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“Wh—How… Oh my god, ohmigod,” I said as my breaths became a little more frantic.
It seemed impossible to comprehend my abrupt change in surroundings. My brain fizzled with static like a bad television channel, and words seemed way beyond my capabilities. I think ohmigod sort of tumbled out like a slurred mantra at least ten times. Panicked, I twisted and turned to try to take in everything. The dock creaked beneath my weight and moved slightly. The boards didn’t exactly sound reassuring beneath me.
Behind me, there was a river or body of water of some kind, though I could tell it wasn’t salty or vast like an ocean or a sea. It moved sluggishly, more like oil or tar. A simple wooden boat rocked on its oily, black surface, but there were no oars, and no one else was around. I had no clue how long I’d been out. Was I drugged somehow? Had a home intruder been lying in wait while I showered? It felt too paranoid, like something you’d see in a true crime show and think, No, that could never happen to me. But hey, I lived in Ripper Randall’s house, so I was clearly already enmeshed in the weird. Worse things had happened to women in the world, and apparently, some of those things had happened where I lay my head at night. Of course, there was always the option that Beck had something to do with it. I remember reading somewhere that the biggest threat to women was their own partners or something, some kind of crime statistics that always pinned it on boyfriends or husbands.
“Okay, Marn, rein it in,” I whispered to myself. “Don’t freak yourself out.”
I closed my eyes, counted to three, and then gazed around some more. The dock stretched forward, and fog hung a few inches over the ground, obscuring a bit of the landscape. Stunted, skeletal trees with black bark and a few leathery, greasy-looking leaves dotted the immediate area, though they seemed to thin out farther away. The ground had a few scrubby tufts of grayish grass but was otherwise gritty—half sand, half gravel. There were no stones or rocks along the shore, just an endless expanse of gray shore and black water. It was like all the color had been sucked out of the world. A soft, distant rumbling seemed to echo through the air, like the murmur of far-off thunder. In the distance, I could see spiraling shapes and tall shadows in the distances, as well as the flicker and glow of lights. Light pollution lit up the sky above the distant skyline in a fuzzy arc. At least the place wasn’t totally barren. That had to be a city or a town or something. Maybe that also meant there would be help there.
I just needed to know where here, there, wherever was.
I hated the fact that I had no memory of getting to this place. It wasn’t even how surreal the landscape was that really bothered me. It was truly that loss of autonomy, that strange oppressive blackness in my memory where anything logical might have happened. Not only that, I wasn’t exactly prepared for an adventure. My wallet, my keys, my clothes… Hell, I was barely decent enough to step out my front door and deal with what I’d thought was a possum.
I kicked off Beck’s boots with an annoyed hiss. They’d be useless traversing… wherever this was, and their too-big fit would make me clumsier than I already was. I kicked one of them too far, and it flopped across the dock and back into the dark river. Well, now they wouldn’t be any good to anyone. Even though I hadn’t wanted to wear them, having the option taken away made me more pissed. I crossed my arms over my chest to ward off the chill, then abruptly remembered I wasn’t wearing a bra. Great, now I had to contend with hard nipples and jiggly boobs, too. Running was definitely not going to be an option with my loosey-goosey C-cup. The hits just kept coming.
Suddenly, I heard the water shift, and I turned to see the slick, black hump of something breach the oil-slick surface of the river. A few spiny fins were attached to its back, but I could see no discernible scales or anything else. It appeared to be only a small section of a very large eel-like creature. Beneath me, the dock groaned and creaked again like it might give way at any second.
“Unh-unh, nope,” I said, quickly finding the strength to shoot up to my feet. I felt a pinprick of pain as a splinter from the dock weaseled itself into my heel. I supposed the boots could have been good for that. Thankfully, the sulfur smell was a bit better when I was standing. I think being closer to the water made it worse. I caught a whiff of something smoky in the distance, like a barbecue. My stomach grumbled in response. I’d been so angry at work I’d barely eaten anything. Suddenly, I was starving.
I heard the water shift again, and I quickly scrambled off of the dock and onto the shore. The ground was pleasantly warm against my feet, even though the rest of me was still cold. It honestly felt like I was standing in the walk-in cooler at the diner, and I shivered a few times involuntarily.
Suddenly, there was a quick, rough sound, like a heel dragging briefly on the gravel and grit. I snapped my head up, honing in on the sound. The closest skeletal tree had something underneath it, and I registered it immediately as a human form. Relief flooded me immediately but was quickly followed by the sharp bite of fear. I was glad to see someone else and maybe get some answers, but a stranger also posed a possible threat.
“H—Hello?” I shouted, squinting my eyes to look at the shadow just underneath the skeletal tree.
At the sound of my voice, the figure seemed to slump in on itself, like it was defeated or something. It took a few quick steps forward, and for a moment, I read its body language as fearful. Maybe they were just as scared and cautious of me as I was of them. The trees skittered shadows over him—and I could tell now it was a him—making it hard to see much below his mid-chest. He was dressed in a well-worn black leather jacket that hugged his lean form. Underneath it was a white t-shirt that was shockingly unstained and bright, given the surrounding landscape. He had black or dark jeans on, and they were cuffed and rolled to show off his scuffed motorcycle boots. His hands were shoved in his pockets, and he was bouncing one leg nervously. He sort of stutter-stepped as if unsure about whether to fully reveal himself.
“Shit,” I heard him mutter in the darkness.
“Please?” I called, my voice cracking a little. “I—I could really use a friendly face right now. I—I woke up here, and I’m totally lost…”
He shuffled again but made no real move forward.
“Please?” I called again, just needing to see someone else, needing to know where the hell I was or how I’d ended up here.
And then he stepped forward.
And then I saw his face… or lack of face.
And then I screamed.
8
GABRIEL
No. No.
This couldn’t have gone worse.
Those stupid boots! Dammit, I’d grabbed the wrong person. He always slept on that side, and when I saw the damned boots… Shit, how the hell was I going to get out of this mess? If I brought her to Lysandra, she’d be shoved into the vineyard and consumed wholly, albeit slowly. If I let her wander through Hell, she’d be consumed just as well, though it wouldn’t be slow, and it wouldn’t be kind. And getting her out of Hell? Well, that wasn’t all that simple.
It’s kind of a one-way ticket. Unless you’re special, like me. Hell is fine taking whatever it can in, but it’s not keen on letting it back out.
Her eyes were wide as I approached, and I wanted to get out something, some kind of syllable or greeting, but I couldn’t seem to talk.
Instead, she decided to start screaming.
And damn, she had a set of pipes on her.
