by T R Kohler
A frown formed as Kaia thought on things, putting into order what Typhon was describing. A female with special skills would probably also come with other less desirable attributes, such as ego and stubbornness.
And being told up front the case took precedence would severely limit the lengths Kaia could go to in breaking her.
“Leverage, at least?” Kaia asked.
“Oh,” Typhon said, a wicked grin forming as he leaned forward in his seat, “definitely.”
Chapter Three
Dale a tu cuerpo alegria Macarena...
The volume on the radio was a notch or two above a jackhammer, the small electronic device so close to the bed it felt like it had a speaker lodged behind Ember Squires’s right ear. Ripping her from her slumber, her eyes tightened into a wince, not bothering to even open. In the same instant, both hands reached for her temples, every ingrained response being to cover up, to cease the unwanted intrusion.
Sucking a long drag of air through her teeth, Ember peeled her lips back, her face scrunching slightly. Rolling onto a shoulder, she shot a hand straight out, slapping at the top of the device. Scratchy, threadbare sheets pulled at her skin as she moved, barely even noticeable compared to the unwanted auditory intrusion.
Using the palm of her hand, she swatted the machine into submission, connecting three times before the radio fell mercifully silent. Perched on one shoulder, she waited an instant to make sure the battle was truly over before rolling flat to her back, returning both hands to her temples and rubbing them in slow concentric circles.
“What happened?” she muttered, her voice just barely audible in the silence of the room.
The last few days couldn’t even be construed as a blur. It wasn’t like she had been on an alcoholic bender, images all spliced together in a haphazard menagerie, her mind trying in vain to put them into some sort of coherent sequence.
This was much worse than that.
There simply wasn’t anything there at all, nothing more than a gap, a stretch of black that went back an unknown amount of time, culminating along the shoulder of that damned road.
Que tu cuerpo es pa’darle alegria cosa buena...
The radio sprang back to life beside her, the volume somehow even higher than it had been a moment before. Hurtling past her hands and straight into her ear canals, it threatened a pulsating headache, the thin walls seeming to reverberate from either side.
“Jeezos,” she spat, rolling back onto her shoulder. A spasm of disgust roiled through her as she jerked the covers back, exposing her upper body. Rising onto her left elbow, she balled her right hand into a fist, swinging it down at the radio like a hammer.
This time, the plastic wasn’t nearly as forgiving as her first foray, the thin casing cracking under the force of her blow. Bits of it scattered across the small nightstand, skittering over the smooth surface and falling to the floor below.
In the wake of it, the words of the song slowed, like a record being played at a quarter-speed, before finally coming to a halt.
Maintaining her perch for another moment, her body poised to strike again if need be, Ember stared at the radio. “Go ahead. Start up again.”
Holding the fist by her face, she waited until it was clear the device could do no more harm before lowering herself flat to her back and staring at the ceiling.
The room was hot. Not the sort of warmth caused by a heater that had been blowing hard all night. The kind that she imagined the inside of an oven must feel like. The type that was brought on by the external temperature being much higher and more persistent than expected.
Flicking her gaze to the windows, she could see bright light already filtering in around the sides of the thin, threadbare curtains. Dust motes floated in and out of the slanted rays. Behind them, yellowed paper peeled from the walls.
Returning her focus to the ceiling, she could see swirls of crusted stucco staring back at her. Like miniature stalactites, they were of varying lengths and thicknesses, all reaching her way, fighting a losing battle to make it down to the bed.
Raising both hands to her forehead, she passed her palms back over her skin, thick droplets of sweat peeling back, disappearing into her hairline.
Her head spun as she tried to make sense of her surroundings.
The heat she had expected. That was always the first thing people talked about, the most basic of imagery that was imparted to children starting at an early age.
It was everything else she was still having a hard time coming to grips with.
Using her hands for momentum, Ember rocked herself forward. She sat with the covers bunched around her waist, scanning the interior of the room. Moving from left to right, she took in a folding table and chairs, a box television, a single doorway into the bathroom. Everything looked like it had been installed in the seventies and had lived a fast and hard life ever since.
She cringed to think what might be lurking on the carpet.
“So this is Hell,” she muttered.
On cue, the shattered remains of the clock radio sprang back to life, answering the question she didn’t realize she’d asked out loud.
Dale a tu cuerpo alegria, Macarena. Hey Macarena!
Chapter Four
Ember’s hair was damp as she opened the door to her room and stepped outside into the blinding light. When she’d exited the shower just a few minutes before, she hadn’t bothered toweling it dry, hoping the dripping locks would be enough to keep the early heat at bay.
No luck, the dry air seemed to suck any excess moisture straight away. Just a few more minutes and her long sandy-brown hair promised to be parched.
Which was a stark contrast to the rest of her, a layer of sweat already lining her skin, the morning glare glistening off her. Raising a hand in an attempt to block some of it out, she took two steps forward before stopping, a scowl coming to her lips.
“Morning, sunshine,” a young woman said from a few feet away. No more than her early twenties in age, she was leaning against the front hood of a battered Mustang convertible, her right foot raised up onto the bumper.
Dressed in low-slung jeans and a crop top, most of her shapely form was on plain display, as was plenty of black lace showing on both ends.
Straight blond hair hung down to her chest, framing a face that could have been naturally pretty if not for the cubic gallon of makeup she was wearing.
Leaning back, her hands were braced on the hood behind her, both shoulders raised toward her ears.
“Who are you?” Ember asked, making no effort to hide her contempt for the young tramp sprawled out before her.
For a moment, there was no response. The girl rolled her head to the side, sizing Ember up. One nostril flared slightly as she did so, a look of derision passing over her features.
“You can call me Kaia.”
Ember took another step forward. She folded her arms over her torso and took in the spread around her, glancing to both sides.
The room she had woken up in was in the center of a strip motel of dubious location or origin. Matching doors like the one she’d just stepped from were stretched in either direction, nearly a dozen in total. All painted dark brown, they were offset by the red paint of the building, everything looking to be in some state of disrepair.
Nowhere did there appear to be an office, or even another breathing being, the Mustang and the girl atop it the sole sign of life.
“Kaia what?”
“Does it matter?”
Jerking her gaze back to the girl, Ember could feel her animosity spike. No less than three retorts sprang instantly to mind, each dissipating as fast as they’d arrived. Pushing them down, she again took in the girl, her appearance one that must have been designed in a trailer trash laboratory.
The kind of thing her ex-husband would have referred to as dirty hot.
“Okay,” Ember replied, “what are you?”
The head loll continued, the girl this time swinging her chin in the opposite direction. Once it got th
ere, an impish grin crossed her face, pink lipstick peeling back over gleaming white teeth.
“Nice. You do learn quick.”
Hearing nothing in there that resembled a question, Ember remained silent, waiting for a response she wasn’t entirely certain she wanted to her.
“I am a demon,” Kaia said. “My real name isn’t important, nor is where I came from. What is is why I am sitting here before you now.”
Why she was so quick to dismiss any sort of background information, Ember didn’t pretend to know, not that she much cared. Choosing to again remain silent, she waited almost a full minute before realizing the girl was prompting her, dragging this out, making her ask.
“Okay,” Ember managed, “why are you sitting here before me now?”
The grin grew, the first tiny victory in what Ember guessed would be a million similar contests, as Kaia lifted her face just slightly. “I am here as your handler. As a direct employee here on Earth, we can’t just have you running amok. So from now on, wherever you go, I go. Got it?”
There was so much to unpack in that single declaration, Ember didn’t know where to start. Deciding not to even try just yet, she seized on the lowest-hanging fruit and asked, “We’re still on Earth?”
Her mouth hanging open, Kaia simply stared at her for a moment in disbelief. Slowly, she raised a hand to her face, covering the bottom half of it, her body quivering slightly with stifled chuckles.
There she remained for several seconds before the pressure became too much, her left hand exploding away from her mouth, suppressed laughter pouring out behind it. Loud and shrill, it rolled across the dusty front of the motel, grating on Ember’s nerves.
When finally it fell away, Kaia resumed her place on the hood of the Mustang and said, “What? You thought this was Hell?”
“Well, I just...”
“No,” Kaia said, all previous mirth falling away. Leaning forward, she extended a red-tipped finger toward Ember and said, “No, you don’t just anything. You don’t have a damn clue what Hell is really like, and you have no idea how fast we’ll bounce your ass there if you so much as nudge a toe out of line on my watch. You got that?”
Ember could feel heat rise to her cheeks. More than the steady thrum of the sun above, it was her own vitriol for the girl before her.
If there was one thing she did not abide, it was being spoken down to.
“Because let me tell you,” Kaia added, “if you think you’re anything special, that we don’t have hundreds of new people like you showing up every day, you are wrong. And we have a one-strike policy to let everybody know that.”
Ember knew the outburst was meant to scare her. Part of the first-day orientation, it was a blowhard showing out, making themselves feel important. Every single job she’d ever had always came with at least one.
No reason this one should be any different.
She also knew that nothing good would come from trying to test it. Not now, and maybe not for a long time yet.
“Understood.”
Chapter Five
The concrete divot had once been a swimming pool for the small motel, though the last time it had actually held water looked to be at some point during the Nixon administration. Shaped like a kidney, thick cracks and seams ran throughout it. Weeds had grown, died, and regrown several times through every available crevice, dried and lying like tumbleweeds along the bottom.
Positioned just to the side of the parking lot, the rusted remains of a chain-link fence enclosed the space, offsetting it from the parking lot. Just fifty yards away, the Mustang sat in the same position as when Ember had first stepped outside. The sun now a bit higher in the sky, it blinked off the front windshield, almost blinding in its luminosity.
Seated on the bench seat of the remains of a picnic table beside the pool, Ember held a hand to her brow, looking past the Mustang and peering into the distance. Hoping for any flicker of movement that might denote another living creature, she saw absolutely nothing.
“First things first,” Kaia said, her voice almost singsong, pulling Ember’s attention away from the lot. Seated on the two boards that comprised the top of the table, her feet were on the seat beside Ember.
The smell of cheap perfume was so strong it almost burned Ember’s nose.
Calvin Klein. The scent that her ex-husband’s next wife wore.
Damn, these people were good.
“Welcome to Hell on Earth, though nobody on our side really calls it that. Technically, it’s known as the middle realm.”
Who exactly was being referred to as our side, Ember didn’t feign to have the slightest idea.
Holding her hands out to either side, Kaia rotated at the waist, giving her best The Price is Right imitation. “Kind of snazzy, right?”
A smart retort sprang to Ember’s mind, though she again managed to bite it back.
In due time, but not on the first day.
“Kind of reminds me of Arizona,” she said instead.
“Close,” Kaia said, dropping her hands back into position. “California. Well, southern California.”
Ember felt her eyebrows rise higher. In doing so, droplets of sweat fell down over her eyelashes and across her cheeks as she turned to look at Kaia, trying to determine if she were being led on. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Kaia said. “Right now, we are about ten miles past El Cajon, which is about twenty miles outside of downtown San Diego.”
Keeping her gaze on the girl another moment, waiting for the big reveal, Ember said nothing. When it became apparent none was coming, she shrugged, adding simply, “Huh.”
“Don’t get too hung up on the particulars,” Kaia said. “Today we’re here, next week we could be in Maine or Madagascar. All depends on what needs doing.”
Questions by the handful came to Ember’s mind. Everything from why they were sitting where they were to why nobody else seemed to be around. One at a time, she nudged them to the side, her curiosity not quite enough to make her want to rush to the end just yet.
Besides, it wasn’t like Kaia didn’t seem to be getting off on everything that was happening.
“Second,” Kaia continued, “just because we are in the middle realm doesn’t mean we’re guaranteed to stay here. We had that shot, and we both blew it.
“That means if we want to stick around now, we’ve got to play by the rules.”
It seemed like an unnecessarily lavish opening, though Ember let it go. The longer they were sitting here talking, the less time they were off doing something else.
Something much less tolerable, most likely.
“Which brings me to the third part,” Kaia said, “which are the rules. There are a shit ton of them - too many to get into right now - so I’ll just start with the big ones.
“Number one: like I said, you are in the possession of Hell, and we can put you back there as needed. Just because we’re sitting here doesn’t change that one bit.
“We will make things as unpleasant as we can for you here, but this place is a damn health spa compared to where you could be.”
Pausing to drive home her point, she turned and glared at the side of Ember’s head.
Ember didn’t return the gesture, or even bother to respond in any way.
“And you will not complain about it,” Kaia added. “That damn song that woke you up this morning? The lack of hot water or coffee in your room? Expect a lot more where that shit came from.”
With each passing word, the tone of Kaia’s voice changed, moving from annoying and shrill to hard and resolute.
“First time you say a word about it, things will get ugly. The next time, they will get even uglier.”
Leaning forward, she pushed her nose to within just a few inches of Ember’s cheek, her breath hot and rancid.
“Because the thing you have to remember is, we’ve got you. Whatever you did to earn your time here doesn’t matter. Fact is, you made a deal, and if you renege in any way, so do we. Got it?”
S
nippets of the last coherent memory Ember had returned to the fore. The cold and blowing snow. The moaning wail of Don Felder’s guitar at the end of “Hotel California” drifting through the air, the layered irony of it not lost on her.
And everything else that came thereafter.
To even consider going back on it, contemplating the alternative, was more than she was prepared for. Now, or ever.
“Sorry, this one is non-negotiable,” Kaia said. “I need a verbal confirmation. You dig?”
Nodding slightly, Ember tried to find her voice. Sitting like a lump at the base of her throat, she swallowed hard. “I got it.”
Sitting perfectly still for a moment, and then another, Kaia’s face eventually broke into a smile. The previous smell of her breath evaporated, as did the heat that seemed to be roiling off her. “Good! That was the hard part. Now we can move into the more fun topics.”
Leaning back, she placed her hands on either side of her, raising her face toward the sun. Rolling it to either side, letting it fall on her cheeks, she said, “Rule two. As of now, Ember Squires no longer exists.”
Feeling her brow come together, Ember cast a glance to the side. “I thought-”
“Right, the corporeal Ember Squires ended when you did a few days ago,” Kaia said, not bothering to so much as open her eyes. “What I mean is, all parts of that Ember Squires must be left behind. You can never reach out to anybody you knew, can’t try to act like some sort of guardian angel to anybody you think needs your help.”
A quick jolt of animosity passed through Ember, her features twisting up. Rising to the tip of her tongue was a sharp retort. Her head turned to deliver it before she remembered the warning she’d been issued just a moment before.
“My name?”
“Your name can stay,” Kaia said. “Ember Squires isn’t that common, but it won’t be an issue.”
“Oh,” Ember said, nodding as if she understood what the cryptic response was supposed to mean.