“The cuffs keep them contained. It’s sealed with the devil’s crest.”
“How do you get the cuffs off?” I ask them when they withhold any answers about their abilities.
I turn around as Kai shrugs. “They’ll wait a few days before attempting to kill us. It’d be too obvious to kill us too soon, so we have time to figure it out. It’s easiest to trick a guard into taking them off, since they know the words to speak.”
“There are words to speak?” I ask, perking up. I can go find these.
“Not just anyone can say them. They have to be spoken by the chosen guards who’ve been blessed,” Ezekiel calls to my back, but I’m already passing through to Smeagol’s cage.
“We could use a protective spirit right now,” Jude calls out, acting amused.
I step back in immediately, then see their mocking grins.
“Real funny. Why does this guy next to us look like a Gollum? Are those real?”
“No,” Ezekiel says, his eyes dancing with humor. “It’s hell, Keyla. If you’re cast here after death, your soul starts transforming, morphing into the monster you really are, depending on your transgressions. Once the metamorphosis is complete and a physical form has manifested, they decide what to do with you, based on what you are.”
“What’s Smeagol’s role gonna be?” I ask, curious.
“Likely, he’ll be a food distributor to the prison cells. We’re in hell’s throat right now. It waits until you’re finished devolving or evolving before it spits you out or swallows you. The worst of the monsters get sent below or to Purgatory to guard it.”
Good to know. I’ll be a damn good girl when I get whole. Neither of these places seem like a life choice I want to make.
“She’s thinking about being a good girl right now, even though she’s admitted she wants a four-way tag from a quad hell squad,” Jude says, grinning like the asshole he is.
Rolling my eyes, I leave them to mock me, and scamper past Smeagol to see where this circle leads. Eventually, I have to find a hall. Surely it can’t all be pits of flames in the middle of a cylinder prison tower.
I pass through another cell, and stifle a scream. There’s a hairy beastly thing that looks like he used to be human. He snarls and tears at the sides of the stone walls. His sharp claws don’t even leave a scratch behind.
Hell is so not cool. Which I guess is obvious.
A few cells have these dark shadows bouncing around like pin balls. Apparently they can’t pass through the stones as easily as I can.
Don’t even get me started on the guy who looks like he has a sledgehammer sticking through his face.
I keep poking my head through the walls on either side, and only keep finding fire.
Several have actual people in it. I suppose they’re going to be used like my guys who never died but still turned into whatever these people are once their soul finds a new, mostly immortal body to attach to.
One cell has a fairly attractive man in it, and I linger, trying to see if he can see me like my guys can. But he can’t. I’m not sure who he is, but he looks a little broken. For whatever reason, I sort of feel sad for him, and I hang out beside him like I’m commiserating with him.
He curses before running a hand through his hair. He looks exhausted, almost as though he’s lost all hope. Not like the other men in here I’ve seen. His hands are cuffed, just like the guys. I’m assuming he’s not a soul in transition.
“I didn’t do it!” he shouts suddenly, as though he expects someone to hear him. “I’m being framed!”
Frowning, I study him. For no reason I can think of, I find myself believing him. I don’t even know what he’s referring to, yet I’m convinced he’s innocent just by the compelling look in his tortured blue eyes.
“We have nothing to gain from this! I have nothing to gain from this! Why would I risk such a thing?” he goes on.
When I figure out how to free the guys, I’ll return to free him as well.
Getting up, I start going from cell to cell again, collecting nightmares for the day I can finally sleep. Again. I only got to experience it that once, and apparently I’m a damn sound sleeper. I didn’t even dream.
And I would love to know what the actual hell happened.
Anyway, a few more monsters make me swallow a scream, and idly wonder just how wretched and foul they must have been.
Next thing I know, I’m suddenly bursting back into the cell with all the guys, who are staring at me like they’re not surprised.
“How can there be no hallway? Why have doors if there’s nowhere to escape to?” I groan.
“The door is to give you false hope,” Kai says with a shrug. “You manage to somehow turn into something strong enough to break down that door, iron forged in hellfire, then you find there’s nowhere for you to go. It’s the moment you’re defeated, and they can sink their claws in and own you.”
“And you want to work for such a lovely establishment,” I state dryly.
Ezekiel shrugs. “We had no say in the matter. Regardless, our special skills require such a thing. They’d be useless elsewhere.”
“But I’m not allowed to know what these skills are?”
“Besides being awesome at killing things?” Jude asks, getting comfortable on the ground and putting his hands behind his head as his eyes shut.
I glare at him for a second, though he’s oblivious since he’s already trying to fall asleep. Instead, I look over at Ezekiel as he rips his shirt off—since he can’t just take it off with the cuffs in the way—and rolls it up like it’s a pillow as he lies down as well.
With his cuffs still binding his wrists, Kai starts doing awkward pushups in the corner, as though he’s trying to tire himself out. No one is going to answer me.
“Don’t feel bad, spirit girl,” Ezekiel says as his eyes close as well, our special connection severed since that one moment. “They don’t know either.”
“We don’t fully know ourselves,” Kai adds, grunting as he starts adding a hop in on every other push up. “Hence the reason we want the power boost. We figure it’ll open us up more.”
“How do the monsters get out if there’s no way to them?” I ask.
“The same way we got in, Einstein,” Jude retorts. “Escorts. They have the ability to send you anywhere once you’re restrained.”
He lazily lifts his cuffed hands as though I need a reminder, then drops them back down, never opening his eyes. “And they can send you anywhere if you were originally a soul here.”
Gage is studying me, his hand rubbing his jaw as though he’s thinking of something. “You aren’t even reacting to being in hell,” he finally says.
“Five years of talking to yourself when you don’t even know yourself, what you are, or even how you came to be will make you quite impervious to essentially everything. Even the four-dick monster twenty-two cells over if you start that way,” I tell him, gesturing the way I started.
His lips curve into a slow grin.