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  “I don’t get this.”

  Saripha and Izzy looked up at me.

  “You don’t get why you are here?” Izzy anticipated.

  “Well, that too, but I can accept a piss-ass megalomaniac god who casts people into Hell for not worshipping him. It pisses me off no end, but it doesn’t seem crazier than anything else.” I rolled things around in my head a bit more. “What I don’t get is why the demons have such a hard on for me. And why I am fighting back. This isn’t me.”

  “You’re not a fighter?” Izzy was trying to get my angle.

  “Maybe, sometimes, for the right cause, with words. I’m a writer. I’m young, I live—lived—at the edge of the East Village, I was in pretty good shape, worked out at an old gym, didn’t smoke, didn’t do drugs, didn’t drink to excess. I might be able to handle a street mugger if he didn’t have a gun or a knife, but I’m not Mr. Kickass.”

  “You’re a quick learner.” Izzy grinned.

  “Yeah, maybe. I’m angry, the anger feeds my glamour, I get a real buff body and start killing demons. But I’ve been lucky. More than a couple of them without the element of surprise and I am not any threat to them. I probably would have been rebellious, but other than refusing to have sex with Rox that first night, they never gave me the chance to show them how rebellious I was. They were already wanting to kill me and would have, if you hadn’t intervened. Why?”

  Izzy gave me his best imitation of Mr. Spock raising one eyebrow. “You are looking for rational explanations in Hell?”

  “I think the answer to both your questions are the same.” Saripha said it so quietly she might have been thinking out loud. “When you died and crossed over, something changed in you, something fundamental. It changed the patterns that you carried in your very soul. These changes were on the level of your harmonics with the cosmos.”

  Izzy pulled at the flesh of his neck to distort his vocals a bit and began humming the theme to The Twilight Zone. I tried to remain serious, but the tension from everything that was going on was too much and I started giggling. We both did. Saripha remained composed with a wry smile, knowing we needed the release. When we quieted down, she continued with a crooked smile. “I admit that was overly highfalutin, but it’s accurate.”

  “Okay, explain it to me.”

  “I’m not sure of the cause. Usually this occurs when something traumatic happens—a life-changing event—just before someone dies that connects with something deeply buried in the psyche. Something from childhood even. It’s like mixing two chemicals that, individually are inert, but combined are very volatile. Sometimes it can result in harmonics of the former life being left behind, a soulless poltergeist. In your case, it transformed you into something they can both sense and fear. A poltergeist with a soul, if you will. Someone who will fight them and never stop fighting. Someone who reacts to the horror and cruelty of this place. Someone who refuses to accept the ultimate unfairness of your sentences here.”

  “Actually, there might be some here who deserve it.” I realized how stupid that was as soon as I said it.

  “You don’t really believe that.”

  “No, guess I don’t.”

  I was quiet a moment trying to sort all this out. Anything Saripha said had weight to it, but this was not stuff that I accepted easily.

  “There was something. I haven’t thought about it much since I got here, but it was on my mind when I was passing over.”

  Saripha didn’t change expression much but still managed to communicate intense interest in that therapist sort of way. I filled her and Izzy in on the circumstances of my death, Janovic, and the idea he planted about how someone evil could be saved and ascend to Heaven while the victims perished in Hell. I realized as I was narrating it that it was the first time I had really examined those events. I could feel stirrings in deep, dark places, wherever those dark places existed. We were ghosts or zombies or whatever, but the white hot anger that was hovering right below the surface felt biological.

  Izzy became a bit alarmed. Saripha quietly reached over and held my hand for a moment. When Rox and I had made love I had felt the calming quality for which the escorts were prized. But that was like a light fog setting in. The feeling I was getting from Saripha made things calmer while at the same time opening you up a bit. Things became quiet but more clear rather than foggy.

  “I have no doubt that we know at least one factor in your transformation. However, we should probably not bring it out more now. You need to be strong, but centered for tomorrow.”

  I was perfectly happy to stop thinking about those events. However, a few things clicked in the back of my head from earlier. “Why don’t they know about your power? Why did Izzy say you weren’t stuck in Hell like the rest of us?”

  Saripha looked at me for a long time, unblinking. She seemed to be very deep inside herself, but I could also feel her somehow inside me.

  “You won’t tell them.”

  It surprised me because it wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact. I knew what she meant although I had never thought of the demons as trying to get information from me. I thought about what the demons’ capacity for torture might be. I wasn’t quite as convinced as Saripha that I wouldn’t say anything to get it to stop.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The demons do not know about me. And they must not. I believe that you will not betray me, no matter what they do to you.”

  “Your powers.”

  “Yes. But also the fact that I am not here for the same reason as the rest of you are here.”

  “You know why I am here?”

  Saripha smiled and shook her head. “No, but all of you are here by the same process, whatever it is. You died and ended up here, whatever determined that outcome.”

  “And you?”

  “I am not dead.”

  I’m not entirely sure what went through my head as I turned that phrase over in my head. I think my mouth opened, but nothing came out. Izzy smiled and nudged me. “I had the same reaction, if I recall correctly.”

  “I am a witch. I managed to penetrate the veils into this world. I could have returned before the veils closed, but I chose to stay and work to help those here. I am trying to learn if I can open the veils and bring people here back. I don’t know if this is possible as you are all dead, but I am working on the problem. In the meantime, I use my powers to help those who are here.”

  Strange as it might be, given everything else I had seen, I was having a bit of trouble handling this. Actually, I was having trouble even collecting my thoughts around it.

  “You are powerful. How come the demons don’t seem to have made you a project?”

  “I have so far managed to keep them from finding out very much about me.”

  “They can’t sense you as you suggest they did me?”

  “I haven’t put that to a real test, but I suspect not.”

  I paused. I was still having trouble with this.

  “You aren’t dead?”

  “No. If I die here, I actually die.” She laughed. “I’m not actually sure how that would work.”

  It was like trying to come up with a decent time travel novel. They always made my head hurt. I decided to ask about something else.

  “You are a witch? What does that mean? I met a few people in the East Village who called themselves witches and I didn’t sense much power there.”

  “Likely there was none. The real ones, the ones with power, work quietly in the background. They do not make a public spectacle of themselves. Partly that is the way. Partly, we have had too many bad encounters with men who like to play with matches.”

  “What is a witch?”

  “Someone who tunes themselves to the cycles of nature and finds ways to harmonize with them, allow them to act through one’s body and spirit. This allows you to make local changes in the fabric of time and space.”

  “String theory,” Izzy muttered and winked. I waved him off.

  Kyo spoke. “It is
like chi in the martial arts. Your real power doesn’t come from physical strength but from attuning your spirit, letting the forces of nature move through your body. What I found most surprising when I found myself here is that I can still do it.”

  “You are dead, like the rest of us?” I just wanted to clarify.

  Kyo nodded. “Yes.”

  I turned back to Saripha. “How did you get here? Sorry, that went by me a little fast before.”

  “It’s a long story. There are things that happen in the world of the living, the human world, which most people are unaware of. One of those things is that different worlds coexist in nearly the same space.”

  I looked at Izzy. He smiled. “Theoretically, quite plausible. Empirically, there’s no evidence. However, since coming to Hell, my empiricism has been slipping some. Something about living in a place with demons running around.”

  I nodded. Saripha smiled and continued. “Occasionally portals open up between these worlds. They aren’t like open doors, but those who can perceive them can pass through. I found one and passed through it.”

  “Why?”

  “Same reason people go into their dark basements during a bad horror movie.”

  “Ah. And you found yourself here.”

  “Yes. I discovered Rockvale. When I first got here, I could induce invisibility and thus was able to go into the town and observe the humans and demons.”

  “Induce invisibility. An odd turn of phrase.”

  “Invisibility is not about bending light, it is about making no psychic footprint so that others fail to take notice of you. It is influence.”

  “You can no longer achieve this.”

  “Certainly not reliably. My—abilities—depend on my will and the harmonics of the place I am in. If the harmonics are primarily life affirming, I can work great magic. If they are primarily life crushing as they are here, I can only work great magic by attuning myself to those energies.”

  “Going to the dark side.”

  “Yes, crudely put.” Saripha pulled in on herself for a moment. She clearly didn’t like thinking about that aspect of things. “I had the chance, after I first observed Rockvale, to pass back to my world before the veil closed.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I couldn’t. Not in the sense that I bravely decided to stay and work for humanity here, but I sensed that I could not turn my back on what I had witnessed. I could not pull out of myself what I needed to cross over.”

  I wondered what she had seen while here. “So you are stuck here.”

  “I guess. I am trying to learn if I can open the portal and control it. I am not clear what happens when I do that. I do not know if anything good will come of bringing the dead back across. However, I might be able to bridge them to other worlds of shadow, other realms of afterlife that might be better than this one. But, honestly, even though I am a quite talented witch, I am way out of my league here.”

  I sat quietly with my thoughts again for a moment. I looked at Izzy. “How come I don’t think what she is talking about is crazy?”

  “You’ve probably been hanging out with demons too long. There are, as I’ve tried to share with her, ideas in physics that would allow stuff like this.”

  “I probably would find that stuff even harder to understand.”

  Izzy grinned. “No doubt.”

  “Okay, so back to the matter at hand. The demons are after me not just because I am uncooperative, but because I am a real threat… because I changed… because I have powers.”

  I looked back at Saripha for confirmation. “The latter is an assumption, but a pretty good one. They can detect these sorts of things. To a lesser degree, at least in this place, so can I.”

  “We just don’t know what those powers are.”

  Saripha shrugged. “Not so far. They may also not yet be manifest. They may be latent, but still need time to develop.”

  “Great. I have powers, but I have no idea what they are.”

  Izzy chuckled. “I think it’s the power to piss off demons.”

  “That may not be such a great power when I serve myself up to them.”

  “You could always try being polite when they have you.”

  “Probably won’t.”

  “Probably not.” There was a hint of moistening in Izzy’s eyes—funny how our glamour bodies imitated basic physiology. That’s why we could feel pain and pleasure.

  “You hug me and the friendship is over.”

  Izzy smiled, but it wasn’t convincing. “There’s no other way?”

  “None I can see. And I’ve been looking.”

  “How do you know that they will take the spell off Rox? Why wouldn’t they torture and ‘kill’ her too?”

  I had the same question. I just knew. I seemed to have gained an almost insane confidence in my instincts in this place, although I had always been either confident or stubborn, depending on how you looked at it.

  “I don’t know, but I do think I’m right. They’ll have what they want and they consider escorts valuable. Apparently not just anyone can do it.”

  “Then I guess there’s nothing to do.” Izzy was trying to convince himself.

  “Nothing to do but do it.” I was also.

  14.

  Appropriately enough, it was raining for our long march. I hadn’t even been in Hell long enough to contemplate weather. Apparently there was evaporation and water condensation in Hell. Who knew? It bothered me, because it made everything seem so ordinary. There was nothing ordinary about this.

  Rox was quiet, withdrawn. I didn’t know what to say. I had a general idea of what I was headed for, but I really didn’t know exactly how things would play out. Vaguely, I had it in my head that once I knew they had removed Rox from harm’s way, I would do what I could to look for a way to escape. Still, deep down, I wasn’t sure I could. What would keep them from threatening her again to get me back? I could only escape if I could get her out as well.

  We were soaking wet as we topped the hill overlooking Rockvale. It didn’t matter—it wasn’t like we could get the flu here. There were a handful of demons gathered on the rocks below us. It was eerie, because it was as if they were expecting us, waiting for us. As soon as they saw us, they hung their heads back and made that eerie screaming laugh and scrambled down the hill. They ran down in the town and started ringing the bell that hung in the central square where I had witnessed the gathering before. As we descended, demons gathered en masse. They were all here for the show, excited, taunting, but also a little fearful.

  What was surprising is that, more slowly and less willingly, they were joined by the humans, with their blank stares, from throughout the town. Apparently anything having to do with me was a big event. I had no idea where Saripha, Izzy or Kyo were, but I knew they were out there somewhere watching. I insisted they not interfere, but they wanted to track the situation as well as they could.

  We approached the town square. The former humans were gathered in the center, surrounded on all sides by demons, clearly a well-established protocol. The people were like mannequins. If one accidentally brushed against a demon, they were roundly cuffed, often with claws, leaving streaks of blood. They only whimpered. Not many made that mistake.

  Suddenly there was a disturbance to one side of the square. The demons on that side parted like it was choreographed. A tall, human-like male figure came forward, upright, standing on a small, floating platform hovering about two inches off the ground. I couldn’t tell what substance the platform was made of or what the means of propulsion was. It glowed slightly with arcs of purple energy. His body was covered in a tight-fitting material that was a dark black-purple, like the last lick of light at the horizon after the sun has descended. I couldn’t tell what that material was either. His head was helmeted in something of the same color. It covered his face completely, with more opaque lenses over the eyes. There was a slight flicker of purple energy around him, like
an aura. He was a very sinister sight.

  “Manitor’s shade.” Rox whispered.

  I stopped. He stopped. No one said anything.

  If this was a coolness contest, I lost and spoke first. “I’m here.”

  Silence. Then a deep voice distorted by the helmet. “I see.”

  “You have to save Rox.”

  Another moment of silence. “Have to? Or what?”

  I decided I needed to do the few seconds of silence thing. I looked around at the demons and then back at the shade. “Or I will kill more demons than any of you think I can before you manage to kill me.”

  There was a laugh from the shade. It was small, but genuinely touched with amusement. “And if I do save her?”

  “I will surrender and let you take me.”

  Another laugh.

  “I’m having trouble deciding which outcome would amuse me more, but I suspect you have already guessed—correctly—that, in fact, escorts are hard to come by and she is therefore valuable to us if she has agreed to return.”

  “I have.” Rox stepped forward. She was even more lifeless and detached than the other humans.

  The shade floated over to Rox. He turned her face to his— well, the face of his mask. After staring at her a few moments, he touched her midsection and suddenly his aura increased. Her features pulled tight in pain. All my muscles started bunching up. Without breaking contact, he snapped his head in my direction. “Do not interfere or she will be harmed!” He then turned back to her. After a few more moments of pain, the shade withdrew his hand. Rox acted dizzy and almost collapsed. He caught her.

  He looked at me. “It is done.”

  “How do I know…”

  Rox looked up. “It is true. I can feel it. The demon fetus is no longer there.”

  There was darkness in her eyes rather than elation. Her expressions were sometimes mysterious, but I assumed it was sadness. She was free from harm but returning to her life. And she knew this meant pain for me, and death of a sort. At least the death of personality. I looked into her eyes. She was complicated and there was something in there that I couldn’t entirely figure out, but I gave her my best attempt at a “this is the right thing” look of determination. She gave me one shallow nod and pressed two fingers to her lips. Then the demons guided her away from the town square.