Holiday From Hell

by Carlton, Demelza

  Mel was silent, so Luce crossed the boardwalk to get a better look at the teenager. Her clothes were tailored to her body, so it didn't look like she was carrying weapons or explosives. If she was a terrorist, she wasn't on duty today.

  The door to the museum opened and a man stepped out. Luce placed him at close to thirty, with the physique of someone who put in hours at the gym. Yet his soul matched the girl's – red and black intertwined, but where hers held more light, his leaned toward darkness. Yet that wispy red thread wove through it, disappearing into the darkness only to reappear somewhere else without warning.

  This one was a soldier, surely. One whose guilt over every death dragged him down into a mire of despair. Not damned, but headed there. Especially if he turned those killer instincts on himself.

  The girl's eyes were on him. Was he her target?

  The wind slammed the visitor centre door and the soldier ducked for cover as if training was instinct. Luce had seen similar behaviour in veterans during fireworks displays in America.

  "Well he looks like he's one wrong word away from suicide," Luce remarked to the girl. "I haven't seen a case of PTSD that bad since the Fourth of July in the US. Where do you bet he was stationed, Afghanistan or Iraq?"

  She looked shocked, her eyes darting from the soldier to Luce. Those dark, doe eyes flashed like a night-time thunderstorm as she bit out, "There are worse things than war that can do that to a man."

  Luce waited for her to elaborate, but she didn't. Snarky teenager. What was she to him? The soldier had to be twice her age, but he didn't look old enough to be her father. "So you're his friend – girlfriend, maybe?" Satisfaction at being right made him grin at her defensive reaction. "Get out while you can. You don't want to be the one to find him when he offs himself. No one needs to –"

  Mel's lips cut him off with a delicious kiss. "My love, are you scaring people? Maybe we should have spent the day at home."

  She was probably right – she'd have been better off resting in bed and he wouldn't have ended up in the creek. The girl was still staring at him, though, so Luce figured he'd mess with her a little more and maybe even make Mel blush. "Hey, if you want to chain me to the bed, you know I'm up for that, Mel. Like I said –" He stopped at the girl's sharp intake of breath. Her face was paler than Mel's wings. What had he said? He tried to read the girl's soul, but she'd locked it up tighter than a drum.

  Mel stepped between them and grabbed the girl's arm. She murmured something in a low voice, but Luce couldn't make out more than a word or two of it. The dangerous look in Mel's eyes told him not to say another word. It was Japan all over again.

  Mel's hand curled around his arm instead – she'd let go of the girl and a slight jerk of her head indicated they should head down the stairs away from the strange girl. "My love?"

  Luce nodded and departed with her. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

  Mel looked mischievous. "Honestly, Luce, I'm beginning to think chaining you to the bed wasn't such a bad idea after all."

  He grinned. If that's what she wanted, Hell, so did he. "Of course it's not a bad idea. I suggested it." A dangerous thought occurred to him. "But it only works if you're there with me. If you chain me up alone and leave me there while you go sightseeing without me, it's the worst idea I've ever heard."

  She laughed gently. "I agree. I'm not sure I could look the landlord in the eye again if he walked in and found you." She blushed.

  "Can you tell me why you wanted me to read souls up there? And what that girl is?" Luce hoped his voice was quiet enough not to carry to the strange girl.

  Mel bit her lip. "She's a twenty-four-year-old intern doctor. When she was seventeen, she was abducted and spent almost a month being tortured like one of the souls in Lili's level of Hell. She survived because that man she was with helped her kill her abductors." She closed her eyes. "If I hadn't stepped between you, she was going to gut you with a hunting knife she keeps up her sleeve. You said something that made her think you knew what had happened to her and in her mind that marked you as one of her abductors."

  "So that explains the soldier. Did they fall in love in Iraq or whatever and he brought her over here, where it's safe?"

  Mel's eyes widened. "Iraq? Luce, she was abducted right outside the HELL Corporation offices on the Terrace and held in a place not far from where we're staying now. And he's no soldier – he's a security guard at the Perth Arena."

  "Outside our building?" Luce sucked in a breath. "Were any of our staff involved?"

  Mel shook her head. "No, they were all human, if you can call them that. I'm sure you can find their souls in Hell, if you want more details. Well, unless any of them are still alive."

  "I thought she was a terrorist," Luce admitted. "I figured you wanted me to stop her from doing whatever she had planned."

  "I wouldn't put you in danger like that, Luce. I only wanted to know how well you could read souls from a distance. Next time, I'll stick to the more saintly sort."

  They were the first to reach the lower landing, so Luce pulled Mel to one of the few benches below the rocky overhang that wasn't wet. "Are you all right?" he asked, looking worried.

  "Why wouldn't I be?" Mel lifted his hand, which was clamped around hers, to her lips for a light kiss. "It's my soul that's tired, not my body. A few flights of stairs aren't going to kill me, though you've been very conscientious in trying to heal me at every opportunity. It's very sweet of you, my love."

  Why wasn't he more surprised? "So you did notice. I thought when you didn't stop me..." He eyed her laughing smile. "Right. Yeah. I should have known. Just that you've been drifting off to sleep so easily that I figured that was one of the symptoms of...whatever's ailing you."

  "I've been watching you," she began, sounding almost timid. Luce felt his dread build – of course she was watching him for signs of his demonic nature reasserting itself. Not even Mel believed he was properly redeemed yet. Especially not after his lapse in Japan with the horrible Han woman. "And it's easier to focus on your soul when mine isn't engaged in maintaining my body. Sleep allows me to give your soul my full attention and you definitely deserve it, my love." She wasn't smiling – why wasn't she smiling?

  "What have I done wrong?" he blurted out, not wanting to know and dying to, all at the same time.

  She hesitated, seeming as reluctant to tell him as he was to hear it. "The way you heal me. It's...different, slower than the way I heal, and I thought perhaps if I watched you more closely, I'd work out why and I'd be able to help you." He sighed and her eyes widened. "No, I'm sorry, don't take it the wrong way. I just wanted to help you and I thought...oh, never mind. I was wrong."

  Luce snorted. Mel was never wrong.

  "You said you were a healer before, when you were in Heaven. Before the Heavenly Battle. And you told me you only healed angels, but I never understood what that meant until I saw you heal me. When you did it in Patrick's flat, I felt the air currents change the moment you started. I dismissed it as just his draughty old building, but then I felt the same thing in your penthouse and again here. Whatever it was, you were responsible. So I watched and tried to understand." She swallowed. "I'm sorry. I really thought you were doing something wrong, something I'd need to help you fix, but it wasn't until last night that I understood. You've been drawing energy from everything surrounding you – especially the kinetic energy from the air. Your soul concentrates it somehow and then directs that flow into mine. Not my body, which is what I initially thought. You're channelling the energy in the room into my soul." There was wonder in her eyes. Not since the night she'd transformed him from demon to angel had she looked at him quite like that.

  "How –" Luce began, but it sounded hoarse. He coughed and tried again. "How am I supposed to heal you?"

  Mel shook her head, a strange negative when her shining eyes shouted the opposite. She wet her lips. "I...I heal by taking the energy from my soul, summoning the atoms you need to heal...or to be clothed...and transferring these to you. It's
a rapid, intimate exchange that flows easily between us because of how much I love you and how willing I am to give it to you. What you do...is slow, because it must be, but it's not limited by you. You could take the energy from a gust of wind and use it to restore a soul...or assemble a diamond from the carbon in charcoal...or transform yourself. Or you could take the energy from an explosion to protect everyone in the blast radius. And you can do this without depleting your soul's own energy. You're a remarkable angel, Luce. No one else can do what you can."

  He stared at her, unable to close his mouth. She thought HE was doing something wonderful? That had to be a first. He had to be doing it wrong, that was all. Tonight, when they were alone in their apartment, he'd ask her to show him how to do it properly.

  "No, Luce. I've been learning from you. Last night, feeling the tingle of energy flowing from you deep into me, restoring me more every moment. Oh my. It was better than...better than..." She blushed furiously. "And you know you're good, Luce, but what you did last night was incredible."

  Surely she was joking. "But...last night I fell asleep. So did you. I don't understand how –"

  "Shhh." Mel jerked her head at the humans making their way down the last flight of stairs to their landing.

  Reluctantly, Luce shut up. For the moment. As soon as they got to the car, he was going to ask her how he'd managed to be incredible while sending them both to sleep, so he could do it again when he was awake, alert and watching her reaction.

  "There. That looks like everyone, so let's get started," the green-shirted, female ranger announced. She beamed around and Luce took stock of the other humans on the tour. The killer couple were nowhere in sight. Good. He didn't want to spill his blood into this cave pool like he had the one in Hell's bathroom. It would take years for the water to replenish naturally before he'd want to wash in it again. If ever.

  He tuned out of the woman's rehearsed briefing. Hell, what use was a safety briefing to him? He'd lived in the caves of Hell for millennia. He knew it hurt if you bumped your head on a stalactite. It's not like he'd be flying up around the ceiling.

  Finally, she unlocked a gate and ushered them down the second half of the stairs – into the dark, by the look of things. Luce let everyone else go first, then he brought up the rear behind Mel. He didn't need to hear the running commentary. Mel could probably give him a far more informative tour if he had any questions – like what colour a fossil's fur was in life. Or if there were any of those clawed crayfish things in the lake.

  He ducked under an overhanging rock and followed Mel deeper. Grey, weathered limestone gave way to cream as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. A spotlit boardwalk led them further into the depths, suspended over what looked like a deep pit. Luce looked closer and realised he wasn't looking at a pit at all, but dark water reflecting the ceiling above.

  He whooped in triumph. Lake Cave was true to its name and finally something had gone right today.

  He became aware of seven pairs of human eyes and one amused angel staring at him.

  "I take it this cave is the right one, my love," Mel said softly.

  Someone sniggered in the dark.

  "Yes," Luce replied, holding his head high. "Much better than Mammoth Cave."

  While the tour guide waxed lyrical about how caves were created, her voice may as well have been water dripping on a stone to Luce. He surveyed the lake and the stalactites above it, before his attention landed firmly on the column that was both wider and taller than he was. It appeared to end on a little limestone island in the lake, until he looked closer. No, not in the lake – floating in mid-air, at least a foot above it.

  Mel's hand tugged at his, so Luce plodded along the boardwalk, his eyes still on the column. From the other side, the column beside it presented a far more interesting view. "Look, that must be Satan's Little Finger, Luce."

  "It doesn't look like anyone's finger to me," he responded, grinning at the man-sized, bulbous rock cock.

  "Shhh," she said again, drawing Luce's attention to the only child in the tour group. The girl's eyes were firmly fixed on Luce and the woman holding the girl's hand – presumably her mother – shot a suspicious glance in his direction.

  He sighed and fell silent.

  The tour guide beckoned them further along and Mel led him to the end of the boardwalk, a row of benches and a stone beach that sloped gently into the lake. She started talking about cave formations again, flicking various coloured lights on to highlight the features as she described them.

  Mel paid polite attention, but Luce didn't have the patience for a geology lesson and light show. He'd been good for long enough.

  The black buttons of his polo shirt were hard to see in the dark, but he managed to undo them by touch before pulling the shirt off entirely. He kicked off his shoes and socks, leaving them in a jumbled pile on the seat. Lastly, he dropped his pants.

  He glanced back to find out why the tour guide had fallen silent.

  All human eyes were on him again, while Mel was staring fixedly at her shoes and smothering laughter. No, not all the humans. The girl's father had his hands over his daughter's eyes, as if he was afraid she'd be corrupted just by looking at him.

  "What? Aren't you dying to take a dip in water this pure, too? To swim under that floating rock ledge to make sure it's not an illusion?" A sudden thought occurred to him and he stepped out of his pants and strode to the water's edge to dip his toes in. "Hell, it's cold. Is the whole lake that cold? Is that why no one else is getting ready to swim?"

  "You can't go swimming in the lake and definitely not like that. It's home to unique stygofauna found nowhere else on Earth." The ranger suddenly stood beside Luce, glaring up at him. "Get away from the water before you do any more damage." She looked like she was ready to drag him bodily away from the edge.

  Luce grinned, daring her to try it. The minute she touched him, he'd...

  "I'm sorry, you'll have to forgive us," Mel's gentle voice said. "We've been exploring the Nullarbor caves, which are nowhere near as accessible and well-maintained as this one. When fewer people can get to them, there's far more freedom for those of us who do." She pressed his pants against his groin. "We've been so used to swimming in the remote caves that we thought we'd have the opportunity to do that in this one, too. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding." She took Luce's arm and dropped her voice to a carrying whisper. "Please, my love, put your clothes back on or I'll be too busy staring at you to listen to the rest of the tour. And she said the cold water has something called gilgies in it – crayfish things with claws."

  Grumpily, Luce pulled his pants back on and allowed her to pull him back to the bench, where he sat and glowered until the tour guide led the way outside again. To make matters worse, one of his shoes had been under a ceiling drip, so now his left sock was all soggy.

  Daylight would be a relief after the disappointing cave, he decided, looking up the first flight of stairs. Then he recalled just how many stairs they'd climbed down to reach the cave – the same stairs he was about to ascend. One hundred? Two? More?

  "Only five hundred and eighteen stairs to the top!" the ranger announced with a forced smile, taking a swig from her water bottle. She wasn't going up them – she was staying for the next tour group, Luce realised.

  Grumbling under his breath, he followed Mel up to the surface. Could this accursed day get any worse?

  Luce could tell Mel was struggling by about halfway up. She'd slowed right down and her knuckles were white as she clutched the hand rails. When she paused, he moved to stand right behind her, his mouth level with her ear. "I'll carry you the rest of the way if you want."

  "I walked into and out of Hell just fine. I'm sure I can make my way out of this cave. They're just stairs, after all. Just...so many of them." He felt her deep sigh as much as he heard it. "What do you have in mind for the rest of the afternoon? Please don't say another cave or a hike."

  "Wine tasting is what I'd planned," Luce began uncertainly, "but if you wan
t to give it a miss and head home to rest, we'll do it."

  Mel's second sigh sounded happier. "I want both. Let's go choose a lovely bottle of red to take home to relax with. Can we eat in tonight, like we did last night? We still have enough of those dumplings to feed a small army and I didn't even cook the steamed pork buns." She started up the stairs again. "If I'm going to get into the pork buns after that lunch we had, I need all the exercise I can get."

  Luce had some ideas for exercise they could do together, but he kept his mouth shut as he indulged his imagination.

  When they reached the top, Mel paused to give him a pointed look. "I don't think we could do all you have in mind in one night, but we'll see," she said with a wink before she led the way to the car.

  His mind-reading angel. Luce snorted and followed her.

  In the car, he leaned across her and pulled out the map he'd picked up from the tourist centre. "Luce Iblis, chauffeur, at your service, my lady. Tell me where to go."

  Mel laughed. "The best chauffeur I ever had, just like you promised."

  He glanced behind him. "I promised you a good time in the back seat, too. The offer still stands."

  Once again, Mel left him hanging. "Mmm, so many wineries. Maybe...ooh, this is the one with the beautiful gardens. The first time we shared dinner together, we had a delicious bottle of white from here. Maybe they have nice reds, too."

  Luce tilted his head to try and make out the name obscured by her finger. "What's the place called?"

  "Lay-win? Loo-win? Leeuwin, anyway."

  Luce traced the route on the map and nodded. The car's engine purred into life and they headed back onto Caves Road.

  Mel scanned the signs as eagerly as he did, but they both spotted the correct one at the same time. "There!"

  Luce turned into the side street and the search began anew for the next sign pointing the way. Short of flashing neon lights, the place couldn't be more clearly marked. A sealed road wound between grassy paddocks that were bordered by low fences and powerful floodlights. The gum trees lining the ridge were like strange sentinels in the manicured fields. Where were the grape vines? Or the huge industrial plant needed to turn grapes so bad they became good again? The road curved down and ended abruptly in a car park. He couldn't see the buildings through the gardens, either, though a paved path led to some steps.