18. Dante
DANTE
We weave silently through the trails crossing the bog. The chirping of crickets is broken by the gasping, screaming, weeping, and thrashing of souls drowning. Repeatedly.
I want to stop. Try to help another.
But somehow I know what Virgil says is true. I cannot save anyone here.
Hearing the guttural cries, grief torn from the very essence of being, sounds I didn't know a human throat could produce, has left me heavy with a weight I can't name.
I slide my hands into my pockets, only to realize I'm wearing different clothing. Dark, well-fitted trousers and a navy wool pullover with a zipper at the throat. When did that happen? It's perhaps this startling revelation that spills words from my lips.
“Is my father here?”
Virgil glances over at me, and there's something soft in his expression. He is layers of softness—soft curls, soft words, soft voice. He is everything I've denied myself for a decade, and somehow I feel drawn to him like oxygen now. I step closer, but not too close. He’ll pull back if I do.
He clears his throat. “You wouldn’t find him in these swamps. There are other places... for souls who are more... tormented. When they've done a great deal of harm to others."
"Ah." This realization lands heavier than I would expect, like I've swallowed one of the dozens of glass trophies my father proudly displayed in that office he gained through using and abusing those weaker than him, by doing the same to me.
It bothers me that it bothers me. The bastard deserved hell. A part of me wants him to drown for eternity, to never escape the misery of this place.
But another part—the part that hears the wails and terror ripping from throats filled with the same pungent, brackish water I've had in my own mouth, choked on myself—draws me up short.
"Is this what hell is really like?" I gesture around us. "People begging for help and not receiving it? Stuck in their hopelessness and misery. Some of it misery that others forced onto them?"
Virgil looks over to a lake where two men wail.
One goes under and doesn't resurface. Then he looks at me with a gaze so searing I nearly feel the whip of it sting my flesh.
But his voice is gentle as a spring breeze.
"From what I understand from those I've guided, and my own limited mortal experience, I think life was just like this.
Only here, people don't bother with masks and stories. People often don’t help in the mortal world either, and in that realm, much good could have come from their intervention. "
I gape at him as a memory slams into me.
Ms. Hernandez begging me to give her a single day off to spend with her dying mother.
Something about this revelation steals the breath from me.
He's right, of course. I saw people who needed a limb offered into the waters where they drowned every single day.
I had resources, connections, and influence.
And I walked right past them, avoiding eye contact, leaving them to sink.
I felt justified in my decisions. After all, I'd never harmed anyone intentionally. I asked nothing of others.
Now, walking to the riotous shrieks of hopeless souls in hell, it all feels so hollow.
"What kind of literature did you enjoy in life?” Virgil's eyes twinkle, his lips lifting. But there's something else there, too. Like he knows I need this distraction.
"Mostly business journals and quarterly reports." The answer spills from me before I can think it through, and it feels as hollow as I do when it sits between us. "Of recent years, at least."
"And what did you enjoy in earlier years?"
The light in the sky is golden and hazy choking the horizon. I clear my throat. "I perhaps... when I was much younger... enjoyed some fantasy."
"Fantasy!" Virgil claps his hands as if we aren't two miserable souls walking through hell listening to the agonies of the damned like grocery store muzak. "So you too enjoy the epics. Homer and Ovid and—ah, what's his name—Shakespeare! Yes!"
"Shakespeare didn't write fantasy. He wrote romances."
"Romances?" Virgil scoffs and flings his hands away from himself as if he wants to hurl the entire notion into the swamp. “I’ve had several souls share his stories with me and never heard a single romance. Name one."
"Romeo and Juliet."
“I know it. But it's in no way a romance.
Mind, I'm just an author of antiquity speaking of work far past my time, but Juliet was a child by any era's standard.
I thought it was more a commentary on the destructive nature of foolish feuding between different groups—and perhaps how intense love and intense hate are both equally capable of harm. "
This catches me entirely unprepared. He's right, of course.
Juliet was—what? Thirteen? Fourteen? I can't recall; it's been so long since I last read it.
But that feels correct. A child, caught between forces of intensity, desperate enough to escape that she'd start down a path ending in her own death.
I wonder how I ever saw it as a romance.
"Who was your favorite author?" Virgil asks. Then, with a chuckle, "Before, I mean. When you read literature."
"Tolkien, probably."
"Tolkien, now that's a name I don't know. You'll have to tell me—"
"Virgil!" a voice growls like a lioness whose lair we've stumbled into, cutting through his words like a blade.
A woman emerges from behind a tree. She's small, slim, and fine-boned, but emanates so much fury it makes her seem larger.
Her eyes are wide and glittering, fixed on Virgil like he's prey she'd like to tear apart.
She wears a high-collared blouse with frills at the neck, but with a man's jacket over top, broadening her shoulders, her entire figure like some avenging specter.
"Constance," Virgil says in a voice I've yet to hear from him. It's the sound of the last peal of a bell in a church scheduled for demolition.
She smiles, and she's all teeth—all pale flesh and bones sharp and defined. Her dark curls are matted to her skull, like they dried damp and never recovered.
"You sanctimonious liar!" She speaks at a normal volume, but it carries like she's screaming, drowning out the cries of those around us. "You faithless coward!"
Virgil shrinks at her accusations, his shoulders slumping. "Constance, I can still help you. Come with us and—"
"Help me?" She laughs a sharp, broken sound. "You already taught me what your help costs."
Virgil's eyes grow glassy. He parts his lips like he might speak, then gives his head a shake.
"Oh yes, you bloody coward. Look away. You always did prefer absence to consequence."
I can't take another moment of her abuse, or the way it's causing Virgil, the man who smirks and jokes in hell, who sees beauty past all the pain and misery he's immersed in, to wilt.
"Who are you?" I demand, stepping in front of Virgil.
She looks me up and down and wrinkles her nose. "Let me guess. You're following that lout as your 'guide.' He's promised you the entire moon and the sea with it. He'll help you get through hell and make it to your ascension. To all the bright glory and hope that awaits you. Is that right?"
"Not quite." After all, Virgil never promised ascension.
She sneers. "He's lying to you, you ought to know. Already dragged you out into the swamps, I see."
"We're out here because of my choices, actually."
She laughs again, and there's no humor in it. "Or he wants you to think as much." Then her smile goes cruel, revealing straight, perfect teeth beneath her ragged exterior. "You know he's looking for you, don't you, Virgil? Came here asking for you by name."
Virgil closes his eyes for a moment and whispers, "I'm sure that is true."
She turns back to me. "Has this bloody bastard told you the truth of himself yet? Has he told you what he is?" Before I can consider a response, she lifts her chin and all but growls: "He's a demon."
"That's untrue," I shout.
"Ask him, then." She points an accusing finger at Virgil. "Ask him if I lie."
I look at Virgil. He meets my gaze but offers no answer.
My stomach sinks.
A wind, ripping and merciless, rattles the half-dead limbs above us.
"Tell him what you did to me," she shrieks.
"Constance." Virgil's voice is oil on a stubborn pan, lotion on cracked flesh.
"No!" She smiles until her gums show. "No, tell him how you dragged me out here and abandoned me.
Tell him how you left me so others like you—other demons—could tear me apart.
Tell him the damned truth, Virgil. Tell him how you can feed on him.
" Her eyes are both dark and bright, illuminated by a malicious flame.
It reminds me of the deranged Christmas tree in my first loop here.
"Tell him how you can feed on his soul to feel again.
How if you rake your claws into his pain, you get pleasure. "
"Enough," I intone with the kind of voice that has ended hostile negotiations and silenced boardrooms.
The woman quiets for a moment, then looks me dead in the eye. "You'll notice he hasn't denied any of it."
She's right. I have noticed that.
I've also noticed a few other things. Like how Virgil has bowed his head, curled his shoulders. How he hasn't denied her accusations, but he also hasn’t confirmed them. How he first offered for her to come with us.
Maybe I'm a fool. But I'm very good at reading people. And Virgil isn't wearing the kind of guilt that tells of wrongdoing—he's wearing the other kind. The kind that says he wishes he could have done more. That he feels her failure is one he owns.
He really is so damned readable.
If he stood as a representative in my boardroom, I'd rake him over the coals.
But he is not the object of my ire at this moment.
I turn on the woman. "What loop did you get caught in?"
"That doesn't matter," she spits back. "He led me astray! He said he'd stay by my side, that he'd help! But he abandoned me—"
"No," I snap. "You stayed. He didn't lead you astray. He walked with you until you turned away from him yourself.” My nose flares. “I know that road. He nearly left me as well, didn't you, Virgil?"
It's the wrong question. His eyes dart to me, and there's something there.
And I realize it then.
His answer is no.
He wasn't going to leave me.
But—
“Believe whatever you wish.” The woman sniffs.
"It's all right. I don't need a guide anymore.
" She hisses this at Virgil. "I've learned how to barter in this place.
How to survive." Then she looks at me again.
"When you realize you've made a mistake, you can come find me.
I know the truth of this place. Everything he tells you is laced with lies. "
She saunters off, and my fists curl as I watch her go.
When she's gone, I stomp a foot and turn to Virgil. "What loop did she get caught in?"
He stares off into the distance, his gaze unfocused, like he's hearing something else entirely. "Vanity," he answers. "She longed to have meaning. To feel beautiful and important." Then, softer, "She was broken too, Dante. Your judgment of her is perhaps unfair."
"Why?" I shout. "She tells nothing but lies about you, blames you for her own decisions. I'm assuming you didn't shove her into the water?"
"Of course not."
"Did you fight for her?"
"As much as I could." He looks up, and his gaze is haunted. I want to wrap myself around this man, shield him, dare anyone to use their vicious tongues and scorching eyes to harm him again.
“Clearly she dragged herself out of her swamp—"
"But she's still stuck. Yes, I know." Virgil looks immeasurably sad about this. Then, with a sigh, he turns back to me. "Not everything she said was a lie, though."
I stare at him, running through all the nonsense she'd bitterly spat at us both.
Virgil lifts his hand. It's the closest he's gotten to me thus far. His fingers are beautiful. Long and elegant, slight calluses where someone might grip a stylus. "Take my hand."
I frown at this request, but it's easy enough to honor. I reach up and grab his hand—
And miss somehow. My fingers fly through his palm, the acceleration overestimating, causing me to flail my arm forward awkwardly.
"You see," he whispers. "You cannot touch me."
"What does that mean?"
He slices his eyes toward me, and they're the darkest they've been since we met. Darker than the bogs. Darker than the endless black skies. "It means I'm a demon, Dante."
"No," I reply, nearly automatically. "This realm is strange, and—"
"The woman in the water could touch you. Even the beings in your visions can offer you a handshake. You can't interact with me because I'm not corporeal."
This realization is like waking from a nightmare, cold sweat peppering my skin, only to see the same shadow from the dream streaking across the wall. "Demons can't interact with the world here?"
"Not unless they feed on some soul’s pain and misery." Virgil turns away from me, his shoulders curving inward.
The truth hits me, and I'm so relieved to have been right that I realize pride is still a millstone slung about my neck. "She's wrong, then. If you choose not to abuse others, then you're no demon, Virgil. A dog can't help that it has teeth, but it chooses whether to bite."
This brings some levity back to his expression. "Ever consider writing? That's a clever sentiment."
“What— I mean, how did this happen to you?"
He releases a sigh and looks up toward the stench-glow sky. When he looks back at me, there's something in his face I haven't seen before. Not shame, exactly. Something older. Like he's about to open a door that's been sealed for a very long time.