When she crossed the state line into West Virginia, the rattle reached a crescendo, so loud she had to grab her head to keep it from bursting.
Shadowman took the steering wheel, while she curled into herself, her foot a brick on the gas. Tears ran down her face as the gate to Hell shook every bone in her body and chattered her clenched teeth. Hateful, hateful thing.
The car bumped off the road and she knew to release the gas. They bounced and skipped into a grassy meadow, gone yellow for the winter, until the car finally came to a stop. She felt Shadowman take her head into his hands. She looked him in the eyes, and the rattle receded a bit.
She couldn’t drive like this anymore, and he didn’t know how. They’d have to walk, though she really just wanted to throw up.
They got out of the car, and Shadowman took her hand as they made their way back to the road. She didn’t notice the waiting van until she was being lifted inside, and then she shuddered into Shadowman’s embrace on a bench in the middle. She had identified Adam Thorne in the front passenger seat, expression concerned, mouthing something she didn’t understand. She was here, wasn’t she? That was all that was important. Custo sat on her other side, his stoic face deep in concentration. The rattle in her mind mellowed to a distant hum, as if that infernal voice had been blunted.
And so they were delivered to Hell, its dark mouth like the gullet of some long-dead dragon, their destination its sulfurous belly. She was handed down into the slippery, frigid black earth. Bones of rock hung from the ceiling and reached from the floor, like fossils from ages past. Electric torches lit their way, and every time she fell, Shadowman’s hands were there to keep her upright.
Suddenly the gate was before them, a black throb of iron. Tall and barbed, it loomed larger than ever, its shadows reaching to the ceiling, reaching as if it could go on forever.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: Open me!
Layla swallowed. Pulled herself up. Turned to Adam, who trembled, his eyes going bloodshot as he looked on Hell. Sweat beaded on his forehead. The gate must’ve been speaking to him, too.
“Adam!”
His attention snapped to her, violence in his gaze. The cords of his neck stood out. His skin was flushed. The man needed to get out of here. Bad.
“Talia, Adam,” Layla reminded him. “Your babies. Michael and Cole.”
He teared as his jaw worked. Shame brought his head low, but his chest moved in a deep breath.
“Give them my love, okay?” she said.
His nod brought tears down his face. He made to speak, gaze filled with things to say, probably a message of love from Talia.
“I know,” Layla answered. Talia had a forever hold on her heart. “I felt it, too.”
Adam froze, surprised, nodded again. Though he still faced her, his eyes were drawn back to the gate. Abruptly, he rubbed a hand over his face and turned his back on the thing. Still, two angels guarded him as he started his upward climb.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: Open me!
Layla felt a compulsive pull, like a lash around her soul, yanking her forcibly toward the nightmare. It turned her blood cold, made her limbs feel rubbery, her mind numb. She glanced to Shadowman, who didn’t seem to have Adam’s trouble.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: Throw me wide!
Or hers, since she was shaking.
“It’s time for you to go, too,” Shadowman said. “This business is for me and The Order.”
Not likely. She looked at the gate again. Its bars seethed, constrained only by the vines that wrapped around them, an occasional wicked flower here, there. That gate was made for her.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: But it is no longer you who will die with me. Open me, save him.
She swung her gaze back up to her black-eyed lover. No wonder he was so calm. He’d bartered his life in his deal with the devil.
“But Rose is dead,” she argued, horrified. “You won the fight.” She whirled back to the gate. “He won the fight.”
kat-a-kat-a-kat: He won the right to die in your place. Will you let him?
No, no, no. She’d thought this through carefully. Had it all worked out.
“You’ve got to think bigger,” Layla said, grabbing Shadowman by the front of his shirt. “I can come back again.” She hoped, upon her second death, that she could sign up to be an angel. She’d beg to return to Earth, like Custo, and work with her family against the wraiths. “And you can help Adam with the wights, while I can’t.”
His arms came around her. “But I made the gate.”
“You made it for me!” She gestured wildly toward it. “Even prettied it up.”
He shook his head, expression going painfully serious. “The flowers were my hope that you’d endure in that hot place, but you didn’t need them. Never needed them. You won your life on your own. You should live it. ”
kat-a-kat-a-kat: You’ll be alone again.
“Shut up!” she yelled at the gate. She was finished with the alone crap. She had what she wanted, and damn it, she was holding on.
kat-a-kat-a-kat: Throw me wide. You can have the ones you love forever.