To Hell and Back (19 page)

“Aye,” Tallis agreed.

“I’ve missed you, bladesmith,” she said, while running her hands down his chest.

“An’ Ah ye, JennyAnn,” Tallis responded, looking at her in such a way that told me these two had some sort of a past. Friends schmiends.

“I heard about the decision that Jason and Alaire made, regarding your absolution, and I think it’s a horrible injustice and a travesty,” she continued, expelling a pent-up breath.

“Aye,” Tallis said again, but this time, his composure seemed to ratchet up a bit.

Then a smile broke out across her plump lips. “Of course, your absolution would have meant that I’d never see you again so I can’t say I’m
that
terribly upset about it.” She ran her hands across his pecs and then clung to one of his enormous biceps. “As it is, I hardly ever see you.”

“Ahem,” I cleared my throat, deciding to interrupt them before I found myself witnessing a live sex show. I hobbled forward, very aware that I was surrounded by the sexiest women I’d ever seen in my life, and, yet, here I was supporting myself on a poster-bed crutch, wearing a dirty sports bra and yoga pants with crude stitching up the front. Not to mention my fanny pack.

Never mind!
I yelled at myself while I offered Jenny my most cheery smile, which I’m sure was fake as hell, but I couldn’t say I cared. “Hi,” I said as I politely extended my hand. “I’m Lily Harper.”

Jenny took my hand, but didn’t say anything to me. Instead, she glanced up at Tallis with a question in her eyes.

“Ah’m Lily’s guardian,” Tallis explained. “She is the one retrievin’ the soul.”

“Lucky girl to have such a guardian,” Jenny replied as she offered me a wide smile that made her appear even prettier. Her beautiful features suggested she could have been Native American. “I’m Jenny Harrington, but my friends call me JennyAnn,” she finished before winking at Tallis, and letting it be known she considered him a “friend.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I responded insincerely.

Jenny offered me a quick smile before facing Tallis again as her smile widened and her hands, yep, found his muscles again. Sheesh, this was going to get really old really fast. “How are the Grevels?” she cooed up at him.

“They’re ah bludy nuisance, boot Ah havenae killed them … yet,” Tallis answered with a secretive smile that appeared to be exclusively for Jenny.

“You know I would have kept them here if I could have,” Jenny said apologetically before showing Tallis her pouty face. “You were my last hope.”

“The Grevels are yours?” I interrupted, unable to mask the shock in my voice.

Jenny nodded. “Yes, they were mine, but unfortunately, they aren’t very good at defending themselves. They were no match for the bigger creatures in the city, so they started to die off. That, and Alaire doesn’t care much about endangered species, so I had to find them a new home.” She turned to their new home and smiled up at him suggestively. I suddenly wished that instead of Jenny we were dealing with Cerberus or Plutus or maybe even Pinhead, Jason, Freddy Krueger, Michael Meyers, Pennywise the clown, and Chucky and all at the same time …

“Ah was happy tae help, Jenny,” Tallis said warmly.

I was just about to comment when I heard loud voices coming from the room next door. They were swiftly followed by footsteps, and something I can only describe as a commotion. When the door opened, I watched four women, possibly Elizaveta’s clones, rushing through the door with … Bill in the middle of them?

“Babes, babes,” he started, shaking his head and holding up his hands in a play of submission as he eyed each one of them. “Look, you’re all fine as shit,” he said, pointing at one of the women who was wearing glasses. “And because of you, I’m now considerin’ myself a spectaphile, ’cause, girl, you got this naughty librarian, geek-freak thing goin’ on.” The women all started to grab him again, but he shook his head and took turns pushing them away. “I’m sorry, ladies, but Billy can’t be your concubone. Not when my craydar’s going balls out, which means you bitches gotta be cray-cray.” Then he turned around, saw me and a huge smile took hold of his round face. “Nips!”

“People mud-besprent in that lagoon, all of them naked and with angry look”
– Dante’s
Inferno

TWELVE

“Where the hell have you been?” Bill demanded of me, rescinding his smile as a frown took its place. “I’ve been so freakin’ worried about you, I haven’t even been able ta put the moves on Delilah!”

“Where
is
Delilah?” I asked, suddenly worried that she’d accompanied Bill and somehow gotten lost in the shuffle of all the women in the Toy Store.

“She’s back at our apartment,” he answered indifferently before throwing his pudgy hands on his equally pudgy hips in an attempt to return to the subject he was interested in, namely, yelling at me. Meanwhile, the four women who’d accompanied him into the room, continued to rub themselves all over him, like cats in heat. One of them started kissing the side of his face, but amazingly enough, Bill didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he continued to glare at me. “Now you wanna tell me where the hell you’ve been?”

“I’ve been having dinner with Alaire; and before that, I was tending to Tallis, just like I told you I would,” I replied curtly. Bill spared a glance at the Scotsman, apparently not realizing until then that Tallis was in attendance.

“Dude, I’m even a lil’ bit happy to see you,” Bill said in a flat tone. He nodded briefly at Tallis who nodded back at him, just as briefly. Bill then held out his knuckles to the much larger man who, by this time, knew how to speak Bill’s language. The two of them butted their knuckles before a wide smile broke out across Bill’s mouth. “’Kay, Yeti, we can be besticles again.”

I figured that term had something to do with best friends and testicles, but being in no hurry to find out, I changed the subject. “How did
you
get here, Bill?”

“How did I get here?” he repeated quizzically. He dropped his head into his hand dramatically before facing one of the women who stood closest to him. “She wants to know how I got here.” The woman simply nodded as if she, too, wanted nothing more than to hear his story. Bill faced me again as his smile dropped right off his face. “I’ll tell you how I got here! I had to walk for four freakin’ days through that evil, hate forest with those freakin,’ crazy ass spiders an’ those messed up trees. I didn’t sleep for even like, an hour.” He turned to the woman on his other side and further explained, “’Cause that forest is like, haunted an’ shit.” Then he cocked his head to the side as he studied her. “But you’re, like, Elvira’s sister so you prolly get off on all o’ that scary Halloween crap.” The woman just nodded at him blankly and I momentarily wondered if she spoke any English. “Anyways,” Bill continued as he faced me again, “not only did I have ta travel through the scary-ass forest, but I had ta do it all by myself!” He shook his head like it was a huge tragedy, but I could tell he was proud of himself. And I wasn’t about to ruin his buzz by reminding him that as an angel, nothing in the Dark Wood could have hurt him anyway.

“Thanks, Bill,” I said with a warm smile.

Bill didn’t appear to hear me, though, and continued to shake his head and sigh. Repeatedly. “I’m gonna have ta sleep with a nightlight on for, like, the rest of my life,” he finished.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I started as more questions flooded my mind. “But how did you even know where to find me in the first place?” I was perplexed and amazed that Bill had not only taken on such a huge task, but actually succeeded.

Bill ignored my question and put his arms around two of the women closest to him as he faced me again. “I swear, I’m so traumatized by the last five days that I can’t even focus on my getting laid parade.” I assumed that was just another term for his new band of friends who were still in the process of clinging to him, a shocker in and of itself. As a rule, Bill didn’t have much luck attracting the opposite sex. Well, that was before his visit to the Toy Store.

“Bill, getting back to my question …” I prodded.

“Yeah, yeah,” he started and frowned at me. “I wanted to call you an’ find out where the hells you were but then I remembered you had my phone. Soze I called Jason Skeletorhorn an’ told him I lost my AE phone.” Regular phones, aka phones not provided by Afterlife Enterprises, couldn’t access other AE phones, so it made sense that Bill would have gone to Jason if only in an attempt to get an AE-issued phone. “So the dude actually FedExed me another phone, an’ then texted me with our mission.” He reached inside his pocket and produced what looked like an iPhone. “So now, I got me ah brand spankin’ new smartie phone soze I can take snelfies!” He glanced at the woman to his right and elucidated. “That’s when you take a picture of yourself usin’ your phone while sneezin’.”

“Oh!” she responded and then giggled as she buried her face in Bill’s neck and proceeded to give him a hickey.

“You called Jason and got a new phone just so you could find out where I was and then you came all this way to get me?” I asked, tears welling up in my eyes because I actually found it hard to believe. Even though Bill drove me beyond crazy sometimes, he really, truly cared about me and at times like these, the point hit home.

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?” Bill replied, shaking his head like I was slow.

I figured the answer was yes. “Thanks, Bill,” I said and smiled at him.

“’Course, sugar mounds, you know how much you mean to me,” he responded with a smile before flinching. “Ouch, baby,” he said to the woman who was still sucking on his neck, while looking at her from the corner of his eyes. “A little less suckin’, baby.” Then he glanced back at me and erupted into a fit of laughter. “Said no man ever!”

I just shook my head. “I’m still amazed to see you here. I thought for sure you were hungover somewhere.”

“Well, don’t get me wrong,” he giggle-chuckled. “I had me plenty o’ Russian mornings.” With a shrug, he turned to the woman to his left, the one who wore glasses, and clarified. “That’s when you wake up after a night of drinkin’ nothin’ but vodka.” Then he faced me again. “But after I sobered up, I realized Nerdlet still wasn’t home, and then shit got real, knows what I’m sayin’?”

“I can honestly say I’ve never come across an angel quite like you before,” Jenny commented. She glanced over at Tallis, ostensibly seeking his opinion, but he just shrugged as if to say he didn’t have an explanation for Bill. But then, no one did.

“Damn skippy, baby,” Bill muttered as he looked Jenny up and down and then nodded to let it be known he found her attractive. When he looked at Tallis, he inclined his head. “Who’s the super hot, super tall, slay mama?”

“The what mama?” Jenny asked with a laugh.

“Just means you’re so good lookin’, you’re like, stabbin’ my heart an’ slayin’ my eyes,” Bill explained before inclining his head in the direction of the other women that surrounded him. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like their number had actually increased by one or two. “You wanna join us, baby?” he asked. “There’s plenty o’ angel Billy to go around.”

“Um,” Jenny took a step closer to Tallis, and answered “thanks, but I’m happy where I am.”

I immediately cleared my throat, wanting nothing more than to get this show on the road so we could get the hell off Sexually Frustrated Island. “Maybe I need to remind all of you,” I interrupted while glaring up at Tallis. He just smiled at me innocently, like he had no control over what was happening. “… that we are here specifically to retrieve a soul.”

“Okay, bubble butt,” Bill chortled, making no motion to separate himself from his squadron of women. “Get to it!”

I sighed, glancing down at his old flip-phone in my hand, where I still clutched it tightly. I checked the screen and immediately realized that the soul we were meant to retrieve was directly in front of me. From the location of the red dot on the map, it appeared as if it had to be in the river. “It looks like the soul is in the river,” I announced before facing Bill and Tallis, neither of whom appeared in the least bit interested.

Bill started humming “Sitting On the Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding, so I figured that was a hint that I was on my own. That, and Tallis wasn’t budging an inch from Jenny’s side. Irritated more than I cared to admit over the whole
Tal-Jen
situation, I exhaled loudly and started for the river. I kept checking Bill’s phone to make sure I was heading in the right direction.

“Valeria, assist her,” Jenny called out from behind me. I heard the sound of heels clicking against the hardwood floors, and before I knew it, “Valeria” was standing beside me. She was dressed in a long, tight, black leather skirt that looked like a mermaid’s tail. The dress was strapless and her enormous breasts billowed over the top, looking like fleshy pillows. Her hair was long, bright red, and parted down the middle, and her almond-shaped eyes were the fiercest green I’d ever seen. She, too, wore outlandishly high heels.

She held out her hand like she wanted something from me. It took me a second or two to realize what she was after, and I offered her Bill’s phone, thinking she wanted to know where the soul was located in the river. But she immediately shook her head.

“The vial,” she said in the same accent as Elizaveta’s.

“Oh,” I answered before unzipping my fanny pack and handing her the clear, plastic vial that all Retrievers used to transport souls. Yanking the vial from my hand, she started toward the river, seemingly oblivious that her long, pointed heels were sinking into the mud bank. As soon as she met the water, though, her heels stopped sinking and it looked as if she were actually floating across the water. She kicked a few souls back into the river who were doing their best to climb out of it. How she failed to succumb to the laws of gravity by not sinking into the water, I had no idea, but it looked like she was walking on a sheet of glass.

She paused after reaching the center of the river and looked down at it, watching the waves of souls as they sputtered and choked with little interest. Seconds later, she bent over and plunged her hand into the water. When she pulled it back out, her hand was in the shape of a fist and completely dry. Not even so much as a single water droplet appeared on her skin. She rotated her hand so it was palm-side-up and opened it, revealing a glowing ball, which was the misplaced soul. Then she emptied the glowing soul into the plastic vial and capped the top of it. Turning to face me, she started walking back over the river again. As soon as she reached the muddy bank, her heels began sinking again, but she didn’t seem to notice or care. With one last step, she reached the hardwood floors. She handed the vial, with the soul in it, to me.

“Thanks,” I said with a hesitant smile. I unzipped my fanny pack and deposited the vial into it. Then I turned to face Bill, who was completely buried amidst the gaggle of women, kissing and feeling each of them up in turn. I shook my head and sighed as I turned to Tallis, not wanting him to get any ideas about Jenny.

“Got the soul which means we can go,” I announced.

Jenny immediately plastered herself on Tallis as I wondered how difficult it was going to be to talk him into leaving and, more so, to pry all those women off Bill. I had no idea what it was about this island, but it seemed like all everyone on it (with the exception of me) could think about was sex! Maybe it was something in the water …

“Now that we’ve helped you claim your soul,” Jenny said, her attention riveted on Tallis, “I hope you both will appease my girls?” I figured she was referring to Tallis and Bill. At least, I
hoped
she was referring to Tallis and Bill. Yes, I was still inexperienced when it came to being with a man, but of one thing I was certain, I wasn’t interested in being with a woman.

Jenny ran her hand down Tallis’s chest, making it more than obvious that she included herself in her statement. I felt my stomach churn as Tallis’s eyes found mine. He smiled, letting me know he was enjoying every second of my disquietude. I scowled at him.

“Mooch though Ah would love tae, Ah have tae git Lily back,” he answered with a heartfelt, apologetic smile for Jenny. “As Ah am her guardian, she is mah main concern.”

I could have thrown my arms around Tallis and kissed him with all of my being. But I didn’t. Instead, I just stood there, leaning on my poster-bed crutch, glumly.

“Oh,” Jenny answered with a pout as her shoulders fell. She glanced over at Bill who was basically being overpowered by the horde of women and currently lay sprawling on the floor with them. “Then I hope you’ll at least leave the angel?”

Tallis looked at me and tilted his head as if he were asking me what I thought of Jenny’s question. I sighed as I observed Bill and figured he was experiencing something that previously only existed in his dreams. Besides, I was pretty sure that he’d never find himself in this situation again, so I figured I’d throw him a proverbial bone. I nodded at Tallis to let him know I was fine with it.