Witch Road to Take (7 page)

“Damn, Gavin, that’s a horrible visual.” I
drank the last of my vitamin water. “I have a solution.”

Both my roommates perked up.

“Let’s get a glass tank with a lid, fill it
with rats, and Jonas can feed on them whenever he wants.”

“Shat’s a goos isea,” Jonas slurred.

“That
is
a good idea. You’re
brilliant, Dhell.”

“I need to talk to you guys about something.
I had another brilliant idea and I wanted to get both of your
opinions.”

“Anything. What is it?” Gavin asked.

“Gavin, have you ever been in Hell?”

“Actual Hell or the kind of hell that you
think you’re in when you’re at a party, past your curfew and your
mother does a finding spell. She shows up, crashes the party and
finds you in the back room playing chess with four other guys.
Because that’s the worst kinds of hell when your mother finds out
that you hang out with other guys at a party full of girls.”

“Gavin!” Sometimes I wanted to strangle him.
“My father’s kind of hell! Not your mother’s kind of hell.”

“Oh, okay. You mean the fire hell from where
our worst nightmares derive.”

I sighed.

“No, Dhell. I’ve toyed with the idea of
doing a spell that would let me see into that world, but I didn’t
want to play with that kind of dark magic.”

I leaned forward. “Well, do you think you
could create a spell that would allow me to navigate through my
father’s tunnels without being seen by any demon or spirit?”

Gavin glanced behind him and searched high
and low with his eyes.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m looking for the hidden camera.”

“I’m serious, you goofball.”

Gavin stood up and paced in front of the
couch. “I know you’re
his
daughter and all, but we’d be
taking some serious risks. And for what?”

“For the greatest idea I’ve ever had.”

“Which is? I can’t get on board with this
until I know what’s going through your devious mind.”

“Okay, listen. I was at work today and you
two called. Your prank call sparked an idea.”

“Okay?”

“What if, I could legally take on my
father?”

Jonas glanced at Gavin, “What’s she shalking
about?”

“The swelling is going down. Thank
goodness,” Gavin said. Then he turned his attention back to me.
“What in hell are you talking about?”

I ran my hand through my fiery red hair. “My
father has a tendency to treat me like a child. He tries to keep me
down.”

“Isn’t that what your father does for a
living?” Gavin nudged Jonas and they both laughed.

“Funny. Pay attention. When a soul goes to
Hell, they are entitled to a trial by fire. Most souls don’t know
that and my father uses that to his advantage. He gives them a mock
trial with no representation and they are immediately
sentenced.”

Finally, Gavin and Jonas leaned in, actually
interested in what I was telling them. Who wouldn’t want to learn
the ins and outs of Hell… just in case?

“And now, for some more news. The law firm
where you two sent me to work at is going to pay for me to go to
law school. Of course, I don’t need a degree to represents souls,
but I do need to know a little about law.”

“Human law is different than spiritual law,
Dhellia.”

“I know that, Gavin. But, I need the lingo,
the know-how and if you can create a spell that would cloak me
while I’m in the bowels of Father’s home, I could watch those
trials and pick up on my father’s law lingo.”

“Why? We’re protecting you from your father
and every demon he has out there looking for you and you are now
asking me to let you go right back underground? Why don’t you try
to be thankful that you’re out of his reach, so you can live your
own life?”

What would have made me think that he’d
understand? I could feel the anger boiling my blood.
Why didn’t
they understand?

I stood and crossed my arms over my chest.
“Jonas, you’re a vampire. A year ago, you were a kid on your way to
band practice going through skid row. Couldn’t you have taken a
different route?”

Jonas shrugged.

“But I digress. Now you’re a vampire and
your soul is condemned to hell. Doesn’t that piss you off at
all?”

“Of course, but I’m not sure I understand
the magnitude of it.”

“Of course you don’t. And what about you,
Gavin? You’re a witch.”

“A wizard.”

“Okay, a wizard. Either way, according to
things I’ve heard, you’re not accepted by that guy,” I pointed
upwards, “because you’re practicing witchcraft and magic. So, where
is your soul going to go?”

Gavin fought back his anger. I could tell
that by his clenched fists and reddened face. “Where did your
mother’s soul go, Dhell?”

“You have no right to talk about my
mother.”

“Why not? You can talk about us and our
souls, why can’t I talk about my distant aunt’s soul?”

“The point is magic man, I have my reasons
why I want to confront my father and fight him by representing the
souls who ask for a trial.”

“You just want to prove to your father that
you can handle things on your own.”

“Don’t all kids want that satisfaction?” I
yelled. The window behind Gavin and Jonas shook.

We all stared at each other surprised.

“Looks like our little Dhellia is
discovering another power,” Gavin remarked.

“How did I do that?”

“You’re the daughter of Satan, Dhellia. I’m
surprised you have never done that before.” Gavin stood and walked
toward his bedroom.

Jonas looked at me with empathy, but I
ignored him just the same. I’d get them to see things my way at
some point and at some point, I’d battle my father, face to face,
in a courtroom in hell. I would prove to my father that I could
handle myself without him.

I tapped lightly on
Gavin’s bedroom door, desperate to talk with him about what had
just happened in the living room. I heard his muffled reply, not
knowing if he were telling me to take a hike or come in and chat. I
figured since he had replied, I would walk in even if he told me to
go away.

When I opened the door to Gavin’s sanctuary,
I stopped and stared in utter awe. His dark room reminded me of a
dance floor with a strobe light casting disco-ball images across
his wall and bed. The only difference was, there was no strobe ball
and the light and images came from a planetary solar system, not
just painted on his wall, but in some magical way, it revolved as a
3D masterpiece.

I hadn’t acknowledged Gavin’s presence in
the room because my eyes were fixated on the visual effects affixed
to his ceiling. “Whoa,” I whispered.

“It’s the perfect escape,” Gavin said.

I glanced toward his voice and saw him lying
on top of his bed, his left arm under his head and his gaze fixated
on the planets. The light from the solar system reflected off his
glasses.

“I can’t believe you keep this all to
yourself.” I walked around it, circling it, unable to take my eyes
off the magnitude of the entire solar system hanging from his
ceiling. A green multi-legged bug, the size of a spider, shot a
florescent blue web at my face. It landed on my nose. “What the
hell was that?” I wiped it off quickly.

“Snarky.” Gavin laughed at my reaction. “He
lives on the moon.”

“You have bugs that crawl around your room
and hang out on your models?”

He smirked. “They aren’t models, Dhell, and
he doesn’t live in my room, he lives on the moon. There are all
kinds of life form in our solar system, many of which, our great
minds on Earth haven’t discovered yet.”

“You’re joking, right? That little critter
doesn’t live on the actual moon.” My eyebrows came together.

Gavin stared at the solar system. “No, I’m
not joking.”

“I don’t get it.”

He pushed himself up to sit with his back
against the wall. “I’ve created a replica of the solar system and
released it in my room. It’s like a copy-and-paste function on your
computer at work. I did a copy of our space and pasted it here.
What’s out there is also in here.”

Now my face went from confused to ‘are you
crazy?’ “Isn’t there a human law against duplicating a solar
system?” I asked, shocked.

My eyes and attention followed something
shooting across the replica. “Gavin, there’s a meteor rock heading
toward Venus.” I reached up to push it off course.

“Don’t!” he yelled.

I jumped back, my eyes wide, my heart
startled. “What?”

“Are you insane? Didn’t you hear anything I
just told you? This is a carbon copy. You push that meteor off
course and it could collide with something else and cause a ripple
effect that could end life as we know it.”

“Damn! And you have all of this in your
bedroom? You’re kind of a power-hungry guy, aren’t ya.”

“I’m fascinated, not power hungry.” A
crooked frown marred his mama-boy looks.

Gavin shrugged. “What’d you want,
Dhellia?”

“I wanted to talk with you for a second.” I
motioned toward his chair pushed under his desk. “May I?”

“More talk about pitting yourself against
your father?”

“Nah, I’ll save that for later when we
haven’t argued in a while.” I smiled casually. I pulled the metal
chair up next to the bed, crossed my right leg over my left leg and
interlocked my fingers in my lap. “Can you tell me what you know
about my mother?”

Gavin stared at me for a few seconds before
he clapped his hands, causing the lights to come on, and the solar
system to disappear.

“Your room is a wizard’s haven.”

“That wasn’t magic, Dhell. That was a nifty
Christmas gift from Jonas called The Clapper.”

Sometimes his humor was so dry that I didn’t
know how to respond. Moving onto the reason I was there was the
best thing for me to do. “What do you know about her?”

“Why would I know anything?”

“In the living room, you said something
about my mother’s soul, and I was wondering if you knew anything
about her.”

“Why don’t you tell me what you know about
her and we can go from there,” he said.

“She died when I was five years old. I was
in the living room of our apartment and Damien had his arms around
me. He shielded me from Mother’s last moments. While she sucked in
the last few breaths she would ever take, she was saying a bunch of
gibberish. Back then I didn’t know what it was, but I’m old enough
now to recognize it as a spell.”

Gavin stared into my eyes and then as if he
were uncomfortable, he glanced at some books piled on his desk. I
could tell he was holding something back. “What is it?” I
asked.

“Nothing.”

“No, I want to know, Gavin. What do you know
that I don’t?”

“Dhellia, it’s not my place to tell you
about your mother. Plus, everything I know is hearsay from distant
relatives.”

I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt at that
moment when he denied me what he knew about my own mother. I was
angry at the situation, but I respected the fact that he didn’t
want to gossip.

“I can tell you this, though,” he said.
“Your mother was a powerful witch—more powerful than any other
witch in our coven.”

For the first time, I was at a loss for
words. I stood up, pushed the chair back under his desk and headed
for the door.

“Dhellia,” Gavin stopped me. “Damien
knows.”

Figures he would
, I thought. I left
Gavin’s room without turning around to say another word.

I wasn’t sure what
I was
doing on top of the U.S. Bank building in Los Angeles. The last
time I was here, I was waiting for my father’s hellhounds to find
me and drag me back to the underworld. That was just under two
weeks ago, although it seemed like a lifetime ago. So much had
happened in two weeks.

In fact, the cloaking spell that Gavin
placed around me did shield me from my father and his minions. A
part of me wondered if Father even cared about me, or the fact that
I had disappeared. I missed the adrenaline chase of dodging around
the world, meeting new people and taking in new sights. Now I lived
an unexciting mundane human life.

I stood on the ledge of the concrete
building and closed my eyes, wondering if anyone would miss me if I
disappeared. Who was I, anyway? I was the daughter of Lucifer and
Adana, but the concern of nobody.

I could jump off this building to my death,
and then what would happen? They’d stuff my petite body inside a
body bag and shelve me somewhere until someone realized I was
gone.

Where would my soul go? Would I live with my
father in Hell or would I stay on Earth and haunt humans? I was
certain that the third level would not allow me access there, so in
reality, I didn’t know what would happen to me.

My brother’s leather jacket whipped in the
wind behind me. His clean musk scent—the scent I knew as well as I
knew my own—made me smile. I had missed his scowl and serious
demeanor. I hadn’t seen him since the incident at my job in the law
library a week ago.

He hadn’t said anything but based on the
connection in which I knew my brother, he was standing ten feet
behind me, staring at me and quite possibly contemplating what I
was doing on the roof, mere feet from one of Hell’s portals.

“When are you going to grow up?” I heard him
say.

“For your information, I’m growing up at my
own pace.” I swung around to face him.

His eyes grew wide; his mouth agape. “What?”
he asked shocked.

“You asked me when I was going to grow up
and I’m telling you, I will do it at my own pace.”

“I didn’t say anything, Dhellia.” He thrust
his hands in his jacket pockets.

“What do you mean you didn’t say
anything?”

“Well, I mean, I thought those exact words
to myself, but the words never left my mouth.”