Page 44 of I Hope This Email Finds You in Hell

Every piece of me quakes, but this is what I wanted, wasn’t it? To actually help.

“Got it.” I raise my chin and straighten with false bravado. “I’ll see you when I see you.”

I don’t linger to take in the flash of surprise in his eyes at my easy agreement, though I badly want to. I enter the Night Market, the cracked pavement beneath my feet turning to uneven cobblestones and the atmosphere taking on a multicolored festive air.

During my trips to New York City with my mom, we’d go to the Winter Village at Bryant Park. I can still remember ducking in and out of tents while shopping for gifts to bring back for Christmas, fingers warm from a cup of overpriced hot chocolate I’d nurse until it cooled. This reminds me of that, though the tents vary in color and are packed as tightly together as the bodies. Blending in won’t be an issue here, though from the sheer volume of stalls, finding Hazaar might.

I keep my head down, pressing myself between crevices of creatures with one eye or six, skin flesh or scales, four appendages or more. Chatter fills the air as monsters barter with vendors, dumping handfuls of jars into waiting, greedy paws. Moving through the crowd with the bags is cumbersome. I pull off to the side to rearrange them so they’re not bumping into everyone.

“I smell something tasty in there,” a voice crows to me through an open tent flap. A vendor stands behind a table covered with mason jars. Inside are things I can’t make out past the murky liquid they float in.

“Care for a pickled piglet hoof?” the vendor offers, raising a jar. He picks up another. “Or perhaps the pickled beaks of parrots? We sell everything pickled to your delight.”

“I’m all set,” I say with a gracious smile. “Can you point me in the direction of—”

A chorus of screams steals our attention, punctuated by the distinct roar of a struggling motor. Luke.

“Spirits!” someone with a growly voice shouts. I step fully into the tent to hide. “You are not welcome here!”

“Always something,” the vendor mutters, straightening the jars. “Those damn ghosts can never rest. Have to come terrorizing the market, chasing away our business. Bah! What a bunch of ghouls.”

“Um, yeah.” I peek outside the tent to ensure Luke and his trail of vengeful spirits have passed. “So anyway—”

“This place has been going to pot since the new leadership took over. It doesn’t help that everyone’s acting up with the eclipse coming.” The vendor huffs, taking a seat on the stool behind the table. I could have mistaken him as human if it weren’t for the hooves peeking out beneath his pant legs. Having pickled piglet hooves on the menu seems a little close to home, but what do I know.

“If it’s not the damned ghosts running amuck, it’s the redcaps waging war every other day. If not them, it’s the demons bringing filthy mortals back from the overworld like souvenirs. If not them, it’s the lousy vamps ruining the blood market. If not—”

“Wait, what did you say about demons bringing back mortals?” I interrupt, heart racing.

He heaves a dramatic sigh, straightening a pair of thin wire-framed glasses on his nose. “This is just a rumor, but apparently every time The Reckoning happens, more hell beings escape into the overworld. Word on the street is it’s mostly demons, since they’re the ones who’ve always been oddly fascinated with the overworld, though anyone with wits knows it’s a dangerous place to be. But the greater demons have no problem blending in.” He humphs. “Lucky them.”

“What’s a—” My lips stall around Reckoning, wondering if the question might give me away. I stuff it aside for Luke. “I’ve heard some demons are collecting multiple humans from the overworld to bring here. Maybe for a sacrifice?”

I hold my breath, hoping there isn’t anything too suspicious in my words. Thankfully, the vendor seems all too happy to gossip. “For the sacrifice of sacrifices. The Total Lunar Eclipse, Penumbral Lunar Eclipse, and a Partial Lunar Eclipse are happening in four days’ time, three hours after midnight on Sunday’s morn. It will result in a super blue-blood moon, the rarest of moons. It’s said that a substantial sacrifice of mortal blood can weaken the veil between worlds, which is already weak if the increasing Reckonings are any indication. If that’s true, then I fear the end of life as we know it is upon us.”

Questions brim, but each feels like something I’m supposed to already have the answer to. All I know is Krystal has four days left, maybe less. We have to kick this road trip into high gear.

A clap of thunder spooks me and the vendor guffaws at my fright. I force an easy smile, repeating Luke’s words from earlier. “A storm’s coming, huh?”

“A storm indeed. This’ll be the second Reckoning this week. Devil forbid anything stays at rest for long around here. Are you gonna buy something?”

“Uh, no, sorry.” I duck out of the tent before he responds, molding back into the crowd. The sky presses down, as if the clouds got closer. White flashes of lightning streak across them.

Even more disconcerting is I can’t hear the rumble of Luke’s bike anymore. I don’t know where he and the ghosts might have escaped to, or if they got him. All that fills my ears is thunder and chatter and laughter piercing the air.

“Excuse me,” I say to another vendor I pass. She has big round eyes like those of an insect and green-tinted skin with yellow splotches. “Can you point me in the direction of Hazaar’s stall?”

“Hazaar.” She tastes the name—literally. A split tongue darts out of her mouth and licks the air. “Anything he’s selling, I have better.”

She sweeps a hand across her table at a smattering of different objects. Some papery, some iridescent, some furred. All varying sizes.

“They’re wings,” I realize. Different kinds from different creatures, by the looks of it.

“Ripped off the backs of their owners myself.” She smiles. Every gleaming white tooth in her mouth comes to a point. “Where would you like to start?”

“I’m all set.”

I plunge back into the throng, wandering deeper into the market. The air feels charged as I pass a busker with a fiddle, his voice crooning over the cacophony of sounds.