Dark Hope (The Devil's Assistant)

by Smith, H. D.

  The road I’d traveled along continued further into the distance where I saw more buildings clustered together. The steeple of a church loomed nearby. Unless the entire town was deserted, there had to be something there. I started walking.

  When I reached the town, sadly it was no more alive than the farmhouse or the industrial building. I passed three churches, a large cemetery, another manufacturing plant of some sort, and an empty diner called the Liberty Bell. All were intermixed with single-family homes and the occasional oddly placed plantation-style home.

  Everything appeared as if its heyday had come and gone fifty years ago—a snapshot in time of a small town in middle America. Except there weren’t any people.

  I was heading down the empty Main Street when a faint breeze passed over me. The threshold was light—no more than a whisper so it wouldn’t have disturbed a feather, but when there’s nothing else to feel, everything can be felt. I spun around. The road behind me was gone. Instead, I stared at a brick wall. I turned when a soft noise whistled in from the street.

  I was at the dead end of an alley. At first I thought I might be in the middle of a movie set. The concrete and brick were meticulously clean—almost sterile. The street and sidewalks ahead were perfectly pristine. Nothing like the grungy decay of the dead town I’d just walked through.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Civilization—finally.

  I checked my phone, but it was still on the fritz. A sharp clink drew my gaze up. Striding toward me was a man in a white ten-gallon hat and a tin star reminiscent of an Old West sheriff. His hair was white enough to be a pagan, but his bent nose and cold brown eyes looked more druid. He was neither; just an average human.

  His shiny spurs clinked as he walked. Tipping his hat, he said, “Good day, miss. Have you seen the postman yet?”

  This was not what I’d expected to hear, but at least he seemed friendly. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m new to town. Can you tell me where I am?”

  “You’re in Hell.” He paused then continued, “Montana.”

  I held back a snicker. I’d heard of Hell, Michigan before and often wondered if telling tourists they were in Hell was a running joke. Despite the amusement factor, I didn’t have time for jokes. I needed to find my way out of this place, and so far, this guy wasn’t helping. “Well...I’m fairly sure I’m not in Hell or Montana, so...is there someone around here I can talk to who might know what’s going on?”

  “It’s better if you accept things now.” His tone was sympathetic and condescending. “The longer you wait, the unhappier you’ll make everyone else.” Then his voice hardened, and he shifted his belt to make sure I noticed the six-shooter. “I’d hate to have to retire you so early.” He smiled again. “It’s not like we get new people every day.”

  Okay, not so friendly after all. My gaze darted from the gun to his face. “Right. So you said something about the postman?”

  The sheriff motioned for me to follow him. He stopped when we reached the sidewalk and pointed to a sand-colored brick building at the end of the street.

  I smiled. “Thanks.”

  I headed toward the building, glancing back a few times. The sheriff continued to watch me.

  There were a few other people on the street, but they avoided eye contact as they hurried past me. My senses told me they were all human, but who were they and why were they here? Someone had to have answers.

  I peered in through the large windows at the front of the post office. No one was at the counter. I glanced back toward the sheriff. He shifted his belt again—watching and waiting. I put my hand on the doorknob, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

  The top edge of the door smacked a small bell dangling from above. The loud chime announced my arrival and dropped a blanket of energy on my head.

  It didn’t hurt, but a tingle of magic rippled across my skin. For a moment, the room became vibrant and warm. A yellow flyer, pinned to a nearby corkboard, rustled in the breeze from the door. The flyer announced a bake sale on Main Street tomorrow. I was happy and content. I wasn’t in a rush to do anything. Nothing at all seemed important, except going to the bake sale.

  Just as I was thinking about what I might bake, the magic reversed. The happy feelings backed away from me, as if the blanket of energy had been removed. The flyer was now curled and faded—barely readable. The dull reality returned, and my happy, contented state dissipated.

  What happened?

  The sound of shuffling came from the back. A second later, a gaunt, haggard-looking demon shambled out of the backroom. The craggy lines on his face weathered him beyond his years. Like most demons, his eyes were dark, with the slightest red shine. He appeared hungry, tired, and rundown. “Good afternoon, miss, how can I help you?”

  He greeted me with a smile, as if he were simply another friendly inhabitant of the town. His veiled form was unknown to me, but I had to assume he’d project a more appealing countenance, than the scrawny, worn-down demon in front of me. I was just as sure he had no idea I was seeing through his veil. I played along. If he thought his disguise was fooling me, he might give me more information than he intended.

  “Good afternoon, sir. I was wondering if you could tell me where I am.”

  He pointed to the wall behind him, where the words ‘Hell, Montana’ were painted in bold black letters.

  “I see, and where can I get a bus out of town?”

  “Sorry, miss, no buses in or out of town. Once you’re in Hell, you’re in Hell.”

  A small laugh escaped my lips, but I coughed to cover my reaction. The absurdity of this place being Hell was funny—Mayberry maybe, a trap definitely, but Hell—the realm owned and controlled by the Devil—no.

  “Really? Because the one who sent me here called it the maze, which makes me think there could be a way out.” He wasn’t going to cooperate, so I took a different approach. “How long have you been stuck here? Are you keeping the illusion or are you just part of the audience, demon?”

  Letting out a relieved sigh, he dropped his veil. Having already seen through it, I still saw the same rundown demon I had a minute ago. The constant work of displaying it was probably why he looked so haggard. He took a deep breath, as if filling his lungs with air had been impossible before. “If I knew how to get out of this place, don’t you think I would? I’ve been here fifty-nine-and-a-half-years. I added the spells to make everyone think they lived here. Then I made one of them sheriff so he could send all the newbies here to get the whammy on them before they caused any problems.”

  “The whammy?” I eyed the bell above the door. Is that what I felt walking in? “For a minute everything seemed wonderful, then it disappeared.”

  He pursed his lips and studied me. “You should have walked through that door into Hell, Montana. Why didn’t it work on you?”

  Good question.

  I shrugged. “I’m not completely sure about that myself, but I don’t think you have enough power to make me see something that isn’t real.” I glanced back toward the bell. “Not in Purgatory, anyway.”

  The demon’s eyes widened when I mentioned Purgatory.

  “I have to get out of here,” I said. “There must be a way.”

  “There isn’t. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

  He spent the next twenty minutes telling me how he’d arrived here almost sixty years ago. Everything was the same, but the people, all thirty of them at that time, were confused and trying to kill each other. He’d cast the first spell when he arrived so they wouldn’t mob him for being a demon. He finally got everyone to believe this was a place called Hell, Montana, and that they all lived here. Disturbingly, no one ever grew old or left, and now they had a population of one hundred and twenty residents, all playing their part in the illusion.

  He sighed. “They do the same thing every day. They wake up and think it’s the same day as yesterday. All waiting for that damn bake sale.” He snorted. “So nothing ever changes, unless new people are added. They come to the post office, an
d I assign them a place to live, and they’re off to become part of—the Maze, you called it.”

  “There has to be a way out.” I pivoted to face the street through the large windows. “I’m going to find it,” I muttered.

  The demon was quiet.

  “What about the ice cream truck—who drives it?”

  His brows pinched together, and his gaze dropped as if he were thinking. “Ice cream truck?” He shook his head, then his eyes widened. “That’s right. The ice cream truck. I’d forgotten. Do you mean it’s still out there?”

  “Yes, and it’s outside the bubble.”

  “The bubble?”

  “Outside, in the dead part of town. Do you know how to get back there?”

  He shook his head. “You can’t. Once you pass into town, you’re here to stay. No one has ever left.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice, as if someone might be listening. I was fairly sure absolutely no one monitored this depot of forgotten souls. “Do you have a power that might be able to help us get out of here? Find the ice cream truck perhaps?”

  “A power?” I shook my head. “I’m human.”

  He gave me a steady look. “A human wouldn’t have known I was a demon, and the whammy would have worked.”

  He was right.

  Pinching my brows together, I considered what this meant. I didn’t have an answer. “It’s complicated,” I said.

  There was no reason to explain my life to this guy.

  It was an unexpected bonus that my painful passage into Purgatory had amped up my veil detector, but that was it. It wasn’t as if it transformed me into a pagan or gave me special powers. Did it? I didn’t have an answer for what happened with the whammy. Maybe the spell over the town was sort of like a veil—a really big veil.

  I thought about the other perks. The phone was a lost cause, and the watch couldn’t even be trusted to tell time. Plus, those were both just things. The translator, which was implanted technology, was all that was left. If it was like the phone and the watch, then it too was probably broken—of course, I was hearing English from the demon.

  “Are you speaking English?”

  “Yes,” he said hesitantly.

  “Can you speak Demon?”

  “What would you like for me to say?”

  I heard English, but I knew it was Demon. Cool. Could I hear Ancient now too? “Can you speak Ancient?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  Damn.

  “What’s this all about?” he asked.

  “Nothing. I’m just thinking.”

  What else? I could try to listen to the street outside. Maybe I had more range now. I remembered the pain from the early days before I had control. When I’d catch a faint whisper and immediately my hearing would hone in on the conversation. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to ignore what was happening around me, so the amplified volume would make a normal voice near me sound like it was being shouted from an ear-splitting megaphone. But the quietness of this town could make it the safest place to try. The risk of pain was low.

  “There’s one thing I can try. It might help us locate the ice cream truck. Although I don’t know what good that will do us.”

  “Maybe it will help us find the exit—to the dead part of town,” he suggested, excited.

  Who wouldn’t be after sixty years in this prison?

  Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes. Picturing the town in my mind, I thought about the street outside the post office. I wanted to start slow. Before I attempted to increase the range, I had to control it. I focused on the sidewalk outside the door. An odd disconnected sensation covered me. It was as if my mind had stepped outside my body. At the same moment, the picture inside my head became real, things appeared as if my eyes were open, and I was physically on the sidewalk outside the post office.

  My true eyes flew open, and my mind was slammed back into my body. I lost my balance and had to grab onto the wall for support. “Oh, boy,” I said.

  “Are you okay?” the demon asked. He’d stepped around in front of the counter.

  “Did I disappear?”

  He opened his mouth then closed it. “No,” he said cautiously.

  I looked outside at the sidewalk. I could have sworn I’d been out there, but I never left the building. Somehow I’d separated from my body. As if my mind—my presence—was free to roam around on its own. Holy shit, that’s cool.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked.

  I nodded. “I’m going to try that again.”

  I didn’t know why or how—maybe I didn’t care—but whatever this was, it had nothing to do with the translator. It was a new ability. I remembered the blanket of energy that fell over me as I entered. The room had been vibrant for a moment, then the illusion broke. Had I done that too? What else could I do?

  I caught sight of the demon just before I closed my eyes. His gaze darted around as if he were looking for something. I ignored him.

  I pictured the post office I stood in. It was easier this time to pull my presence away, and I found myself outside my body, watching myself and the demon. Cool.

  I thought of the street in front of the post office. In a flash, my presence blinked to the sidewalk.

  Amazing. Everything was as vivid as if I were physically standing outside. The view of the picture-perfect shops lining the street was exactly the same. The red and blue of the spinning barber’s pole, and the smile on the face of the security guard who opened the bank door as customers approached. Freaking amazing.

  The sheriff was across the street talking to someone. A faint sensation of someone brushing past me clipped my presence as people moved around me. They couldn’t see me. Of course, they couldn’t see me; I wasn’t really here.

  I walked toward the four-way stop and concentrated on listening for the ice cream truck. It had been outside the bubble. If I could hear it then maybe I could follow it. Find the edge between this fake reality and the dead town I’d walked through.

  Tuning out everything else, I listened for that familiar sound. At first I heard nothing, but then, as if a mosquito had flown too close to my ear, the sound popped into focus. It was faint, but it was there.

  I spun around quickly when another brushing sensation hit me, but there was no one there. I was alone on the street, and I’d lost the sound of the ice cream truck. Damn.

  After another brush, I realized too late that it wasn’t my presence that sensed the movement. It was my physical body.

  Opening my eyes, I was jerked back to the post office, right before someone whacked me on the back of the head.

  Seven

  I woke with a splitting headache and a large lump on my head.

  The old springs of the cot creaked as I sat up. Yep, I was in Mayberry’s jail. I closed my eyes and rested my head in my hands. There was a strong bleach smell wafting in from the other cell. Combined with my headache, the pungent scent made me want to hurl.

  Other than today, I’d only been unconscious four times in my entire life. Three of those had been in the last five years—and two of those three had been courtesy of Mace. One more today and I’d be doubling my record. At least I was adding variety: tranquilizer dart, right hook, and now a whack on the back of the head.

  I pushed back the nausea. I was alone, but I could hear noise from the front room through a partially opened door. There was a short hallway that led to the back, but there was no way I was getting past the thick bars.

  Other than my watch and my clothes, they’d taken everything else—even my shoes. I shook my head. Did they think I’d hang myself with the laces?

  “Well, well,” the sheriff said, swinging the door to the front room open wide. “I thought I told you to fit in.” He leaned against the doorframe.

  “Where’s the postman?” I asked.

  “He’ll be along directly.” The sheriff had a smug grin. Did he know what was going on?

  “Well, let me know when your boss gets here.”

  I had to hold in a sno
rt when he straightened and puffed out his chest. Obviously, I’d hit a nerve.

  “He’s not my boss. There’s always two. Equals.”

  As if I was skeptical about his declaration, I raised one of my eyebrows in an attempt to piss him off. No need to give him any respect. “Right. Equals. Looks more like a leader and a follower to me.” I pointed at him as I said follower.

  His lips formed a thin line. “It’s about time, not rank. He’s just got more at the moment.”

  I chuckled. “Time is constant. Won’t he always have more?”

  “He’s out in six months,” the sheriff snarled. “Then I’m the one with more time.” With a cocky snort, he added, “Unless there’s a screw up. Then I’m on top sooner. Either way, in six months I’ll be number one.”

  Was this a prison sentence for them? The postman said he’d been here fifty-nine and a half years. Another six months would be a sixty-year stretch. He’s out in six months unless there’s a screw up—someone getting out would certainly be a screw up. Great. A man with nothing to lose but his freedom.

  “So second fiddle,” I chided, “low man on the totem pole—like I said, let me know when your boss gets here.”

  The sheriff’s eyes narrowed. He put his hand on his revolver, but stopped when he heard a bell ring behind him. He glanced back then dropped his hand away from the gun.

  “Where did you get this?” the postman asked, holding up my phone.

  Dropping The Boss’s name might be my only chance to survive long enough to escape. The sheriff had been a bit too eager to reach for his gun. “He gave it to me.”

  The sheriff’s brows pulled together.

  The postman considered the phone, pursed his lips, then said, “The phone doesn’t work here. Which means He can’t find you.”

  I held his gaze without giving anything away. I dealt with the Demon King five days a week. This guy was a joke. He couldn’t intimidate me if he tried. “Whatever, man. The GPS in that thing has been busted for weeks. I just haven’t had a chance to get it fixed. He will come searching for me.”