“Are you sure?”
“I swear I have only minutes remaining before I collapse and die, Malcolm. I’m sure I already have frostbite and hypothermia. Abbi’s sweet voice in my mind has been the only thing that has kept me going.”
“Abbi’s voice?”
“Yeah, back in Sloth when you found a way for me to hear her. I don’t know how you did it, but it was the only thing that saved me.”
“I didn’t do that, Rhyan. I didn’t hear anything from either of you for a while when you were sinking. I was freaking out, and then I heard your thoughts again when the male demon was helping you out of the quicksand.”
“So…Abbi did that on her own?”
“Or you did, but I wouldn’t try to do it again right now, if that’s the case. Lucifer is with her in his chambers. He’s finally relaxed a bit, which means he doesn’t see you getting out of this syde with the direction you’re going in now. We need to try something different, but you can get warm if that girl will let you. Hold her down and sit on her if you have to. Just get thawed out, Rhyan.
I cautiously stepped over to the burning pit, keeping a careful eye on the girl in case she decided to go all Jet Li on me for attempting to share some of the warmth in front of her.
She glanced up and eyed me warily.
I motioned with my hand to the flames. “Do you mind?”
The young woman didn’t reply; she only closed her eyes and tensed as if someone or something was about to drop from the sky and slay her if she responded in any way.
I moved to the fire, uneasily glancing up just in case her instincts had been correct. A groan escaped my throat as the intense heat blanketed my frozen fingers. It felt like a thousand needles stabbing the flesh of my hands, but I knew it was necessary, temporary and would be well worth it once the pain subsided.
I just prayed I didn’t have any lasting damage. Moral support was all I would be getting from Heaven now that the portal was closed. I worried about Malcolm’s silence and couldn’t help but feel something was wrong and he was keeping it secret from me. But he’d said all was fine, and angels couldn’t lie, so I forced the bad feeling to the back of my mind.
“Someone tell you not to help me?” I asked after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, but she didn’t say anything, so I tried again. “Someone threaten to hurt you if you talk to me?”
She glanced up and I noticed a large scar down the left side of her face. I hadn’t meant to stare but, with her beauty, it had caught me off guard to see an imperfection. Her eyes widened and she bowed her head again, letting her brown wavy hair shield her face from my view.
I reached out to touch her shoulder, aiming to apologize for my rude behavior, but she jerked away and began to scream hysterically into the darkness that surrounded us. Her hands came up to paw at her face and I realized when she turned around that there were fresh gashes on her face and neck where she’d dug her nails into her skin.
“Stop hurting yourself,” I said, but it only seemed to enrage her more, and the clawing intensified. I rushed to grab her, then pinned her arms so she couldn’t do herself any more harm, but she slung her head back and head-butted me in the mouth and then stomped on my frozen, blister-covered foot.
I let out a yell and had no choice but to release her; my mind was telling me that if I grabbed hold of my hurting foot and mouth, and hopped around like an idiot, the pain would magically go away. I should have known better than to believe anything that came out of my head.
She had run to the other side of the pit, away from me, and, by the stance she’d chosen and the frightful look in her eyes, it looked as though she was ready to bolt into the woods behind her.
I huffed, totally confused by the events that had just taken place. “Did you honestly think all that was necessary?” She only continued to stare at me without responding, but she did relax a little, so I tried again. “My name is Rhyan,” I said, and then stuck my hand out for her to shake if she chose to do so.
She relaxed a bit more, but made no move to take the offer, so I let it fall back to my side and took a step closer to the fire to finish my thawing process.
“You’re the angel everyone is talking about?”
“I am the only angel here that I know of, so I would only assume that to be correct. You are?”
The young woman cleared her throat and then swallowed. “You really think you can beat him?”
I studied her a moment, then nodded. “I won’t stop until I do.”
A wolf howled and we both looked to the woods.
She began talking extremely fast, making it difficult for me to keep up with how low she was keeping her voice and the way she was looking all around her, like she was waiting for something to attack at any moment. “Stay out of the woods and the dark. The hell wolves stay there because they can’t come into the light. That’s why you see everyone crowding fires; it’s not only to stay warm. Don’t bother looking for shelter; there isn’t any. The blizzard winds get strong enough to completely blow out the fire in the pits sometimes, so figure out a way to protect it. If it goes out, you’re a goner. There is always something watching, waiting for the perfect chance to attack. Beware of the thin ice patches, too. It’s the quickest way to lose a life here.”
“I can’t stay by a fire the whole time I’m here. I have to figure a way to get out.”
“You don’t have a choice.” She pointed to the darkness. “There is nothing out there for you to find. There is no way out of here, angel. Don’t you think at least one of us would have discovered it by now if there was?”
“No, because nobody here ever had enough faith or courage to do what I’m doing, so they didn’t try to find a way out. I know there is one. I’ve already made it through two of Lucifer’s sydes. I just have to keep myself from freezing to death until I find a way out of this one. “
“None of us here have faith because we have all done something to deserve to be here. Even if we did find a way out, where would we go?”
“Heaven—”
A burst of laughter bellowed from her perfect, pouty mouth, and she held up her wrists for me to see two vertical scars. “I don’t think Heaven would happily welcome someone who thought so poorly of their life.”
I walked around the pit, but didn’t stop as she tensed. I took her hands and turned them so I could run the pad of my thumbs over the raised areas. “My Abbi took her life as well as our child’s. If you can forgive yourself, he will forgive you, too.”
She looked almost hopeful, then jerked her hands from mine. “I don’t have an angel to fight for my soul! I have nothing to bargain with, either. Lucifer will not risk something he already has unless he has a chance to receive something better in return.”
“What if you did have an angel to fight for you?”
“What are you doing, Rhyan? I have enough on my plate already. I can’t go searching for this girl’s soulmate to see if he’s willing to risk his own and fight for her. I have my limits.”
“I mean, your soulmate has to be somewhere, right?” I said, completely ignoring Malcolm. There was that hopeful, longing look in her eyes again. I wanted to keep it there.
“And what if he’s not an angel in Heaven? What if he is here, in a different syde?”
I scratched my head as I thought about that one. Nothing was certain. There was a contract that Lucifer was bound to, as well as myself, but I wasn’t one hundred percent sure the fallen angel wouldn’t find a way around it. It was his contract, after all.
I sighed. “I honestly don’t know, but what do you have to lose by trying something, anything, to get yourself out of here?”
“Seriously? What do I have to lose? It could get so much worse for me than what you’ve seen, I’m sure.”
“But if there was a chance you could get out, go free, would you not at least want to try?”
She turned away from me. “There are a lot of things that I want, but I won’t ever get to—”
“Not with an attitude like that, you wo
n’t!”
She turned on me now. “What other choice do I have—”
“Fight for it! If your heart and mind is full of pride, and that is what landed you here, then doesn’t it make sense that you need to do the opposite to get out? Bare your shame and admit to it. What is a little humility compared to an eternity of everlasting bliss? You have free will even here. You can make the choice not to stay.”
My little pep-talk to the girl made me realize exactly what I needed to do to get myself out, and I gasped in surprise.
I looked up to the dark sky, smiling as the warm tears spilled over my cheeks. I opened my mouth to confess everything I’d managed to keep safely tucked away, everything that everyone already knew, but that I’d been too proud to admit even to myself.
Red streak lightening flashed across the sky, stunning me for a moment.
“Oh no,” she shouted and placed her hands on the top of her head. “What have you done? I knew better than to let you stay and warm yourself.”
I watched in shock as she scrambled to gather a bundle of sticks, a backpack and what looked to be a sleeping-bag that I hadn’t noticed before. The lightening became fierce as I ran to her, the wind whipping about my exposed skin like clawing hands trying to keep me from reaching her.
I bent to grab a canteen at my feet and was thrown to my back on the ice as a red bolt of lightning flashed and hit the ground between me and the girl. When the smoke cleared, the tattooed, pierced demon was standing in front of me.
He didn’t look happy.
Damn
He had a brand new, unlit, Marlboro hanging from his mouth. “Got a match?”
“There’s a fire right there,” I nodded to the pit. “Knock yourself out.”
He looked down at me and chuckled, then brought his fingers together and snapped. Flame appeared at the tips of his nails and he lit the tip of the tobacco. I watched as the orange glow flared, then dispersed as he removed it from his thin lips.
Velan smiled. “You’ve overstepped your boundaries, angel.”
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
“My only rule was not to give up—”
“Well, I’m making new ones.”
“Abigail saved his life in the meeting! She stood between him and Lucifer and tried to take the wrath. Lucifer was mad at her, but he couldn’t touch her, so he was trying to take out his rage on the others. She saved him. She saved Velan.”
“New rules made by Lucifer, because he has realized that I can actually beat him at his own game? Do you care so little for Abigail that you would keep her from an escape out of here? Has she not been there for you before?”
Awareness flickered in his dark eyes and he looked to the ground as he stomped on the butt of his cigarette. “My honor is not to Abi—”
“You know not what honor is,” I spat in disgust as I got to my feet.
I glanced behind him to the girl. She was on her knees with her eyes closed, but her mouth was moving as if she was having a conversation with someone, or if she was…praying. Could it really be?
“She is, Rhyan. She’s asking forgiveness. Get yourself out of there,” Malcolm said.
“He won’t let you win.”
“And where is he now, if he won’t let me win? Tell me, demon! I am here. If he can stop me, let him show his face now, for I am awaiting his arrival.”
Velan looked at me with nervous eyes and moved to the girl. He grabbed her hair and pulled her to her feet, but she still continued to talk silently with her eyes closed.
“Open your eyes, minion!” he demanded, but she didn’t obey. Her heavenly trance-like state had consumed her.
I knew I needed to work fast.
My head fell back on my shoulders, my arms rising with palms facing up, and I looked to the dark sky above me. “My undying love for Kendra, my charge, was my pride. I knew it was wrong to love her as I did, but could never admit it. I didn’t want it to be true. I wanted her at any cost, all costs. I repent before Christ and reveal my pride unto you.”
The ground quaked and my head shot forward to look at the wild, nervous eyes of the demon. He was unsure of what was about to happen, but I knew. Yes, I knew I was about to get my door, and I knew I was taking the girl with me. I knew in my soul she had been repenting since he’d shown up. She wanted out.
She opened her tear-filled eyes to me and smiled.
“Beauty is only skin deep. Take it from me. I need not such vanity to love myself. I repent before God and reveal my pride and true self unto you!”
The demon and I both watched as the beautiful features of the girl turned unattractive. Deep scars filled nearly every inch of her exposed skin and the hair in Velan’s hand broke loose in his grip and she fell to the ground.
He stepped back, away from her, stunned, but I stepped forward and offered her my hand with a smile.
She looked up at my offering and a tear fell from her eye. She placed her cold fingers in mine and I led her to the yellow door behind Velan.
“No. No!” Velan shouted as he started for us.
My hand shot out as I looked back and glared, daring him to touch either of us. He stopped as the tip of my finger touched his chest, eyes fearful as if God himself was shaming him for the wrong he’d done.
“Yes, Velan, I am leaving now and she will be accompanying me, because she has earned it. No longer does she belong here with you.”
“It matters not that she belongs. He will not allow her leave of Hell, angel.”
I smiled as the female tugged me through the door. “We shall see, demon.”
Chapter 36
Rhyan
The girl huffed. “Talk about going from one extreme to another. Whew.”
I shot her a disgruntled look and she shrugged.
“What? I’m not bitching. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad to be out of there. Twenty-five years in a freezer is long enough for anyone. I just think it strange that we go from Antarctica to the Sahara Desert just by walking through a door.”
I shook the canteen in my hand. It was full of liquid, but I didn’t know if it would even matter. Drinking it might only make our thirst worse. Or that’s how it had been in the Syde of Gluttony. At any rate, the few ounces wouldn’t last long between the two of us.
I walked away from the door in search of the next one.
“You had better stick pretty close. I have no idea what to expect but, with it being a desert, I can imagine some of the problems we will face.
“You’re in Envy. Fallis is the prince. Stay focused, Rhyan. Envy is tricky. Don’t get mad at me, but the three sydes you have completed have been fairly easy to you whether you agree or not, and I think that is because you have a pure soul. You were placed in Heaven instead of Hell, proving you didn’t commit an excessive amount of the seven deadly sins while on Earth. Almost everyone falls prey to envy, though. I hear Fallis is extremely good at manipulating the mind. Not only do you have to stay focused, but you have to keep your new protégée from falling prey.”
“I’m not her babysitter. If she wants it bad enough, she will find her own way out. I only placed the thought in her head that she could leave if she really wanted to.”
“Regardless of that, she is with you and you will not be able to leave her behind, no matter the excuses you give me now.”
“Whatever. You said you hear Fallis is manipulative? Where did you hear?”
“Abigail. She’s helping as much as she can when Lucifer isn’t around.”
I nodded to myself, a little envious that he was getting to talk to my wife, and glanced to my left where the female was. “Just keep your ears open on how we might get out of here and I will try to keep us alive.”
There was the silence again on the other end of the brain wave-length. “Malcolm!”
“Um…about staying alive; you might want to try extra hard to do that. Abigail said Lucifer sent Velan to kill you. He obviously failed and will pay dearly, I’m sure, but…”
“
Just spit it out!”
“Isaiah said you will start over if you lose a life. You will start over in the Syde of Gluttony, and your memory will be erased from the time you landed naked in the middle of East Court.”
I stopped, unable to catch a steady breath. It couldn’t be true. “Tell me you’re mistaken. I can’t go through all of that again and stay sane.”
“Then don’t die. Simple as that,” Malcolm said, and I growled.
“Are you alright?”
“Tell her you’re fine and then start walking again. It’s too early for her to know about the other voice in your head.”
“It’s possible she would only think I’ve gone crazy. I’m beginning to think I have,” I replied, but did as he suggested and continued walking through the hot sand.
There were two orange suns from what I could see, and the sky was pink tinted, whereas Earth’s sky had the vibrant blue. Other than that, and the two of us, there was nothing else to be seen for miles.
The female cleared her throat and I looked at her. She was no longer hiding behind the tousled brown locks of her hair. She’d lifted what hadn’t fallen out from her neck and had it piled atop her head in a sort of tangled, messy bun. Her coat had disappeared from her body, and with the extra bulk of the pack on her back I assumed it had found a new resting place within it. Her clothing was still extremely heavy for the environment we were in, but there was no right way for a man to tell a woman to take her clothes off without it sounding like he wanted sex. Or I couldn’t think of a way to do it, and sex with anyone except Abbi wasn’t going to happen.
She glanced at me, but made no move to cover the newly acquired scars on her face or turn away so I couldn’t see them.
I offered her the canteen, but she shook her head, refusing it. “I’m okay for now. Thanks.”
I nodded and then wrapped the bottle and my one match in the acid jacket and placed it on my shoulders like a rucksack. I wove the handle of the spear through the vine straps so it would stay in place and out of my way, but still be easily accessible if I needed it.
“Phoebe,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
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