Hades (9 page)

We were closer to Xavier now and in his eyes I could see

deep pain, but also anger and intense frustration at his

inability to help me. Now I knew I was in real danger. Maybe

we both were.

“Beth … that’s not Wes.” The words chil ed me to the

core and fil ed me with defeat. I tried letting go of Wesley. I

was ready to throw myself off the bike, but I couldn’t move

my arms. They seemed to be pinned by an invisible force.

“Stop! Let me off!” I pleaded.

“Too late,” Wesley replied, only it wasn’t Wes anymore.

His voice was now slick and smooth, a polished English

accent clearly detectable. That voice had haunted my

dreams for so long, I would have recognized it anywhere.

The body I had my arms wrapped around began to shift

beneath my fingers. The broad, muscled chest and wel -

defined arms shrank to become leaner and colder to the

touch. Wesley’s broad hands became slender and turned

bone white. The backward basebal cap flew off to reveal

lustrous black locks that danced in the wind. For the first

time he twisted his face around to confront me. The sight of

him so close made me sick to my stomach. Jake’s face

hadn’t changed a bit. Black shoulderlength hair contrasted

sharply with the pal or of his face. I recognized the narrow

nose that drooped slightly at the tip and the cheekbones

carved out of rock that had made Mol y once compare him

to a Calvin Klein model. His pale lips parted to reveal smal

and dazzlingly white teeth. Only the eyes were different.

They seemed to pulse with a dark energy, and as I looked

into them I saw that they were neither green nor black as I

remembered but a dul shade of burgundy. Just like the

color of dried blood.

“NO!” Xavier shouted, his face contorted with despair.

His voice was swal owed by the wind on the empty

highway. “GET AWAY FROM HER!”

What happened next was a blur. I knew Xavier was

somehow released from his immobility because I saw him

sprint ful speed toward me. My arms too became free and I

tried to wrestle myself off the bike but felt a searing pain in

my head and realized that Jake was now holding a fistful of

my hair. He was maneuvering the bike singlehanded. I

ignored the scalding sensation and struggled harder, but

my efforts were useless.

“Gotcha,” he purred. It was the sound of a contented

predator.

Jake twisted the throttle hard and I heard the engine roar

to life like an angry beast. The motorcycle bucked and

lurched unsteadily forward. “Xavier!” I cried just as he

reached us. We simultaneously outstretched our hands and

our fingers nearly met. But Jake violently veered the bike so

that it slammed into Xavier’s side. I heard a heavy thud as

the metal slammed into his body. I screamed as Xavier

was thrown backward and rol ed limply onto the side of the

road. Then I couldn’t see him anymore. The bike sped past,

leaving him lying in a cloud of dust. Out of the corner of my

eye I could see people starting to make their way up to the

road, attracted by the commotion. I only prayed they’d find

Xavier in time to help him.

The bike hurtled up the deserted highway that uncoiled

before us like a black whip. Jake was driving at such

breakneck speed that when we rounded a bend we found

ourselves almost paral el with the ground. Every fiber in my

body yearned to return to Xavier. My one true love. The light

of my life. My chest constricted to the point where I couldn’t

breathe when I thought of him lying motionless in the dust.

My pain was so al consuming that I hardly cared where

Jake was taking me to or what horrors awaited. I just

needed to know that Xavier was okay. I tried not to al ow

myself to consider the worst although the word
dead
rang in

my ears, clear as a church bel . It took me a moment to

realize that I was crying. My body convulsed with huge,

wracking sobs, and my eyes burned from the scalding

tears.

There was nothing else to do but cal upon the Creator,

praying, begging, pleading, bargaining—anything to make

him protect Xavier. I couldn’t have him ripped away from

me like that. I could survive emotional turmoil; I could

survive the most intense physical torture. I could survive

Armageddon and holy fire raining down upon the earth, but I

could not survive without him. A strange thought entered my

head: If Jake had kil ed Xavier, Jake would have to pay. I

didn’t care what divine laws forbade it—I would seek

retribution for my loss. I was wil ing to pardon any crime, but

one against Xavier, and so help me, God, Jake would get

his comeuppance. I wanted to scratch and tear at the body

in front of me—to punish him for once again infecting my

life with his black presence. I felt contaminated even being

near him. I considered flinging my weight to the side and

trying to topple the bike. I knew that at the speed we were

traveling, we’d probably both end up smeared across the

asphalt, but I was desperate.

Before my thoughts could rage further out of control,

something happened—something I could never have

imagined, not even in my most twisted nightmares. It should

have terrified me; the very idea of it should have knocked

me into unconsciousness. It was so unfathomable that I felt

nothing but a sickening feeling that seemed to come from

my core and spread like poison through my body. The

highway defied gravity and suddenly reared up in front of

us. A deep, jagged crack appeared in its center. The

highway was splitting open. The crack widened like a

hungry cavernous mouth, waiting to swal ow us up. The

wind that whipped my face grew warmer and steam rose

from the broken asphalt. I knew instinctively what it was

from the feeling of hol ow emptiness that emanated from it.

We were heading straight toward a gateway to Hel .

And then it was upon us.

I screamed again when the motorcycle hovered a

moment in midair. Jake cut the engine just before we

plummeted soundlessly into the void. I turned around to see

the aperture close behind us, shutting out the moonlight, the

trees, the cicadas, and the earth I loved so much.

I had no idea how long it would be before I saw it again.

The last thing I was aware of was fal ing and the sound of

my own ragged screams before the darkness consumed

us.

6

Welcome to My World

I looked around, disoriented, and shivered in my flimsy

satin shift. I remembered nothing about how I’d come to be

here. My hair was damp with sweat and the fluffy costume

wings I’d been wearing were gone. I figured they must have

come loose and been wrenched off during the turbulent

ride.

There wasn’t anything about this place that was even

vaguely familiar. I was standing alone in a dark and

cobbled laneway. Fog swirled around my feet and the air

was pungent with a strange odor. It smel ed like decay as if

the very air itself were dead. It looked like the derelict part

of some urban landscape because I could see the smoky

outline of skyscrapers and spires in the distance. But they

didn’t look real—more like buildings in a faded old

photograph—blurry and lacking in detail. Where I stood

there were only brick wal s covered in crude graffiti. The

mortar had fal en out in places, leaving openings that

someone had stuffed with newspaper. I heard (or imagined

I heard) the scuttling of rats coming from behind them.

Overloaded Dumpsters were scattered around and the

wal s were windowless apart from a couple that had been

boarded up. When I looked up, I found that there was no

sky, only a strange expanse of darkness, dim and watery in

some places and thick as tar in others. This darkness

breathed like a living thing and was much more than the

mere absence of light.

An old-fashioned lamppost shedding a milky light

al owed me to identify a black motorcycle propped just a

few meters away. Its rider was nowhere in sight. Seeing the

bike made my mind reel and forced me back to my current

predicament. I fought to make sense of what had just

happened but memory failed me. Random images flashed

through my mind in no apparent sequence. I remembered a

rambling house off a highway, a grinning jack-o’-lantern,

and the laughter and banter of teenagers. Then the harsh

sound of an engine being revved and someone cal ing my

name. But these images were like the pieces of a jigsaw

puzzle that I’d only just begun to assemble. It was as though

my mind were denying me access to the memories for fear

I wouldn’t be able to deal with them. It was dishing them out

in fragments that made little to no sense. Suddenly one

vivid image crashed through the barrier and the recol ection

caused me to gasp aloud. I was back aboveground,

immobilized by fear, as a motorbike driven by a raven-

haired boy recklessly pitched itself through a slash in the

highway. How was that even possible?

I had the feeling I’d been standing in the deserted al ey

for a while and yet had no sense of how much time had

passed. My thoughts felt thick and sluggish, and trying to

navigate my way through them was arduous. I massaged

my throbbing temples and groaned. Whatever happened

had also taken its tol physical y and my limbs felt shaky as

if I’d just run a marathon.

“It takes a day or two to adjust,” said a honey-smooth

voice. Jake Thorn materialized out of the shadows to stand

by my side. He spoke to me with such lilting familiarity, as if

he and I had known each other long enough to dispense

with formalities. His sudden appearance put my senses on

high alert. “Until then you may experience some

disorientation or a dry throat,” he added. His nonchalant

tone was astounding. Despite my confusion I felt like

screaming at him, and if my throat hadn’t felt as parched as

a desert, I would have.

“What have you done?” I croaked instead. “Where am I?”

“There’s no need for alarm,” he replied. I wondered if he

might be trying to reassure me, but he wasn’t able to pul it

off and only ended up sounding condescending. I looked at

him not even trying to conceal my skepticism. “Relax, Beth,

you’re in no danger.”

“What am I doing here, Jake?” It was more a demand

than a question.

“Isn’t that rather obvious? You’re here as my guest, Beth,

and I’ve taken care of everything to ensure your stay is a

pleasant one.” There was such an uncharacteristical y

expectant look on his face that for a moment I didn’t know

how to reply. I looked at him wide-eyed.

“Don’t worry, Beth, this place can be a lot of fun when

you’re with the right people.”

Almost to il ustrate his point the ground beneath us

began to vibrate. A song I recal ed from last summer blared

so loudly it ricocheted off the wal s. It appeared to be

coming from behind solid steel doors at the far end of the

lane. They looked how you might imagine the entrance to a

maximum-security prison. Only it wasn’t a prison but rather

a venue of some sort, indicated by a neon sign flashing

above the doors. PRIDE. I saw the tail end of the letter
P

trail off across the roofline in what was meant to represent

peacock plumes.