But as she looked about at the featureless plain, her stomach turned. She was in hell. Lost in hell.
She gave herself a mental slap.
Don’t think about it.
Her grandfather’s survivalist training told her to first assess her assets and then her location. Emily took off her coat and gear and laid everything out in front of her, checking for damage. Her weapons were in perfect condition. The leather coat was brittle, but as it took the brunt of passage, it held up well. In the pocket, she found her packet of jerky, crumbled but edible. She opened the water bladder. Steam belched out in a whistling geyser. She dropped the vessel in surprise.
Jerky with no water. She would get thirsty quick.
The empty goat bladder went into her pocket. The sheathed knife went around her waist. Everything else went over the coat so she could reach her arrows. As she adjusted the bow across her shoulders, she noticed shadows moving in the haze.
She stared, gridlocked, and had to shake herself into action. Something was coming. Demons, or worse. Emily ran for the cover of the boulders. They were farther than they appeared. They were also much larger. How did rocks this big reach the middle of a plain? There were no mountains to roll down, no oceans to set them ashore. Her anxiety rose.
She gave the rocks a wide berth, circling behind them. Panting, her throat burning with the sulfuric air, Emily peered around the side. Three figures emerged from the smog. They were tall and as thin as sticks.
Emily notched an arrow, watching the figures. Above, a grinding noise drew her attention. Several rocks bounded down the boulders as if aiming for her. She leapt out of the way.
With a sound like breaking teeth, a boulder teetered and crashed onto its side right where she had been standing. The ground shattered beneath it, showering Emily with shards and dust. She stared, transfixed.
She would have been crushed, pinned at the least. Had the boulder sensed she was there?
Realization struck.
She stood in the open
. Emily spun toward the approaching figures. They were not demons. They were people. One appeared to be wearing rags. Another wore something about their neck that dragged behind. The third hobbled in their wake, reminding Emily of the way Chastity moved.
She walked toward them, arms out, hoping they’d see her as non-aggressive. Voices drifted on the fetid air. They were chanting, perhaps praying. It might have been in Swahili.
“Hello,” she said. “Can you help me? I’m looking for the castle.”
The first man stopped walking, although his feet continued shuffling in place. He was not wearing rags as she thought. His skin, darker than scorched teakwood, hung in tattered strips from his body, swaying from beneath his arms and between his legs. Bright red flesh showed between the strips. He chanted non-stop, staring beyond her. His eyelids were gone.
Emily grimaced. The second person, a woman, struggled to walk with a thick chain draped about her neck. A medallion at the end of the chain scraped the ground. Her gaze lit on Emily’s face. She heaved a rasping sob.
“You should take it off,” Emily said. “The chain. Just take it off. I’ll help you.” She took hold of the chain. It was unwieldy. She needed two hands to lift it over the woman’s head. The metal links clanked as they fell to stone.
The woman’s face transformed, but not by gratitude as Emily expected. Instead, her expression changed to utter panic. Her voice rose like an air raid siren. She wailed so loudly Emily took a step back. With a stab of alarm, Emily saw the medallion turn bright blue.
The man with no eyelids picked up the chain and dropped it onto the woman’s shoulders. She staggered with the weight, but stopped bawling. They continued walking, passing Emily as if she wasn’t there.
What just happened? Was the thing going to explode? Was it some sort of devilish joke to harness a woman with a twenty-pound bomb?
The last man lumbered by. His feet were mere stumps. Emily expected to see a bloody trail, but there was none. She walked with him for several steps, waving her hand in front of his face. “Which way is the castle? Tell me how to find the castle.”
He took no notice of her, and after a few minutes, she fell back, watching him walk away. Tears blurred her vision. She pressed her palms against her eyes. She couldn’t afford to cry—she needed the moisture.
Shoulders slumped, she looked at the boiling sky.
April. Mommy’s here. Please help me find you.
Then she saw it—a shining tube in the clouds writhing like a headless snake. One of the portal tunnels. Chastity said all portals led to the castle.
With her bow and arrow in hand, Emily followed the snaking tunnel. Her soft-soled boots made no sound. She felt every crevice in the abrasive ground and wondered what it would be like to walk without shoes.
The three people she met had bare feet. They were naked and bald. Emily still had hair, although it felt singed in front. Her hood protected her in the portal. She thanked God for her coat and boots.
She thought of the man’s stubby feet, no doubt eroded by years of walking. Perhaps of the three, he’d been in hell the longest. Perhaps he’d forgotten how to speak, and that was why he didn’t respond.
Although, the other two weren’t exactly communicative. Were they insane? Was that what she would find here—deranged people wandering aimlessly? Why didn’t they fight back?
Snarling yelps interrupted her thoughts. Emily crouched, moving cautiously. A copse came into view. The trees were leafless and white. Keeping low, Emily continued walking.
A pack of hellhounds circled one of the trees. The animals were muscular and barrel-chested with thick, dark fur—but their heads were hairless, their muzzles snubbed and serpent-like. A strip of green skin traveled their spine, ending in a thin tail that alternately whipped and coiled. The hounds leapt and bit something in the tree.
Emily looked to the sky. The tunnel she followed was gone, but she was certain it led in this direction. If she detoured around the thicket, would she lose her way?
As she plotted a route, she became aware of another sound mixed with the dogs’ barks. A human sound. A man wept and cried out in pain, begging for mercy.
She couldn’t leave him.
Creeping forward, Emily notched an arrow. She decided her target should be the hound’s neck where skin met fur. She cleared her mind, concentrating, and let the arrow fly. The arrow hit, and the hound dropped. The rest of the pack took no notice.
Emily let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. They could be killed. Thank God. She’d harbored a secret fear that her arrows would be harmless.
She shot again. This time, as a dog fell dead among them, the pack spun about, biting and mauling their mate. Evidently, they weren’t above eating one of their own.
Emily let loose another arrow, and the dogs looked her way. She froze, feeling vulnerable. Instead of rushing her, they turned and ran.
Three out of eight. Not bad, she thought as she approached the first dead hound.
It looked like something out of a nightmare—massive paws, powerful jaws, and gleaming fangs. Its ears were large, giving the impression that the dogs tracked by sound rather than smell. She also wondered about their eyesight. She’d been clearly visible—why hadn’t they attacked?
She freed her arrow from the animal’s neck and moved toward the next, walking among the trees. A chill gripped her as she glanced about. People melded with the limbs, the outlines of their bodies barely distinguishable. Their heads lolled. Many had no eyes, just ravaged sockets—but others did, and their eyes followed her as she retrieved her arrows.
The man continued crying, a keening wail like a kitten. As Emily approached, she saw that one of his legs was exposed. The growth of the tree held it in an awkward-looking position. The dogs had shredded his foot. She moved beneath the spreading limbs, looking up at his face.
“Dan?”
THIRTY
Emily stared at the figure in the tree. Much of his torso was embedded. His exposed flesh was as pale as the trunk. His arms stretched so far along the tree limbs she thought they must be dislocated. The only part of him free to move was his head.
“Dear God,” Emily whispered. “Dan.”
“Help me. Please,” he cried. “Take me down.”
Emily nodded, but wondered how she would manage it. Instinct told her that if she touched the bark, she risked entrapment as well.
In the surrounding copse, each tree held at least one person. A man hung as if crucified, his eyes and nose gone, his exposed fingers gnawed to nubs. A couple stood face to face, their elongated limbs entwined, their eyes wide and darting as if trying to glimpse her. Another person bent backward nearly in half, her head and shoulders enveloped, her emaciated body looking more like a gnarled knot.
Emily couldn’t leave Dan to such a fate. Pursing her lips, she drew her knife. Watching for the tree’s reaction, she sliced the smooth bark. The surface was dry and chalky. The tree remained motionless. She’d expected it to grab her.
With the hilt in both hands, she reached as high as she could and ran her blade along the outline of Dan’s arms. The bark crumbled, exposing yellow pulp.
Dan sobbed. “I knew you would come. I knew you wouldn’t forget me.”
Emily felt a pang of guilt. Once she arrived here, it never occurred to her to look for her friend. She was there for her daughter. “They took April, Dan.”
He didn’t seem to hear her. “The tree. It’s
digesting
me.”
She continued chipping around his body. “How did you get up there?”
“I was trying to hide.”
“From the dogs?”
“No.” He gasped. “The other things.”
Emily wanted to ask what other things, but didn’t have the courage. Slipping her knife behind Dan’s shoulder, she pried him loose.
Dan shrieked, then cried, “Thank you. Oh, God, thank you.”
His arm pulled free. It looked raw. She pried at his other shoulder. This time he yelled so loudly, she jumped, and lost her balance. Without thinking, she put her hand on the tree.
Immediately, bark swallowed her hand. She wasn’t certain if she sank into the tree or if it had swelled to encase her. She tugged, but it held fast.
A prickling, burning sensation grew in her fingers until she squirmed and kicked in agony. She felt like her hand was in a vat of boiling oil. Plunging her knife into the tree, she cut deep to free herself. She was certain that when her hand came loose, it would be nothing but bone. But when she was freed, she found her skin was merely pink. She cradled her hand, moaning. Chalky dust caked her leather armguard. She shook it out, then flexed her fingers. They ached to her elbow.
Both Dan’s arms hung from the tree. Emily took hold and pulled. With a wet, squelching sound, he fell. Flesh tore away in long strands. He hit the ground face first, his wail muffled in stone.
“Thank you,” he said, panting. “Thank you.” The white of his backbone showed through red ooze.
Emily turned him onto his side. “I don’t know how to help you.”
“Get me up. I can walk.”
“Walk?” she cried. “Half of you is still in that tree.”
She looked at the imprint he’d left. The color ranged from pink to red to lumps of purple.
He whimpered. “Don’t leave me.”
She followed the limbs higher. If she cut down a couple branches and made a litter, she could carry him with her. But she wouldn’t be able to drag him all the way to the castle. She had to stash him somewhere safe. She needed a cave. She would carefully cause the boulders to fall and—
Something hit her from behind, knocking her over. A vice-like grip closed over her armguard. She swung her blade and heard an answering yelp.
Dogs.
Black fur threatened to smother her. The animal’s weight crushed the air from her lungs. She thrust the knife at random, not sure where she was hitting, knowing only that her life depended upon stabbing the beast to death.
Snarls and growls surrounded her. Being buried beneath this massive creature was all that kept her from being torn apart by the others. She couldn’t stay there forever.
Gasping for air, Emily wriggled out from the dead beast just as another hound leapt. Somehow, she got her legs under it, throwing it into the air. The power of its leap coupled with the strength of her panic sent it sailing. It struck the imprint Dan left in the tree and stuck there, hanging upside down, yowling.
A third hound snarled, circling. Emily stood, shoulders hunched, knife outstretched. It lunged. She swung the blade, slicing the snake-like face. It shook its head, and then leapt again.
She parried and jabbed, hoping for a clear shot at its throat. At last, she thrust forward, but she missed her mark. Instead, her fist went through the beast’s open mouth, burying her blade in the soft tissue at the back of its throat.
The dog dropped dead. She withdrew the knife. Her hand ran with black blood.
She looked for Dan. A hellhound had him about the ankle, dragging him away, while two others snapped at his flailing arms.
Emily notched an arrow and shot. She hit a hound in the flank. It spun about, trying to bite the arrow. The remaining two dogs leapt onto Dan. Before she could raise her bow again, they gutted him. Dan screamed, trying to beat away the dogs as they ripped out his intestines. Emily shot a dog dead, but too late. Dan’s innards were strewn over the ground.
The dog with an arrow in its rump snapped at its mate, fighting over the delicacy. Dan lay spread-eagled, wailing and weeping. The dogs trampled him in their lust for blood. Emily killed one, and the other ran off, disappearing in the mist.
She rushed to Dan. He was open from sternum to groin. His ribcage gleamed in his torn chest. She saw his heart, his lungs, but his stomach and everything from points below lay in bits about his body.
“Oh, my God,” she cried, dropping to her knees. “I’m so sorry.”
He rolled his head from side to side. Froth bubbled at the corner of his mouth. Emily rose. Tears blurred her vision. She blinked them away. Aiming carefully, she sent an arrow into Dan’s heart.