Forsaken (18 page)

“She’ll be stuck here?” Cyrus was right; I didn’t know enough about their world to make decisions.

“Aye. That is all we can do. Perhaps once she is free, her spirit can find its home or a medium can help to guide her there. But where I think she is now, she will never find contentment. And it looks to me that this demon of yours has its teeth sunk deep in your soul. This may be your only chance.”

“We could find the source,” Cyrus butted in. “Those people in Fresno, they did this. We could stop them and–"

“No. The beast has been loosed upon her. His will is his own and it will not be stopped. Only Dylan can stop it. It is her soul it wants and her power it feeds on.” She was only half-right. That thing fed on my sins.

“I’m in,” I said and shut them both up. “Promise me you won’t give up on me,” I said to Cyrus.

“Never.” He shook his head.

He had no reason to pledge his allegiance to me; our relationship hadn’t had much time to flourish, and in fact had been rocky more times than not. Whatever he saw in me, I couldn’t even see in myself. I had underestimated him, and in the moment I was glad I had.

It felt hokey and stupid, but it happened and I didn’t bother stopping it. There was something about losing almost everything, which made the world bearable. Nearing death brought clarity to a life of lies and misconnections. There was so much more to living than primetime television and mocha lattes. It was the people and moments that flittered in and out that made a life worth living. Good, bad, or otherwise, life was a series of fucks. The matter of the thing was which end you were on. It seemed I was on the receiving end of fucked. It was time that changed.

“Let’s do this.” I let out a single fist pump.

“Yes. We have a few hours until the Saturn day and I am starving. Let’s eat and have a drink, eh?”

Lupe seemed more and more my type of lady every time she didn’t lie to me for her own personal gain. At her request, Cyrus hauled out everything in the cabinets and refrigerator and ended up with five peanut butter sandwiches, a bag of Oreos, and one bottle of tequila. It was obvious no one ate anything substantial in that place, ever.

We passed the bottle around a few times until the butterflies in my butt chilled the fuck out and took a break. I pounded back one sandwich and ten, maybe twelve, cookies. I wished my last meal was something a little more appealing, but quelled that with another swig of booze.

The time passed and we chatted about literally anything but the situation that awaited us. Before long, a large clock off in another room chimed midnight and startled me. My time was up. Saturn day, or Saturday as normal folks would call it, was the best day to contact Azrael the archangel, and lucky us, I barged into Lupe’s shop flashing a gun on a Friday afternoon.

I had hoped Mike would come. There was so much I wanted him to know. From what Lupe had made clear, there was a chance I wouldn’t make it back from my trip to Hades. I prepared myself for that as best I could, but if I didn’t, I wanted him to know I was wrong.

“I gotta pee,” I exclaimed and shoved away from the table.

I needed a moment alone before whatever was about to happen happened. Lupe hadn’t really explained much about the process. She told me enough to know it wasn’t my body that was going anywhere, but my soul--my marred, sinful soul. If anyone belonged in Hell, it was me, I supposed.

The bathroom matched the overall theme of the first floor of the house. The presence of toilet paper made it clear their particular breed of animal did, in fact, take regular dumps, or irregular considering all that iron.

My gut burning a bit from the combination of booze and nerves, I worried my masticated cookies wouldn’t stay put in their new home. Any other bad choice I’d made in my life had been impulsive. With hours to stew about my impending trip to the underworld, I had plenty of time to consider my idiocy. I knew what I was doing could either fizzle away like a cheap year-old sparkler, or leave me stranded in a world of dead things. I knew the dangers. I had plenty of time to change my mind, yet I didn’t. If there was anything more powerful than my impulsive nature, it was my pride. I had made my bed, and I was prepared to fuck myself in it for eternity. Washing my face, I considered pooping before something came along and scared it out of me.

“Bring it on, Satan,” I said to my reflection in the bathroom mirror. “I guess it’s time to test that bitch from Hell theory,” I mumbled and turned out the light.

The lights were out when I walked into the dining area. Candles flickered on a small table off to the side and a chair had been placed in the center of the chalk design Cyrus had drawn.

“Take off your shoes and take a seat,” Lupe instructed and pointed to the chair.

Slipping out of my sneakers, I pulled my weapon from its makeshift holster and laid it on one of the discarded chairs. As she instructed, I sat in the center of a white circle with squiggly shit coming out of it. On the small table to my right stood several colored candles shaped like the Virgin Mary had mated with the Grim Reaper. Lupe had called them Santisma Muerte when she had me pack them up. She said it was Holy Death and my guide to the underworld.

Lupe rubbed my arms with rose oil, which smelled like my granny’s house. Better than Hell, I figured. Her quick fingers fiddled with the rubber band that held back my frizz until it puffed free. Cyrus handed her a red ribbon with a charm tied to the end of it. The charm was in the shape of a fancy oval and had a picture of the Santisma Muerte on it.

Lupe braided my wild hair with the ribbon and tied the trinket deep in the thick of it. “Santa Muerte,” she said. “Cover this in your holy protection. I pray.” She kissed it before it disappeared into the knot.

My heart pounded in my chest, harder each minute that passed. I couldn’t believe where I sat, where I’d come from. A skeptic, a bitch out for a buck, I never assumed the world I was hunting held any ounce of truth. Yet there I sat, terrified I’d never make it back to my earthly body. Not a week before, I questioned my own sanity before believing in a curse. Voodoo bitches and headless things were nothing compared to the idea of eternity in my own Hell.

The front door flew open and Mike stomped into the foyer. A silent yelp pulled the air from my lungs. Seeing him in the flesh made my sacrifice real. I pushed Lupe’s busy hands away and ran to him. My bare feet slapped the wood floor as I ran. It was lame and cliché and something I never in a million years thought I’d do, but I did it. Slamming into his large frame, I nearly knocked him to the floor. His back hit the door and knocked it shut as I kissed him, hard. His hands cupped around my waist and lifted my feet from the floor. My heart fluttered and tears fell soft from my lashes. They’d been working their way up for hours anyhow.

Between small, intimate kisses, I said, “I love you. I’ve loved you from the moment I met you, and I will love you until my soul is wiped from the universe. I’m an asshole. I’m an idiot and I fucked up. I want you to know that. I want you to know always that I am yours. I always have been.”

His brows creased. “What are you doing?” He knew. He wasn’t stupid. He knew I was doing something reckless and I’d likely die in the process. His eyes glistened and threatened to open up and dump tears out.

“Something I have to do, and I need you to let me. I need you to tell me you’ll love me. I need you to forgive me before I go.” My eyes pleaded with him.

He set me back to the floor. “I can’t do that.” He looked over my shoulder at the magic goings-on. “I can’t let you do this again. I can’t lose you forever.”

“I’m already lost. Please, let me find myself. Whatever happens, I need to know I did everything I could to make right what I’ve done wrong.”

“I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago. All I’ve ever wanted was you with me. What is this?” He eyed Lupe and Cyrus.

“I don’t have time to discuss it. A demon thing has been attached to my soul. This demon torments Tatum in Hell. She’s there because I put her there when I killed her.” He was quiet. “I did this, and I have to fix it. Lupe is strong. I trust her magic and her tie to the balance of the Earth. I’m strong. I trust myself to kill what needs killing. I need you to trust me, too.”

His eyes slid over me to the witch in the other room and back again. He shook his head. “You’re doing this with or without me?” I nodded. “There’s nothing I can do to stop you?” I shook my head. “How did I get to this point? I should be calling in the white coats and restraints. Instead, I’m terrified what is going to happen to you when that woman starts her mojo.”

“Congratulations, you’ve gone Mulder.” I forced a tight smile.

His brows lifted in the center, blue eyes searching the space for any clue as to how serious the situation was. He kissed my forehead while he looked over the top of it. “What am I going to tell your mother?” he asked absentmindedly.

Fuck me.
I hadn’t thought about my mom. I’d tried so hard to pull myself away from her to protect her, I’d let myself forget her completely. “Tell her I love her.” I kissed him one last time and left him standing near the door. If I didn’t, I never would.

Cyrus’s eyes went wide when Mike followed me into the room. He obviously hadn’t expected him to let me back in. Perhaps he assumed Mike would be his last line of defense against me and my stupidity. Those two really needed to figure their shit out because we had some changes to make when I got back.
If
.

“You’re okay with this?” Cyrus whispered to Mike.

“Do I have a choice? The only thing I
could
do would make me a hypocrite and a traitor.”

“Reserved for the worst ring of Hell,” I added and joined Lupe back at my spot.

“Are we ready now?” She held her hands on her hips.

I sat and back to work she went. Rubbing ash on my forehead, she mumbled something in Spanish. Mike and Cyrus stood side by side, Mike a good six inches taller. Both had their arms across their chests, and they whispered back and forth while watching me.

“Hold this.” She placed a jagged black stone in my hand. “You,” she pointed to Mike, “you would protect her to the ends of the Earth?”

Mike looked around as if she were talking to some other guy. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Yes. I would do anything for her.”

“Good, come here.” She pointed to the edge of the circle. “Your blood will seal our circle. Without you, her journey was uncertain. She’s lucky.” Lupe pulled a long pin from the center of her big, round bun and ran it down Mike’s forearm. He scrunched his brows together when she milked blood from the wound. “I call to Azrael, with the force of blood, by the will of love, bind these souls on this Earth.” Drops of his blood fell to the floor. “Keep her close to you,” she said and shoved a strand of my hair I hadn’t known she’d taken in his hand.

“What now?” Mike asked.

“Now you shut up and wait over there. Do not enter the circle. Do not talk to me. Do not talk to Dylan. Do not allow any thoughts in your mind. If you cannot do this, leave this house.” The two nodded and stepped away, leaning against the back of the couch. “Dylan.” She looked into my eyes. “Do you have faith in yourself, in your strength as a woman, in your power as a human soul?”

My eyes flicked to Mike, Cyrus, then back to Lupe. The pouch in my bra dug into my skin when my heavy chest heaved against it.
I hope so
. “Yes.”

“Think of your friend. Think of nothing else. Do not allow any feeling other than the love for your friend and bond to your mate to enter your heart. You control your fate.”

She walked around me, her wooden leg thudding. “Holy Mother, bless us. Divine power, fill us.” She splashed liquid around me and set a glass of water on the table with all the candles. “Accept our offering.” Lupe held the back of the chair as she spoke.

Slowly, she lowered the back of the chair, lifting the front two legs from the floor, leaving my bare feet to dangle freely. I clung to the black gemstone tight enough to break the skin in my palm. “Azrael, archangel to God, watcher of souls, protect this child. Guide her hand as she undoes sin, as she rights wrongs of those she loves.” She lowered the back of the chair further. “Mighty Santa Muerte, allow this child passage. Protect her in battle.” I closed my eyes and hugged myself when she lowered the chair to lay me nearly on my back. “I, Guadalupe Maria Amaia Tapia, call to the keepers of the underworld. Open your doors and let this child of God pass.” A searing sickness ripped at my core and threatened to pull me inside-out. I gritted my teeth and bore the pain without shedding a tear. “I command it, make it be!” she screamed and let me go.

Thanks for the call, hookah-smoking caterpillar.

Chapter 16

My breath left my body. Expecting to slam back-first into the hardwood floor, I braced myself for impact. Instead, I plummeted. Deeper and darker than anything my head could have imagined. A blackness so thick, I thought I could reach out and touch it.

Though I tumbled deeper in to the abyss, I lacked the sensation of falling. No tingling tummy or feeling of motion. Simply an overall gut knowledge of downward movement. I thought maybe I’d never stop falling. Maybe that was my Hell. A constant state of not knowing what was next. A Hell it would be for my need-to-know brain.

Blackness, where not even my own hand could be seen, caused my brain to make stuff up. I’d read an article once about how the brain plugs stuff in when it lacks proper input.

Curious how the mind works. What if this isn’t real at all? What if I’m not falling but flying?

I felt like Alice when she tumbled through the looking glass, only I didn’t have a white rabbit to follow. I didn’t have anything but my own thoughts which were beginning to wander. I forced myself to focus on Tatum and the objective. Any other thoughts could screw the pooch, according to Lupe.

Tatum’s face popped in to my mind, followed by her blonde hair and blue eyes. I thought hard about her laugh and some random conversation she and I had, trying to recall the sound of her voice.

“Marco?” Tatum called out to me in the darkness.

“Polo!” I yelled back.

I’d thought about her voice and it was there. I felt a smile stretch across my face. Whatever I’d done had brought me closer to her. I thought harder about her face, about the last time I’d seen her smile. I figured if my thoughts brought her voice to me, then I could think her up in the flesh just the same.

It wasn’t working. Time was irrelevant, as was space, but my logical brain knew I had to have been falling long and far. I wanted my feet on the ground and light to see around me. I closed my eyes, as if it made a difference, and focused on the white hallway where I’d last seen Tatum. I changed it up, putting clothing on my girl and a door at the end of the hall. A door, I told myself, which led back home. 

“Please,” I whispered. “Please work.” I begged my brain to work magic. I really didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. Winging it would have been an understatement.

My butt hit something hard, knocking the wind out of me. In a huff, I hit and bit my tongue, and the copper taste of blood filled my mouth. Pain shot through my face. Wherever I was, I could still bleed. A soul away from her body shouldn’t have had any blood to shed. I made a mental note to bring it up to Lupe on the outs.

I opened my eyes slowly. Bright white light filled my vision and I squinted, blocking the light away with my hand. Blinking, I forced my eyes to open and adjust to the new lighting. Walls hovered over either side of me. Tall, immensely tall, narrowing the nearer the ceiling they reached. My head swam with sudden vertigo. I shook away the feeling and sat up to see my door, tiny at the farthest end of my white hallway. The shapes were odd; nothing seemed angled correctly, proportions varied. I felt like I’d fallen in to a Tim Burton flick. If it hadn’t been my version of the underworld, I’d have said it was pretty cool. As it was, it was fairly terrifying.

“Shit, finally,” I said, standing and brushing red sand off my clothes. “Where the hell did this come from?” I asked no one about the sand covering the clothes I’d been wearing for two days.

“Up there.”

I jumped and spun around at the voice which echoed through the space. Tatum stood behind me wearing a childlike variant of the vision I had in my head, as if a kid had recreated my design using scraps of fabric and Elmer’s glue. Stacked from wrist to elbow were the same white plastic bracelets she’d been wearing the last time we met in a white hallway. My head had pulled her away from wherever she’d been and saw her however it wanted. Apparently, my loose soul had a mind of its own. The place I’d traveled didn’t have the same rules we had on Earth. That place existed in the mind, the soul; anything could be or not be. Or so it seemed.

“You’re talking to me.” Tears welled at my lashes. “I miss you. My…we have to go.” I stopped my blubbering. There was no time for that. It was always the blubber moment when good shit went bad.

“Where are we going?”

“Home.”  I grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door end of the hallway.

“I can’t go home.” She stayed put.

“Yes, yes, you can. I made it right. I’m here to take you back.”

“Dylan. You killed me.”

Tears fell. “I know. I know I did. I didn’t…it wasn’t me. I didn’t have a choice. Now, come on, please.”

“There’s always a choice. I can’t go back.” She pulled her arm from my grasp.

“Tatum, you have to. You can’t stay here. This place–" I stopped and looked around at the odd space I’d created.

“Is yours. I’m here because of you.”

“I know. Look, I know everything. I know my hands took your life and my voice sent you to hell, but I didn’t do it. I didn’t want this. I sacrificed my own soul to save yours. Please,” I pulled on her again, “we don’t have much time.”

“Hell? Dylan, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Lupe, she said…that beastly thing said it devours you. You came to me. You came to me and died over and over again right before my eyes. You told me you were down here. Azelie punished me by forcing me to send you to Hell because I love you. T, what’s going on?” I shook my head softly; nothing made sense. I couldn’t understand who’d fucked up. “You stopped talking to me…then that thing came. That thing came here.” A familiar ticking scurried around in the space unseen. I searched the area for it, but came up empty. “Where did I go?” I asked, terrified of what might have gone wrong.

“Dylan, don’t you see? Your eyes are open, aren’t they?” she laughed. “You’re right here.”

“Where?” My heart thudded with the fear of possibilities.

“In your head, fucking dunce. Jeez.”

“You’ve said that before! Dammit, Tatum, I’ve done this with you before. You have to come with me. We have to go now. We have to get out of here.” I pulled on her again and the ticking clicked along the wall behind me. I pulled and searched at the same time.

“I’m not going anywhere. I never get to go anywhere.” She shook her head and looked at me as though I should have already known that.

“I don’t have much time. The magic that brought me here only let me come through so far and so long before I’ll be yanked back. You have to be with me when I go or you’re stuck here with that thing!” I was panicked. I’d known I was supposed to banish that thing that wanted me, but I didn’t care as much about it as I did saving Tatum. It was there, somewhere, and it was watching me.

It ticked along and finally she heard it, too. Her sparkling blue eyes followed the sound along the wall and up toward the ceiling. She smiled sweetly at it, then at me. I let her go. Her grin widened, wider, and wider, a Cheshire grin. Ear to ear she smiled, literally. I backed away from her, one step at a time, my bare feet slapping the floor.

“I’m down there,” she said from nowhere, repeating what she’d said before.

“What’s happening?” I asked, praying I was still talking to Tatum. I backed further.

“Or mine,” she gurgled. Her eyes flashed from blue to glowing golden.

My scream echoed through the Burton-esque space. The beast had my number from minute one. Tatum, wherever she was, wasn’t there. She wasn’t with the thing which festered in my soul. Whatever Lupe had seen in me was wrong. Azelie’s spell had nothing to do with Hell, or wherever I’d ended up. That thing, that beast unleashed upon me, had tricked me. It’d tricked the witch who saw it in me. It was a thing sent to torment me, and with it came an agenda which had the ability to fool everyone, even my unconscious soul that traveled to an unknown underworld.

I turned and ran toward my make-believe door, but the angles and proportions brought on a dizzying lack of coordination making a speedy getaway impossible. Its sounds scurried behind me, clicks and ticks which could only have been the sounds of its bones crackling within its black body as it climbed over itself toward me. I’d seen it for what it was and knew without looking the horror it brought with it.

“I don’t accept you!” I shouted over my shoulder. “This soul is mine; this body is mine. It belongs to me. It is bound to the Earth. You can’t have it!” I screamed.

A thick, sharp claw caught the center of my back as I ran, and a guttural howl came from deep within me as I fell to my knees. Huffing, I pulled my feet and hands forward, scuttling toward my door. There was no option. I had to fight. Tatum didn’t need saving. I did. No one was coming for
me
. I was alone. I was my own Goddamned hero.

“Come here, girl,” the beast gurgled. “You think you can escape?” It laughed, a hissing sound, deep and disgusting and crawling across my skin like maggots.

I didn’t respond, didn’t waste time to acknowledge its threats. On my feet finally, I pushed on. I told myself that door would take me home. That door would open and I’d be standing in the dining area of Sween where people who gave a shit about me were waiting. And that thing behind me would disappear forever.

Feet from the door, the thing snatched my braid and stopped me in my tracks. My feet came out from under me and down on my ass I went. The thing howled and released my hair. I turned and shoved my back against the door.

“You come here with blessed trinkets. You think that will stop me?” The more words I heard, the more it became clear that I wasn’t hearing just one voice, but many, all jumbled together to warble and gurgle.

That ribbon Lupe had tied in to my hair had obviously been a deterrent. “You bet your demon ass I did. You wanna see what else I’ve got in my bag of tricks?” I threatened falsely.

I jerked on the knob to find the door opened inward against my back. I cursed my own brain for making it so. The thing smiled and clicked its long legs over its shoulders as it crept slowly toward me. Bile churned in my gut at its stench. The sight sent fear to my toes which made me want to curl up and tuck my head under the covers I wished I had. A thing of nightmares, the beast which stalked me had sunk its teeth in my soul and wouldn’t let it go.

Its long, slender fingers wrapped around my ankle and pulled itself onto my legs. I tucked my chin and pulled my back as far away as the door allowed. It slid up my body, running its spindly, pointed fingers over my thighs and between my legs. As it grew closer to my face, the threat it presented dug deep. It had me cornered. I had nowhere to go, and that thing would surely crawl its way up and take me over completely.

Power was all I had left. Strength I’d brought down with me. I shoved my hand into my shirt and dug graveyard dirt from the depths of my bra. It was all I had left. I didn’t know how to use it properly, so I made shit up.

“Remember this?” I asked and flashed the baggy of the dirt I’d shoved in to its gullet. It stopped and eyed what I held in my hand. “I’ve got power, too. I may be in your world, but I packed a bag for the trip.” I shook it and the thing backed an inch.

The beastly thing was scared. Maybe not as scared as I was, but I hadn’t expected much. I held in my terror, a horror so intense I wanted to crawl out of my own skin. Cyrus said there was no Hell, only levels based on individual experience. Whatever individual drummed that thing up was one sick motherfucker.

I resent that.

Dad, if you’ve ever listened to me, ever, please make it now, I thought.

Be a fucking bad ass. You’ve got nothing left to lose.

The thing tapped a pointed fingertip along my belly. “I’m already inside you.” It grinned.

“So am I,” I said through clenched teeth.

“I am the beast that dwells within you. I am your sin.”

“I am the bitch your mother warned you about. I am your executioner,” I sneered back at it and shoved my bag of consecrated dirt into the beast’s face.

The thing scampered backward off the top of me. I jumped to my feet and climbed over the whimpering mass of legs and arms. Opening the bag, I held its thin jaw and dumped the contents into its mouth.

“Your soul is mine!” it wailed with its dirt-filled mouth.

“Go to Hell, motherfucker!”

I slammed my palm into its chin and sent the holy dirt home. I’d found my power and it was a bitch. The beast writhed along the floor, inhumanly-long legs and arms flailing about as it screamed in pain. I kicked it in its side and it slid down the hall on its bony ass away from me. The white walls I’d built in my head crumbled. I turned, not caring to spend another second in whatever form of Hell I’d been standing in. My door was right where I’d left it. My mission was complete, or as complete as it was going to get. I reached for the knob and cranked it over. The beast screeched, echoing through the space which was falling in on itself. I flung open the door and heaved my shaking body through the opening.

The door slammed behind me, cutting off the screams of a dying beast. I let out the breath I’d been holding and caught the next which pulled in to my lungs. The door hadn’t led where my brain had wanted it to. The space I’d created had been under false pretenses. Everything I’d done was wrong. The plan, from minute one, had been fucked. I was finally, truly, fucked.

You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.