Blood poured from the wound and soaked into her temples. Some of it ran in her eyes, and she squeezed them shut.
Suddenly, the blond sorcerer let go and brought the knife to Zavi. Hettie lifted her chin, dazed and confused. The warlock held the blade to Abby’s lips, and she ran her tongue along the edge and grinned as if she’d just popped a taffy drop into her mouth. Hettie’s stomach turned.
Butch caught her eye with the jerky movement of one hand. He angled his body toward her one means of escape, then tilted his chin up. Above the dais was a hook the size of a horse attached to a heavy chain and strung up by a series of pulleys and wheels on a rail system high above. The apparatus had probably once been used to haul heavy cargo up to the tunnel level from the Zoom aperture. Butch leaned casually against a pillar sporting the release lever and yawned.
Hettie focused on counting the number of steps between Abby and the way out. She could do it. She had to. She couldn’t leave Abby behind. Butch scowled and gave an imperceptible shake of his head.
“Abigail, darling, are you ready?” Zavi asked. Her sister nodded dreamily.
The sorcerer drew Diablo and aimed it at Hettie’s heart. He looked almost apologetic. “Rest in peace,” he said.
“Butch, Diablo’s yours!” Hettie shouted, and rolled the chair to the side just as the giant iron hook swung down, smashing into Zavi and flinging him off the dais as if he were a rag doll. His body arched across the room and landed in a crumpled heap in a corner. Hettie slipped the rope off the chair and dove away, rolling to a crouch. Bill shouted as the Weres rushed toward their fallen leader. Abby remained standing in place, unfazed as the hook swung back, crashing into several more bodies.
Bill whipped toward her, his face contorted with rage. He held out a hand and began chanting. Hettie tackled him, smashing into his middle and rolling on top of his back. In a flash, she had the rope looped around his neck. She pulled upward, planting her knees against his shoulder blades. If he completed his incantation and cast his spell, she’d be a goner. His spine bowed upward, and he jerked and twisted beneath her, clawing at the rope.
She focused on her hands, which burned from gripping the rough hemp. Her entire body sang with its aches. Finally, he gave a shudder and stopped moving.
She let go with a gasp and lurched to her feet, shaking. The Weres were regrouping as they got control of the wildly swinging hook. She ran toward Abby, who was slowly standing from a crouch, and halted.
Abby cradled Diablo in her hands. Thin trails of smoke drifted up from her sister’s burning palms, but Abby didn’t seem to notice. The blank look in her face was gone, replaced by one of smoldering anger. She wrapped her fingers around the grip and pointed the muzzle at Hettie.
“Abby … put that thing down. It’s hurting you.”
“Zavi says you’re a bad person.” Her tiny voice had a ragged edge to it. “You hurt him. You hurt my friend.”
“Abby—”
In her peripheral vision, Butch raised his sidearm.
“No!”
It happened too quickly. His gun cracked. Abby spun and pulled the trigger simultaneously. The explosion of green fire plowed through Butch, and he lit up like a greasy green-flamed candle. His screams cut off abruptly as his flesh melted away.
Diablo tumbled to the ground with a thud.
“Abby, are you—”
The words evaporated on her breath. Abby’s hands, held out as if in supplication, were charred and oozing, as if they were pieces of fatty pork stuck into a blacksmith’s oven. Blood blossomed against Abby’s snow-white breast.
She crumpled to her knees.
Hettie’s mind blanked. She dove and caught her sister. Abby’s lips moved, but no words accompanied the wet, hissing breaths. Hettie pawed at the gushing bullet hole. She could stanch it … stop the bleeding. She could bring her to the doctor and…
The blood soaked through her gown, cooling quickly.
Abby pawed at the air blindly. “S-shh … it’s going to be okay…” Hettie’s meaningless words stuttered out on a sob. She clung and clung as Abby turned her black eyes up to the dark ceiling and went still.
Hettie didn’t feel her sister die. She didn’t feel her heart break.
She didn’t feel anything.
All that was left inside was the great, empty void. One that mirrored the window of blackness opening where the charred remains of Butch Crowe once stood.
Hettie suppressed a scream. The gate to hell was open. And it was reaching for her sister.
A dark, slimy tentacle slithered out and wrapped around Abby’s ankle. Hettie kicked at it, but two more grasped her sister by the wrist and waist and dragged her out of Hettie’s arms.
The gates widened, and more inky black appendages snaked out, hungrily seeking prey. Two Weres yelped as the tentacles snared their legs and dragged them into the unfathomably dark maw with alarming speed. The other Crowe gang members skittered back, or turned their guns toward the hellmouth. Bullets were nothing to the void.
Hettie stomped on the tentacles wrapped around Abby, but they evaporated like smoke, yet still grasped her as a jealous child would a favorite toy. They reeled her toward the black orifice almost languidly. Hettie panicked. She looked around—Diablo lay only a few feet away. Still holding Abby’s hand, she stretched out and snagged it.
She swung around and fired blindly into the void, but even the power of the Devil’s Revolver was swallowed up by that pitch-black portal.
“Let go, varmint!” she shrieked at the hell gate, and impaled her finger on the thorn.
A pure green blast of power poured from the barrel, briefly illuminating the interior. Hettie thought she saw … she didn’t know what. She didn’t want to think what. It would drive a person mad…
A bone-deep rumble crept through the cavern. The tentacles shuddered and retreated into the mouth of the vortex. Hettie gathered Abby close, but as she reached her sister the gate exploded in ribbons of darkness that saturated the room and swallowed Hettie and Abby whole.
For a heartbeat, the void was all there was, the black nothingness a cocoon of undoing. Fear filled her like ice-cold water in a deep well. She thought of those long-ago sermons that had turned Pa away from his faith, and the descriptions of that fiery eternity she didn’t want to contemplate.
And hell heard her deepest fears.
She felt it first as a flaming fist exploding from the silo, then the barn. The squeals of the pigs and chickens trying desperately to escape the blaze. The cries of her mother and father and Abby as her world went up in smoke tore at her. And then the fire reached her.
The heat of a furnace, the sun, the hottest fires of hell boiled off her clothes, her hair, her skin. Hettie screamed, though she heard nothing from her lips. Her head felt as though it would explode as her memories were torn from her, every moment of her life relived in the space of a heartbeat and shredded. Her muscles wrenched and pulled, as if her body were a piece of rope some child would practice knots on. Every piece of her was invaded, turned inside out, ripped apart and set aflame. But still she clung to Abby’s hand.
Let hell do its worst. She would not let go of her sister. She would take her home.
“I came back from death for her!” she shouted, the edges of her mind fraying. Because being trapped in hell could only bring on insanity, she reasoned in that little space left for rational thought, and she laughed out loud. “You won’t get her. She’s mine!”
That only seemed to make her formless tormentor angrier. The searing lashes of a thousand whips flayed her raw flesh. Needles plunged through her. She thought distantly how much this felt like the unnatural side effects of killing someone with Diablo. It was almost bearable in comparison.
“Is that the worst you can do?” She laughed maniacally.
She could almost feel the rage of hell itself. The darkness flexed around her, squeezing her, crushing
her, wringing her out, blasting her with fire, then cold. She weathered it all, clutching Abby’s hand tight, even though she couldn’t see her. She knew she was there. Abby was her anchor. Her reminder of who and what she was and the task still ahead of her.
Save Abby. That was all she’d set out to do the moment she’d opened her eyes and realized she was as good as dead.
You gotta take care of Abby now, Hettie.
She brandished Diablo, wondering how she’d managed to keep a hold on it all this time when it was burning away layer after layer of flesh from her palm. Taking a deep breath, she pulled the trigger and fired into the dark.
The blackness recoiled sharply, and the pain stopped. Hettie gasped and stumbled to her knees. She found herself in a field of long, tall green grass. It was summertime. A warm breeze laden with the scent of ripe peaches and plums tickled her nose. She turned to see the silo shining in the sun, the pigs lazing in the mud, the chickens strutting and scratching. The vegetable patch was laden with fruit. Laundry hung on the line in the yard.
She was back on the ranch.
Hettie looked around frantically. Abby! Where was Abby? She started toward the house. She hadn’t let go, not for a moment—
“Don’t be afraid.” A deep, familiar voice filled her with longing, with pure love.
She stopped and turned slowly.
John Alabama stood with his hands in his pockets, his thick black mustache twitching with amusement, eyes sparkling. He tipped up his black hat and opened his arms. “Hey, Hettie.”
“Pa?” The grief that had been absent at his death suddenly swamped her, and she staggered under its weight. “Pa!” She ran into her father’s arms and held him tight, smelling the leather, horses, and tobacco on his skin. Tears poured from her eyes as she sobbed against his deep, warm chest. Memories of all the good times flooded her, filled every crevice in her heart with joy. She sank to the grass, and Pa went with her, cradling her in his arms as if she were a baby again. Tears of joy and sorrow soaked her collar as she blubbered, “I missed you, Pa.”
“I missed you, too.” He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead.
Another set of arms curled around her, followed by the scent of cloves, fresh-baked bread, and clean linens. Hettie turned into Grace Alabama’s embrace. Grief, so sweet and bitter and achingly, wonderfully terrible, had finally found her.
“My brave, strong girl.” Her mother cupped her chin. “You’ve come such a long way.”
“Why is this happening?” She looked between them. “Where am I?”
“Does it matter?” John chucked her under the chin. “You’re here with us now.”
“But … I was with Abby—”
“Abby doesn’t matter anymore.”
Everything inside Hettie froze. The sun dimmed as it took refuge behind a cloud, and her skin chilled instantly. “Where’s Abby?”
Her mother’s eyes went soft. “She’s not yours to worry about anymore. She’s gone.”
“No. She’s not gone.”
“Hettie, it’s time to let go.”
“No!” She threw their arms off and struggled to her feet. Diablo appeared in her hand, and she pointed it at her parents. “Where’s my sister? Give her back.”
John and Grace watched her placidly, their warmth and humanity gone. “It was her time. You can’t undo what’s happened.”
“Yes, I can. Someone gave up a piece of me so that I could live.” She raised her chin. “What would it cost to bring her back?”
The man who looked like her father assessed her. “You would bargain for her?”
“She’s my sister. My blood. I’m not letting her go. Not to you, and not like this.”
“The price will be high,” the mother-woman said.
“Then take it, whatever it is. Let Abby live. Send her back and make sure she’s safe and whole, and I will give you whatever you want.”
“Anything?” the father-man grinned. The sky darkened to the color of a bruise.
Hettie raised her chin. After all her sins, all the lives she’d taken and the lies she’d told, she knew she was probably going to end up here anyhow after a long trip on a short rope. She might as well pay for the penny tour. “Save Abby. Take me instead.”
Father-man and mother-woman smiled.
Hettie opened her eyes and found herself on the cold, hard floor of the underground cavern. She sat up dizzily, just in time to see the black hell gate close like a pair of doors shutting on night.
Diablo rested in one whole, unmolested hand. Abby’s tiny palm was clutched in the other.
Her sister’s eyes fluttered open. The irises were violet once more. “Hettie?” she croaked.
“Abby.” Hettie’s heart filled with relief, with joy, and almost immediately with doubt. She’d made a bargain, but she was still alive—why hadn’t they collected their debt?
Her sister pushed up to her knees and crawled to Hettie’s side, hugging her tight. “I’m sorry…”
The rallying bay of the Weres had her bolting upright. “We have to get out of here.” She pulled Abby to her feet and half carried her to the stairs. She couldn’t trust Butch’s exit, if it even existed.
Three Weres in full wolf form lunged for them. She whipped Abby ahead of her and fired blindly over her shoulder, hoping to scare the creatures—she couldn’t afford to be incapacitated. The green glow from the demonic mage gun splashed against the wall, churning it into white-hot liquid rock that slid down into the Weres’ big canine paws. They yelped and danced back, their fur alight, but it was too late—panicked, they thrashed and collapsed as their legs were eaten up by the molten rock. Their blood-curdling howls pierced her ears.
She barely had time to give the revolver’s new power a thought. “Hang on!” She slung Abby onto her back, then ran full tilt up the stairs, legs pumping, firing behind her and melting the steps to keep anyone from following. Above, a man emerged from the tunnel, gun raised. Hettie swung her arm around lightning quick, and Diablo’s cannon blast punched through a column of rock. The wall tumbled down over his head. He fell wordlessly into the molten chaos below as Hettie ducked into the tunnel.
Abby climbed off her back, and they ran hand in hand through the corridors, scanning each intersection for pursuers. “Do you know the way out?” she asked Abby.
“Mr. Butch brought me here on a little train car. It’s that way.” She pointed down a tunnel.
Hettie’s conscience pricked her as she remembered the hundreds of children in the warlock’s thrall. “Abby, this is important. Can you get away from here on your own?”
“I’m not leaving you behind. Zavi’s going to be mad, and…” Her eyes clouded.
Hettie gave her a shake, panic swamping her. “Stay with me, Abby. We have to get out of here.”
She shook her head slowly. “He’s mad…”
Hettie hauled her sister forward. She hated the thought of abandoning those other children, but she didn’t have a choice. She had to get to the surface and get away from Zavi. She headed in the direction her sister had pointed, her own shaky memories of the place becoming clearer with each turn. She used Diablo’s rock-melting firepower to close off each passage. She wasn’t even sure she knew how she was doing it.
Soon she found the tracks and the cars that would presumably take them to the surface.
She put Abby in one of the four-person passenger cars. With no idea how to work the great Mechanikal motors that ran the contraption, she threw several levers and spun up the knobs and wheels randomly until the machine revved its engine and she heard a series of distant clanks and a bell.
Abby’s car shot off. Hettie cried out and started to chase her up the track, but the vehicle traveled faster than she could run.
She hopped into the next car, kicking the brake release. The car jerked and flew up the rail through the gently curving tunnel. Sh
e could hear Abby’s car clattering and chugging its way ahead, and caught glimpses at each wide turn. Farther along, the lanterns in the tunnel were spaced quite far apart so that her vision strobed between light and dark, the only things to be seen the pillars and lintels, the rock walls and the track. But from what she could see, the path was getting wider.
Behind her, she heard voices and low growls. Zavi must have mustered his forces, and they were gaining. She could hear their snarls and shouts growing louder. She knew she didn’t have a choice—they wouldn’t get far out in the desert. Zavi would eventually find her and Abby again and drag her back to this place. Hettie had to end this now.
At a turn where the ground was mostly even, she pulled the brake so the cart juddered to a halt and hopped out, then used Diablo to melt the tracks behind her. She hardly felt the bite of the thorn as she held the trigger down, unleashing a torrent of green firepower. It was too risky to try closing the tunnel off here—there was no telling if it would start a cave-in on top of Abby. So she yanked a lantern from the wall and tossed it into the car, setting the spilled oil ablaze. That should buy Abby enough time to get to the surface.
She ran. The tracks sloped gently upward, and she could hear a whirr that matched the Mechanikal engine at the other end. She couldn’t be too far from the surface now.
A great crash behind her and she knew their pursuers had arrived. She told herself not to panic as she kept climbing. Her lungs burned, and her legs felt like soft noodles. But as long as Abby was in danger, she couldn’t stop.
Ahead, she saw a light, but it wasn’t the exit to the surface. For a moment, she thought Abby had left her car and come back down the tunnel, but it wasn’t her sister. Crying Sparrow, the little girl who’d guided her to the in-between, beckoned to her, pointing at a small side tunnel. Hettie hesitated only briefly, then slipped through the narrow fissure and felt her way through the dark until she entered a large space lit by a shaft of glorious gold sunlight that nearly blinded her.
Relief rushed into her as she estimated the height of the ceiling. Thirty feet, at most. Abby must be outside by now, waiting for her. All she had to do was climb out of this hole…
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