by Lori Adams
Degan is the most reluctant soul seeker I’ve ever come across. An educated guess tells me he’s unusually fearful of supernatural weapons, which is understandable. I also believe he’s more curious than the average seeker and prefers the company of those outside his spiritual realm. He was never human but was created by dark matter to combat my kind. Still, I could totally see Degan as the straggler, trailing behind the popular kids in high school, trying desperately to fit in.
“Ain’t gonna happen,” I say. I begin preparations with Mrs. Farhind when Degan tries again. This time his voice drops and takes on a strange, soft quality as though he’s suddenly unsure of himself.
“Sophia? It is you, isn’t it?”
My spine goes stiff and I stand perfectly still. A feeling of dread washes over me and I turn and look back at him. He cocks his head and inspects me with renewed interest. After a tense moment, he nods, satisfied.
“Yeah, it’s you. I thought I was right, but it’s weird, you know? When I saw you in Hell, I thought something was off. You didn’t even recognize me.”
I clench my teeth and fight to stay calm. His friendly expression is void of anything devious; he’s not hatching something, just curious for answers. So am I.
“Don’t move. I’ll be right back,” I tell him, and then I take Mrs. Farhind away.
The resting place just beyond the Borderlands is now familiar to me, but with each crossing over, I see it through the fresh eyes of my companions. Serene and peaceful, those needing to rest will do it here. Mrs. Farhind was an easy delivery. If it had been anyone else but Degan after her, I would have had a fight on my hands. This usually ends with the lost soul quivering with fright all the way home. No amount of soothing can ease their fears of the unknown, not until we’re almost there.
Mrs. Farhind had many struggles in her lifetime but they all drop away as she is welcomed into the Fold. Like peeling back layers of life, she sheds the skin of her imprint and returns to her original state. Here the light of souls come to balance and order within themselves. Bathing in love, they come to peace while they wait their turn. Just as it should be, I’ve always thought.
Oftentimes, I linger here to enjoy myself. Tranquility is something you drink from the air and it hits a spirit walker’s bloodstream particularly fast. I imagine it removes impurities and strips away the nonsense of my own fears, because everything seems possible afterward; everything moves more efficiently. It’s an intoxicating high that soul seekers never get to experience.
I don’t hang around this time. I have an unexpected opportunity to discover what’s been happening below so I head back at once.
Degan isn’t there when I slide down a blue shaft of light and land in the baker’s kitchen. The place is in shambles and I can’t imagine what Mrs. Farhind’s family will make of things when they get her finances in order and reopen the doors. I swipe a bit of frosting from the counter and suck on my finger, considering. Picking up a strong vibe from the next room, I draw my dagger and push through the swinging door. I’m led into a cozy room with display cases, tea tables, and random wall art of cartoon characters crazy for sweets. As though Alice in Wonderland puked on the walls. I spot Degan lounging at a bistro table beneath a painting of an impish fellow with a tall hat oozing cake batter. The caption reads: the mad batter.
Degan sees me and swings his feet down from the table. I scan the area for anything unexpected. He laughs at my overly cautious nature and tips his chair back on two legs.
“Hey, it’s just me. Seriously, we’re cool.” He waves me over and I move warily, still on alert. I slide into the bistro chair across from him and hold my dagger on the tabletop. It gives off a low, pulsating blue light, and his eyes target it with intense interest.
“Wicked,” he murmurs with a sense of awe. “No wonder Wolfgang hasn’t regenerated yet.”
I don’t say anything but I’m ecstatic on the inside. Let him rot.
When I move the blade, Degan flinches and says, “Do you mind?”
I sheath the dagger and we eye each other for a long, thoughtful moment. “So, here we are,” I say, because he’s not talking. “One lost soul catcher to another, sitting at a tea table in the middle of the Sugar Asylum.”
“Probably not what the makers had in mind when we were called to duty, huh,” he says with a crooked smile. He doesn’t really care, and why should he? He was created for one purpose, to steal lost souls from people like me. If he doesn’t fulfill his calling or quota, what’s the worst that could happen to him? Get sent back into oblivion?
“What did you mean, earlier?” I ask, getting to the point.
“You mean about seeing you in Hell? Yeah, okay. I was going to ask you about that, too.”
“So you have seen me?”
“Have I?” He wants to play games but I’m not in the mood. I have to get back to Michael. But not without pumping Degan for info.
“You tell me. When did you see me last?”
He makes a face and then breaks into disbelieving laughter. Bringing his chair back down on four legs, he leans his arms across the table and looks hard at me. He squints like it might help him penetrate my subconscious.
“This is totally messing with my logic. I know I saw you with Dante and Vaughn in the fifth kingdom. You were on your way to the inner sanctum. Everybody had heard about what they did, bringing a potential spirit walker to Hell. We all wanted to see her, so we waited along the route while you guys passed by. Vaughn was ready to attack anyone who got in your way but nobody was stupid enough to challenge him. I saw you just before you crossed the causeway and entered the tower. You looked right at me. I waved but you didn’t recognize me.”
He sits back, letting the statement hang in the silence. He wants me to explain. I’ve seen what he’s describing only through vague images of Ka’s experiences.
Most of my experience with Degan goes back to when he wore a teenage body in grungy clothes. Only once have I seen him as he is now. Slightly older, longer hair, better looking, and decidedly nicer clothes. Ka must not have recognized the new and improved version of Degan; she must have looked away before she could remember him from my memories. It was enough for Degan to notice.
I reorganize my thoughts, trying to decide what to reveal. Do I trust Degan? He already knows something is wrong. Maybe he could help me find a way to bring Ka back up.
“Did you try to talk to me? At any time?”
“Are you kidding?” he scoffs. “Your guards work around the clock. And they’re evil as shit. I’ve never seen them before. Lesser demons are saying they’re from another kingdom, but I can’t imagine how that’s possible. Evil isn’t typically shared from one kingdom to the next, if you know what I mean. Everybody’s in competition with everybody else.” He pauses while we think on things. “So it was you then?”
I bite my lip, considering. Looks like Ka is too heavily guarded for anyone to get close enough to talk to her. Any chance of using Degan to get her out seems fractional at best. “How did I look? Did I seem okay? Was I scared? I mean, when you saw me that time. Or did you see me later?”
His brow twitches into a frown. I may have overdone the interrogation. When he answers it’s slow, with too much hesitation between words. “You seemed fine. A little overwhelmed by things and…curious, but fine. Considering.”
This matches up with the emotions I’ve been feeling through Ka, minus all the mushy stuff toward Dante. At least I know she hasn’t been hurt.
“So,” he urges me on. “Tell me how you’re sneaking in and out of Hell.”
I shrug with indifference. “The usual way.”
He narrows his eyes and clicks his tongue like he’s just caught on to something. “Actually, there is no usual way, not for a spirit walker. Sophia, I just saw you take a lost soul into the light. You’re not really gonna think that I believe you. Are you? I mean, if Dante helped you complete your Awakening in Hell, there’s no way you are resurfacing to save souls. Unless you’re not—” His face fa
lls as something else occurs to him; he sits back, thinking and scrutinizing me. He’s putting two and two together.
“Your Chelsea Light,” he says as he plays things out. He looks at my hand, glowing on the tabletop. “Santiago told me that Dante was just now granted permission to help you turn but…you already have your light. A Chelsea Light won’t go unnoticed in Hell, so that means one of two things; either your light goes out when you go below, which is impossible, or…that’s not you I saw in Hell.”
I hold my breath but don’t react. I suppose I should have tossed back something sarcastic or even laughed because my non-reaction confirms his theory.
He breaks into a hard, incredulous laugh and bangs his fist on the table. “I’ll be a son of a bitch! It’s the only thing that makes sense. There are two of you!”
“Degan, I…” Crap. I hate that he knows but somehow it feels like a necessary step. Maybe he could be my eyes and ears down below? Maybe he could help me communicate with Ka? I decide to play the only hand I’ve been dealt. Dante once told me that Degan had a crush on me; it’s the reason he refused to fight me. Looks like I have to take advantage of that now.
“We’ve always gotten along, haven’t we?” I ask in a casual tone. I sit back and assume a pseudo-relaxed attitude. I’m actually nervous as hell. “We’re not supposed to be friends but I think of us like that. Don’t you?”
His laughter melts into a soft, affectionate smile. “Yeah. I do, Sophia. That night back in Haven Hurst, at the car accident. It changed me. I mean, you were the first human to ever see me. The only human, actually. Ever since then I’ve tried to find you. I kind of hoped we could be friends. Maybe hang out.”
“Gets lonely down there?” I ask, and he shrugs sadly. “I think we are friends, so I want to be honest with you, Degan. You’re absolutely right. That’s not me you saw in Hell; it’s a twin that I conjured from a spell.” I watch his eyes balloon. He mumbles, “Holy wow,” but I continue. “Yeah, it’s kind of complicated. Anyway, as far as I know, Dante has no idea that he’s Taken the wrong me to Hell. But I have to get Ka back up here. I mean my twin. I need help getting her back to the surface. Any ideas?”
His eyebrows fly up and he lets out a whistle. “This is freaky on me. I tell ya. I don’t even know…” He fumbles to say more but can’t. Giving it some serious thought, he takes a deep breath and rests his arms on the table. His eyes fall to my Chelsea Light. “I’ve been around long enough to understand the ins and outs of how things work below. Literally. I’m telling you, Sophia, your twin is too heavily guarded to get close to. Even if I got past the guards, there would be Dante and Vaughn to deal with. But that’s not the worst part.”
“What’s the worst part?”
“It’s your twin. She’s not exactly chomping at the bit to escape.”
“What do you mean?” I ask with an undulating sense of dread. The one thing lacking from the emotions that are being channeled to me through my twin has been fear. I’ve tried not to acknowledge its absence but the relevance is coming around to haunt me. Ka isn’t afraid of her surroundings.
“I mean that an announcement was made. Dante and…dang, I don’t know what to call you down there.” I tell him that I call my twin Ka, so he goes on. “Okay, so an announcement was made that Dante and Ka are going to be married. And she is more than happy about it.”
I’m stunned. Utterly speechless. I lean forward and drop my head into my hands. This explains the rush of romantic feelings from my nightmares. With Lovaria back in Ka’s subconscious, she must want to pick up where their lives left off. She wants to be with Dante. Really be with him. They were never married while alive and are making up for it now. Dante is not wasting time.
“I didn’t know people could get married in Hell,” I mutter, and hear him snort.
“They don’t. Dante is breaking all kinds of new ground. That little stunt he pulled by bringing a future spirit walker down below earned him a free ride up the nobility evolutionary chain. I heard he’ll be elevated to a prince, or some shit like that. They’re going to make the formal announcement after the Demonic Games.”
“The what?” I lift my head and my eyebrows. Surely not.
“Oh yeah, you heard me. The Demonic Games. All kinds of nasty goes on at the games. It’s an annual gladiators-in-a-box kind of shindig that ends with a ton of corpses being stuffed down the chute on a one-way ticket to the Nether Region. If they’re not boiled alive in the lava pits first. Losers don’t come back. One winner remains and then he or she or it, depending on your view, is celebrated at the Danse Macabre. A fancy-schmancy ball. Wolfgang has won every year since he started entering. Don’t know what to expect, now that he’s…under the weather.” He gives me a cockeyed grin. When I don’t share his amusement, his face drops and he becomes serious and quiet as though he’s just remembered something.
“What? Is there something you’re not telling me?”
He shifts uncomfortably and then lowers his voice like he might be overheard. “Sophia, rumors say that this wedding will take place at the ball.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
Shit!
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I push away from the table and start pacing. I need time to think but Degan is watching, completely enthralled. He bombards me with questions.
“So you really want to get her out? What happens if you don’t? Why not just leave her? Everybody’s happy. Not that Dante won’t eventually find out. I mean, they think your twin is dangerous. That she’s going to hand over her Chelsea Light once she completes her Awakening. But she can’t now, can she?”
It won’t mean anything to me if Dante and Ka get married. He thinks she is Lovaria, but it won’t mean anything. Unless I’m racked with visual nightmares of their sexual proclivities. Unless I begin to fade and she grows stronger in my absence. I will be married to Dante. And living in Hell.
Oh, God.
I don’t want to hurt Dante, but I can’t let Lovaria take over. Since her arrival inside Ka, I’ve noticed a significant shift in my balance. Not a loss of power or energy, per se, but there is something vying for control. I’m afraid that Lovaria and Ka’s combined presence may overtake my own sense of self if I don’t fix things. Soon.
I drop back into my chair. Nervous energy vibrates my knee and I have to force myself to calm down. Outside the storefront windows, people shuffle by in their bundled winter coats, heading off to work. I stare absently and begin to meditate on my options. Nothing sound comes to mind and this is highly problematic.
“You need to get her out,” Degan states with understanding. “This twin thing, was it supposed to be temporary? Yeah, I figured. So…get her out.”
“How?” I mumble, watching a young toddler waddle along the far sidewalk, so bundled in winter paraphernalia that he’s hardly recognizable. “You said Ka was heavily guarded. Plus, she’ll be surrounded by a horde of demons at this ridiculous farce of a ball. There’s no way you can get her out.”
“No, but you can.”
I pull my eyes from the window and look at him. “Huh?”
“You’re right. I can’t get her out. She doesn’t trust me and wouldn’t go willingly. Plus, I don’t have the kind of power it would take to haul someone like her back to the surface. In case you haven’t heard, getting into Hell’s not that hard. Getting out’s a bitch. As in, it’s not really done. Unless you’re a working resident. Or if you’re equipped. In which case, I’d say a Chelsea Light meets that qualification.”
“I’m not sure if I’m hearing right. You’re saying you want me to go down to Hell and bring Ka back up? Myself?” My mind starts backtracking on Degan. He’s got to be tricking me. Luring me into something. Does he work for Dante? Has Dante discovered that Ka isn’t me? Has he sent Degan up here as a ploy?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Degan says with full reassurance in his voice. “I don’t work for anyone but the man, and he’s not concerned with the trivial day-to-day grind o
f subordinates like me. I’m not playing you. Seriously, Sophia. I don’t care either way what you do. No, wait, I take that back. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I mean the you you I’m talking to. The you down in Hell? Well, she’s not that friendly to me so…” He shrugs and makes a face to punctuate his dislike for Ka.
I start to reconsider. I have an option. But it’s ludicrous and I tell him so. “Degan, this is ludicrous. I can’t possibly go down to Hell and—”
“I can get you in. Easy. But I’m iffy about how you’ll get Ka out. You’ll have the power, but people will see two of you, so it won’t be like you can impersonate her and just stroll through the gates.”
Unless I return us to whole while we’re still down in Hell.
I review things with fresh eyes. Desperate times call for dumbass plans. This more than qualifies.
“Damn,” I mutter. “It could work.”
“Yeah?” Degan sits up with renewed interest. I explain the Apoctastasis process and his face brightens. He sees what I see, an obvious solution.
“You get yourself back to one person while you’re down there, and then pass through the gates to the surface as yourself. Or whoever they think you are. No harm, no foul. Nobody needs to know until it’s too late.” He nods like it’s simple; no muss no fuss.
This is mind-jarring. I feel elated, relieved, and terrified all at once. I’m not the same girl who stumbled into the private demon club with Dante. I decapitated Wolfgang. I have spiritual weapons. I can take care of myself now. And then some. I can do this.
I have to find Michael.
I stand and take a deep breath. Degan rises. He’s watchful, hopeful. “Okay, let’s do it,” I say. “But I need to take care of some things first.”
He swells with excitement and reaches to hug me, he’s so happy. I give him a perturbed look and he backs down, flushing with embarrassment. “Sorry, just got caught up in the…never mind. I’m really glad you trust me, Sophia. It means a lot. So…I’ll meet you at the Borderlands in half an hour? You know Weeping Rock?”