“Where does this place end?” I asked aloud.
“It doesn’t.”
My head whipped toward the quaking, unfamiliar voice, which came from somewhere behind me. As I peered into the darkness, another figure emerged on the floor a few feet away from me. It gazed up at me with flame-blue eyes, and pulled back in horror. Although this thing wasn’t Eli or Gaby, it resembled their projected forms so closely that I knew it had to be some shadow of a ghost.
“Who are you?” I breathed, leaning away from the creature.
“A former reaper,” he replied. “I once gathered souls for this place. I trained an assistant as well. . . . You may have met him?”
I stared at him blankly, and then it hit me. “You’re Eli’s former master. The one he replaced.”
The old reaper gave a laugh that sounded more like a cough. “For all the good it did him.”
“Why are you here?” I demanded. “With me?”
“I’m here to guide you, obviously.” Despite his decrepit state, he managed to sound petulant.
“Where?”
“To your room,” he answered flatly, as if that was supposed to make sense. Seeing my confused frown, he waved at the endless row of black doors. “Everyone has their own room.”
I glanced around, feeling a slow chill creep over me. That was hell, then. Each soul confined to its own room, its own torture.
“Show me,” I whispered.
The old reaper bowed his head slightly and then began to move. But instead of standing up to guide me, he crawled along the floor, dragging himself inch by inch with his hands. Trying not to gag, I followed him down the hallway until he paused outside a door that was indistinguishable from all the others.
“Try this one,” he offered.
My hand shook as I reached for the doorknob. It felt an awful lot like that gunshot—hot and cold at the same time against my palm. Still shaking, I turned the knob and opened the door on a plain room that looked much like the outer hallway: simple, dark, and painted gray. But in its center, a middle-aged man in a suit sat in a straight-backed chair. He was crying and staring so intently forward that I couldn’t help but follow his gaze. There, hanging on the wall in front of him, was a picture of a woman. She wasn’t pretty nor was she smiling. But he still sobbed, watching her picture with that traumatized, wide-eyed stare.
I turned back to the former reaper, frowning. “I don’t understand.”
“You wouldn’t—it’s all very personal. Try another door, if you don’t believe me.”
So I did, closing that door and opening the one to the very next room. This room was far more interesting: it looked like the inside of a circus tent, with brightly colored silks hanging from the walls. Again, a person occupied the middle of the room, except this time it was a teenage girl in a pink tutu, sitting cross-legged on the floor. In her lap lay what looked like a wounded white rabbit. The poor animal continued to whimper and squirm . . . with no discernible change. Although I watched it for a long time, the rabbit never recovered or died; it just went on in that perpetual agonized state. At first, I thought that the rabbit was being punished, but when I saw the girl’s face—red and cracked from all the tears she’d shed—I thought otherwise.
For some reason, this room disturbed me more than the first. I shut the door quickly, moving on to view room after room in the hope that I’d find something better. But of course I didn’t.
There was the wrinkled old woman drinking from a bottle of whiskey that kept refilling itself after each swig; the man suspended midair, in what looked like a vat of water; the little boy who couldn’t seem to stop digging in a patch of foul-smelling mud; the gorgeous young woman applying and reapplying the same garish shade of red lipstick in front of a cracked mirror; the elderly man watching a single hanging lightbulb swing back and forth.
On and on the rooms went, each containing a person who seemed to be locked in some inexplicable moment, staring at the same scenery or repeating the same relentless tasks over and over for all eternity—scenes and tasks chosen especially for them, from some cruel place in their psyche.
Hell isn’t other people, I thought, recalling something Melissa had said in the prairie. Hell is yourself.
Finally, I’d had enough of this tortured voyeurism. And anyway, I had no idea how much time I’d passed down here—no idea how much time my mother had left.
“Can you show me my friends’ rooms?” I asked roughly.
For some reason, the old reaper grinned. “Of course.”
He dragged himself onward for a long stretch of hallway, until he stopped outside another nondescript black door. “Here you go,” he grunted, slapping one palm against the metal. “Eli Rowland.”
I approached the door slowly, hesitantly. I held the doorknob for so long that, when the reaper cleared his throat impatiently, I simply had to yank it open, almost like ripping off a Band-Aid.
This room was one of the largest I’d seen, and the most occupied. It appeared as though an enormous concert venue stretched out in front of me, full of a teeming mass of laughing, dancing, singing people. All of them faced a stage, upon which an outrageously dressed band played a catchy rock song. Everyone in this room seemed happy; joyous, even. Everyone except one person, who stood close to the stage. I almost didn’t recognize Eli, he looked so dorky in his plain khaki bell-bottoms, burgundy sweater, and horn-rimmed glasses. I would have laughed, were it not for the look on his face. He stared up at that stage with such misery, such longing, that it actually hurt me to see him like this.
So this was Eli’s real prison: exclusion and anonymity.
I slammed Eli’s door shut, closed my eyes, and leaned against it. Once I’d somewhat recovered my breath, I opened my eyes and whispered, “Gaby, please.”
My guide pointed at the door to my right. “She’s his neighbor. . . . Go ahead and have a peek.”
Trying to glare at him, I turned to Gaby’s door and then yanked it open like I had Eli’s.
I wasn’t too surprised by what I found inside. The entire room looked like it was underwater. In fact, when I brushed my fingertips along the shimmering wall in front of me, they drew away wet. Inside, buried beneath all that water, a car floated nose downward. And inside the car, I could see three figures, frozen with permanent screams plastered to their faces: an attractive older couple in the front seat, Gaby in the back. Gaby was staring wide-eyed at an empty seat beside her, as though there was an invisible person there, drawing her attention.
Was that where Kade once sat?
Gaby and her parents had died after crashing into a river because Kade had forced their car off a bridge. And now Gaby had to relive that moment for all eternity. There was no worse fate—I would know.
I slammed this door shut even harder than I had Eli’s, glancing back at the old reaper without even attempting to hide my tears. He watched hungrily as I cried, like he enjoyed it. So I wiped the tears away, as fast as I could.
“Why wasn’t Kade LaLaurie in there with Gaby?” I demanded, glancing up and down the hall. “Where’s his room?”
Finally, my guide looked less smug—he even trembled a little. “Doesn’t have one.”
I frowned, trying not to let myself show hope, or excitement. “Why not? Too important to the cause?”
“Because,” my guide spat, “you ended him. There is no Kade LaLaurie anymore.”
I couldn’t stop my small gasp of relief. My salvation—Gaby’s and Eli’s and Serena’s salvation—might happen as I’d planned. Assuming that Gaby, Eli, and Serena agreed to it, and that my tactics worked.
I straightened my mouth into a hard line, praying that my face gave nothing away. Luckily, the old reaper didn’t seem very observant. So I asked my final question.
“Serena’s room? Where is it?”
He made that laugh-cough sound again. “She doesn’t have one yet. The masters have . . . another purpose in mind for her, first.”
The reaper thought he was being so clever. So cryp
tic. But I already suspected what the demons wanted Serena to do: kill me all over again, once I’d arrived at my room; end my existence for good like I’d done to Kade. Only the demons could decide when that event would occur—tonight or a millennium from now, after I’d received some sufficient torture.
I took one shuddering breath, and then I turned back to the old reaper. “Well, why wait, then?” I asked. “Show me to my room, please.”
With an ugly smirk, the reaper bowed his head. “Whatever you say.”
I kept my steps steady as I followed him, even though we seemed to walk for hours down that monotonous hallway. Not for the first time, I wondered whether this was part of the torture too: knowing that you weren’t some special victim, escorted in grand fashion to your eternal punishment; you were just one door, out of countless millions.
But when we finally reached it, I took a shocked backward step. Unlike the hundreds—maybe thousands—of doors we’d already passed, mine lay open. Waiting for me to walk inside.
So I did just that, without a single glance over my shoulder at the nasty creature who’d obviously enjoyed his former job, even more than Eli.
My room was so dark, I couldn’t see anything in the instant after the door slammed shut behind me. But before the slam stopped ringing, a row of auditorium lights came on at the other end of the room. I blinked, momentarily blinded by their shine. When my eyes adjusted, however, I saw what I’d expected I would: a tribunal of demons were sitting in what resembled a jury box. My room even looked like a courtroom with its high ceilings and paneled walls—all in gray, of course.
The second I saw the demons, my glow flared bright; I doubted it would disappear the entire time I was in their presence. This was both lucky and unfortunate, since it made me appear far more rebellious than I would have liked.
The male demon with whom I was familiar—Belial—sat in the middle. Once he’d made eye contact with me, he stood to open his arms benevolently.
“Amelia Elizabeth Ashley,” he said. “Welcome home.”
Inexplicably, I laughed. Then I reminded myself of what I’d come here to do and composed my expression into something more serious. More reverent, even.
“Thank you,” I whispered, in my most respectful tone. “I’m sorry that it took me so long to make this decision.”
Judging by their frowns and whispers, the demons had expected defiance—not submission. I took advantage of the moment, falling to my knees and bowing low to the floor.
“What is the meaning of this?” Belial demanded. “Why do you bow?”
“Because I am sorry,” I said, my voice muffled. “I thought I could fight you, but tonight, I came to realize that you truly are more powerful. And . . . and I don’t want you to destroy me.”
When the demons began to chuckle, I allowed myself a glance upward. Belial caught my gaze, flashed me that sharp-toothed smile, and waved his hand at an empty corner of the room. There, a black shadow solidified into Serena Taylor, looking very much like the puppet I’d seen the week before.
“I know that Serena is part of your plan for me,” I said hurriedly. “And I beg you to reconsider.”
Belial grinned again, but this time I could see a trace of respect in the smile. “You are a clever one, aren’t you?”
“Maybe,” I said, bowing my head so that I didn’t seem prideful. “But don’t you think I could be useful too? That I could serve you, far better than Kade or Eli or that thing out there in the hallway? I’ve outsmarted two out of three of them—don’t you think that counts for something?”
Now the murmurs flew so wildly between the demons that they sounded like buzzing bees. After a long, obviously contentious pause—during which Belial conferred with his hive-mind companions—he turned back to me and smirked.
“Perhaps you would be useful, in the position we originally chose for you. But we cannot trust you; just remember what you did to poor Kade.”
My heart wrenched inside my chest, but I kept my face impassive. Earnest.
“Let me prove myself to you,” I offered. “Let me kill someone and then drag their soul here, to you.”
Now, that intrigued the demon. He raised one eyebrow, grinning. But then he shook his head with feigned sadness. “How could one soul matter, Amelia? What would some stranger who you pluck off the street prove?”
“What if it wasn’t a stranger?” I countered, barely speaking above a whisper now. “What if I killed my own mother?”
Chapter
THIRTY-FOUR
I don’t believe that you would do such a thing,” Belial said, sneering down at me. “That you even could.”
But despite the demon’s words, he didn’t look convinced one way or the other. In fact, he seemed to appraise me with a mixture of doubt and . . . maybe respect?
“Make me a wraith,” I suggested. “Just for the killing. That way I won’t have any choice—I’ll have to do what I promised. Then, if I don’t deliver, you can make me stay a wraith.”
“Or destroy you anyway,” another demon hissed from the jury box. I gulped but said nothing. Belial considered these options for a moment and then smiled.
“What have we got to lose?” He laughed, turning slightly to his companions so that they could share his amusement. “This sounds like an interesting night’s entertainment—one we haven’t had in a long time. So shall we agree to it?”
“Wait!” I called, holding up my hand like a child in school. “I do have one condition.”
Now, Belial looked less entertained. I could tell that he was about to deny whatever I said, so I spilled my request in a rush of words.
“All I ask is that you bring Gabrielle Callioux, Eli Rowland, and the real Serena Taylor here, so that if you decide to destroy me, then you destroy them and my mother as well. If I go, they all go.”
Each of the demons balked for a moment and then began to laugh uproariously.
“What an inspired suggestion!” Belial crowed. “How on earth did you come up with it?”
I shrugged as best I could in my groveling position. “If I can’t survive in some form, why should they?”
I could tell from the demons’ subsequent laughs that I’d just spoken a language they understood well: the language of callousness; of selfishness; of cruelty for sport. If I told the demons the truth—that I wanted to spare the people I loved an eternity of torture in this place—then my appeal would surely have been denied. But stating the request as I had, I’d captured their interest further.
After a few more seconds of amused deliberation with his companions, Belial faced me again.
“All right, Amelia Ashley—we will make you a wraith for the sole purpose of killing your own mother and bringing her soul to us here, in this room. Then, when you return, we’ll decide what to do with you.”
Once again, I lowered my gaze to the floor. “Thank you. Thank you for this chance.”
I heard them laughing, mocking my decision. So I spared another glance upward, just in time to see Belial flap his hand at me dismissively.
Abruptly, my ears began to ring. I sat upright and tried to clap my hands over my ears but found that I’d lost control of my arms. They wouldn’t move, no matter how much I ordered them to. Suddenly, I couldn’t move my legs, either. Or my mouth or my eyes or anything else.
I’d lost control of my own body.
That wasn’t to say that I’d stopped moving. On the contrary, some outside force had animated me into standing, turning around, and walking like some wooden soldier into the hallway. Evidently, a mere wave of the demon’s hand had turned me into an automaton.
As I crossed into the hall, I could see the old reaper waiting for me with a condescending sneer. His expression shifted into one of astonishment, however, when I stopped just a few inches past him and then rose several feet into the air.
While I hovered there, immobile, a black shadow crawled across one wall of the hallway to envelop me. Although I could tell that it had obscured my entire body, I could se
e out of the shadow as clearly as if it were glass. Of course, that didn’t mean that I’d regained even an ounce of control. I was still the puppet of whatever force was manipulating my body right now: fully aware of my actions, but unable to stop them.
The shadow held me in the air, floating inertly for a few more seconds. Then, without warning, it rocketed me down the hallway. I flew so fast that I wanted to scream in terror. I even tried, but the sound died in my throat.
I had no idea how fast or far I’d flown when the shadow jerked me to an abrupt stop and then my body shot upward, toward the ceiling. I thought that I would slam into it—the butt of some demonic joke, after all. But just before I crashed into it, the ceiling parted like a storm cloud, allowing me to pass through without harm.
I continued to shoot upward through an utter, impenetrable blackness. I wanted to look down, to see how far below me the hallway was, but I couldn’t; my eyes stayed fixed on some unseen target, high above me.
I didn’t have to wait long to find out where I was headed. Without warning, I burst through the darkness and into a glittering, purplish space that could only be the netherworld. In my peripheral vision, I could just make out the edge of High Bridge, looming to my right.
Of its own volition, my wraith body continued to swoop high into the night sky, shrieking as it did so. I couldn’t help but marvel at the sound that tore out of me—it was so plaintive, so desperate, that I wondered how I’d missed the agonized quality of the wraiths’ shrieks before now.
Finally, my wraith body reached the peak of its ascent and then arced back around to dive. On the surface of the bridge, I could just make out a group of figures: still-glowing Seers and their friends, as well as a handful of luminescent ghosts. I didn’t have to tell the shadow which figure to target; it was already making a sharp beeline for my mother, who looked as though she could hardly stay on her feet any longer.
I was less than a hundred feet from her when I had a sudden thought—one that I desperately hoped would work, if only for a few seconds. As I continued to dive, I repeated the same word over and over in my mind, like a prayer.