I didn’t know what reward they’d expected to receive in the afterlife, but surely none of them could have known their souls would form a doorway between dimensions. No one, no matter how fanatical, would volunteer for an eternity of torment. They reached out toward Cyon and me, their expressions anguished.
A sudden thought occurred to me. If these fanatics wanted to be set free, perhaps there would be a way to fix and close this breach. Could I dare hope there might be a way to save the Cursed City?
My mind went blank as pain such as I’d never experienced before tore through every part of my being. It felt like my flesh was being torn apart and remade on a molecular level. Crimson light bled from the windows and spilled into the warehouse. The light somehow grew heavy and thick, like globs of swirling paint, before blending with the melting landscape. My world had become fluid, caught in a constant state of flux, a Dali painting come to life.
I swapped a glance with Cyon. He shimmered and twisted before me like a distorted reflection in a funhouse mirror, yet his expression remained calm, focused.
I tried to draw some comfort from this but failed. My eyes ticked to the devil’s coffin, which seemed to have grown in size and now filled up the warehouse, pancaking anything which got in its way—including myself.
I felt myself being flattened and dragged over the floor. How much would I have to endure before this mad ride would end? I didn’t think I could take much more. No one in their right mind could. It was like being trapped in a never-ending acid trip.
A scream erupted in my throat, but no sound escaped.
Make it stop! I silently demanded.
And then it did. Reality snapped back into focus, objects took on human proportions again as the distortion effect eased. The world inside the warehouse stopped bleeding and returned to normal. Well, as normal as it could be with fiery red light streaming in through the windows.
Cyon touched the devil’s coffin, and the runes on its wooden surface dimmed. He seemed pleased with himself.
I felt like the dimensional jump had aged me by decades. I felt drained, bruised, and torn up from the inside out on a molecular level.
Cyon sauntered over to the window and peered outside. I don’t know how, but I stumbled to my feet and joined him. We both looked out at the nightmare city that stretched out before us. For a surreal beat, I thought I was seeing the Cursed City. Then my eyes adjusted and locked in on the details. The familiar buildings were all made from human bones.
This was the real Cursed City.
I bit my lip, tasted copper and braced myself against the wall for support.
We’d made it. We had achieved the impossible and crossed over into the dimension of fear.
Cyon regarded me with a disturbing smile. “Welcome to Hell, Raven.”
I shuddered. He sounded like someone who had come home.
11
Archer followed the dead woman into the Bone City’s sewer system. Was she crazy for trusting this lost soul? By the woman’s own account, she wasn’t exactly a saint. She’d ended up in Hell for a good reason. But what choice did Archer have? She had started hunting vampires a few months ago and only recently graduated to battling other monsters like witches and ghouls. Nothing had prepared her for a trip to Hell.
Talk about irony. While Raven and Cyon continued to work around the clock to find a way here, she’d accidentally ended up in dimension of fear. A realm from which there was no escape. Well, at least under normal circumstances. According to the woman leading the way, the living could escape this place. The mysterious subway would make another stop in the coming twenty-four hours if it stuck to its earlier schedule, and Archer could conceivably hitch a ride home the same way Parker Wang had.
It sounded too easy to be true.
The train confounded her in more ways than one. What sort of magic allowed a subway to shuttle between worlds? Who had set it in motion? And what did they hope to gain from it? She wished she could call on Raven for advice; he was the real expert when it came to all this supernatural weirdness.
She sighed, overwhelmed by it all. Christ, this was definitely above her pay grade. Her stomach rumbled. She was starving. God, what she would give for a meal.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself! Focus on the goal. The mission.
“How much further do we have to go?” Archer asked.
“It won’t be much longer,” the woman replied.
Archer realized the damned soul had never revealed her name. Had she perhaps forgotten it after the spooks fed on her memories? The possibility gave Archer the creeps. Strange burn marks lined the woman’s arms and neck. How many times had the robed demons cornered this poor woman and feasted on her most treasured moments?
Better not to think about it too much.
Her mind shifted to another question. “What happened to the other living people who ended up in this place?”
The woman paused and shook her head. “Only Parker escaped,” she said.
Archer bit back a curse. She clearly saw the missing people’s faces in her mind’s eye. None of them had deserved such a terrible fate.
Archer took a deep breath and forced her anger deep down. She needed to stay focused on the path ahead, on getting home.
“How can I find your daughter once I’m back on Earth?”
The woman paused and turned, her eyes daggering into Archer. The green glowing sewage water added a layer of intensity to the woman’s unflinching gaze.
“Her name…?”
She paused, clearly struggling to recall her daughter’s name, and Archer’s heart broke for the woman. Suddenly she didn’t care what this woman had done while alive. No one deserved such a horrible punishment. She couldn’t stop thinking about her Aunt Michelle, who’d succumbed to Alzheimer’s two years earlier. Aunt Michelle had sported a nearly identical expression, part confusion, part terror at her inability to remember the pertinent details of her life.
The woman’s eyes darted back and forth, her brows furrowed in concentration. “Her name is…Dianna McKendry, yes… I used to call her my Wonder Girl.” Her whole face lit up, thrilled by the simple act of remembering a name. “She lives in Maine with her grandmother…or at least she did while I was still alive…”
Her words trailed off, the implication clear. This woman had no clue how much time had passed on Earth since her soul had been banished to the Bone City. It could have been months, years, or even decades.
Archer’s horror deepened. “And what’s your name?”
The woman stared at her as if she’d asked her for the answer to a complex mathematical problem. She’d been right; the woman didn’t know who she was any longer. The memory of her daughter was the last part of her old life she’d refused to let go of, clinging to it with all her strength.
“It’s okay. I don’t need to know who you are,” Archer said. “If I make it out of here, I’ll find your daughter. She’ll know the message is coming from her mother.”
The woman’s voice trembled with emotion and bordered on panic. “You swear it’s the first thing you’ll do?”
“I told you, we have a deal. You help get me out of this place, and I will let your daughter know how much she matters to you. I promise.”
Archer intended on keeping her word even though she had no idea how a message from beyond the grave would go over. She’d cross that bridge once she made it back to Earth. For now, she needed to focus on more pressing problems, like getting to the train stop before her guide forgot the directions. Fortunately, it seemed that only the memories of the woman’s earthly life had been affected by the spooks’ terrible curse. The woman still knew her way around the underground labyrinth. It made sense, if Archer really thought about it. Good memories would be few and far in a place like this. She would never forget the details of this nightmare city.
Archer lost track of time as they stumbled through the tunnel system. Her spirits lifted as they at last reached a staircase that led her to the surface of this mysterious wor
ld. She was both thrilled and terrified at the same time. It meant they were closing in on their destination, but it also signaled the end of this brief respite from the robed predators that stalked the surface.
They climbed the stairs in silence and emerged in a small chamber that measured about ten feet across. Their footsteps reverberated on the mosaic of bleached human remains.
“We’re almost there,” the woman whispered.
Archer’s guard remained up, unwilling to relax, her hand pressed against the grip of her Glock. If push came to shove, she would battle the demonic bastards to the bitter end.
When they passed through the next doorway, Archer froze. They weren’t alone anymore. Shadowy shapes stirred in the encroaching darkness.
Archer reflexively brought up her gun, but her guide stopped her from squeezing the trigger. “It’s okay. They are just like us. Like me,” she corrected herself.
As Archer’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, she made out more details. The figures were male and female, old and young, their bodies branded by whatever had killed them. There was the bald, emaciated wisp of a man who must’ve succumbed to cancer. The obese woman who might have perished of a heart attack. The tattooed biker riddled with bullets holes.
Souls doomed to suffer for all eternity.
Among the patchwork of earthly injuries, Archer spotted the burn marks. The soulless had fed on them, probably multiple times. How many of their most precious memories had they lost since they’d arrived in this place? Their probing eyes shone with incomprehension, fear, and even hope as they regarded them.
These damned souls know I’m alive. Archer realized.
“They’re hiding from the spooks just like us,” her guide explained. “Just keep moving. Don’t look at them for too long.”
Archer wondered why they needed to avoid the other cursed souls. She received the answer to this question a moment later. The bundled-up figures shambled toward them.
“You’re alive,” one woman declared, her words echoing through the energized crowd.
A man lurking about three feet away lunged at her. Within seconds, more of the hollow-faced figures surrounded her, eager to make contact. Like lepers seeking solace from a miracle healer, they reached out to her, their desperation a palpable force. Almost as if a simple touch from her could restore their flesh-and-blood existence.
In this place of eternal death and damnation, Archer figured her life force burned bright, a beacon of hope and peace. It proved irresistible to the damned.
A howl went up from the crowd, and soon other voices joined in. The figures pleaded with her, desperate for her attention. They all had sins to confess, messages to pass on, regrets to voice. They wanted to tell their stories, and Archer was their best chance at preserving a part themselves.
As their lamentations rose in a chorus of the damned, she let out a strangled sob, overwhelmed by the collective misery on display. Hot tears filled Archer’s eyes, and her resolve faltered. It was too much to process; she felt overwhelmed. Her world grew brittle. She was about to break like a dam under this powerful onslaught of human emotion. She couldn’t turn her back on them.
I have to help them. Someone has to!
She was drowning in their sorrow, choking on their pain. This tide of doomed humanity threatened to sweep her away.
The woman’s strong grip on her wrist snapped her from the paralysis. She pulled Archer away from the seething mob of lost souls. The moans grew distant as the crowd at last thinned, and the damned returned to the shadows that had spawned them. Despite their pain, the lost souls didn’t chase after them. Archer didn’t want to imagine what would have happened if she’d stopped moving.
The Damned were almost as dangerous as the Soulless. She would remember that next time.
Archer clenched her fists, struggling with the surging emotions inside of her.
Keep your cool, girl.
Easier said than done. She inhaled deeply. In and out. That’s right. Breathe. Relax.
She didn’t feel afraid of the Damned. She pitied them and prayed they would soon find some semblance of peace. Perhaps losing one’s memories was the better option in this place.
The woman eyed her knowingly. “I know what you’re thinking. Maybe it’s better to forget in a place where there is no hope.”
Archer held her gaze but didn’t know what to say in response.
“Becoming one of the Soulless offers no solace from the past. The spooks remember their old lives. They remember all the bad parts. All their sins.”
Tears streamed down her face. Archer was about to give her a hug when the damned woman stopped her. Resolve entered her gaze as she wiped away her tears. “No, I don’t deserve anyone’s compassion. I’ve done terrible, terrible things.”
Haven’t we all, Archer mentally added, but the words wouldn’t leave her lips.
Back in control of her feelings, the woman said, “Follow me. We’re almost there.”
A few minutes later, they entered a large space which looked like a train station of a post-apocalyptic city. This was not a destination anyone would ever want to visit.
Her guide pointed at a pair of cobweb-covered escalator stairs which vanished in the tomblike darkness below.
“The train will stop in—”
She broke off, eyes growing alert as she peered down the escalators.
Archer followed her gaze. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“They’re here…”
Archer’s blood turned to ice. The yawning darkness rippled, and the monklike specters emerged up the escalators with lightning speed. Before Archer could fire her gun, two of the specters enveloped the woman.
No!
Their cowled heads descended on her guide’s bare flesh. Sucking sounds filled the chamber as tattered robes enveloped the damned woman.
Rage exploded in Archer as she unloaded a full magazine into the creatures. The spooks reared back, their pain-filled howls ringing through the station.
Good. Scream in pain.
The robes swirled and dispersed and became one with the shadows of the station again. The spooks vanished. Archer hesitated for a beat and snapped a fresh magazine in her Glock.
Once certain the creatures were gone, Archer rushed up to the woman and knelt beside her. Fresh burn marks lined her neck and face. They looked like the sucker marks of a giant squid.
“Are you alright?” Archer’s voice sounded hollow.
What a ridiculous question. Of course she’s not alright. Just look at her! Who would be after an attack like that…
“Hey, I’m so sorry. Can you hear me?”
She peered up at Archer with a blank expression. “Who are you?”
Archer shivered. The soulless had fed too much. Was there anything left of the woman?
“Who are you?” she demanded again. The question hung in the air for a beat.
Why doesn’t she recognize me?
Archer answered her own question. Helping me gave her hope. I’m one of her last good memories. And those bastards took even that from her.
“I’m your friend,” Archer said. “Remember? I’m going to find Dianna and tell her…”
“Who is Dianna?”
Archer flinched. The woman had forgotten her own daughter, the very reason she was helping her.
The damned woman trailed off as her eyes rolled back in their sockets, turning first white, then pitch black.
Her mouth opened, and she unleashed an inhuman shriek.
Archer staggered back, shaken to the core.
Her guide—her only hope of returning to the world of the living—was turning into one of the Soulless.
12
I adjusted the timer on my watch to a Sixty-minute countdown.
Sixty minutes to locate Archer.
Sixty minutes to face and defeat Morgal.
And let’s not even talk about finding a way to free Skulick’s soul from this accursed place.
No pressure now.
If
we failed to return to the warehouse before the one-hour mark was up, we would be doomed to spend the rest of our days in Hell. The only upside—we wouldn’t last long in the dimension of fear. At least I wouldn’t. A snowball would have a better chance in Hell than yours truly. Cyon’s odds might be slightly better. My enemy list had been growing over the years, and there would be a fair share of demons eager to even the score, with Morgal at the top of that list.
We had set ourselves a near impossible challenge, but then again, I never thought we’d make it this far. This whole undertaking would’ve felt like a creative form of suicide if it hadn’t been for Archer and Skulick. I was doing this for them. They needed me.
And thankfully Cyon appeared to have a plan.
He believed the Daemonium would succeed in Hell where Demon Slayer had failed on Earth. The former witch hunter turned demon carried both items on him, and I felt a little naked armed with only Hellseeker and the Seal of Solomon.
Or maybe I missed the demon’s strength and supernatural abilities. Fused in one body, Cyon and I had become far greater than the sum of our parts. Would we function as smoothly as two separate halves of a team?
You do not miss being possessed, Raven. Quit thinking like that, I told myself.
I peered through one of the large windows again, riveted to the nightmare skyline in the near distance. Bone towers stabbed clouds made of sizzling fireballs. The warehouse had materialized on the outer edges of the bone city in a barren, desolate landscape of jagged rocks and fuming geysers. This wasteland stretched for about a mile around the city. A lone roadway paved in human bones cut through the black desert.
Tilting my gaze up at the sky, an ocean of flame greeted me. The burning sky silhouetted the surreal skyline of the bone city a mile up ahead. Peering up at the firmament was like looking into an active volcano or the center of the sun.
Shadow Detective Supernatural Dark Urban Fantasy Series: Books 7-9 (Shadow Detective Boxset Book 3) Page 31