by Jane Hinchey
Straight to Hell
The Hell’s Gate Series Book One
Jane Hinchey
Contents
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Pre-order the next book in the series
About the Author
Notes from the Author
Book Lists
Copyright
Straight to Hell © 2017 Jane Hinchey
This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Acknowledgments
I had so much fun writing this book, however writing a book is only part of the journey!
Moonchildljilja – your cover is simply stunning. Thank you.
Alicia from iProofread and more – your editing is a life saver. Thank you.
Kaylee Truax, thank you for the town name Shadow Falls!
To my readers group, Jane’s Little Devils, your support means the world. Thanks for letting me bounce ideas off you, listen to me rant, push me along when I’m falling behind, and most importantly, thank you for sharing your pet photo’s with me! You guys are the best.
And finally – my family – thank you. None of this would be fun without your love and support.
1
“What do you mean, a breach?” I glanced at Ashliel over my shoulder, her long red hair with tendrils of dancing flames flowed over her shoulders. I sighed. I loved her hair. My own jet-black locks refused to take the flame. My wings on the other hand? They were magnificent.
“Um. A hole?” Ashliel suggested tentatively.
We were in the pit, well not literally in the pit—that was for sinners, and I was not one. I had a progress report to prepare and wanted to make sure everything was in tip-top shape. Only now Ashliel, my wonderful, super-efficient assistant, was telling me someone had punched a hole in Earth’s dimension.
“How did this happen?” I asked. “There are protocols in place. Safeguards. Who could punch a hole in earth’s dimension and what would the purpose be?” Spinning on my Gucci heel, I strode from the pit, ignoring the wailing from below. Ashliel had sucked all the fun out of my inspection.
Hurrying after me, she spoke up. “To let something in, I’d assume.”
A chill ran through me. Not something. Someone. To let someone in was much more likely. Heaven, Hell, and Earth were closely linked, and while I wasn’t responsible for Earth, I monitored what was happening in that realm. I’d been running Hell for all of eternity. I’d built it to what it was today. A well-oiled machine. Punishment befitting your sins was dished out. Once done, you got to ascend to Heaven. Of course, most sinners who found themselves here, well, let’s just say their sins were so deep, dark, and wicked they had no chance of leaving Hell. Ever. They were my eternal guests.
A smile danced across my red lips. I loved my job. Took great pride in it. Although I’d sent in progress reports every few hundred years as requested, I had yet to hear from Father. God. The creator. I assumed all was well. He would not be pleased to hear of this breach. Nor was I, for that matter. Not that it was technically my problem. The breach had been on Earth, not here. Only I had to make sure it wasn’t someone from Hell trying to get back to Earth. It had never happened before; security was too tight, but there was always a first time.
“I want a head count. Every soul in this place needs to be accounted for. The breach had better not have come from here!” Striding across the walkways suspended over the pit, Ashliel’s heels clipping along behind me to keep pace, I headed for the glass elevator in the cliff face. I needed to get to my office and get this shit storm sorted, pronto.
“Ummm. Lucy?” Ashliel stepped in beside me, electronic clipboard in hand.
“Yes, Ash?” I knew she had a long list of requests, meetings, messages. As CEO of Hell, my days were busy. I’d built my torturous dimension to great heights over the last few hundred millennia. In the last two hundred years alone, attendance of lost souls entering Hell has risen over two hundred percent, and that number looked to be on the rise.
“There’s a man who wants his punishment of having a buzzard constantly pecking his eyes out to be lessened, a man whose memories have been wiped and he wants to know who he was, and a woman who wants to warn her sister on Earth about the afterlife.” She spoke fast, knowing my time was limited.
“Buzzard man, no can do. This isn’t a negotiation. His punishment was set when he entered Hell. He knows this. Deny future requests. Memory man…good point, how can he atone for his sins if he can’t remember them? See to it that his sinful memories are returned. Only his sins, mind you. And no to the woman who wants to warn her sister—they get plenty of warnings. It’s not like this place is a secret.”
Ashliel’s fingers flew across her clipboard. By the time we reached my offices, she was done. Before stepping out of the glass box I looked down, into the fiery pit where the most heinous of sinners resided. It was eerily beautiful from this vantage point. Sighing, I turned my back on the bubbling pit of fire and exited the elevator, stepping into the opulence of Hell HQ.
I greatly admired the skyscrapers on Earth and had modeled Hell HQ on them. Over two hundred floors, soaring high into the red and orange sky, built from gleaming black marble. My offices took up ten floors alone; the very top floor was my penthouse. Yes, I lived in luxury, but I damn well earned it. Running Hell was hard work, never a moment’s peace. And now this. A breach. It niggled me. Security was tight. It couldn’t have come from the pit; I was just there. Had it come from one of the cell blocks housed on the other side of Hell HQ?
I crossed to the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked out on the cells. Row upon row of fifty-story skyscrapers, all housing sinners. They spanned as far as the eye could see, each one providing different levels of punishment. Wingless Demons patrolled the streets, their black skin and red eyes clearly identifying them. Their winged counterparts took to the skies, massive wings spanning over twenty feet, soaring around and around the buildings. Who could escape this? That is if the breach had even come from Hell in the first place. Earth was my brothers’ responsibility. They were charged with watching over the humans. I was annoyed I was being dragged into it, yet I liked the humans. I didn’t want to see them destroyed by some other dimension creature. Not if I could stop it.
A ding on Ashliel’s clipboard caught my attention. I arched a dark brow at her.
“You have a delivery.”
&n
bsp; “Probably from my brothers.” I sighed. Had they heard the news and were already poking fun?
“They might have sent something nice,” Ashliel suggested, ever hopeful.
“Knowing my brothers, I doubt it.”
Stepping through the glass doors into my office, I spy a huge gift-wrapped parcel on my sleek black desk. Here we go.
“Thank you, Ashliel. That will be all.” I waited for Ash to leave the room, then approached my desk cautiously. What were they up to? Gabriel and Michael were archangels like me, but when Father chose me over them to head up the Hell Division, to say the boys were a little prickly was an understatement. We hadn’t spoken in over a hundred years. Why now? Today? Were they connected to the breach? Did they instigate it? I wouldn’t put it past them. They’d do anything to see me fail.
Hoping I was wrong, and that maybe, just maybe, the box on my desk was an olive branch, I tore open the wrapping and cautiously opened the lid. Inside was a single piece of paper. On it was written the name, “Emily Barlow.” Who the hell was Emily Barlow? Was she a lost soul? I reached to pull the paper from the box, but the whole thing went up in flames. Great.
With a wave of my hand I put out the flames and cleaned the debris from my desk before crossing to the giant screen across the room, one so big that I had to stand in front of it, or if I preferred, recline on the leather couch a few feet away. I could split the screen into hundreds of smaller screens and monitor Earth and Hell at the same time if I so chose. This time I raised my hand and halved the screen, keeping an eye on my own dimension on the left, and scanning through files searching for Emily Barlow on the right. There were several humans with that name and I flicked through until one caught my eye.
There. Emily Barlow. Human. Alive. Her dossier flashed across the screen, a mini movie of her life so far. She was young, a teenager, seventeen and a high school student, blonde hair, blue eyes, pretty. She was a bossy little thing, liked to be involved in community events and social activities at school. She wanted a career in Public Relations or the Media. As I watched, the screen glitched, froze, then resumed. Emily was in a graveyard. Something was there with her. Something dark. I leaned forward, watching intently as Emily was clasped in a tight embrace, held for a matter of seconds, then let go. Glowing red eyes looked up, directly at me. Then it was gone, leaving Emily’s body on the ground drained of life.
The screen flickered, a brief moment of static, before settling again. This time I no longer saw Emily, but a man. He was sitting at a table, one hand resting on the table, palm up, and in the center of his palm a deep azure blue rock. He sent the message. Did he mean to send it to me I wonder? His eyes sprang open and he flopped back in his seat as if exhausted. I looked into his eyes, magnified the screen so it focused on his face. A very handsome face: strong jaw covered in a light beard, full lips that held my attention for slightly too long. I wondered what they looked like when he smiled.
Then I wondered…why am I wondering about his lips? Okay, seriously, he’s a human, I scolded myself. But it had been a long time since I’d…you know. Had any fun in that department. Maybe a dalliance with a human would take my mind off the stresses of running Hell. As much as I loved my job, I’d yet to have a vacation. I shifted my attention from his kissable lips to his eyes. A combination of hazel and gold, they were striking with their dark lashes. And the way he was looking directly into the screen, it was as if he were looking right at me.
Decision made.
“Ashliel?” I called. “Hold down the fort. I’m going topside.” I’d deal with the breach and spend some quality time with—
“Who’s that?” Ashliel strode into my office, heels clipping across the floor and breaking into my thoughts.
“That is Levi Forrester, and he sent me a delivery I intend to collect personally.” With a wink, I was gone.
2
I arrived on Earth with a flash of lightning, a clap of thunder and a torrential downpour. I wished I could lay claim to the theatrics, but it was Mother Nature’s doing, talented son of a bitch that she was.
Blessed with night vision to die for, I examined the cemetery I’d landed in, a very dark, very spooky cemetery in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere. The darkness was absolute, the heavy clouds blocking any illumination from the heavens.
The wind whipped around my legs, sending a shiver through me. It was so much hotter in Hell, the spring chill of Shadow Falls took a bit of getting used to. With merely a thought, a long leather jacket materialized and wrapped itself around me, snuggly hugging my curves and flowing freely to my ankles, blocking the bite of the wind.
A tingle ran up my spine, reminding me of why I was here. Levi had sent me his vision of Emily being killed and now that I was here, I could feel it. It niggled at me, like an irritating itch that you just couldn’t reach. As much as the lure of finding Levi had me grinning in anticipation, the sense of something otherworldly had me frowning in concern. Whatever was here had no business being here.
I cast my eyes around the graveyard, searching. Then I found her. Lying in a puddle, her pale face turned toward me. Her white dress was plastered to her body, her eyes wide open, unseeing.
I knelt by her side, touched my fingers to her throat to be certain. As soon as my fingers landed on her icy cold skin two things became apparent. One, she was dead. Two, her soul had been taken from her. Violently. I could see the tattered remains of it where it had been ripped from her.
Ignoring the cold, I knelt by her side, clasping her hand in mine, channeling her soul, attempting to follow its journey, but there was nothing, the tattered scraps that remained revealing no trace of what had happened here. They were enough to tell me she was an innocent, a good decent person. She wasn’t slated for Hell. This girl had been Heaven bound…until someone stole her soul.
“FREEZE! Don’t move. This is the police.”
I closed my eyes with a sigh. The police. Of course it was. The law enforcement on Earth did their best, but when their own ranks were as corrupt as the sinners they tried to punish, it was an uphill battle. I applauded those who, despite the limitations placed on them, continued to believe, continued to protect the innocent.
A hand grabbed my upper arm and pulled me to my feet, pushing me none too gently against the tree looming over us. I winced as my cheek came into contact with the roughness of the bark. The same hands ran up and down my body, patting along my legs, waist, shoulders.
“Well hello, Officer,” I purred, turning my head to eye the tall man who was currently running his large hands over my body.
Satisfied I wasn’t concealing any sort of weapon, he turned me around to face him. He was very nice to look at with his dark, brooding looks, chiseled jaw, enough of a five o’clock shadow to make me want to run my fingers across his jaw just for the buzz. I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to the goings on topside, but if all the men were this good-looking I’d be visiting more often. His brown eyes frowned.
“It’s detective. Not officer.”
“Okay then.”
“What’s your name?”
“Lucifer. But my friends call me Lucy.”
“Lucifer?” His brows rose in disbelief. “Your parents named you Lucifer?”
“Kinda. It’s a long story.”
“Lucifer who?”
“Just Lucifer.”
“What are you doing here, Lucifer?” He didn’t press me for a surname.
“I was sent a message to come here.”
“A message? From who?”
Not wanting to get Levi in trouble with the cops, I amended my story, not a lie, since I can’t lie, but I can avoid the truth. “It doesn’t matter who it was from, just that a soul stealer has found its way to your realm. I followed the energy and it led me here.”
“Soul stealer? You followed the energy? What on earth are you talking about?” A woman stepped into view. I won’t say she was hiding behind the detective, but…others may claim otherwise. She was dressed in jeans that loo
ked to be a size too big for her, baggy in an unflattering way, a gray T-shirt that had seen better days judging by the stretched and frayed neckline, and a green waterproof jacket. Around her neck a chain with a police badge at the end of it. She had her gun drawn and aimed at me.
“Allow me to explain in small words so you’ll understand.” I aimed my words at her, for I’d already felt and filed away the vibe I was getting from the handsome detective in front of me. He was halfway on board with my story. This woman wasn’t. “I am Lucifer. I rule Hell. I’m the CEO if you will, and we had an alert that someone Earth side is up to no good, messing with dimensions that shouldn’t be messed with. I popped up to check it out, since it became apparent my brothers weren’t going to, and that’s when I discovered this poor girl, her soul stolen.”
The woman scowled, then whipped a pair of handcuffs out. “Fucking fruitcakes,” she grumbled.
I’d forgotten how touchy and sensitive humans could be. Sitting now in an interview room, my wrists in handcuffs and chained to the table in front of me, I held my temper. Just. Ashliel would laugh if she could see me now.
Oh, the handcuffs and chains weren’t an issue—human restraints couldn’t actually restrain me, but I let the detectives believe they could. I could have left this place with a flick of my wings, but I needed to find out what the police knew. They’d introduced themselves as Detective Jared Morrison and Detective Nicole James. He referred to her as Nic and I got the feeling they’d been working together for a long time. I didn’t miss the puppy dog eyes she gave him. Or the way he was apparently oblivious to the puppy dog eyes.