Page 76 of I Hope This Email Finds You in Hell

Moira surveys them, then me. Finally, she nods. “Bring them in.”

• • •

It takes twenty minutes of panting and groaning to finally get everyone inside. Krystal, Yasmine, and Poppi huddle on the couch, a moth-eaten blanket draped over their shoulders. In quivering hands, they cup steaming mugs of what Moira assured me is nettle tea, which sounds as disgusting as any other tea, but at least has them drinking.

It took both of us to lug Luke’s dead weight into the only bedroom. He lies on his back in his shredded black shirt, getting blood on the covers.

Moira sits on the edge of the bed beside him. She runs a curved claw-like fingernail lightly down the side of his pallid face. “What happened?”

I tell her the most abridged version I can, starting with Demon Debra in the overworld and ending with cutting Beliar with Fatality. Shortly after we left his grounds, The Reckoning happened. I pulled over, waiting for the storm to pass. If the archers came back to life, they didn’t follow us.

“They wouldn’t follow you without their master to order them,” Moira tells me. “You’re safe.”

The words open the floodgates. All the tension that’s been simmering since we entered Beliar’s fortress and everything went to shit boils over. I step into the hallway, tears slipping down my cheeks faster than I can wipe them away. I fall onto my butt when my legs give out. Back against the wall, I draw my knees to my chest and open my hand to reveal the yellow vial filled with one dose of Vitality. The lifesaving potion.

Lifesaving, singular. But I have four lives to save.

Closing my fist around the vial, I drop my head to my knees and sob.

The floor creaks, footsteps nearing. “You’re scared,” Moira observes. “Why?”

“Because I don’t know what to do,” I blubber. I open my fist, revealing the vial. “Luke’s lost so much blood, I can’t believe he’s still breathing. This will save his life. But the entire reason we’re here is for Krystal. Beliar poisoned her and the others to keep them weak until the eclipse. But they’re so sick, I’m afraid they won’t make it back to the overworld. How can I use it on only Krystal and not the others? How am I supposed to choose who to save?”

Moira’s bare brows pinch together. The top of her head is wrapped with a black silk scarf, hiding her hair, if she has any. She slowly gets to her knees in front of me so we’re eye level.

“I have known Luke for many years,” she says. Her voice is less grating than it was thirty minutes ago. It must have been rusty from disuse. Now, it’s soft, an edge of a rasp to it. “He has suffered worse than this. He survived then, so we have to believe he will survive now.”

I search her dark gaze, finding tenderness and nostalgia in her eyes. Slowly, the puzzle pieces slot together. Upon first knocking on the door, I thought maybe Moira was another ex of Luke’s, but I was wrong. “You’re his mother, aren’t you?”

She closes her eyes, as if the title is too much to hear. When she opens them, they’re glossy with unshed tears. “I wasn’t always able to protect him and his brother throughout their childhood, though I tried. If he can hold on through the night, morning will bring brighter times.”

“I can stitch him up,” I realize, something I should have thought of hours ago. It’s been nearly eleven months since I wore scrubs and stood in the ER, but life as a receptionist hasn’t wiped my brain of what I spent years studying. I get to my feet. “He has a balm in his bag he used on my knee that helped. If I can find a needle and thread…”

My excitement dies as I rush into the living room where Luke’s backpack rests on the chair. Trying to save Luke myself still only gives me one less candidate for the potion. Before me are three.

“Do you know what they were poisoned with?” Moira asks, coming up behind me.

I flip through my hazy memory of the mission, as if my brain is purposefully trying to erase it from my mind to protect me. “All I remember is stone and the statues and the garden—”

I break off with a sharp intake of breath, spinning to face Moira. “Beliar had a garden. I thought it was strange, but what if it was to grow poisons?”

Moira nods. “Do you remember any of the plants?”

“Moonflowers, I think. And something yellow. Both vines on the trellis.”

“Both poisonous. The yellow is likely cat’s-claw, which is toxic in high doses. Anything else?”

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to picture the bush full of plump dark berries and purple buds.

I’ve seen them before. When I worked in the pediatric unit. A little boy was wheeled in sporting a fever and hallucinations. He had eaten the same berries from a bush in his grandma’s backyard.

My eyes fly open. “Belladonna. They were poisoned with belladonna.”

“Perhaps a mix of all three,” Moira suggests. “The bad news is that their time is limited. Even if they weren’t given a killing dose, they could never be the same if its effects aren’t reversed soon.”

“And the good news?” I ask hopefully.

“A deadly dose of poison is different from, say, a deadly bleeding wound. Poison works slowly, and if you can stall its effects even longer, it may not work at all. If you can’t bring yourself to choose, we can divide the potion into three separate small doses. It won’t save them like a full dose would, but it might at least buy them enough time to get back to the overworld, where there is medicine that can.”