Boundless (Unearthly) (34 page)

I’m scared, yes, but I’m also determined. We’re going to do this, this impossible task that lies before us now. We’re going to rescue Angela.

And I’m thankful, in that moment, full to the brim with gratitude that Christian is with me. He’s here. My partner. My best friend.

I don’t have to do this alone.

If I had my gratitude journal on me now, that’s what I would write.

We stop, and more people get on. A man in a black uniform passes through the car and takes the gold coins. I wonder where the gray people get them, if there’s some sort of coin dispenser for the dead somewhere out there in the world, or if someone gives it to them, like the coin is a metaphor for what people want to take with them from one life to the next, only now they must give it to the man in the black uniform. Some of them seem reluctant to hand it over. One guy claims he doesn’t have a coin, and at the next stop the man in the black uniform takes this guy by the shoulders and hurls him off the train. Where will he go, I wonder? Is there a place that’s worse to go than hell?

The man in the black uniform gives a wide berth to Samjeeza and asks him no questions, I notice.

At the third stop, Samjeeza moves toward the door. He glances at me, a signal, and steps out. Christian and I stand up and push through the gray people, and each time I brush hard enough against one of them I receive a jolt of some raw and ugly feeling: hate, lost love, resentment, infidelity, murder. Then we’re standing on the platform, and I can breathe again. I try to look discreetly for Samjeeza, and I find him a few feet away. Already he looks different here; his humanness is fading. He’s larger and more menacing by the moment, the blackness of his coat a stark contrast to the gray of those around him.

Where are we?
Christian asks in my mind.
This looks familiar.

I turn around.

It’s Mountain View, I recognize immediately. The structure of the buildings is largely the same, only there’s a cold, thick mist passing between the buildings, and no color to be seen, like we’ve stepped onto the set of a horror movie inside a black-and-white television.

Look at them,
Christian says with an inner shudder of revulsion.

The gray people are walking all around us, heads down, some with black tears flowing down their faces, some scratching at themselves violently, their arms and necks raw with the marks of their fingernails, some muttering as if they’re talking to someone, but no one speaks to anyone else. They are adrift in their own oceans of solitude, all the while pressed in from every side by others just like them, but they never look up.

He’s on the move,
I say to Christian as Samjeeza starts to walk, down what would be Castro Street on earth. We wait for a few seconds before we follow. I slip my hand in Christian’s under the edge of his jacket, thankful for the warmth of his fingers, the smell of his cologne that I can only faintly detect in this congested mixture of what I identify as car exhaust and burned-out fire and the reek of mildew.

Hell stinks.

The street is empty of cars, no one driving, but the mass of people on the sidewalk never ventures onto the road. They part around Samjeeza as he walks among them, sometimes moaning as he passes by. A black sedan is idling at the corner. As we approach, the driver gets out and crosses to open the door for Samjeeza. He is something other than the gray people, something like the man in the black uniform was, and indeed he wears a kind of uniform himself, a fitted black suit and a chauffeur hat with a curved, shiny brim.

Don’t stare,
Christian warns me.
Keep your head down.

I bite my lip when I see that the driver does not have any eyes or mouth, just a smooth expanse of skin from nose to chin, a pair of slight indentations in his face where his eye sockets should be. Even so, he appears to look at us when we stop behind Samjeeza, and without words he seems to ask a question:

Where?

“I am taking these two to be marked for Asael,” Samjeeza says. He puts a finger to his lips, and the message to us is clear:
This man can’t speak, but he can hear. Be quiet.

The driver nods once.

I feel Christian’s wave of anxiety at Asael’s name like a new surge of adrenaline hitting my system. This could be a trap. We are walking right into it.

Technically we’re being driven right into it,
I say to try to lighten the moment, but he doesn’t have time to respond before Samjeeza puts a hand in the middle of Christian’s back and shoves him into the backseat, and I follow. Samjeeza slides in beside me, his shoulder touching mine now, and he likes it, this light, tantalizing contact, my human smell, the way my lips are slightly parted in terror. He likes how a strand of my hair has come undone from my ponytail, slipping out of my hoodie, how in this colorless world it shines pure white.

I press closer to Christian, who waits until Samjeeza closes the door of the car before putting his arm around me, drawing my head into his shoulder, away from Sam.

Ah, so protective,
Sam says into our minds.
Who are you, again? I thought she was in love with someone else.

Christian clenches his teeth but doesn’t respond.

We pass through the hell version of downtown Mountain View quickly, past Church and Mercy Streets, city hall, where there is a line of the gray people waiting outside; past the shops and restaurants, some boarded up but others open, people slouched one to a table over bowls of indistinguishable food. We reach what would be El Camino Real, the main street that connects all these little cities between San Francisco and San Jose, and turn south. Still there are no other cars on the road.

Does hell surprise you?
Samjeeza asks silently. His inner voice has a bite to it, a burn, like the aftertaste of something bitter.

I guess I didn’t think there would be restaurants and stores.

It is a reflection of earth,
he says.
What’s true on earth is more or less true in this place.

So all these people are trapped here?
I gesture out the window at the throngs of gray people pushing along the streets, always on their way somewhere, it seems, but at the same time aimless, without any true direction.

Not trapped, but kept. Most of them do not realize they’re in hell. They have died, and gravitated to this place because that is where they have willed themselves. They could leave at any time they choose, but they will never choose to.

Why not?

Because they will not let go of what it is that brought them here to begin with.

We pull into a parking lot, and the car squeaks to a stop.

Remember what I told you,
Samjeeza says.
Don’t speak to anyone but your friend, and only when I tell you to do so.

The driver opens the doors, and we climb out. I suck in a breath when I see where we are.

A tattoo parlor.

Samjeeza pushes us toward the building, then opens and holds the door as we step inside. It’s all in black and white, the leather couches a deep charcoal gray, the large neon word
TATTOO
glowing a stark, eye-piercing white, the designs on the walls flapping like startled birds with the sudden gust of wind we let in. The floor is dirty; there’s a stickiness and grit under our feet. We stand for a moment in the reception room, waiting. A bubble rises up in the water cooler: gray water in a gray container.

Then: a muffled scream from somewhere in the building.

A man comes out from the back, a small, thin, black man with a shaved head. An angel, I think, although not like any I have seen before. His nonexistent eyebrows lift in surprise when he sees us.

“Samyaza,” he says, inclining his shining head in a kind of bow.

“Kokabel.” Samjeeza greets him the way a king might acknowledge the court jester.

“To what do I owe the honor?”

“I have brought these two for my brother. They are of the fallen.”

It’s taking every ounce of Christian’s self-control not to bolt for the door and drag me with him. I shift closer and try to steady him.
Stay calm,
I want to whisper in his mind, but I don’t know if this new angel will be able to hear our connection.

“Live Dimidius?” Kokabel asks, again surprised.

Samjeeza’s eyes glint as he looks at me. “Quartarius. But a matched pair, and I think he’ll find them amusing.”

“Why stop here? Why not bring them directly to the master?”

“I thought it would please him to have them marked first,” Samjeeza says. “Can you fit them in today? I had hoped to present them to Asael shortly, if possible.”

“What is today?” Kokabel answers, grinning. He jerks his head toward the hallway. “Bring them back. Will we need to restrain them?” He looks like he might relish the task.

“No,” Samjeeza answers smoothly. “I have broken them thoroughly. They shouldn’t offer any resistance.”

We follow Kokabel down a narrow corridor into a small room, like an exam room at a doctor’s office. There is a person reclined on a large leather chair, with a man—Desmond, I recognize—leaning over her, a buzzing tattoo gun in his hand. From this angle I can’t see her face, only her hands as they clutch the arms of the chair.

She’s wearing dark gray nail polish, but I’m guessing that on earth it would be purple.

Christian and I each suck in a breath at the same time. Kokabel pushes us farther into the room like we are livestock, and I wish I could hold Christian’s hand as Angela’s despair crashes over me. Desmond is tattooing something on her neck on one side. She’s wearing a hueless camisole almost the same color as her pale skin, and dirty, torn jeans, no shoes. The soles of her feet are black. Her hair is pulled back in a ratty knot at the base of her skull, her bangs overgrown so that they almost obscure her eyes, a few lanky strands sticking out like straw on a scarecrow. Her entire right arm is covered in words, some easily readable, some overlapping and indecipherable.

Jealous
, I make out along her forearm.
Insufferable know-it-all
.
Bad friend
.
Careless
.

Selfish
, it reads in the curve of her elbow.

Slut
, in the tender space where her arm meets her shoulder.

And other things, more specific sins, like
I lied to my mother
,
I lied to my friends
,
I started a rumor
,
I hid the truth
, in tiny scribbled print all along her bicep, the word
LIAR
spelled broadly across it.

“Sit,” Samjeeza commands us, and we sink obediently into a pair of folding chairs against the far wall. I try to keep my eyes down, but some part of me can’t look away from Angela.

“Desmond, we’ve brought you some new customers,” Kokabel says.

“I’m just finishing up here.” Desmond sniffles like he has a cold, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. His eyes flit to Samjeeza, then quickly away.

I lift my gaze to Angela’s neck, the spot where Desmond is currently leaving a line of characters. He spreads his fingers to stretch the skin there, touching the gun into the tender space under her ear, wiping away a smear of black ink with a dirty cloth. The letters are dark and startling against the fragile whiteness of her flesh.

Bad mother.

“A bad mother,” Samjeeza remarks. “Who’s her unlucky offspring?”

Kokabel shakes his head. “Penamue’s, I believe. I thought he didn’t have it in him to sire children, but they say he’s the father. She’s a troublesome one. Asael sends her back to us every time she displeases him, which is often.”

Angela takes a sudden breath, a strangled whimper escaping her, the cords on her neck standing out and halting Desmond’s progress. Without blinking an eye he rears back and slaps her, hard, across the face. I have to bite my lip to keep from crying out. She slides down on the chair, closes her eyes. Gray tears slip down her cheeks as he finishes the words.

Samjeeza turns to Kokabel. “I’d like to choose the design for the female,” he says. “Will you show me your book?”

“Yes. This way,” Kokabel says. “I’ll be back for the girl,” he directs at Desmond, and then he steps into the hall. Samjeeza holds back a moment longer, reaches to slip something into Desmond’s hand, a plastic bag, then follows Kokabel to deliberate on my ink.

I’m thinking it’s not going to be a pretty butterfly on my hip.

Desmond puts the bag in his pocket and pats it, like it’s a pet or something. He scoots his stool up to my chair. I force my eyes down as he takes my chin and turns my head from side to side.

“Lovely skin,” he says, his breath like sour cigarettes and gin.
“
I can’t wait to work on you.”

Christian’s body tightens like a bowstring.

Don’t
, I tell him with a look, not daring to speak even with my mind in here.

Desmond gets up and peels off his gloves, throws them onto a counter in the corner, stretches, wipes at his nose again.

“I need a refreshment,” he says, clicking his fingers together in a kind of nervous rhythm. Then he goes out, sniffling and rummaging for the bag Samjeeza gave him, and closes the door behind him.

You have perhaps five minutes to make your escape,
comes Samjeeza’s disembodied voice in my head, the second we’re alone with Angela.
Go back to the train station and take a northbound train, which will come shortly. Hurry. In a few minutes the whole of hell will be after you, including me. And remember what I told you. Don’t speak to anyone. Just go. Now.

Christian and I rush to Angela’s side.

“Ange, Ange, get up!”

She opens her eyes, the dark traces of tears still on her cheeks. She frowns as she looks at me, like my name isn’t quite coming to her.

“Clara,” I supply. “I’m Clara. You’re Angela. This is Christian. We have to go.”

“Oh, Clara,” she says wearily. “You were always so pretty.” Absently she rubs at her arm where it says
jealous
. “I’m being punished, you know.”

“Not anymore. Let’s go.”

I pull at her arm, but she resists. She whispers, “I’ve lost them.”