Cinderella's Inferno

by F. M. Boughan

  My father strode down the path and Hund followed. Betrayed by my own tamed guardian! I took several steps and paused. Could I truly leave William here? What if he didn’t follow? How did Father know he hadn’t grown ill from gorging, or what if some other monstrous beast or guardian happened upon all three paladins, vulnerable and unable to protect themselves? William would never leave me behind; I knew that as well as I knew my own heart.

  A flash in the fog caught my attention and I had the sudden sense that I was being watched. And judged. I squinted into the murky mist, wondering if I had indeed seen eyes there or if it had been my imagination, a trick of the low light. My chest tightened. I thought I spotted a flicker of purple, two glowing orbs, and I took a step closer. And another. And another, drawn like a moth to the irresistible gleam …

  “Ellison! What are you doing?”

  I froze at the sound of my father’s voice and felt the touch of a wet nose on my hand. My head felt fuzzy and I shook it as though that might bring clarity. Hund’s teeth gently grasped my wrist and pulled. I allowed him to draw me back and, mind cleared, nearly lost my breath at what I saw.

  Here was a place where the path narrowed. Where the drop, the plunge into the Abyss, came too near to where we trod, and I had walked right up to the pit’s edge, obscured by mist. I narrowed my eyes, still sensing a presence I couldn’t see.

  Something had clouded my vision and drawn my steps to the brink. How had I come so close to oblivion?

  I spun away let Hund guide me to where my father waited. He wore his worry plainly, and I offered a smile of reassurance that didn’t match the state of my churning insides. I had to trust that we were doing the right thing, but as we continued down the path without our paladin companions, I swear I heard a child’s laughter.

  High pitched. Manic. And cruel.

  17

  The Reunion

  The farther we trekked, the greater our decision to move on without the others grated on my nerves. I couldn’t help but feel we’d missed something important or failed in some way. A stop, a note, a clue, a word, anything. Something. It didn’t seem right, this place, what we were doing, but I urged my overactive senses to cease their worry. When would being in hell ever feel right? And if it ever did, well, we likely had greater issues to confront. But I trusted my father and if moving on meant we might clear the dangers ahead for our companions, so be it.

  As the path continued its curved descent, we soon found ourselves confronted by a tunnel entrance that arched over the path at about the same height as my father. It was like approaching a covered bridge on a country road, if the country road had been constructed by wickedness and the bridge was so long and deep that one had no concept of when they might emerge through to the other side. Neither the mist of the pit nor its strange blue light penetrated the tunnel’s depths, so we had no way to know what we’d find on the other side—but as always, our options remained to continue or turn back, and so we followed Hund as he plunged onward without pause.

  Almost immediately, the darkness became all-consuming, but before panic could take a greater foothold than it had already claimed, a yellowish glow appeared in the distance. I quickened my pace, doing my best to ignore the sounds of skittering and clicking above my head and at my sides. I kept my hands clasped in front of my stomach and shrieked as something cold and smooth brushed against my neck. I didn’t wait to find out if I’d scared it off with my cry—I ran toward the glow.

  The glow became a flickering light as we drew closer and I heard … crunching. Smacking? Like lips around a greasy finger, like flesh torn from brittle bone.

  Whether I remained in darkness or emerged from the cavern, either outcome forced a confrontation with the unknown, and though it pained me to put greater distance between William and me, I also had no love for scurrying, creepy crawlers in the dark.

  I dashed ahead and, reaching the cave’s exit, blinked against the harshness of the light after so long without illumination. We stood at the entrance to a grand ballroom that rivalled the palace’s Royal Ballroom in size, lit by hundreds of candles flickering in fixtures on the ceiling, mounted along the walls, and lining an extraordinarily long banquet table in the middle of the room. It had been set up right on the dance floor, of all places. All the objects in the room appeared to be coated in a thick layer of dust, save for the food on the table. Cobwebs dipped from one serving dish to the next and draped across the candelabras overhead.

  The table bowed, so laden was it with foods of all varieties—meats, bread, cheese, cakes, and every delicacy in between. More rich foods filled that table than I had ever seen in the palace at one time, but then, more souls filled the room than I had ever seen there either, even at the royal balls. Exquisitely dressed spirits flitted to and fro, gossiping and laughing, sneering at one another and stuffing their mouths full of limitless morsels—for when one item was taken, another appeared in its place. No one cared that we’d set foot in this room.

  “See how they preen?” My father pointed to a group of ladies on our left. They appeared insubstantial at first, but as I watched them shift their weight, pose, and run their fingers along the jewels at their necks, their forms shimmered between corporeal and insubstantial. “They eat and eat and never reach fullness, they gossip and glare and are never satisfied with what they already have.”

  I glanced at him. “It hasn’t escaped my notice that you’re far too comfortable in these depths than any living being has right. What else do you know that I don’t?”

  His features darkened, and he turned his face from me. My own father! “Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to. We should continue moving toward the river.”

  “River! What river? I thought we already crossed the river.” He flinched and gave it away. “Father. Do you mean to tell me you’ve been here before?”

  “I don’t mean to tell you anything, Ellison. We must move quickly; the others will be here soon.”

  “How do you know that?”

  But he stepped forward into the room, and I returned my attention to the preening ladies. They reminded me too much of Charlotte and Victoria, my peacock stepsisters—but my stepsisters had been devils, demons, not condemned spirits like the horde in the room before me. In fact, we had seen no demons at all since we’d descended. Not one. And the spirits we’d encountered were apathetic to our presence, not hostile, as Oliroomim had been when I’d asked after his willingness to do my bidding several years before. But the lack of hostile spirits concerned me less than the former.

  As the wispy beings variated between posturing and devouring the mountains of foods on the table—how could one person eat so much and never be filled?—a swath of color caught my eye. Here? I strained to catch sight of it again amidst the crowd, but I couldn’t. Perhaps I had imagined it.

  “Stay focused and step quickly,” called my father, though I thought I moved quickly enough. “Don’t delay.”

  “Why would I? Neither of us are affected. Stop speaking to me as though I’m a child.”

  He paused and looked back, a curious display of frustration and pride on his face. “No, I suppose you’re not.”

  I raised my chin to draw myself up to full height, small as I might be. “Since you acknowledge it, may I also suggest you tell me why we’re headed toward a second river, and—

  His eyes widened in surprise. “Ellison, look out!”

  I flinched at his cry the same instant a heavy force slammed into my back. I went sprawling across the dust-coated floor, my palms slapping against the ground as my cheek scraped its surface. My spine felt as though it had been snapped in two.

  High-pitched laughter cut through the noise of tittering ladies and gluttonous consumption. It sounded all too familiar. Goose bumps erupted across my skin.

  It couldn’t be.

  I had defeated them. Torn their hearts from their chests and sent their festering corpses back into the … well, into the Abyss. Where I now trod. Foolis
h narcissist was I to think that I’d defeated immortals. For who could truly give and take the lives of angels and demons save for the Almighty, or perhaps the devil himself?

  I’d merely sent them away. Taken their ability to rise to walk the earth, to feast on the flesh and bones of humankind, stolen their fun, and now I handed over their revenge on a polished, silver platter.

  Their laughter closed in from either side, and I saw my father’s mouth agape and horrified. He crept forward with small steps, half crouched, as if to whisk me away at the first instant of opportunity.

  “Oh, no, stepfather,” said a squeaky, mouse-like voice. “I don’t advise you come any closer.”

  “After all,” said the other, “You’re in our house now. It’s been so long since we’ve had proper company.”

  I heard the clack of teeth. “Or fresh meat.”

  At least only we two had entered this room. I prayed for mercy and that William and the others might be further delayed, for they would otherwise be set upon and torn apart before they realized their fate.

  “And you will wait far longer,” I said, propping myself on my elbows. Agony tore through my back, and though I could move, I did not know how long I had before pain took over. “Remember, you came and destroyed our home. I believe that gives us full right to do the same to yours.”

  I gritted my teeth, pushed to my feet, and spun around to face my stepsisters.

  18

  The Summoning

  “Hello, Charlotte. Hello, Victoria. It’s abysmal to see you.” I offered a mock curtsy to both as my father came alongside me. “And I must say, neither of you are looking well. Is there an illness making the rounds of Hades? One that dissolves your pathetic excuses for hearts, perhaps?”

  Charlotte growled, flashing a mouth of needle-sharp teeth, but it wasn’t her expression that caused my stomach to lurch. It was the gaping, black hole in the center of both her chest and Victoria’s. White bone showed through, ragged and dripping with globs of maggot-infested, congealed blood. They still wore the filthy, bloodied dresses in which I had last seen them at the palace chapel, on Victoria’s false wedding day.

  “Why do you appear to me in these forms?” It didn’t make sense. They likened themselves to humans, but approached with grayed pallor, nails like jaguar claws, and grotesque features—mouths too large for their heads, eyes like globs of tar with blackened veins radiating from their eye sockets and across their cheeks and foreheads. I had no time for their foolishness. “Why appear to me at all? I defeated you once, and I can do it again.”

  “Ah, but can you?” Victoria laughed, a wet gurgling sound, and pointed a crooked finger at me. “We want you to know who it is that sucks the life from your bones, cinder wench, for payment has come due. You can’t tear our hearts out a second time, sweet stepsister. How will you defeat us now?”

  “Oh, how fun this will be,” giggled Charlotte. “I’m so glad you finally reached us. We’ve waited a terribly long time. I wondered if perhaps the road had crowded again.”

  The strangeness, the wrongness I’d felt since we’d disembarked Charon’s ferry, began to take shape. “You knew we were coming.”

  “Of course we did,” Charlotte said.

  “How?” I demanded. When neither of them spoke, I asked again, throwing behind it my force of will. “How?”

  “We knew you’d search for your mother because—” Charlotte clapped her hands over her mouth as Victoria shrieked and shoved her sister hard enough that she stumbled into the overburdened table. Her eyes widened, and I felt a surge of power. Had I … commanded her?

  “Tell her nothing!” Victoria spat, and faced me once more. “It doesn’t matter how, what matters is that we kill you, before … ”

  She stopped too, surprised by her own candor. I allowed my grin to rise, for I enjoyed this twist of fortune. “I think,” I said, “that you judge your ability to harm me too highly.”

  The very air around my stepsisters appeared to darken. “Then it is good,” they said, their two voices merging together to be raised as one, “that we have a friend to assist us.”

  The ground trembled. A great, deep roar shook the air and my surge of confidence faltered. “What was that?”

  My father swore. I’d forgotten he was there with me. And I’d also forgotten about Hund, who padded across the ground to guard between my sisters and me. His ears flattened, and his body grew tense and rigid. With every step, the low growl in his throat grew louder. His head thrust forward like a pointer hound’s as the earth trembled again. And again.

  No, the earth was not trembling on its own.

  Those were footsteps.

  “Oh, how sweet,” droned Victoria, flicking uninterested fingers toward Hund. “You brought this circle’s guardian. I’d wondered where he wandered off to, though I admit I’d hoped he’d fallen into the pit.”

  “Ellison?” My father grasped my wrist, but I shook it off. “Ellison, we must go.”

  But my eyes had flicked toward the mouth of the cave, where I feared that William, Lorenz, and Samia might emerge at any moment.

  “We need to leave, now,” he hissed. “The others will find us, or we’ll come back for them, but we must leave.”

  I shook my head. “I can handle my sisters.”

  “I’ve no doubt you can,” he said, his tone increasing in urgency. “But can you handle that?”

  I lifted my eyes from the tunnel, following his gaze as the ground continued to shake. Victoria and Charlotte’s peals of laughter sliced through my feigned confidence as a monster the size of the King’s Arm tavern emerged from the shadows. Had it been there the whole time?

  Six green, glowing eyes stared at us, and six nostrils opened and closed, dripping a thick, viscous fluid. It widened its mouth to roar, displaying three rows of teeth, with two more external fangs as long and as sharp as William’s sword. It crawled toward us on eight legs, and its roar sounded like a thousand cockroaches skittering across dry earth.

  My father was right.

  We needed to run.

  My feet refused to move, and I envisioned the beast’s jaws descending within seconds to close around my neck, snapping away life without resistance. “What is it?” is all I managed to breathe.

  “This is the circle of gluttony and greed,” my father said, taking my hand and pulling me away from my sisters. This time, I did not resist. “What else could dwell here but the true green-eyed monster itself?”

  Jealousy. We faced the incarnate form of jealousy made manifest by my stepsisters. They envied my ability to walk upon the earth, and they envied the power they thought could be gained by aligning themselves with mortal royalty. Victoria had, after all, tried to marry William.

  “Let’s go,” I whispered. “I cannot fight this. I don’t know how.” The monster roared again, and I turned to flee—but in that moment, Hund launched himself toward the beast. “Hund! No!” I nearly pulled out of my father’s grasp. “Come back!”

  “He’ll be fine,” my father said. “Watch.”

  And I did, for as my canine companion leapt, he began to grow. And grow, and grow, new heads bursting from the sides of his neck, jaws widening until three mouths filled with sword-sharp teeth snarled before the heinous Jealousy. Hund’s fangs dripped yellow venom, and the claws on his enormous paws were at least as long as my brother was tall.

  This was not Hund at all, this spirit I thought I had called to do my bidding. No, Charon had spoken the truth when he’d said I had tamed a guardian, though I had not fully understood. This monstrous ally, this hound who trotted by my side and risked his own body for my protection, I knew by his three heads. This was none other than Cerberus, the hound of Hades, guardian of the underworld.

  And he had chosen to protect me.

  “He’ll find his way back to us, too,” my father said, and I allowed myself to be lured away. “This is his circle. Spare no thought for him.”

  “Did you know?” My br
eath grew shallow as we ran through the hall of spirits, trying to avoid the table in the center of the room, but every time we turned aside to plow through another dense mob of spirits, the table appeared in front of us again.

  “I didn’t know, I swear,” he said. “But I suspected.”

  “You need to trust me. Stop treating me as though Edward and I are the same. Or did you forget my duties for the crown these past few years?”

  A yelp and a whine from behind us caused my heart to clench tight as a fist. “He needs our help!”

  “He needs us to escape this room, because your sisters cannot control Jealousy forever.”

  “But how do we escape? This room demands that we indulge. It wants to fill us with avarice and keep us here until our hunger forces us to rely on its provision.”

  “Then we will be here a very long time. Use your strength of will, Ellison. Call a spirit to help you. Bend this place to your demands.”

  “I can’t! I don’t know how.”

  “You control a guardian of the underworld, daughter. And I see that your back is already healed. This place gives us strength.” He stopped and gripped my shoulders, eyes touched with a wildness I had never seen there before. “Use it.”

  Use it. Call a spirit. Demand an escape. I could do this.

  I shut my eyes and tried to close off all my senses to the din of battle, of monsters tearing each other’s flesh and crashing against the walls, the table, the floor. The earth shook, and I inhaled deeply, preparing to reach through the veil.

  But there was no veil. I was already there. Here, rather. And so my pull happened with too much force, came too easily, and I stumbled over my own feet as one does when holding the end of a rope during a tug-o-war that ends too quickly.

  My eyes flew open and a familiar, wretched and yet ageless face stared back at me. The child spirit with eyes like a cat, teeth like a shark, and claws sharper than skewers. “Oliroomim.”