I’ve traveled to alien dimensions before. It usually feels like a seizure, shaking my body and twisting my nerves, cold air rushing through my body. I gasped, waiting for it to be over. Rachel . . . Rachel . . . Rachel would get me out. Somehow.
I tumbled on a bloodstained floor and fought to sit up. My legs shook. My shoulders shivered. I rubbed my eyes. My neck was stiff.
A demon yanked at my leg.
I twisted and kicked. My heel hit the demon’s face, but it didn’t stop him. He leaned down, jaws wide, ready to take a chomp out of my skinny ankle.
“Tom?” Chip Shannon leaned down, blood leaking down his arms from the shackles on his wrists. “Oh, god, help me . . .”
“I’m trying!” I kicked again. The demon grinned at me, fangs dripping with drool.
Then a voice thundered: “Stop!”
The demon froze. I looked up.
Charles Moreland peered down from his throne, his eyes as red as the demons. “They obey me.” He smiled.
“W-what are you doing here?” My voice cracked.
He sighed, “I was looking for my wife in Heaven. I couldn’t find her, so I came here.” He looked past my shoulder.
I turned, and saw a horde of demons thronged behind me. Most were sleeping. A few were eying me and Chip hungrily, whipping long tongues around their lipless jaws.
What were they? The decayed, corrupt bodies of sinners sentenced to Hell? I didn’t even believe in God, much less Heaven and Hell—although I’ve got an open mind about Satan.
I looked back at Moreland and relied on my reporter’s and detective’s instinct to keep asking questions. At least until the demons had me for lunch. “So what do you want?”
Moreland sat down. “I’ve only been here a few days. Maybe I’ll lead them back into the real world. Or send them back one by one to possess human souls. I still don’t know everything they can do. But they’re desperate to get out.”
I knew the feeling. “How did you bring Chip here? And me?”
“You were watching the feed. That was easy. Your friend somehow found the feed, so he was connected. That took a little more work before we could pull him here.”
Oh god. What if he brought Rachel? I had to end this somehow. Fast.
Unfortunately, my superpowers begin and finish with asking questions. So I kept it up. “We? You and Querelle? What’s she doing?”
“She said I could be powerful here.” He shrugged. “This is what I was trying to find—a portal to other dimensions. When I gave up on finding Laura . . .”
Despair. It’s an irresistible impulse, and the devil feeds on it. “Wait, think! What does Querelle want? What if she’s just using you?”
He grinned. “What if I’m just using her?”
“Why isn’t she here?”
Moreland tilted her head. “We’re working together. She wants to explore—”
“Then where is she? What does this place do to you?” I looked at Chip. Then back at the demon horde.
Maybe—
“Are you going to turn into one of them?” I jabbed a finger.
It was just an idea. Maybe the wrong one, maybe a bad one. But Moreland tilted his head, as if he hadn’t thought about it before. He was a scientist. They like asking questions too. If I got his attention . . .
I felt dizzy, so I kept asking questions: “How long have you been here? What do you eat? What do you drink? What if they turn on you? What if—”
“Shut up!” Moreland stood up again, wiping a hand across his forehead. His jacket and shirt were soaked with sweat. “I’m in charge here! These creatures listen to me!” He swung a finger. “RISE UP!”
The demons woke. Most of them, at least. They jostled each other, snarling, ready to fight. Some of them turned to gaze at Moreland—and me.
“They will rip you apart if I tell them to.” Moreland leaned down. “Show a little respect.”
Frankly, they didn’t seem that interested in Moreland. A fight broke out, and suddenly dozens of the demons were struggling with each other, their fangs flashing, claws slashing, arms and legs swinging in every direction as they built a pile of tangled, bleeding bodies. None of them dead, though. Still twitching—ready to get back up and join the battle.
Maybe some would obey Moreland. Most just looked like they wanted to go crazy with each other. And, okay, Maybe me.
I stumbled to my knees, already exhausted after being here only a few minutes. I was hot and thirsty—this was Hell, after all—and close to giving up. Just like they wanted me to.
But my question had apparently stabbed a little doubt into Moreland. He stalked toward me. “You can’t die here. No matter how hungry or thirsty you get, you can’t starve. They can eat the skin off your body, break all your arms and legs, snap your spine, and you’ll never—”
“I get it, I get it!” I leaned back to look up at him. “Eternal torment. That’s sort of the mission statement of Hell, right? Just ask Querelle—who really rules in Hell?” I managed a weak smirk at the rhyme. “I sort of remember a guy called Satan.”
Behind me I heard the demons shouting with rage. I didn’t want to look back.
Chip struggled to lift his head. “I’m sorry, Tom. I didn’t mean to—do this to you . . .” His eyes closed. He couldn’t die, but he could apparently pass out.
Moreland stomped a foot. “We’ll settle this, asshole. Querelle!”
I slumped on the ground. Hard dirt, smelling like a toilet. Moreland stomped his foot again. “Querelle!”
The ground rumbled beneath me. I lurched up. Chip’s head dangled. Blood seeped from half-dried wounds in his neck. I tried to turn around. Querelle? Would she save us? Or condemn us to more torture? I almost didn’t care. Almost.
But it wasn’t her.
I blinked, then closed my eyes. Blinding fire burned my eyelids. I covered my head. Okay, okay, maybe this was it. Even if I didn’t die. Ever. I thought about Rachel, my mother, my brother and his kids, my father—he’s dead—and Chip. And then Rachel again.
A thunderous voice boomed in my ears. I couldn’t make out any words. I went fetal, trembling. This couldn’t go on forever, could it? I hoped not, even if it meant—
Then I was falling. As if the ground had ripped open beneath me. Falling into a cold dark void, my body shaking, tumbling head to foot, until—
“You jerk!” Rachel slapped my face. “Open your eyes! Talk to me! Or I swear to god—”
I grabbed her arm before she could hit me again. “I’m okay. Thanks.”
She kissed my forehead. “Asshole. I was worried!”
I rolled over on the rug. Chip lay next to me, his breath shallow. Someone had dropped a blue couch cushion over his crotch.
“Hi, Tom.” He shifted his body with a groan. “Good to see you again.”
“Yeah.” I sat up. “You okay?”
Behind him, David was doing CPR on Moreland as Vickie clutched his wrist. “Come on, come on, come on,” she chanted. “Come on, dad, come on—”
“We could see you.” Rachel glanced over her shoulder at the laptop. “We couldn’t hear much. Then there was this burst of light, and it just went black. For a minute I thought the thing was fried, but it’s still working.”
“What about Querelle?”
She shook her head. “Gone. The feed’s just down.”
Paramedics arrived a few minutes later. One team looked at Chip and me, the others went to Moreland. Chip asked for water—he was probably dehydrated. I wasn’t injured, except for a few bruises.
One of the paramedics took Vickie to a corner of the room. They talked in whispers, and Vickie started to cry.
The other paramedics stopped working on Moreland.
Chip gulped some water and managed to stand up, although the paramedics insisted on putting him on a gurney. I managed to convince Buck, a young African American paramedic, that I was okay to go home on my own, and after taking my pulse and flaring a penlight in my eyes, he clapped my shoulder. “Get some rest. And lots of water.”
The other crew pulled Moreland’s body through the door. Vickie followed him.
David looked at Rachel and me, his face pale. “You need to leave. I’m sorry.”
Suited me fine. Rachel helped me through the office and out to the car.
“I’ll drive.” Rachel snapped her seat belt. “So what happened?”
I shuddered. “I think I saw Satan.”
Back at the apartment I took a shower, drank a lot of water, then opened a beer and told Rachel everything.
“Wow.” She folded her arms. “You talked them down? You silver-tongued devil.”
“I wasn’t thinking, just talking.” I sipped my beer. “If it hadn’t worked, I’d probably still be there.”
“We would have found some way to get you out. Vickie was in a frenzy.” She sighed. “It’s too bad. I mean, Moreland sounds like a nut—a dangerous one. But it sucks to lose your dad.”
“I know.” I’d lost mine years ago, and I still dream about talking to him.
My phone buzzed. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”
“Mr. Jurgen? It’s, uh, Dave Mahoney.”
Uh-oh. Was he calling to chew me out? File a lawsuit? I tried to stay calm. “How are you and Vickie holding up?”
“She’s pretty—ruined. Wrecked. I just wanted to call and tell you we’re sorry. She actually told me to call you. For all the trouble.”
“No problem.” I was lying, but—“I’ll send that check back. I didn’t really do any work for you—”
“No, you got kidnapped, and it was Charles’s fault. Keep it.”
I wasn’t sure I’d cash it, but that was generous. “Can I ask one question?”
David sighed. “I guess.”
“How did Vickie’s mother die?”
Long hesitation. “She, uh—committed suicide. I think that Charles didn’t—he was abusive to her. Vickie doesn’t talk about her much.”
I nodded. Maybe that’s why Moreland ended up looking for her in Hell. “None of my business, but thank you.”
“Thank you.” He hung up.
The phone buzzed again almost immediately. Chip Shannon. “Hey, Tom. They’re letting me out of the hospital. Thanks for getting me out of—there.”
“Is your wife okay? She was pretty frantic. But she was a big help.”
“She’s here.” I heard her voice. “She says thanks too.”
“What were doing on Moreland? Did you know about—the demons?”
“Hell, no.” He laughed. “I’m going to think of that place every time I say ‘hell’ now. No, I was just checking out the business, because it seemed fishy—doing quantum computing from a storefront on the west side? I got a tip from one of his clients. Anyway, one thing led to another—you know how that goes—”
I chcuckled. “Too well.”
“—and I accidentally logged into the Hellcam or whatever they call it. I knew I was in trouble, and I thought of you. You still have a reputation, you know.”
Rachel smirked. I sipped my beer. “Yeah. Should have been an accountant like my father.”
“Whatever. Let’s get together sometimes. Not in Hell.”
“Definitely. To both.”
# # #
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