Page 103 of I Hope This Email Finds You in Hell

We’re still holding each other as the elevator dings and the doors slide open. Slowly—regretfully—we part.

His hand lingers on my cheek, the look in his eyes so tender I’m tempted to close the doors and rocket us back up. “Thank you.”

We face the room before us. A sole fluorescent light flickers, illuminating rows and rows of cubicles. Go figure.

“The veil is here?” I ask Luke.

“There.” Luke points down the aisle. At the opposite end there’s a simple wooden door.

“Oookay,” I say, dragging out the O. “Let’s go fix it.”

I step out of the elevator, but Luke’s arm across my chest stops me.

“Wait,” he cautions.

“For what?” I ask.

From the cubicles, hell beings rise. Hounds and monsters and demons. Rows and rows and rows of them, all standing between us and the veil.

Thirty-four

“Stay close,” Luke instructs, raising his dagger. “We don’t need to kill them all—just get through the door. Can you run?”

I wiggle my bare toes and use the hand not gripping my dagger to hike up my dress. “I can try.”

I don’t know who moves first, but suddenly we’re sprinting and the hell beings spring into action. We make it a quarter way down the aisle before the first one gets in our way—a grizzly-looking being with silver eyes and matted dark fur bursting from the confines of a tuxedo vest. Luke swipes at him with zero hesitation, then uses the ensuing cloud of smoke to our advantage. We plow forward, stabbing hell beings as we go.

There are two things working in our favor: the bursts of smoke provide coverage for us to dodge and weave so the hell beings miss us and hit each other, and we’re the ones with the weapons.

At least, actual weapons and not frightening appendages, which still count in my book but clearly aren’t a concern for Luke. While my blade parries attacks away from gutting me, every jab of his is aimed to kill. Our little self-defense/offense tango works, moving us down the aisle blow by blow.

Our luck runs out with only a few desks left. The wall of hell beings is so thick, they plug up the rest of the aisle.

“We need them to thin out,” I tell Luke between pants. My dagger catches a black-eyed being in a gouge deep enough to send it to the great beyond. I may not be anywhere near Luke’s body (kill) count right now, but I’m holding my own.

“Working on it,” Luke grunts, hacking away with his dagger like he’s wielding a machete in the Amazon.

“We need to split up.”

I’m as surprised by the suggestion as Luke. Before he can refute it, I continue. “We spread out toward the sides to lead the monsters away, then gun it for the middle and meet at the door.”

That’s all I give him before I jerk sharply to the right. Feet pound behind me but I turn again, using the tightly packed stations as my very own labyrinth. Opposite me, Luke does the same. We’re not making the time we were when we were charging down the center aisle, but my plan is working.

Until I accidentally veer into a cubicle.

Dead end. I turn around but the entrance is already guarded by a hell hound in a mask with gold ears. Zekiel? Badulf? Don’t care, fuck ’em both. I just need to get out.

I step onto the rolly chair and use the momentum to spin toward the desk. A clawed hand swipes at me but I leap onto the surface, narrowly avoiding the attack. My bare feet crunch down on a boxy keyboard, which is akin to stepping on Legos. A yelp escapes as the keys prod my bruised feet.

I attribute the Lego keyboard as the only reason I don’t dodge the second attack. White-hot pain lances up my left side as claws shred my dress. I stumble right over the edge of the cubicle wall and topple to the ground. It’s nothing compared to my balcony fall and I leap to my feet in time to plunge my dagger into Badulf/Zekiel’s unreasonably hairy chest.

“Brie!”

Luke’s nearly to the door. I hike up my dress and sprint as another hell being catches up to me. While I weave through the remaining cubicles standing between me and freedom, Luke reaches the door and takes a keycard from his pocket. He must have swiped it from Dante during their fight. He presses it to the pad beside the door and the light changes from red to green.

He swings it open just in time for me to soar through it. I catapult into the room, only stopping when I hit a tall metal rack in the back. Burning gasps tear through me as I suck down air.

Luke closes the door as the wall of monsters descends on us, slamming it in their faces. He grabs a mop and positions it against the handle to jam it.