Page 33 of Hellbound

Marian headed for the pool, but Tori grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her back around.

“Hold up—what do you mean ‘in theory?’ You’ve gone to Hell with other travelers before, right?”

Maybe Marian ought to have at least brought up the weeping traveler situation before tonight’s dive. “There was … an attempt.”

Tori looked like she’d been slapped in the face. “ ‘An attempt?’ ”

“If you could call it that,” Marian’s brain buzzed as she grappled for the right words to use to calm Tori down. “The other guy didn’t even make it.”

Tori paled. “He died?”

“No! Fuck.” Marian smothered her face with her palm. “He pissed himself when he saw my body and never crossed over. I haven’t tried again since. I’ve gone to Hell with another diver, though.”

Greg, and only Greg.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier!?”

Marian groaned. “I had a lot on my mind, the fries were terrible, and I wanted to go home. Stay focused. You know what to do, right?”

Marian turned away again, determined to get the show on the road before her resolve could take any more hits. A forceful tug from Tori sent her stumbling into the Christmas tree. Marian swatted a fake fir branch out of her face.

“When did I say that I did?” Tori’s voice broke as the word slipped out somewhere between a whisper and scream. “I’ve never done this with a diver before, and it’s not like there’s a wiki!”

Marian blanched. She’d never explicitly asked about Tori’s experience, had she? She met Tori’s apprehensive gaze. “This would have been great to know two days ago.”

Note to self: start a Hell wiki.

Tori cast a miserable glance at the pool behind Marian. “I hate all these unknowns.”

Irritation clawed at Marian’s back and turned her next words callous and hard. “I don’t know what to tell you. You’re just going to have to figure it out like the rest of us.” She reached back in time for the fragmented memories of what the old traveler had said to her about tethering to a diver. “Feel for me when you cross over. It’s how I always found my partner after death. Once you find me, don’t let go.”

“I sure hope that makes more sense when I transition,” Tori took a deep, trembling breath, and some of the fear bled from her eyes, replaced by a questioning look that she pointed at Marian.

“What happens if Lloyd can’t revive you?”

She stared at Tori and gave a shrug that belied the anguish the answer brought her. “Then I die for good, and Hell becomes my permanent address.”

Disconcerting hypothetical questions aside, the plan seemed simple at first: go to Hell, hope the key would still call to her again, bag it, then locate Tori’s hallway, open the door there, and see what lay beyond it—all without attracting the attention of the Remnant. It was the variables between each step of that plan that worried Marian initially, but as the moment of her death drew nearer, she found herself facing a devastating realization.

This is fucking insane. They’d have to accomplish so much in an indeterminate span of time.

Divers and travelers were equally susceptible to the Remnant’s snare, but there was no consensus about what happened to travelers if caught; she’d never heard of any close encounters like hers—travelers could leave Hell at will and rarely stuck around long enough to find out. She’d heard rumors of novice travelers discovered in their homes on the edge of brain death during a crossing, but those cases all involved massive doses of mind-altering substances, which made it difficult to determine if their almost-demise was the Remnant’s doing or the drugs.

But Marian remembered the way the Remnant had reacted to her scar. She just hoped its Remnant repellant power hadn’t been a fluke.

Marian insisted that Tori not leave her if the Remnant appeared, though the request came out as “don’t you dare bail on me the second shit gets real.” She wasn’t sure what good Tori’s company would do for her if the Remnant attacked and her scar failed to ward it off again, but the prospect of having another soul with her in Hell sounded better than the alternative.

But with each passing second, Marian’s confidence in Tori waned.

“Marian,” Tori whispered from the garage floor as Marian shed her outer layers and climbed up the ladder to the pool platform. “Who is this guy?”

She assumed she meant Lloyd, who’d excused himself to take a piss in the backyard before they got started, leaving Marian to prepare herself. She picked up the rope he’d left and began looping it around her ankles.

Tori, meanwhile, paced around and inspected the spotter’s setup, which he’d laid out on a plastic folding table. Marian did have to admit the guy’s equipment wasn’t the caliber she was used to. Nothing looked medical grade. She let her eyes flutter shut as she tried to ignore the mounting unease. “Don’t worry about it.”

There came the click of a container opening, followed by the rustle of plastic packaging. Tori sifted through box after box. “This first aid kit only has Hello Kitty bandages, this AED is ancient, and right next to the ibuprofen is a bottle of pills labeled ‘PCP’ in Crayon.”

“Tori,” Marian said as she fumbled the knot she was trying to tie for the third time. “Shut up.”