. You’ll need your strength once we get there. If you thought Mos Eisley was a wretched hive of scum and villainy, well, you haven’t seen anything yet.”
23
“We’re here,” Jenna whispered, shaking me awake from my nap way earlier than I’d have liked. It felt like I’d just drifted off.
My eyes fluttered open to see her crouched over me on the backseat of the limo. The demonic tattoo on her face stood out in stark relief against her dark skin, and for a second I stared at the cartoon devil. Something about it bugged me.
“Good,” I replied, stretching. I felt exhausted. I was also hungry and thirsty, but I didn’t want to chance eating anything that wasn’t from topside like Sam’s mints had been. Yeah, those had run out awhile ago.
“Sam’s off getting us registered,” Jenna said as I pulled myself into a sitting position and leaned back so I could stare at the ceiling. “He took the ring with him by the way.”
“Awesome,” I said, glancing at my finger. It felt strangely empty, but I pushed the thought away as she sat down next to me on the black leather seat. “Do you think Sam’s plan is going to work?”
“I dunno. Maybe.” She paused and looked at me for a long time. “Mac, why are you doing this?” There was a strange undercurrent of sadness in her words, like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. “And I don’t mean getting out of Hell, but about saving me.” She leaned in close and touched my forehead with her index finger. “You could have let me fall into Hell. You did not have to follow me down, nor try to rescue me.” She huffed out a breath. “I mean, I know it’s not because of what we shared. As much as I wish that boat hadn’t sailed, I can tell from the way you look at me that it has.”
I’d been asking myself the same question for a while now. I didn’t have to do any of those things. Hell, I shouldn’t have done those things. Only, I knew why I had done them. At the end of the day I felt guilty. I had precious few memories of my old life, and one of those memories had been of failing Jenna. I couldn’t let that go. It gnawed at me, begging me, to make amends.
“I guess I feel guilty.” I sighed. “Because it’s my fault you got taken by Asmodai.”
“Fuck Asmodai!” She glared at me. “That’s what you say? Seriously? I’m a big fucking girl. I make my own decisions. Yeah, I was pissed at you about it, but I didn’t think it was your fault. You don’t fucking owe me.”
“What do you want me to say? You asked me a question, and I answered honestly. Do you want me to lie?” I asked, and as I did, she put her forehead against my shoulder. Her breath was hot on my neck as she lay there, nuzzled against me in a way I knew would piss my girlfriend off which was bad because she was a werewolf and could literally rip me limb from limb.
“I don’t know.” She sat back up. “Sorry. I don’t think Ricky would like me being this close to you.” Her eyes glimmered with unshed tears as she got up and moved toward the door. “I’m going to wait outside.”
She shut the door behind her a moment later, leaving me to sit in the silence of the limousine’s interior by myself. It was weird. I’d not really had a chance to just sit and think before, and now that I did, I found I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. I’d been dragged from one adventure to the next in rapid succession, fought more enemies than I thought was possible, and at the end of the day, I realized I had no idea what to do with myself nor of who I actually was. It was tiring to say the least, especially since I still didn’t know what the cat in my head wanted when she’d given me this arm.
That was a scary thought, but I’d be crossing that bridge one way or another. While I didn’t think I’d like it, and I was damned tired of going from battle to battle, I was fairly certain it could wait a bit. If it couldn’t, she’d have told me so back at the temple, right?
Besides, Jenna was the more pressing concern now. I wasn’t sure what she had in the way of family or a home to return to once we escaped, but I wasn’t exactly keen on making her ride off into the sunset alone. It didn’t seem fair after everything. There had to be a way for all of us to play nicely together once we got back to earth.
That said, I had no idea what would happen when we got topside. I seriously doubted Ricky was going to be all “let’s let bygones be bygones” since Jenna had brought the full force of Asmodai’s Council of Seven down on her city.
Hell, even if she was willing to play it cool, who knew what had been happening on Earth while I was down here? The last time I’d left for a fucking day, the whole city had been overrun by ass clowns bent on taking over. Was I going to return to Ragnarok?
I really hoped not. I did not want to have to fight off a Nordic apocalypse. Stopping things like that had a way of requiring people to sacrifice themselves, and call me crazy, but I had no desire to do that. Besides, I really didn’t want to meet up with Loki, assuming the guy was real. In my experience, supernatural beings were dicks. Even the ones who tried to help you. I mean, I’d been thrown off of Heaven by the angel Gabriel.
Either way, I couldn’t focus on the after we got out of Hell until we got out of Hell. No matter what plans I made, there was no way any of them would survive contact with the first ten seconds of being on earth. No, I just had to focus on getting us home. After that, I could wing it. I always had before.
“Yeah, and look how far that’s gotten you,” I said, rubbing the spot on my finger when the ring had sat. It was weird because as much as I tried to ignore it, I felt lonely without it, and I’d worn it for all of a couple hours. Part of me wondered if it was mostly because the cat demon had given it to me and I was missing her too. I pushed the thought away before I could dwell on it further. It wasn’t helping anyone, anyway. No, I needed to do something constructive.
I took a deep breath and got to my feet. The knives were still in my wrist sheathes and one of the Glocks still had a pretty full magazine. It wasn’t much, but it was more than I’d started with.
A moment later, I got out of the vehicle and found myself staring at Jenna as she talked with Sam by the front of the limo. From her high-pitched voice, I could tell she was angry.
“You expect me to climb in that cobbled together piece of junk? Are you mad?” Jenna cried, gesturing toward what looked like a huge two-person trike with rocket launchers over each seat. It sat in a greasy parking space between two cement pillars under a lone bulb hanging from the ceiling. While most of the lights spread across the parking lot’s ceiling were on, enough were burned out to make it hard to see the exact details of the place.
“Mad as a hatter,” Sam replied, blank-faced as he spun on his heel and moved toward the trike. I’d have liked to say it was painted silver, but I was pretty sure that was just the duct tape holding it together. Oh man, we were totally fucked. No wonder, Jenna hadn’t wanted to get in it.
“I’m not getting in that,” Jenna said at Sam’s retreating back. “It’s a death trap.”
“This is a death race, sweetie,” Sam said, sliding into the driver’s seat and moving to seatbelt himself in. As he did, the seatbelt tore free of the trike’s frame. He sighed and tossed it onto the asphalt.
“Mac, you guys can’t be serious,” Jenna’s eyes pleaded with me as she spoke, and as much as I wanted to take her place, I knew I couldn’t. Sam hadn’t told me why it had to be Jenna exactly, but during the drive he’d strongly alluded to it being because of the mark he’d put on her. He seemed to believe it’d keep her from dying, and I could very much die in that deathtrap. For some dumb reason, I believed him.
“You can’t die if Sam’s driving with you.” I tried to give her a reassuring smile, but I must have failed because she harrumphed and looked away from me.
“Whatever, if I die, I’m killing your ass.” She began moving toward the trike as Sam turned it on. A coughing boom ripped across the garage followed by a flare of light beneath the hood. Green smoke began to pour from beneath the thin sheet of metal a moment before the whole thing sputtered and died.
“We are so
fucked,” I muttered as Sam smacked his hand hard onto the dashboard, and the car roared to life again. Flames shot out the twin tailpipes as Jenna slid lithely into the passenger seat and buckled herself in.
“Make sure we win,” Sam called before stomping on the gas pedal. The tires screeched like a cave of whining bats before tearing off in a cloud of burnt rubber. I stood there and watched as they veered out of the parking garage and headed toward wherever they were going. I stood there, looking after them for a long time before I realized I had no idea where to go nor why he kept expecting me to make sure he won when he was the one in the race.
“Are you Mac Brennan?” asked a low, gravelly voice from behind me. I spun to see a dwarf with bat wings for ears standing there with a clipboard. He was bald save for a bad comb over and had covered his pot belly with a stained red undershirt.
“Yes?” I asked. I’d originally been going to be like “Who is asking?” and glare, but decided against it. I wasn’t sure why, but the slob seemed strangely formidable, which was weird because I could have probably dunked him like a basketball. You know, if I was taller. That’s the difference a few inches makes.
“Good. You’re the protector,” he said, marking off his clipboard before looking up at me and offering me one oil-stained hand. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Protector?” I asked, taking his hand. His shake was firm, but not strong enough to hurt me. He was confident, and that always irked me a touch when I didn’t know someone, let alone in Hell where the monsters were twice as bad.
“You know, the protector,” he waved his clipboard in the air, like that meant something. “The third man on the team?” he added when I didn’t respond.
“Sorry, it’s my first time. Is there a rulebook or something?” I hadn’t thought my question was funny, but judging by the belly laugh that exploded from the dwarf, it must have been. Still, the tears and the slapping his belly was a bit much.
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