Page 39 of Hellbound

CHAPTER TWELVE

The specter of what they’d witnessed hung heavy over Marian’s head. She harbored no guilt about what happened to Aisling, but the memory of her dismantling would haunt her beyond her final death.

Neither she nor Tori had spoken in the hour they’d spent since leaving the other diver to her fate. Marian’s instinct led them down a winding staircase she’d never seen before to a hallway she had.

The hall of doors from her last death.

But now there wasn’t a single statue to be found. She held her breath as they walked, bracing for another memory to take over. But it didn’t.

The order of the doors had changed, yet the pull remained the same. She followed it through an unassuming gray slab that vanished as soon as she tried its knob, revealing another, wider hall with deep red, spongey flooring that made Marian cringe with every step. Tori kept close as a profound sense of dread took root in Marian’s chest.

The feeling intensified the further they walked, the gray walls oscillating like water. Then the hall widened into a cavernous black tunnel, the ceiling obscured by the lazy mist pouring from the hall. Marian’s gait faltered when she laid eyes on what her instinct insisted was the source of her unease.

A gargantuan black gate split the tunnel in half. The word “gate” didn’t quite suit it, though it was the first word that leaped to mind. From the floor to the ceiling, its innumerable pickets locked in an erratic weave, completely barring the way. There was no pattern, no order to its makeup—the thing looked like an explosion in stasis.

Marian hadn’t seen anything else quite like it in Hell.

“Wow,” Tori said as she took a tentative step toward the gate. “I hate that.”

Marian shuddered.

“I don’t feel much down here, but that …” Tori said, her tone one of awed horror. “That makes me want to throw up and I have no idea why.”

Marian had opened her mouth to tell Tori that it also happened to be their destination, but when the ground opened up in front of the traveler, she didn’t think.

She just moved.

Marian surged forward and grabbed Tori before she could step off the precipice.

You can’t touch her. She’s not really here.

But it didn’t stop her from trying. Her hand sliced right through the traveler. Another uncomfortable shock went through her like in the atrium. This time, she blacked out for a few seconds.

Tori spun around, her projection swirling where Marian had broken it. But she was standing on solid ground at the edge of a massive crevice.

“What was that for?” Tori shrieked.

Marian gaped at her as she jabbed a finger toward the hole that had nearly swallowed her. “That!”

Tori blinked in confusion, then turned around and looked down.

“Oh. I didn’t see.”

Marian’s features contorted in anger. How could Tori not notice?

“You didn’t see the abyss in the fucking floor?”

“It’s pretty convincing, isn’t it?” Tori said right as she took a decisive step off the edge.

Marian’s heart flew into her throat. Reflex took over, compelling her to reach for Tori again though she knew full well it would accomplish nothing but pain.

But instead of plunging into the depths of Hell, Tori stood on solid darkness.

“It’s not real,” Tori explained as she took another step across the emptiness while a slack-jawed Marian looked on.

“It sure looks real,” Marian said as she eyed the pit. It stretched from wall to wall and was wide enough that Marian couldn’t jump it. There was no way around it, either. No matter how hard she stared at it, no matter how fiercely she challenged her perception, the pit remained a pit.

She usually sensed when Hell played tricks on her, though she’d fallen for plenty. But this one didn’t come on as a fever dream like the others. No matter how hard she challenged its existence, it remained.