The Keepers of Hell Box Set

by Danielle James

  But that was exactly what she was doing. With Ash at her side, Lacy was standing in the back of a church while her students and coworkers said their goodbyes and paid their respects. She watched as each of her students walked up to the casket. Some had tears in their eyes; others did not. But they came.

  “You can go up there if you want,” Ash told her. “Just make sure that you stay invisible.”

  “I don’t even know how to do that,” she replied. “Is there a way to not be invisible to people?”

  Ash nodded. “We’ll get to that, but for now, just make sure that you want to stay invisible and that should keep things under control.”

  Right, Lacy thought. Stay invisible. She took a few tentative steps toward her own casket before looking back at Ash for confirmation. He nodded at her and Lacy walked the rest of the way to the front of the room.

  She was surprised that the casket was open. Apparently, her face had not been mangled beyond repair. As she peered down into the casket, she noticed that her skin was much darker than it had been in life. The mortician had put an obscene amount of makeup on her. But she could still see the thin line of a cut along the side of her face that had been glued together. Someone had chosen to put her in yellow sundress with a long-sleeved shirt underneath. Lacy didn’t want to know why. It was all so much like a weird dream. She felt strange; like if she touched her own body, she would upset the space-time continuum or something.

  “You were the best teacher,” Ann, one of her students, said to her body. “I’ll miss you.” The girl turned and walked away, letting the next student in line come to the front.

  Lacy was overwhelmed by their show of love. “You saved us,” one said. “You made me want to learn,” another said. “You were the bravest of us all,” a girl said.

  Lacy could feel the hot tears gathering behind her eyes. She knew every student that whispered their goodbyes meant every word they said. But it was Jamie who affected her the most.

  He came up to the casket with his head down. He looked lost and out of place. The other students had worn their Sunday best, but he came in his jeans and t-shirt, just like he had worn every day the short time she had known him. “Hey, Ms. B,” he said to her lifeless body. “I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but I hope you can. I wanted you to know that we all loved you. You were our favorite. We didn’t even replace your chalk with spit board.” Lacy smiled. She had never been the butt of that prank, but she had heard about it. “I can’t say thank you enough for what you did for us,” Jamie continued, “But I can promise you something. I can promise you that I am going to ask Brittany to the prom, just like you said I should. I am going to finish school with good grades and I am going to go to college. I am going to make something of myself. You gave your life for us, and I am going to make you proud of me. It’s the least I can do.”

  Lacy sniffled and wiped the tear from her eye. She wanted to tell this boy that she was already proud of him, that he was brave beyond measure, and that she just adored him. But she couldn’t. She raised her hand to touch him and then thought better of it, yanking her hand back down to her side.

  “I already am,” she whispered to him.

  Jamie picked his head up and looked around and for a moment, Lacy thought he had heard her. Then, he quickly wiped his eyes and returned to his seat.

  “It really is a mind-fuck, isn’t it?” Ash asked from right behind her.

  Lacy nodded. “I don’t even know what to say. I had no idea the kids felt this way about me.”

  “You touched each of their lives in some way, whether by teaching or by your actions that day. Her, for example,” Ash nodded at one of the female students. “You taught her that even someone small can do big things. One day, she is going to be the governor of Maine. You did that. You planted the seed.” He turned his head to another student. “And that one, you taught him to always respect others, especially women. His father is an abuser, but because of you, he isn’t going to follow in his father’s footsteps. And Jamie,” Ash said with a smile, “let’s just say there are big things in that boy’s future.”

  “How do you know these things?” Lacy asked him.

  Ash shrugged his shoulders. “I just do. Sometimes I get little snippets of people’s lives. I can see what makes them strong or weak. I learn new things I can do every day. So will you.”

  “Did you see me?” she asked him.

  He nodded. “I knew you were a Guard the first time you stood up to your husband.”

  “I killed him,” Lacy said. “Then I ran.”

  “And look what you did after that,” Ash told her. “The sum of a person’s life is not determined by one action. It is what you do with the time you are given that matters. Come on, we have work to do.”

  He held his elbow out for her and Lacy placed her hand in the crook, just before Ash took them both back to Hell.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lacy stumbled a moment and held Ash’s arm for support until she got her bearings back. “I don’t know if I will ever get used to traveling like that,” she told him with a small smile.

  “You will,” he assured her. “We all did.”

  “Are there more of us? Guards, I mean.”

  Ash nodded. “I don’t always know right away who they are, but I know there are at least two more coming; if they accept the job, that is.”

  Lacy pressed her lips together. They would have a choice, just like she did. It was hard to imagine Ash as anything but nice. That was all he had been to her, but he was the leader of Hell, and she was fairly certain he didn’t get there by bringing the world hearts and flowers.

  “Let’s get this tour over with,” he said. “You need to know where everything is and I would like to show you to your room.”

  Lacy followed Ash as he turned and stalked away from her. She could tell that he was used to being followed and wasn’t about to wait for her to catch up. She moved her feet quickly, taking two or even three steps to his one, just to keep up.

  “How did you get here?” she asked him. “I mean, have you always been in hell? Or did you die like I did?”

  Ash turned his head in her direction but didn’t slow his stride. “I was still alive when I came here,” he told her. “I made a deal with a demon when I was just a boy. I did it to save my sister. Long story short, the demon wanted me to kill Elizabeth. I wouldn’t do it. I couldn’t. So I killed him instead.”

  Lacy absorbed the information. “And that got you here?”

  “More or less. Lucifer had been killed by his son, who is now locked up for all eternity. God needed someone new, and for whatever reason, he chose me,” Ash told her as he led her down a long corridor. He stopped when they reached the elevator and he pressed the button. “I still don’t think I am up to the job, but I won’t disappoint Him.”

  “Wait,” Lacy said as they got on the elevator. “You met Him? God?”

  “Yeah,” Ash said.

  “What’s He like?” she asked. “Will I meet Him?”

  Ash looked down at her. His blue eyes were piercing and seemed to hold centuries of information, but somehow, Lacy didn’t think he was anywhere near that old. “He is nothing like I expected,” he told her. “He is kind and… I don’t know how to describe Him. I don’t know if you’ll meet Him. I hope you do.”

  Lacy nodded and stared at the tips of her boots. She wasn’t sure she wanted to meet God. He knew everything about her. But then again, He chose her for this gig, didn’t He? Lacy’s brain was already on overload by then so she decided that was a think-a-thon for another time.

  The elevator dinged and the doors opened to what looked like a waiting area. “This is Greed,” Ash told her as he stepped off.

  Lacy looked around. Grey carpet and long windows that looked out into a night sky filled the floor. There was a set of heavy metal doors that Ash walked right up to. He laid his hand on an electric panel and the doors clicked open on his command. Lacy forced her feet to step over the threshold.

 
; Everywhere she looked was a soul that was shackled to the ground. In front of each, was a pile of rocks. They looked like slaves working in a quarry. Each soul was moving quickly, desperately trying to gather as many rocks as they could.

  “I don’t understand,” Lacy admitted. Hell, she didn’t understand a lot of shit in this place.

  “You see rocks don’t you?” Ash asked her.

  Lacy nodded. “Piles and piles of rocks.”

  “To the souls who belong here, they see riches and gold. They are trying to gather as much for themselves as possible, in hopes of buying their way out. Jake used to see riches, but now, he sees rocks.” Ash pointed to the man in question. He was standing over Shelly’s shoulder as she sat at a desk in the middle of the realm, working away on her computer. “Shelly runs this realm. Jake was supposed to come here after his death, but I needed him and he agreed to work for me. Now that he and Shelly are mated, he has found something he loves more than himself and material things. He has saved his own soul by wanting something more.”

  “Kind of like the guy in the cage?” Lacy asked.

  “I still don’t know how that happened,” Ash admitted. “We still have a lot to see,” he reminded her.

  He turned to walk out of Greed and again, Lacy followed.

  They toured Sloth, Lust, Gluttony, Pride, and a place called the Playground. That place gave Lacy chills. It was where the souls who committed crimes against children were held. Everywhere, there were children playing. Ash explained that these were the children in Heaven, and that the souls trapped in that realm didn’t dare to look at them, or they risked severe punishment. She loved seeing the children of Heaven playing and laughing, but the souls who were trapped there? No matter what their punishment was, it wasn’t enough as far as she was concerned.

  Ash told her that Wrath and Murder were currently in a state of suspension because their leaders had been killed. They tried to hurt Elizabeth right after Ash took over and that hadn’t worked out very well for them. He explained that until he found someone new to run things, those realms were off limits. Lacy was perfectly ok with that, seeing as how she was sure she belonged in Murder.

  Finally, Ash showed her to her own room. “I know it isn’t the Ritz, but it will do,” he told her. “Just place your hand on the panel outside and it will open for you.”

  Lacy took in her room. There was a large bed with comfortable bedding, a dresser, a mirror, and it had its own private bath. It wasn’t fancy, but it would certainly do. “Thank you,” she told him. It was absolutely better than the accommodations the man in the cage had. Speaking of which…

  “What are you going to do with the guy in the cage?” she asked him.

  “I don’t know yet,” Ash answered her.

  “I don’t mean to overstep my bounds but…” she looked at the floor and then back up to Ash’s eyes.

  “But what?” he asked her. She could tell he was exhausted, but she just had to know.

  “I get the impression that you are supposed to be fair and just. I think it is inhumane to keep a soul in a cage for doing something good. Can’t he at least have a better room? Maybe a bed? Hell, a book to read?”

  Ash hated that the little woman was right. He was being callous to the man. “Liam was in Greed for a reason,” he told her.

  “And there was a reason he got out,” she fired back. She didn’t know why she felt the need to be this soul’s champion, but hey, she had always been one to root for the underdog.

  Ash scrubbed his hand through his hair. “Why the fuck am I all of the sudden feeling compassionate for this guy?” he grumbled.

  “Just tell me you will consider letting him out of the cage in some fashion,” she said. “And maybe give him something to do besides sit in a corner for all eternity.”

  Ash let out a heavy sigh. He was too tired to argue. “Fine. You can bring him some books or something. Nothing that can be used as a weapon, though. Keep it safe.”

  Lacy grinned at her small victory. “Thank you. Was that so hard?”

  “I’m going back to my mate,” he said as he turned to leave. “Get some rest. We have a long road ahead.” He stalked back away from her room, grumbling something about women and how they were going to be the death of him one day.

  Lacy watched her new boss exit her room, admiring the way his wings moved with his body. That was about the time she remembered that she had a pair of her own! A slow smile stretched across her face and she turned and ran to her dresser. The mirror that sat atop it wasn’t big enough for her to see the whole picture, but it would do. Even at rest, her wings were visible behind her. They stretched from the top of her head nearly to the floor. She thought for them to move and they did, spreading out behind her like a cascade of white silk. They fluttered and itched, as if they had thoughts of their own and wanted to fly.

  Could she fly? She was willing to bet she could. She looked up at the high ceiling and pressed her lips together in determination. She didn’t know how to fly, but it was really a matter of physics, wasn’t it? She opened her wings wide and pushed them downward, forcing the air surrounding her down. Nothing happened at first, so she did it again. And again. The force of her powerful wings finally lifted her feet from the floor and Lacy couldn’t hold back the excited laughter that bubbled up from her chest. She was flying! Sort of, in a stationary sort of way.

  She dropped back to the floor and was momentarily surprised when her wings folded neatly at her back on their own. Why wouldn’t they? She pushed open her door and ran out into the hall. She worked her way back through the corridors until she came back to the large cavern she had seen earlier. This would work.

  Lacy opened her wings again and pushed, this time adding a leap for good measure.

  She was airborne. She tilted her body forward and pushed with her wings and off she went. It didn’t take her long to figure out how to maneuver in the caverns and she was all over it. She darted this way and that, laughing and squealing with delight over her newfound ability. Flying was incredible. All her life, Lacy had lived under the expectations of others. As a child, she sought to please her parents and as an adult, she lived under the thumb of her husband. After that, she lived a life she wanted, but it had been a lie. She had taken a false identity and forged her way into some semblance of a normal life. She had constantly been living in fear of discovery. But no more. Here, in this place, Lacy was herself. She knew she could hide nothing from Ash and she didn’t want to. He saw her for who she was and gave her a purpose. These angels, in Hell, had accepted her and made her one of their own. For the first time in her life, Lacy finally knew what it felt like to be free.

  She was so happy and enthralled with her new ability that she didn’t see her new boss on the ground below her. Ash watched as Lacy learned to use her wings with a stab of jealousy for how easily she caught on. He wished his first flight had been so easy. But he couldn’t hold it against her, not when she was filling the caverns of Hell with her tinkling laughter. It was a sound he never thought he would hear in this place, echoing off the walls and traveling down the corridors like waves of joy. She would bring something pure and wonderful to his group of guards they wouldn’t have had without her. Yes, he told himself, he had made the right choice with this one.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Antonio dropped the laptop on Ash’s desk and it landed with a thump. “This thing is a piece of shit,” the angel said. Ash looked at it and then at Antonio. It was the same computer they had found in the human’s apartment where Shelly had been summoned to and held captive. The same place where she had been relieved of some of her blood. “Had my guy go through it,” Antonio continued, “There wasn’t much in the way of useful information on it, but” he held a small flash drive between his fingers, “this was all that he could recover.” The hard drive had been wiped clean on the laptop, but Antonio had taken it to “his guy” for research. It seemed Antonio had a guy for everything. Ash didn’t ask questions, though. He had learned the hard way to
trust the angel.

  Ash took the flash drive and inserted it into his own desktop. Immediately, the little box opened on his screen and Ash began opening files. “Do I need to worry about viruses and shit?” he asked as he virtually leafed through the contents.

  Antonio rolled his eyes. “As if,” he said. “The POS was full of viruses. My guy killed them and put clean files on the drive. You’re safe.”

  Ash nodded and went to work. There wasn’t much, just as Antonio said. One folder contained the browsing history, which was full of porn sites and live sex cams. Another was full of photos and other personal shit. That one was going to be more useful. There were several photos of the same person. A man with sandy brown hair and brown eyes. From the looks of him, he was an average Joe in every sense of the word, but it was likely that this was the human who owned the laptop.

  There was a soft knock at the door and Ash knew it was Lacy without even looking up. With the power of his mind, he opened the door for her and she walked in, carrying an armload of books. “Good morning,” she said with a cheerful grin. “What’s everyone up to today?”

  Ash and Antonio both had their eyes glued to the computer screen. “Research,” Ash told her.

  Lacy sighed. That man really wasn’t much for words. “I brought some books in for Liam,” she announced.

  Both angels grumbled something unintelligible. Lacy walked herself to the corner where Liam’s cage sat like a fixture of the room. She hated that he was stuck there. She hated that he was essentially a prisoner, even though he had managed to free himself of his hell.

  As she approached, he looked up at her with those eyes. Chocolate, she thought. His eyes reminded her of milk chocolate. She liked chocolate. His hair hung down in his face but when he saw her, he lifted his head and brushed it back with his hand. She got a good look at his chiseled face and realized that he was more than attractive; he was gorgeous. He had an air about him that spoke of authority and power. She took in his broad shoulders and noticed that he was probably very strong physically. What had he done in life to end up here?