Chapter 11
eleven
. . .
Present Day
Turns out, I can cry in here. I wipe away the tears streaming down my face, the presence of them almost comforting. These tears have been with me so often since August left.
I suppose Kit saw all of that. That’s fine. At least now, I won’t have to explain who August is.
Who August was.
I curl into a tight ball under the covers, wishing my mind would stop, just for a bit.
To my surprise, Kit leaves me be. I don’t know what he’s getting up to, and I don’t want to know.
Probably something weird or gross, like sniffing my underwear.
I haven’t heard him talking to anyone, so that minimizes the nefarious actions by a percentage at least.
Time doesn’t exist in the same way here, so I’m not sure how long I lie in my imaginary bed.
I wonder if I can conjure up a book to read in an attempt to pass this endless amount of time on my hands.
My eyes squeeze shut as I picture my favorite books.
When they reopen, a whole stack is there before me on the bed.
I excitedly squeal and snatch the one on top.
I open it and…it’s blank. I try the next, and it’s also blank.
Right. Of course, they are. I guess I’d have to have memorized an entire book in order to actually have it appear in full here.
I toss the book I’m holding aside with a sigh. With nothing else to do but slowly pluck my hairs out one by one, which I will not be doing, I climb out of my bed and wander back to my window. Kit is watching Friends again.
“This is a good one,” I say as a way of introduction.
He flinches like I surprised him. “Lacy. Hey.”
“Hi,” I say. I slide into my chair and rest my chin on top of my arms on the window ledge.
Kit pulls out my phone and opens it. “You got a few texts from someone named Matthias. Is that your boyfriend or something?”
I want to say, “Why? Jealous?” but refrain from the snark and just answer the question, my voice emotionless. “No. Coworker. What did he say?”
Kit grunts. “He’s wondering where you are. Asked if you’re okay. Want me to say family emergency?”
I would love for him to tell Matthias exactly what’s going on, but I know that’s pointless. I answer, still with little emotion in my voice, “Yeah. Say tiny family emergency. But that I’m fine. He’ll probably ask if I need anything and you can say: ‘No, but I’ll let you know if that changes.’”
“Got it.”
I watch as he types the reply. The exhaustion weighing me down amazes me, because I simultaneously feel like I’ve been asleep for a year. He’s wearing me down, and I know I need to keep trying, keep pushing. Pushing for information, pushing for a way to escape.
When the phone is out of my eyeline, I tap my pointer finger on the window and ask, “So, what’s your endgame?”
A beat passes. “What do you mean?”
“With me. What’s the scheme? Why are you possessing me?”
He shrugs. “Wrong time, wrong place, babe, that’s all.”
I wrinkle my nose at the continual use of babe and say, “Really?”
“Seriously. I need a host in order to survive up here. You happened to be lurking around a spooky house. Simple.”
“So, I was asking for it?”
“No. But you were convenient. And pretty.”
“Jesus.” I avoid the urge to slam my head against my window.
“Not quite.” He chuckles, unable to not laugh at his own jokes.
I keep prodding. “So, you can’t survive without a host?”
“On the surface level, yeah. I could in the nether region, but…but I guess I’d rather be up here.”
“I really hate that you call it that. That cannot be what Hell is called.”
He chuckles. “I think I’m the only one who calls it that.”
“Unsurprising.” I backtrack, what he said before of interest to me. “So, hold on, you can survive without a host in Hell?”
He groans, eyes moving to stare at the ceiling. “Yeah, but I don’t want to.”
“Why not? Leave me, go down there, then come back up here and find someone else.”
“No,” he says with a surprising finality. “I won’t go back there. I haven’t been back since…” He trails off.
I bite my lip to keep from prodding him, seeing if he’ll continue talking if I’m quiet.
“It’s not…fun. It’s not the same as living. If I’m in Hell without a host, I’m existing as this weird yellow, hazy shadow thing. I’m not corporeal. It doesn’t feel real, like I’m existing in a plane between life and death.”
I open my mouth with another question, but he answers it without me having to ask.
“I could go to Hell with a host, most demons who need them do, but that’s not what I want to do. It’s better up here. A lot of demons wouldn’t agree with me on that. We’re sent here to be general troublemakers, but most go home every now and then. I don’t. I…I hate it down there.”
I purse my lips, despising the sympathy for him rising in my chest. “They call it Hell for a reason, I’m sure.
” Every answer he gives makes me want to ask more questions.
The more I learn, the more I perk up. Not because I’m seeing anything he’s saying as useful to me, but because it might be.
The more information I have, the better.
And the more questions I ask, the more comfortable he’ll get with answering them.
He may let something slip. Something that could help me escape.
“So, Hell is full of hazy yellow demons and demons in human hosts?”
“Oh, no. I mean, Hell has hazy yellow demons and demons in human hosts, but there are different tiers of demons.”
“Like Dante said?” I had to read Paradise Lost in high school. In all honesty, I absorbed none of it, reading comprehension and myself are not always friends, but August took the time to explain it to me.
“Not quite, but yeah. General concept.”
“What are you, then?”
“I’m a low-level demon. Lowest of the low. It’s hard to function without a host on Earth or in Hell.” He pauses. “Why do I feel like you’re trying to distract me?”
He’s close to my motivation, but not quite getting it.
“Because you’re a demon and don’t trust genuine curiosity.” I sigh and tell a half-truth. “I’m bored out of my mind, and this is actually fascinating. So, you’re a low-level demon. What does that entail besides being a parasite?”
“Like I said, general troublemaking. I don’t have a real job.
What they’re doing is keeping an eye on me to see what I excel at, if anything.
Like, maybe they’ll recruit me into Deals or Torture, or as a guard or personal assistant.
” Before I can ask, he explains, “Whatever image you have of Hell, it’s probably wrong.
Is it a place for eternal torture? Sure.
But it’s also a business. Hell is competing against other afterworlds like Heaven, Hades’s Underworld, Jannah, Valhalla, and more. Everyone has a job.”
Okay, maybe it’s my Western world mindset, but Heaven and Hell being real is one thing.
I would also be down to believe that Jannah and Jahannam were the only two.
However, Kit confirmed that multiple afterlives from multiple cultures and religions exist. Is he saying every belief is correct?
That Heaven, Hell, Jannah, Jahannam, Valhalla, the Underworld, Nirvana, and more are actually out there?
That most of them got something right? It’s too much.
I can’t focus on that. Let’s focus on Hell as a business.
That I can wrap my head around. Deal with the potential existence of Greek and Norse gods later. Or never.
“That’s so odd.” I struggle to keep calm, my voice rising to an unfamiliar pitch. “What do you do, recruit people to Hell?”
“In a way. The salesmen sell it, like make deals for souls, but also entice people to commit mortal sins. If someone commits a mortal sin and feels no remorse, it’s pretty likely Hell will get their soul.”
“And you’re a low-level demon, meaning there are higher-level demons. Can you, like, ascend to a higher level?”
“Potentially to a mid-level, but not high-level. Mid-level demons are basically low-level demons who have figured out how to manifest their own physical form.”
“Meaning?”
“Have you ever seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer?”
My brow furrows. “…Of course.”
“So, think of non-vampire demons in that and how they’re presented.
Ugly, scaly, horned creatures are what mid-level demons are.
But they can still possess humans if they need or prefer a human form.
A lot do, especially if they ever have work to accomplish on the surface level.
Except, since they have this physical form already, when they possess a human, the human dies as soon as their body is taken over. ”
“Well, that’s shitty.” Downright horrifying, actually. How many demons are walking around right now, wearing bodies that are not theirs?
“Yeah. It’s horrible.”
He takes a pause so long I think he’s done talking to me, but he eventually continues.
“High-level demons are different. These ones could have been created by Lucifer himself, or are something else entirely. Ancient mystical beings who have lost their place in modern society. The late King—not Lucifer, since he’s basically MIA, long story—Adramelech, was rumored to have once been a god.
He usually walked around in a humanoid form that was all his own, not a host. But he could supposedly turn into a peacock and a mule and even a sun. ”
“A sun? Like burning mass of gas sun?”
“Yeah, but that was reserved for special occasions.”
I scoff. He cannot be serious. “If you don’t want to tell me the truth, you don’t have to. You don’t need to make things up.”
Kit chuckles, his voice growing excited as he continues to talk. “I’m not! I swear. It’s weird shit. The current Queen, she’s something else. Like, people don’t think she’s even a demon.”
“Then what is she?”
“Some say she’s an ancient witch. Others claim she’s Nephilim, but no one knows.
And it’s not my place to ask.” He clears his throat, his tone dying down.
“But higher-level demons are the ones in charge of how Hell runs. They’re the section leaders.
Hell has different torture divisions and business divisions, and higher-level demons are in charge of that.
In the grand scheme of things, I am nothing.
No one would notice if I went missing, you know? ”
“I feel like that sometimes,” I admit without thinking. I’ve never been great at connecting with people, but it became especially more difficult after August died. Without those connections, it’s easy to slip away unnoticed.
Kit snorts, pulling me out of my self-pity. “After talking to your sister, I guarantee you she would notice. And that friend of yours, he noticed after a few days, right?”
I let half a smile loose. “I’m sure you’re right.” I lean back in my chair, content with settling in for a while. I think that’s enough questions for now.
Hell makes no sense, and I feel like with any other questions I would get confused.
More confused. I’m happy Kit is answering my queries.
He’s oddly happy to talk to me. It makes me wonder if he’s lonely.
Like, at first, he seemed annoyed I was awake, but now whenever I make an appearance, he seems glad for it.
I could be reading into things, though. Maybe we’re both making the best of a bad situation.
However, if I was that irritating to him, he would leave.
We continue to watch TV together.
“I can show you the nether region, if you want,” Kit says after the next episode ends.
My brow furrows at that offer. “You better mean Hell.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, I mean Hell.”
“I thought you didn’t want to go back?”
He prevents the next episode from starting. “Oh, I never plan on stepping foot there again. I didn’t mean in person. I meant in a memory.” He clicks his tongue. “You think I’m going to take you down there? Yeah, right. Way too dangerous. For both of us.”
“I don’t know…”
“You don’t have to say yes. I was just thinking it isn’t fair that I get to see your memories, but you don’t get to see any of mine.” He takes a breath. “I’m sorry about August.”
“Me, too.” I have no desire to speak about August with him. She is mine, not his.
“So, what do you think?”
I’m not sure I want to see Hell, but what kind of paranormal investigator would I be if I turned down the opportunity to experience a real afterlife while alive? Also, what else am I doing? “Sure. Show me Hell,” I say timidly.
“Okay, cool.” He turns off the TV before suggesting, “Maybe it would be best if you got into your bed for this. More comfortable environment for a scary memory.”
He can see what I can see in my void? Fascinating. So, if I create a bunch of signs that say, kit can kiss my ass, or not kit’s number one fan, or something more creative, he would see them.
“All right,” I agree.
Overly conscious of my movements now that I know he’s watching me in here, I walk back over to my bed and sit with my knees up to my chest. I feel like I’m in a fish tank.
“I’m ready.”
“Me, too.”