AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Seriously? You think someone’s going to steal your stamp collection all the way out here?”
“You’re not the only one in Hell with a chip on his shoulder. I don’t believe in taking foolish chances.”
“That sounds boring.”
She leads me to a rickety-looking metal staircase leading up to the bridge through a hole chiseled in the roadbed. Medea gestures for me to go first. I take hold of the railing and shake it. The stairs wobble a little, but it looks like they’ll hold. I start climbing.
“You know, I’ve been waiting here for you your whole life.”
“I hope you’ve got cable, or you’ve missed a lot of good TV.”
When we reach the top, she heads for the far side of the bridge and I follow. She stops abruptly halfway across and looks at me.
“You know that once you get inside, you can never leave.”
“That’s what Angie Summers said in the back of her daddy’s Cadillac on prom night. If I can get away from her, I can get away from you.”
“It’s refreshing to meet a man so anxious to embrace annihilation.”
“Okay. You’ve had your supervillain moment, now can you show me to the front door?”
Medea steps back a few paces and holds out her arms.
div height="0">
“We’re here. Behold Tartarus.”
I turn around, looking for something.
“We’re nowhere. Behold fuck-all.”
“Look down,” she says. “Then jump.”
I look over the edge. We’re right over the Styx.
“In your dreams, Vampirella.”
“Is Sandman Slim afraid of a little blood?”
“He’s afraid of how deep that is. You want me to jump and crack my head on the bottom.”
She shakes her head. Shadows make her shifting features even more disturbing.
“This is the way in. You can keep a little dignity and jump, or I can push you.”
“Try it.”
I start for her and suddenly I’m airborne. When I land I slide about twenty feet. Medea just smacked me with a hex that felt like a tornado giving birth to a hurricane. I climb to my feet and brush the dust off my coat.
“If you put it that way, maybe I’ll just go ahead and jump.”
“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said since you’ve been here.”
I climb onto the wide concrete railing and tightrope-walk down to where Medea is waiting.
“You’ve got the home-field advantage here, but I bet you can’t throw hoodoo like that back on earth.”
“We’re not on earth, and whatever power you have in this place, I will always have more. Now jump.”
