by G A Chase
A holographic mirage appeared in front of them, displaying a bricked-in courtyard that mixed in with the swamp plants and trees. “What’s the problem, Lefty?” Sere’s voice overhead made Doodlebug look up just as the woman jumped down from the tin roof that ran along the edge of the brick wall. “Doodlebug, I didn’t expect you. What’s happened?”
She wasn’t sure where to begin, or even if anything she saw was real. “What’s going on?”
Sere waved her hand around the translucent courtyard. “Lefty brought you to one of the gates to hell. Specifically, the one Sanguine guarded before her abduction. The swamp island you’re on is where her grandmother, Agnes Delarosa, built the natural elements of hell. The hellmouth circles the island out in the swamp. That island was our sanctuary. I grew up in the tree cabin. You can see the hellmouth no matter where it forms from up there.”
“This is one of the seven gates Chloe mentioned?” Doodlebug had only heard of the hellmouth being the opening between dimensions.
“Originally, there were seven. I’m talking to you from the one behind the Scratchy Dog nightclub. I keep my apartment upstairs so Lefty can reach me if there’s a problem. He’s kind of my security gator when it comes to demons breaking into life. The other five gates were destroyed not long after my father, the devil, was consigned to the deep waters. It’s all a long, twisted story of evil, nobility, and eventual redemption, but I’m sure that’s not why you’re here.”
Doodlebug focused on the hologram of the brick-covered ground. “I know this place.”
“It’s where Bart and I train Dooly how to fight. Maybe you should pay a little more attention during the lessons. These two gates are how Joe was able to teach me combat when I was a girl growing up in hell.”
“But he would have just been a hologram the way you are now. You’re the one who insists that the physical contact is essential when learning to fight.”
Sere leaned against the wall and looked around as if seeing the history stored in the bricks. “Professor Yates had an assistant before Andy. The boy’s name was Thomas. Joe convinced the old scientist to let him use the marionette as my sparring partner. One day the lust for battle got the better of me, and I decapitated him.” Her sunken expression looked downright sorrowful.
Doodlebug didn’t see the problem. “I’ve lobbed the heads off plenty of doppelgängers and harvesters.”
Sere shook her head as if the memory had grown too intense. “You don’t understand. Thomas was the first doppelgänger to be pulled out of his real’s mirror image. My soul had been yanked out of Guinee through one of those damn gates, the one inside my father’s old office at the bank. That’s where my consciousness in hell came from. Jenna’s spirit was yanked out of this doppelgänger body, but it didn’t rise to the level of self-awareness until much later. Besides, it was fused into a bird. Thomas, however, had developed an awareness from being used by both the professor and Joe. When I decapitated him, the computer got confused. Souls were supposed to only be among the living, with me and Sanguine being the only known exceptions. When the program encountered the disassociated spirit of Thomas, it sent him back to the real person in life. That was the first demonic possession from this hell.”
“There was a connection to hell inside the bank?” Doodlebug managed to control her voice to prevent screaming. “As the current bank president, it can’t be a coincidence that Marjory Laroque was the one who figured out how to communicate with Andy.”
Sere’s look of distain indicated she understood the concern all too well. “There were a lot of things Kendell and her gang did that bordered on foolishness, but they were just trying to stay one step ahead of the devil. The original bank with the interdimensional gate inside was destroyed by Joe and his mercenaries. Marjory, however, still had plenty of opportunities to learn its secrets before the explosion, including how to find an interdimensional vault like the one my father used to create for me. She built it into the basement of the new bank, but then as part of her bridge of the damned, you understand that connection better than I do.”
Doodlebug bit so much of her lower lip that saliva dripped out the edge of her mouth. The only way out of her situation was to tell Sere everything she knew. “Marjory just sent a soul from her family into hell. The body has to be in her vault. Why would she do that?”
Sere paced along the translucent brick wall. “Good question. She’d have to be pretty pissed at someone to remove their soul and send it to hell.”
Doodlebug did her best to remember the psychic encounter. “I ran into the dude’s doppelgänger out on the freeway. He said he was Aloysius Laroque. After the real man’s soul was cast into the professor’s hell computer, he kept yelling about being unable to figure out how to open the offices from inside the computer.”
Sere shook her head while she walked. “She must be planning something. But with her paranormal vault permanently secured in her bank, she’d need the doppelgänger body to work through the hellmouth before she could unite the two. Sending a soul to hell doesn’t make sense. And why would she even want to break into the professor’s lab if she thinks she’s still got Andy working on the inside? Even if she does know you decapitated him, she doesn’t have allies in that dimension who could just walk in the door.”
Doodlebug hated it when she had to explain things others should already know. “Marjory and the Cormorant are planning an alliance. There’s going to be a big coming-out party in both hell and life. Dooly and I are going in our respective realms as part of the entertainment. I figured you’d want firsthand information on what happens, so I’m going as Dooly’s mirror. With that bird deity’s help, Marjory will have all the harvesters she wants, not to mention her own family of doppelgängers. Didn’t Dooly give you any updates at all?”
“Shit.” Sere just stood there as if the entire harvester army had materialized in her courtyard. “We’ll deal with Dooly’s communication breakdown later. I’ll bet anything this isn’t Marjory’s first mental trip into hell. That would explain how she knows which human to match up with the escaping doppelgänger—again, a topic for another time. We need to focus on this party. You mirroring Dooly is straightforward. You just go on autopilot. As a human, however, for Marjory to occupy her doppelgänger’s body, she would have to take command over both realms. One misstep, and she could plow into someone not aliened in hell. Without connecting headbands like you and Dooly use, her only option is for all of her actions in hell to be duplicated in life. This meeting with the Cormorant is no small deal. Any idea of what they’re planning?”
Doodlebug had tried to reverse engineer what Marjory had done in life for use in hell. “She has a human soul and has highjacked a power cord through the professor’s equipment.” She avoided reminding Sere about how she was a part of that power cord. Though Doodlebug’s inclusion gave Sere an inside spy, it had been at the cost of the warrior’s mentor and friend. “Marjory also has the book of incantations from your father. What would stop her from raising a devil in hell?”
Sere rubbed her forehead. “I don’t see that happening. The vault she secured to her bank is completely in this dimension, so she would need the baron’s old vault to make the transfer in hell. No one knows where it is. Even if she did find it, Sanguine is still locked inside.” She finally stopped pacing. “However, if Marjory did manage to lay her grubby hands on that hell box, we would be screwed. I know firsthand how powerful that vault is, having been created in it myself.”
“You must have some idea of where it is. Give me your wild-ass guess.”
Sere stared at Doodlebug through the connection as if not entirely sure she should be trusted. “Wherever it’s buried, the being that has it isn’t going to dig it up unless they get one hell of a big payment in return.”
Doodlebug wasn’t interested in the negotiating details, but if Sere wasn’t going to give her a direct answer on who might’ve had it, she would try another tactic. “Assume for a moment that Marjory does get her hands on it and somehow
gets Sanguine out of the vault. Then what happens?”
“Those are two pretty big ifs.” Sere nodded as if forcing herself to pursue the line of thought. “If Marjory gets control of the empty vault, she could put Aloysius’s doppelgänger inside. That would give her the pieces she needs for her devil: a human soul, the doppelgänger double, the baron’s journals, and a power cord connection to the professor’s equipment capable of transferring the raw data. With that information downloaded into the computer-like brain of his, Aloysius could regenerate his doppelgänger body at will. He’d be immortal. But even then, all Marjory would end up with is a devil in hell. Her goal has always been immortality in life. She wouldn’t want one of her heirs taking on so much power that he’d become a threat to her. The surer bet is creating her god in life where she could control him, and that means facing me.”
A devil in hell sounded bad enough to Doodlebug. She thought it should at least be considered a possibility. “There’s one other thing you should know. We’ve got dragons. The last contingent of demons that tried to escape were flying on them. So far, the flying beasts don’t seem very skilled. From what your swamp witch, Chloe, told me, Marjory might be spiking the drugs of the street kids in life to create a better form of goblin in hell.”
Sere leaned against the brick wall and nodded. “So that’s what the woman is up to. Fisher, my CPA superhero sidekick, detected money being funneled to a university research project. The results were dispensed to the drug gangs.” She pushed off the wall and stood so close to the gate’s lens that the brick background wavered behind her. “In spite of my better judgment, it might be worth having you look for the vault. If Marjory and the Cormorant really are teaming up, you’ll be seriously outmatched. Sanguine may be the only one powerful enough to help you control the two forces.”
It wasn’t like Doodlebug hadn’t had the same thoughts. “Great. What does the vault look like, and where do I find it?”
Sere backed up just enough so that the projection didn’t make Doodlebug dizzy. “Its physical appearance is easy—that is, when you can see it. The inside is eight feet tall by eight feet deep by eight feet wide. The walls are solid iron. It looks like something off of an old battleship. Though as it occupies an in-between dimension, it’s invisible in hell. Kendell and her gang only located it by searching for a hole in the water. Where to look is more of an issue. The last I’d heard of it—other than my brief meeting with Sanguine inside of the thing—was when I was a girl. Father floated it down the Mississippi to a shipwreck in the Bywater. That was a long time ago, and we’ve searched the area both in life and in hell without finding any indication of it.”
“What did Sanguine say happened to her?” If Doodlebug was to find the mythical guardian angel of hell, she was going to need every scrap of information she could gather.
Sere pulled her knife from her boot then started playing with it as if she were hoping for a fight. “She said Andy kidnapped her, but I’m not sure I believe her story. Andy was a slimy little weasel, but Sanguine started out as a living person. She was too savvy to have been deceived by a doppelgänger.”
“Then who do you suspect?” Doodlebug asked.
Sere again had a look of mistrust on her face, but this time the resolve faded from the harsh lines around her eyes. “For two decades, the Cormorant has had her flocks available to search the river. Even with the box occupying an in-between dimension, she could have found it. According to those closest to me, Sanguine cared for both me and Jenna. Though Jenna might see Sanguine the way I do, as a mother figure, our angel is also the only one who could challenge her for control over hell. Since Jenna’s been calling herself the Cormorant and demanding devotion from every being in that dimension, having Sanguine in the penalty box has worked in her favor.”
Doodlebug detected a glimmer of hope. “That would mean the Cormorant has a secret she needs to keep from Marjory. She would never turn the vault over to the woman in fear Sanguine would be set loose and threaten to expose her divinity as a sham.”
Sere aimed her knife at Doodlebug like it was a lecturer’s pointer. “And expose our connection. As the only living immortal, Marjory has a fascination with how I tick. Jenna is the key to how homemaker Jennifer’s image is bounced off of hell and back to me in life. If Marjory figures out who the Cormorant really is, she’ll focus on her instead of me. Though that wouldn’t be the worst situation in my case, it would be a lot harder to control Marjory’s aspirations.”
“That still doesn’t help me find the vault.”
Sere nodded as if realizing she’d been off on a tangent. “If the Cormorant does have it, she could have moved it anywhere with her bird squadron. Sanguine knows that dimension’s architecture better than anyone alive. Hell bends itself to her wishes. That’s how she ended up with wings and magical eyes that can see the potential futures. She may be trapped in a cage, but she’ll be like a rattlesnake locked in a treasure chest. The first person to open it better be ready for a venomous strike. If there’s a way of influencing hell from inside the box, Sanguine will figure it out.”
Doodlebug stared at the swirling wall of clouds out above the water. “Then I guess it’s back into the hell storm for me.”
“You’ll have to keep the hunt a secret. If the Cormorant discovers you’re looking for it, she’ll sic every bird and harvester she has on your ass. And if Marjory’s goons figure out who’s got the vault, there will be an all-out war between the two women.”
Doodlebug climbed on Lefty’s back for the return trip to Joe’s cabin. “According to Nocturne, war may be inevitable, and I’m not about to get stuck in the middle.”
5
Sere sat fuming against the brick wall behind the Scratchy Dog nightclub. “All Doodlebug had to do was keep Marjory’s demons from escaping, convince Jenna that I was still in hell, find Sanguine, and keep me in the loop.” She looked up at Bart, feeling more than a little overwhelmed and betrayed. “That final one was kind of important.”
Bart handed down a double shot of Jameson’s. “Even you have to admit that’s a pretty impressive list of chores for a sixteen-year-old girl living in hell. And you’re giving her a failing grade for something that wasn’t even her fault?”
“It would have been nice if she’d have run her ideas past me first.” Sere didn’t want to get into an argument, but emotions had a way of intensifying her tone. “Having both her and Dooly walk into the Laroque mansion sounds like a great way of getting caught.”
“Don’t go blaming the messenger. So far, has she actually done anything other than her job of stopping the demons from reaching the hellmouth?”
Sere hated it when he had a point. “Well, no. I never should have left hell,” she blurted out before taking a slug of the whiskey.
Bart put his denim-covered muscular bottom against the wall and slid down next to her. “When? The first time when Sanguine saved you from your unintended damnation or the second time after you rescued Jennifer and had to escape Jenna?”
She snuggled against him. “Stop using logic on me.”
“Fine. Then how about this? If you’d have stayed in hell, I would have come after you.”
She had no doubt that he would have. Even when she’d been stuck in the professor’s laboratory in the hell dimension, she’d known if she didn’t come up with an escape plan, he would never rest until he was with her again. And if that wasn’t in life, then it would have to be in hell. The former Navy SEAL had mad skills when it came to tactics and fighting, but hell played by different rules. Sere couldn’t have risked losing him to that dimension. “Okay, I’ll stop feeling guilty, but only if you help me figure a way out of this mess.”
He stared across the courtyard. His expression was one she’d seen before. Like a computer booting up for a long computation, he was clearing the random thoughts from his mind. “Lay it out for me. If Marjory and the Cormorant are meeting, they each must want something that the other one has.”
Sere tried to corral th
e puzzle pieces of the two women’s desires. “We know that Marjory wants to create a family of immortals. So far, we’ve been able to thwart her attempts. According to Doodlebug, there’s a possibility that Marjory’s most recent effort involves sending a soul to that dimension. If her plan is to raise a devil in hell, it might be so she can keep me out of the picture.”
“Assuming that is her plan, what does she still need?” Bart asked.
“The biggest challenge is digging up the baron’s old vault. Then Marjory would need someone to get into the professor’s labs, but even then, Aloysius’s soul in hell’s software isn’t something that can be downloaded to a smartphone. That doppelgänger would need a way to transport the human spirit to wherever the baron’s old vault is stashed.”
“That would take care of the raising-a-new-devil part.”
“Exactly. We know she has a demon contingent. She keeps trying to get them through the hellmouth, but they’ve been too disorganized to mount a serious attack.”
Bart gave her his smoky side-eyed look of disbelief. “They’ve done pretty well.”
“For a leaderless band, sure. Oh, and Marjory now has dragons.”
“Of course she does.” Bart returned to his analytical stare across the courtyard. “So she’s planning on creating a devil in hell who will lead her demons on dragon back through the hellmouth. Sounds bad. What does she need from the Cormorant?”
“Presumably that’s her plan. I’m still not convinced. But to follow our line of thought, my assumption is that the Cormorant has the vault. If she had something to do with Sanguine being locked inside, she would also know how to get her out. Marjory can’t create her devil if there’s an angel standing guard over the equipment. But as hell’s deity, Jenna wouldn’t want the granddaughter of Mother Nature challenging her for supremacy. She’s not going to turn over the vault without a fight. Where she’s hiding the vault is the big mystery.”
