I began walking in ever increasing circles, reaching out in search of walls. When I’d done this for several minutes and came across none, I stopped. This place could be endless.
I reached above me. My arms met only cold air. The only surface I’d come in contact with was the earth beneath me. So I knelt against the floor, pressing my hands to it. My blood thrummed as I did so, and power raced down my arms and into the ground. It poured from me until instinct commanded that I reclaim the magic I’d only just released. So I called the power back to me, drawing it up from the ground.
I didn’t know exactly what I was doing until a wisp of golden light curled up from the earth, thickening and coalescing as I watched. My power was making it corporeal. My brows furrowed as the golden wisp became a silhouette and the silhouette became a man.
Not a man, a soul. A damned soul that had been trapped beneath the floor of the darkest, deepest region of hell.
Souls couldn’t die. Not even damned ones that had been spent of their energy. They just became a part of the matrix that made up this place.
Once I’d pulled the soul from the ground, the urge to repeat the process rode me.
I continued to pour my power out of me, only to pull it back from the earth. Each time I did so, more souls took shape around me.
I couldn’t say how fast time passed down here, or how long it took for those wisps to fill out into the semblance of people. But even after they’d filled out, they stayed by my side. Each gave off a slight glow, and the deepest, darkest region of hell brightened.
As I worked, I wondered about the devil. I hadn’t heard him in my head when I should’ve. It took effort to yank one of my hands from the earth and put it to my heart, the power that gripped me reluctant to let me go. I could still feel the devil inside me, but I sensed a cocoon of magic swathing our connection. Thousands of intricate threads of magic had woven themselves around it.
I had no finesse when it came to magic. Spells were a witch’s forte, not mine, and while I could now sense magic and understand it at a rudimentary level, I knew in my bones I couldn’t have made the enchantment that wrapped itself snug around our connection. I could, however, sense this spell’s function. It blocked the devil from sensing what I was up to without closing him out completely. It was the magical equivalent of feeding security cameras benign footage to cover up a heist. The devil could feel me, but he couldn’t sense what I was up to.
I knew enough about spells to know this one was powerful—strong enough to outwit the devil. The back of my neck prickled. Whatever instincts were conducting my movements had also led to the creation of that enchantment.
At that, the tingle in my hands became almost unbearable as power built up. The itchy feeling beneath my skin forced me to resume my efforts. The ground pulled my hands to it like a magnet, and I resumed my task.
What seemed like an eternity later, the earth released my hands with a pop, and my power ebbed back inside me. I leaned back on my haunches as the last spirit finished taking form. That was when I realized there were hundreds of them—maybe thousands. All hovering around me, casting that eerie light on this place. They waited, staring at me, and I stared back.
Alrighty.
This situation was … weird. Weirder than normal. And my normal wasn’t exactly all that normal.
The souls didn’t speak, but they began to crowd me. I really didn’t want to hug this out, but there was nowhere for me to go. I felt their bodies brush against mine. Instead of the usual agony that I’d come to expect when I brushed up against the souls of this place, I felt … peace.
They began to touch me. My skin still glowed, so I assumed that even in death the siren appealed to them. Until, of course, those hands latched onto me and my feet left the floor.
I let out a yelp.
I yanked against their grips, putting my supernatural strength into it, but any hands I shook off were replaced by others. Glancing down, I noticed with dismay that spirits were now beneath me as well as around me. I tilted my head up. Dozens crowded the space above me. They surrounded me completely, sheltering my body with all their forms.
We rose up, moving as a unit. Each of their faces was turned skyward. Their features blurred then sharpened. I’d given them back their form, but they no longer had physical bodies to hold those forms in rigid place.
As I watched, some of the spirits disappeared above me. First their heads, then their torsos, and finally, their legs. I realized that was because we’d finally come across a ceiling. Only I wasn’t a spirit. I’d smash up against that ceiling, and then I’d fall back down.