by SM Reine
“Where’s your private apartment?” She picked up one of the globes. It was semi-transparent, but heavier than it looked. All of the geographic labels were printed on the inside.
Fritz waved a dismissive hand. “I have a few.”
“Any in Hell?”
“Yes. I have a place in the City of Dis.”
“Have I ever been there?” Isobel asked.
“No. You weren’t involved in any of my infernal dealings.”
“Did I know about them at all?”
“Some.” He was starting to look irritated. “You were busy with your own life, Belle.”
She didn’t like it when he called her Belle anymore. It had been kind of cute at first, since most of the witchy friends she picked up around Helltown called her the same thing, but now it grated. “What did we do together, then?”
Fritz’s gaze went distant. “Plenty of things. Trust me. If we’d had more time, I think we could have conquered the world together.”
The fact that he might have meant that literally was more than slightly disturbing.
“But after I…died…you ended up getting a government job. Why?”
“I didn’t really want the world, Belle,” Fritz said. “Once you were gone, I had to find something else to do with myself.”
It sounded like there was a lot of missing story there. A very painful story that she didn’t have the emotional stamina to hear.
She returned the globe to the shelf.
“I want to go to Hell,” Isobel said. It sounded like the slightly more pleasant alternative to exploring Hope Jimenez’s former life.
Fritz’s mouth twisted. “Okay. Let’s go to Hell.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THE GATEWAY INTO HELL looked fairly innocuous, all things considered. It was a ring of stones around a burned patch of ground. Orange soil dusted the surrounding floor. The air smelled faintly of sulfur. It reminded Isobel of a poorly contained indoor fire pit, in a way.
Thick cables led from a hole in the wall to the circle of stones, ruining the fire pit illusion. Matching cables connected to the workstation in Fritz’s office. Isobel took that to mean that the portal was somehow computer-controlled.
Pretty impressive for arcane infernal technology.
The room had been hidden behind another set of bookshelves in Fritz’s office and didn’t look familiar to Isobel, so she imagined that it was meant to be a secret room—and one that she had never been in before.
As if the creepiness of a hidden room wasn’t good enough, the walls were also lined with steel and iron several inches thick, sort of like the door to a bank vault. Fritz left it standing wide open, so she had a great view of the layered metal.
“Not worried about anything coming through, are you?” Isobel asked, trailing a finger down the metal inside the door. It was as thick as her hand. The bolts that secured it while locked were two inches wide. It looked like it could have contained a nuclear blast.
“This portal connects directly to the only legitimate entrance into Dis, which is inside the Palace,” Fritz said, grabbing a tote bag from the desk. “If anything comes through, it would mean the whole city has fallen. So no, I’m generally not worried about that.” He handed the bag to Isobel. “Stranger things have happened, though. Demons aren’t exactly predictable. Here, you’ll want to dress yourself appropriately for the trip.”
Isobel reached in to find a mass of leather. Her stomach curdled as she picked the pieces apart. He had given her leather pants, a leather jacket, even leather boots.
“This looks like something the nightmares in Helltown wear.”
“It’s armor,” he said. “Hell isn’t like Earth. The air’s not friendly to humans.”
“So where’s your armor?”
“The Palace is heavily warded. I don’t think I’ll need protection. You, on the other hand, won’t heal any injuries you incur for the time being. We should be careful.”
So he had noticed. Isobel self-consciously curled her damaged fingers in the leather to hide them. “In that case, thanks.”
Isobel stripped off her shorts and t-shirt where she stood, leaving only her underwear. Fritz watched her closely. He wasn’t looking at the more interesting parts of her body that Cèsar was charmingly bad at trying not to stare at, but at her hip and knees. The places where she was damaged.
“There’s something else you need to know about the City of Dis,” Fritz said. “Time runs at a different speed between dimensions. A day passing in Dis is a week on Earth.”
Isobel wiggled her hips into the leather pants. They were a little too tight. He’d probably bought them in Hope Jimenez’s size, and she had eaten far fewer cookies and probably went jogging or whatever else lawyers did for fun.
“How’s that work?” she asked, sucking in her stomach to pull the pants up to her waist. “Time going at different speeds.”
“Hell. Who knows?” He shrugged as though that should have been adequate explanation. “Your contract’s tethered to the date on Earth, though. Probably why Ander never took you to Dis for work with him. He wouldn’t want your contract to run out too quickly.”
Isobel quickly did the mental calculations.
She had a month and a half left on her contract. About six weeks.
“So we’ll have less than a week to fix this once we reach Hell,” she said. “Uh, how long is it going to take for this Judge Abraxas guy to reverse things?”
“That’s part of the issue,” Fritz said. “We still have to get an audience with him. I’m pretty confident that we’ll be able to—”
An alarm shrieked through the condominium, cutting him off.
A knife appeared in Fritz’s hand. “Take this,” he said, pushing it into Isobel’s grasp before darting out into the office again. The reminder of their wedding day was so overwhelming that she couldn’t breathe for a moment.
Isobel hurried to finish dressing, stuffing her generous breasts into a leather jacket that zipped from hips to throat before following him.
She found Fritz on the loft, sneering down at the entrance to their condo. “How did you get in here?” He wasn’t speaking to Isobel.
“I used the door. What do you think you’re doing?” The response was silken, the accent Italian.
Isobel peered around his elbow.
A tall, slender woman with her hair cut into a severe blonde bob stood in the doorway, flanked by a pair of guards. They were probably Union, judging by the fact that they wore the standard Bluetooth headsets and all-black clothing. Those guys were allergic to color.
“I thought I removed every Union camera,” Fritz said.
“You did. You didn’t remove all the motion sensors.” The woman strolled toward them on stilettos. The fact that she could walk at all in such a snugly cut pantsuit was impressive.
“Isn’t a man allowed to visit his private residence without scrutiny from the Office of Preternatural Affairs?”
“Not when I suspect he’s been hiding a portal to Hell in his office.” The woman mounted the stairs, giving him a smug, tight-lipped smile that gave Isobel the wild urge to slap her.
Isobel was surprised to recognize their visitor now.
“Lucrezia de Angelis.” The name came to her easily, though it felt like something that she should have spit off of her tongue.
The recognition was, apparently, mutual.
Lucrezia’s eyes narrowed. She almost missed a step climbing to the loft, and that clumsy little slip evoked a sick satisfaction in Isobel. “Hope? Is that you?”
“God fucking dammit,” Fritz muttered. Louder, he said, “No, Lucrezia. This couldn’t be Hope. You know that Hope died—”
“Almost five years ago, yes. I remember.”
The bitch probably had it marked on her calendar.
Isobel had never liked her very much, and the feeling was mutual. Though she couldn’t remember why.
Giving Fritz a sideways look, Isobel thought that she could probably guess where the animosity came f
rom. Fritz’s ability to pick up women hadn’t been limited to the Friederling X. She was fairly certain that any attractive woman who came within fifty miles of him would have less-than-favorable things to say about the youngest son of the Friederling family.
Memory dawned. Just a flash of it. A naked, gyrating flash. “You cheated on me with her,” Isobel said. “Oh my God. You asshole.”
Fritz rolled his eyes to the sky, seeming to offer a silent prayer to whichever deity had intervened to help return Isobel’s memory to her rotting brain. “What a convenient time to get that information back.”
“She isn’t Hope, hmm?” Lucrezia asked.
Fritz held up a hand to silence her, focusing on Isobel instead. “The situation is more complicated than you recall, Belle. I’m going to ask you to withhold judgment until everything else is restored. Can you do that for me? Can we shelve this conversation for later?”
Isobel frowned at him. Memory was emerging, pressing hard enough inside of her skull that it felt like it might extrude through her forehead. It ached. With that ache came images.
Walking into their bedroom at the manor. Finding Lucrezia on top of Fritz, his body buried deep inside of hers, those surgery-perfect tits bouncing.
Isobel hadn’t been angry. At least, she didn’t remember any anger at discovering that. “I can wait,” Isobel said slowly. She didn’t really have a choice. She had no way to make sense of her emotions, these pictures she was seeing.
Fritz let out a sigh. “Good.”
“Why are you trying to take your dead wife to Hell, Director Friederling?” Lucrezia asked. The question of how his dead wife had come to be walking around again didn’t seem to bother her all that much. Considering that she was vice president of the Office of Preternatural Affairs, Isobel imagined that random dead people coming back to life probably wasn’t very shocking anymore.
“We’re taking a second honeymoon,” Fritz said. “How did you get here so quickly? We’ve only just arrived.”
“Your stewardess works for me. She informed me of your itinerary. You’re not allowed to go to Hell.”
He grabbed Isobel’s wrist and pulled her into the office. Lucrezia followed them. “I’d love to debate interdimensional travel regulations, but I’m busy,” Fritz said. “Mind getting out of my condo?” He reached for the keyboard on his desk.
Lucrezia stepped in his way. She stood too close to them, close enough that Isobel was almost gagging on her flowery perfume. “I’ll have more than your job for this.” Lucrezia’s eyes glowed with triumph.
“Come on, Lucrezia. We’ll be back before you know it. Don’t make this difficult.”
“Making your life difficult is one of my favorite things, Fritz,” Lucrezia said.
“At least you’re honest about it,” Isobel muttered.
That got the vice president’s attention. She glowered at Isobel. “Hope Jimenez. The fact that you’re alive is probably another violation of OPA law. What did Fritz do to bring you back, hmm? Deal with the Devil?”
“Something like that,” Fritz said, leaning in close to Lucrezia. He brushed a hand down her arm, sliding his hand around to cup the small of her back. His voice dropped to a murmur. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
The blonde woman swayed toward him despite herself, as though she just couldn’t resist.
He took a quick step forward, hit a button on the keyboard behind Lucrezia, and yanked Isobel into the portal room.
“Guards!” Lucrezia shouted.
The Union men rushed into the office as Fritz and Isobel rushed out. The portal flamed to life, flooding the entire room with a brilliant crimson glow. Fritz stepped up onto the stones ringing the edge.
“Come on, Belle!” he shouted over the roar of wind that blasted through the portal.
Isobel balked at the edge.
If she passed through, she was cutting her time even shorter. Six weeks to six days. She hadn’t had time to consider whether she would rather risk that the Judge’s decision wouldn’t be in her favor or enjoy what little time she had left.
What would that do to the magic of the contract that was already fraying? Was she going to fall apart? Or worse—would she remember everything?
Fritz took the decision away from her. He jerked on her arm, hauling her over the edge of the portal.
The room swirled around them.
In the doorway, Lucrezia’s mouth opened in silent protest, hand lifting to point at the gateway. The Union guards moved behind her.
Muzzles flashed with gunfire.
Nothing struck.
Isobel tasted the difference between worlds before she could see the difference. The stale air of the room was bitter on her tongue, faintly sulfurous.
It was a familiar taste that she had tried hard to forget. Unfortunately, Ander’s contract had only wiped her memory of the time before she died, not the time that she had worked for him.
She would never forget what Hell tasted like. Not until the day she finally, permanently died.
Which was now less than a week away.
CHAPTER SIX
ISOBEL COULD ACTUALLY FEEL time accelerate as her body fell into Hell’s slipstream.
She felt it in the way that the skin on her pinky finger flaked and peeled away. She felt it in the scabs on her knees, the way her nose and mouth and eyes dried out, and how the cut on her hip ached as it tore further.
Worse than any of that, she felt the magic releasing its grip on her mind, allowing Hope Jimenez to swell from the depths of amnesic oblivion.
Isobel spiraled, tumbling out of consciousness into memory.
It didn’t come as a single coherent thread, as it had earlier. It came all at once in a swarm of images.
She was at her second wedding to Fritz—not the elopement, but the event that had been widely publicized among their families, friends, and business contacts.
Isobel was wearing a filmy white dress in front of hundreds of people at a venue that had cost six figures to rent. The only demons in attendance had been invited, and Fritz did not bring a knife to kill them.
“You told me you weren’t going to expose my family to this,” Hope had hissed to him over the phone, locked in a bridal suite with a team of professional stylists and her maid of honor. Calling Fritz was the only way they could talk. They weren’t allowed to see each other on their wedding day, though they’d already been married for weeks. Her dad had insisted on the tradition.
“They’re allies.” Fritz sounded impatient with the conversation. He was probably being prodded by as many attendants as she was.
“They’re demons.”
“Demons can be allies.”
“That doesn’t mean that I want them at our wedding. My grandmother is here!” Hope had felt horribly panicked by the idea of demons at the ceremony. Specifically, the kind of demons that the Friederlings might have invited to his wedding.
She was afraid that someone might recognize her.
Why was I afraid someone might recognize me?
“Relax, Emmeline,” Fritz had said, and he hung up on her.
Another hard tug of memory, and the memories pushed ahead to their official honeymoon, which had been as stuffy and over-planned as their official wedding. Because it had been a destination wedding, the honeymoon had been an extension of the festivities that included all the guests. Fritz had spent most of the time networking.
Networking with demons from Hell.
Nobody seemed to recognize Hope, and her family had gone home right after the ceremony, unable to afford the lengthy honeymoon festivities. Her family was safe. That was the important part. But she still hadn’t been able to relax, and she found herself taking comfort in the open bar.
Even gin and tonics weren’t enough for her nerves.
While Fritz was distracted, Hope had run into Ander. The very demon who had eventually saved her life but enslaved her in the process.
Isobel was surprised to remember meeting him so soon. She’d assumed that she m
ust have met him through other channels later on. But no, it was definitely Ander at the Italian winery where they’d held their honeymoon festivities. He’d looked just as old and fat and miserable in a suit as he always had.
“You don’t look happy.” That was how Ander said hello, bellying up to the wine-tasting bar and taking the stool beside her. He’d been wearing contacts that hid his slitted, catlike eyes. Hope wasn’t the only one praying to evade notice from Fritz’s business contacts.
Hope put on a professional mask for Ander. She pretended to smile while watching her new husband chat with his grandparents, knowing that he would later turn around and use that same charm to make contacts with the owners of infernal businesses.
She wasn’t the only one with a mask. Fritz was as two-faced as Hope, in his own way.
“I’m only tired from all the celebrations.” She kept an eye on Fritz and her voice down. He was close, maybe close enough that he’d be able to hear their conversation.
But Isobel didn’t remember the details of that conversation. She couldn’t remember if Ander had already been trying to talk her into a contract, or who had invited him to the wedding.
She did remember that he was charming, but Ander had always been incredibly charming. He was fairly unassuming, a little bit grandfatherly, very effusive with praise. And he’d been particularly on top of his game at their wedding.
The fact that he vanished before Fritz returned to Hope’s side didn’t escape her notice.
Just like the way that Fritz was flirting with one of the bridesmaids before dinner didn’t escape Hope’s notice, either.
The magic of the contract continued to unravel, releasing floods of memory, trapping her deep in unconsciousness.
Isobel was whisked through Hope’s life. Days and weeks blurred.
Shortly after returning from the honeymoon, Hope started practicing law.
She had refused to let Fritz finance the firm, though he had made a half-hearted offer more than once. She recruited the talent who worked in her office herself, used money that she had gathered from investors with minimal contribution from their “family” funds, began attempting to acquire clients via aggressive networking.
