Chapter Twelve #2
“Nobody down here passes judgment. Not in that scope. If the souls are on that train, judgment has been made. The devils are just responsible for figuring out where they belong.”
“Devils…plural?”
Luke takes the final bite of his burger, chewing thoughtfully. For someone who was only a bit hungry, he inhaled his food. I itch to snatch one of the last remaining fries, but stay my hand.
“Plural. This same structure, more or less, is repeated for every branch. Or continent, I guess.”
“There are seven devils?” I gawk.
“Shh,” he hushes me as our waitress comes back.
“Can I get ya anything else?” she asks. I shove another bite of pancake into my mouth to disguise the fact that I’m still reeling from this new information.
“Just the bill. How far are we from the nearest entrance to the Night Market?” Luke asks.
“Probably ten miles or so,” she says.
“What about a junkyard or garage? Anything nearby?”
Bringing her pen to her lips, she gnaws on the cap thoughtfully. “On your way to the Night Market, you’ll pass through a small town with not much to see. But you might find something. Once you’re there, the market entrance is only a few miles away.”
“Thank you,” Luke says.
She nods, pulling the half-chewed pen cap off with her teeth and swallowing it as she places a handwritten bill on the table before ambling back to the kitchen.
Luke turns back to me, brow creasing as I push away my half-eaten plate of pancakes. “You might want to finish that. I can’t guarantee when our next meal will be.”
“I’m still stuck on the whole seven-devils thing,” I admit, though I do manage one more bite.
“Actually…eight.” Luke’s wary expression might’ve made me laugh if I didn’t feel so queasy. “The seven devils that manage their respective branches make up the board that serves the true devil, who acts as the Chairman of the Board or President. But nobody has ever actually seen him.”
“So how do you know he exists?”
Luke picks at his remaining fries. “You just do. It’s not so different from the overworld.
Angels walk among you, as do smaller, lesser-known guardians.
But nobody ever sees what’s beyond that.
It’s about faith, isn’t it? If people have faith up there in one deity, it’s not outlandish for people to have faith down here in the other.
There always has to be a sense of balance between the worlds. This is it.”
“Do the devils get along?”
Luke’s nose wrinkles, a look so boyish that my belly warms, though maybe that’s the pancakes.
“They mostly keep to their branches, which is for the better. There’s no reason to interact except for the centennial Devils’ Summit. It’s basically a big conference.”
“That sounds like a blast,” I drily retort.
“Couldn’t tell you.” He shrugs, sipping his tea. “Anyway, we should get going so we can reach the Night Market right when it opens. It gets busier as the night goes on.”
“What’s at the Night Market?”
“Since we need to make the rest of the trek to Beliar on our own, we’ll need some things. Primarily, money. I have just enough to cover this. At the market, I can make trades for more.”
“I take it they don’t accept Venmo?” I joke as he digs around in his backpack. He shoots me a look and I raise my hands in surrender. “Sorry. I’m going to the bathroom. Thanks for paying.”
I find the restroom and do my business in the tiny stall.
As I wash my hands, my reflection stares back at me in the dirty mirror.
Pale olive skin begging for vitamin D, thick dark brows, two-day-old mascara, lips chapped and sporting bite marks from my teeth chewing them up.
I’m just a girl in a shitty diner bathroom.
Nobody would guess I’m in hell, least of all me.
Outside, Luke is waiting. I grab my duffel from him and this time he doesn’t argue.
We walk for the better part of the afternoon, and the sky continues to darken as the clouds knot together. When we come to the next train stop, Luke pauses to check the map and directs us to veer down a road. It brings us to a patch of worn-down houses.
“Is this town abandoned?” I ask Luke as we make our way down the cracked street. Weeds and wilted wildflowers push through the gaps.
“Apparently.” Since leaving the diner, he’s grown tense. His hand hovers near his waist, where his dagger is tucked.
“Are we still in Pennsylvania?” I ask, looking at the outline of skyscrapers in the distance.
“The Night Market entrance is on the border of West Virginia, which is the Department of Commerce, so yes.”
“What do you mean the entrance?”
“As I said, hell is incredibly orderly. It has to be, otherwise it will devolve into chaos. But the Night Market is different—a lawless place for trade, some legal, but most not. It’s a type of subliminal space that exists on its own plane with entry points throughout hell.
All lead to the same place, but when you leave, you end up where you started. ”
“Sounds like a place we should avoid.”
“Absolutely,” he agrees. “But we don’t have a choice.”
We enter the main section of town as the creepy houses are replaced with boarded-up storefronts. Paired with the overcast sky, it’s the perfect set for an eerie horror movie.
“It feels like something happened here,” I murmur, taking in shattered glass windows and doors swinging open in the breeze.
“Stay close,” is all he says, which is about the least comforting thing ever.
“That looks like a junkyard.” I point at a gated section up ahead. It’s farther than it looks, and when we finally arrive outside its open gates, I lean against the metal to catch my breath.
“Maybe you should stay out here,” Luke suggests, which immediately makes me perk up.
“No way,” I argue. “We can’t separate in an abandoned town. That’s horror movie 101.”
“I’m not so sure it’s abandoned,” he murmurs, gaze sweeping behind us like he thinks someone’s following. “If you’re coming, be ready to run. We’re about to commit a felony.”