Chapter Twenty-One
Twenty-one
The lilac horizon is hazy with dusk when we finally cross into California.
We stopped back in New Mexico—the Department of Research and Development—at a gas station.
Luke filled the tank and I raided the shelves of the attached store for more snacks.
While my appetite has again disappeared, Luke’s is stronger than ever.
In between checking the map to ensure we’re still on track for the star marked over Death Valley, I’ve been opening bags of chips and bottles of water for him to guzzle. I’m learning he’s a nervous muncher.
Conversation between us has been a blur of office gossip and hell facts and playing out different scenarios of how tonight might go. Our easy banter trails off as we enter what’s Death Valley National Park in the overworld, a solemn air souring the mood.
“You’re sure Beliar lives here?” I ask Luke as we wind down a narrow desert road. “It doesn’t exactly seem habitable.”
“Demons prefer arid climates,” Luke explains. “Just be grateful it’s not summer.”
“We’d be cooking,” I agree. Once we hit the desert, we rolled up the windows to block the swirling dust, so we already are.
As if hearing my thoughts, Luke shrugs off his jacket, passing it to me to put in the back. As I do, something tumbles into the cup holder between us.
“My phone,” I realize, remembering Luke stuffing it into his pocket when we were rushing from the motel. I hold the power button down until it turns on. “I wasn’t sure it would charge, but it got to eighty percent. I’m going to turn it off so— Oh?”
Luke glances at me. “What is it?”
I can’t believe what I’m looking at. “I got an email.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It just came through. It’s from Debra. Oh my God.” A laugh shakes out of me at the absurdity. “It’s the weekly report! Holy shit, she finally sends it close to on time, and I’m not even there. I didn’t know hell had 5G reception?”
“It doesn’t.”
The heaviness in Luke’s voice makes me pause. Suddenly, getting an email from Debra seems a lot less funny. “This is bad, isn’t it?”
He nods. “If the veil is weak enough to grant cell phone reception, that means the worst has already begun. There always has to be a sense of balance. If a piece of the overworld is slipping into the underworld, then—”
“A piece of the underworld is slipping into the overworld,” I finish grimly. “So we might already be too late?”
“I guess we’ll find out. We’re here.”
We finally crest the ridge we’ve been driving up, slowing to a stop. The dirt road we’re on dips, winding down to the namesake valley below, filled with an obscene amount of shipping containers, eighteen-wheeler trucks, and warehouse-like buildings.
“That’s where Beliar resides.” Luke points to the opposite ridge corralling the valley.
Steep steps lead up to a magnificent fortress with two stone statues framing the massive door.
Its Mediterranean facade blends in against the surplus of brown and orange and dusty gray surrounding us, though to the right of the entrance is a seemingly out-of-place garden bursting with wildflower blooms. The width of the valley and maze of shipping containers stretch between us and it.
“Beliar is close in status to the D-Suite,” Luke says, driving down the narrow road. “Since California is the Department of Transportation, along with being home to Hell Headquarters, that makes Beliar in charge of the main west side hub for moving goods.”
“What kind of goods?”
“Food, alcohol, drugs. There isn’t much to enjoy about hell, but a plus is you can’t die twice. Hell beings aren’t shy about imbibing, something encouraged by management. The more people committing the seven deadly sins, the more energy that’s created and can be mined.”
I snort. “They can’t just use coal like the rest of us?”
He cracks a smile. “And risk avoidable pollution on a nonrenewable resource? We’re not heathens.”
Luke pulls behind the nearest shipping container and cuts the engine. “There’s one more thing I need to tell you.”
Despite the heat, goose bumps break out along my arms. “What is it?”
He pulls out the map we’ve been using and tugs a ballpoint pen from his pocket, drawing a direct route from our current destination to a small body of water.
“Roughly one hundred miles from here is a lake. Off the main road on the southernmost tip is a small cedar cabin. If anything happens to me, go there. You’ll find a woman named Moira, who I trust more than anyone else in the underworld.
She might look monstrous, but her heart is good.
She will get you back to the overworld safely.
Do not wait for me, no matter what happens. Understood?”
I blink between him and the map. “We’re going to stick together, aren’t we? That was the plan. We sneak in together, find Krystal and the others, and sneak out. You leave us at the entrance to the overworld and continue on your way to the veil. That is the plan, right?”
Luke holds my gaze. “Plans change if they need to change. If we get caught, your job is to get everyone to the van. Mine is to take on Beliar. If I don’t closely follow, you have to leave with them. This isn’t me asking. Promise me, Brie.”
He’s unbearably close, our faces separated by less than a handful of inches.
My belly burns with the same urge I felt in the motel room.
A need to wind my hands behind his neck and tug him closer until our mouths meet in a devastating dance.
To feel his fingers digging into my skin, pulling me over the console and into his lap, knotting in my hair and unknotting whatever wild thing within me is banging against the bars. I want to let it loose.
“Don’t make me beg,” he requests softly, not helping.
“But I want to hear you beg,” I counter, words so wispy I might as well have just finished a triathlon. “I want you to grovel and plead.”
His gaze darkens, idling on mine as his thumb rubs the back of my hand. I’ve taken him off guard, evident in the nearly imperceptible way his breathing grows unsteady. The feral thing inside me lashes out, urging me to close the gap between us.
But suddenly he’s pulling away. He opens the door, glancing at me from over his shoulder.
“It’s never been in my nature to be a beggar. Let’s go.”
Urgency rushes in as I follow him out of the van. We have no time to waste on…whatever that was. We have a rescue mission to ace.
The shipping containers provide decent coverage for us to slink behind as we draw nearer to Beliar’s estate on the ridge. It’s eerie in the valley. The only people are souls ghosting around, completing tasks. Like on the train, they don’t acknowledge us or alert others to our trespassing.
“Wait,” Luke says before I can make the dash to another container. We crouch behind the steel wall as he points to the roof of the fortress. “Beliar’s guards are out.”
I had put my contacts back in for optimal eyesight, but I still have to squint to see the faint outline of people standing on the roof. They’re huge and still as statues, with bows clutched in their hands. Archers. “Does that mean he’s expecting us?”
“Not necessarily.”
“How do we get by them?”
“The darkness helps.” Luke nods at the sky. Since leaving the van, the clouds have gotten even lower, alluding to the potential of another Reckoning. I resist the temptation to reach up and try to grab the deep purple puffs. “And also the fact that they’re blind.”
“Blind archers?”
“But their hearing is superb. Make a sound once we’re within earshot and you’ll be skewered in an instant.”
“Is this your way of telling me to shut up?”
All I can make out is the white of his teeth as he grins. “Way to take the hint. Getting past them won’t be the hardest part. Getting in will. Making it in and out undetected by Beliar is preferable. I’m guessing he’s keeping Krystal and the women in one of the bedrooms on the top floor.”
While a soft glow emanates from every other window, the entire third floor is in darkness. If I were a heartless demonic kidnapper, that’s where I’d keep my victims. “So, no dungeon?”
“Houses in the desert don’t have basements. Sorry to disappoint.”
“I’m devastated,” I deadpan.
“I’ve been in Beliar’s estate before,” Luke admits.
Before I can ask how or why, he goes on.
“There’s a back door leading to the butler’s pantry, which holds the entrance to a servants’ stairwell.
He’d never stoop so low as to use that or even venture to that side of the house. If we can get there—”
“What if we climbed the trellis?”
Luke frowns. “What do you mean?”
I point to the garden framing the right side of the estate and the trellis that reaches all the way up to an open window on the second floor.
It’s marked with brilliant yellow buds that stand out despite the darkness.
“We climb that trellis, get in on the second floor, find the nearest staircase to the third, get our girls, take the servants’ staircase down to the first floor, out the back door, and we’re in the van before Beliar knows we were here in the first place. ”
Luke is silent for a long moment. Long enough to make me itch. “Never mind, we can go—”
“That’s genius,” he interrupts, a prideful gleam in his eyes. “Risky, but let’s do it.”
We slink closer until we reach the last row of shipping containers below the ridge. Luke pauses, pressing a finger to his lips.
I have a much better view of the archers, which does nothing but unnerve me more. They’re as still as statues because they are statues. Made of dark gray stone, they hold tight to their bows, waiting. Their helmets are pulled low so I can’t see their eyes, if they even have any.