by M A Roth
Bins crashed behind me as Catch made a dive for me. He hit the ground but got back up running, I wondered why he didn’t end up in a nightmare. I didn’t have time to question it. The maze opened up back onto a road. In the distance, I could see a flashing neon light, the letters becoming clearing the nearer I got. It was a bar.
I glanced over my shoulder and was surprised to see the guy with the green cap in reaching distance of me. I pushed harder and raced inside the bar. The few patrons glanced at me before looking away as I fought to catch my breath. I walked backwards away from the door, waiting for it to bust in, but it didn’t.
“You’re safe here.” I turned to a small man who’d just spoken. He must have been only four feet in height. His sideburns ran the full length of his face. He wore an apron that was covered in images of cats. It covered his naked body above from his white socks and black patent shoes. “The street rats can’t enter.” He turned away returning to behind the bar. I got an eye full of his wrinkly backside. I would be scarred deeply when I got out of Hades.
I sat at one of the many empty tables and watched the door.
“What’s your poison?” A waitress stood beside me, speaking with the squeakiest voice I have ever heard. Notepad in her hand, pen poised in the air, she chewed a large purple piece of gum. Her lips were four times too big and coated in Barbie-pink lipstick. While her eyeshadow was a vibrant blue, her hair was green. She was a sight only for the blind.
“No thanks,” I answered returning to watching the door.
“Sorry, sugar. If you don’t order, you have to leave.”
I glanced at her as she chewed heavily on her gum. “Water.”
She laughed, and all the patrons and the barman joined her.
“No water.” she tapped the pen against her nose and leaned in close to me. “Come on, sugar, I can see you got a taste for something stronger. How about a vodka straight?”
My mouth watered at her suggestion. My heart pounded. It had taken me too long to get clean. I couldn’t do this. Yet I found myself nodding. I watched as she wrote down my order on her notepad and winked at me before walking away.
I watched her give the order to the barman, and studied him as he poured out two small shots of vodka. I didn’t look away until the waitress started to make her way to my table. She placed both shot glasses in front of me and stood waiting for...
“I don’t have any money.”
She laughed. “Your price tag is to drink it, love.”
I glanced at the shot glass. “Maybe it’s too high of a price,” I told the vodka that somehow sat in my hand. I didn’t remember picking it up.
“Loosen up,” she laughed. “You're far too serious.” She chewed her gum, her mouth opening wide, giving me a full view of all her fillings. She was still smiling, holding the empty tray. “Bottoms up, sugar.” She winked before sashaying away. My throat burned, and I choked as the vodka made its way into my bloodstream. A part of me was screaming no. But the burn, the feel of my body relaxing, nearly feeling weightless, had me smiling. I knocked back the second one.
Once my glass hit the table, the waitress was there again. “What can I get you, sugar,” she said, notepad out, pen at the ready. O-K-A-Y then.
“Vodka, please.”
She smiled, but this time it was different. Her smile was too wide, as if her face would split. Then I blinked, and she was back to normal. Well, what she looked like when I walked in. “Coming right up.”
Two shots sat in front of me again, and within a minute, they were gone and I was ordering more. The bar I sat in got noisier the longer I stayed. I looked up from my tenth, no, twelfth drink…I wasn’t sure what number I was on. “Who’s counting anyway?” I couldn’t stop laughing. Who comes up with this shit? “Me.” Laughter was making my sides ache.
“Sugar, you are being a little bit rude now. Rodeo is trying to play a song.”
I looked up at a not-so-smiling waitress. “Jesus, who did your makeup? It looks like it was done in the dark, with a shovel.” I couldn’t stop laughing, that was so funny.
Rodeo slammed his hands down on his piano and looked at me. “Calm down, Rodeo, you can’t play for shit anyway. Go back to the circus.” I stood up, but ended on the floor. Laughter filled my ears, and I joined in. “Oops.” I tried to stand, but knocked over the table.
“Now you are messing up my bar.” My head was spinning, and I saw five of the barman, before they slowly returned to one.
“You're just nasty,” I told him, not being able to form words.
I was lifted up by someone I couldn’t see until Rodeo dragged me to the door. I got a full view of his angry face. His large red nose was really like a clown’s. “You really were a clown in your last life?” I said, but I didn’t get an answer. I was pushed out of the bar; the door slammed in my face. “That’s all you got!” I shouted at the door. I could see all the patrons watching through the windows. “You are a bunch of freaks anyway.” I gave them all the finger before turning to leave.
The ringing of a bell had me glancing back at the bar. The barman stood outside with a little gold bell that he was still ringing. I was wondering what the fuck he was doing. He smiled at me before shouting, “Dinner, boys,” and then he disappeared back into the bar. I looked at the windows, but all the watchful eyes had disappeared, too.
The bar fell into darkness. The neon sign no longer flashing. Fear skittered up my back, my drunkenness fading slightly. It seemed to be worse since I stepped into the fresh air. I finally understood the term ‘street rats’ as young men poured out of every empty building—twenty, thirty—more; there were too many for me to count. I saw Acne-face. His smile made me take a step back. This wasn’t going to end well.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
I raced back to the bar door and nearly fell in my drunken stupor. The large gathering of men laughed when I hit the door repeatedly. The men had circled around me. I was backed into a corner. There really was nowhere to run. I turned to the crowd, looking for the leader. There always was one, and I found him.
He didn’t stand out from the others; he looked quite ordinary, even safe, like your brother's friend, who you know for your whole life. The tell was in the way he stood, confidence like he had the world at his back. In this case, he had a crowd. He moved slightly forward, and the rest moved to in a wave. I kept my back to the pub door. He took another step, and my heart pounded.
“Don’t come any closer.” My words sounded slightly slurred. Was I that drunk? The world tilted, and I found myself sliding along the door. What the fuck. It stopped. I was sitting on the ground. The crowd had moved in closer.
The leader stood in front of me now. “I won’t hurt you.” He reached out his hand for me to take. I looked at it, knowing that was such a lie. I was going to die, and I wasn’t going easy.
I stood, nearly fell over and could hear all the laughter again. But I stood toe-to-toe with the leader. “Fuck. You.”
“You're very brave. Or very stupid,” he said, no longer smiling. He grabbed me, and within seconds, I was being carried by the wave of men, been passed like a prized cow from one to the other.
“Get away from me!” I tried to fight, but each swing had me falling into another man’s arms. The laughter had me swinging harder, and they jeered at my drunken state. I stopped fighting, realizing I was wasting valuable energy and time. Fear hadn’t completely taken over, and a part of me was grateful for the alcohol that had given me a numbness towards this situation. Panic and fear still lingered around the edges, blurring in and out of focus.
A hand clamped around my forearm. Leader guy had taken over. I wasn’t sure if this was good or bad. “That hurts,” I told him, but he kept walking, the crowd of men tightening in around us. We entered an archway. I looked up as we passed under it.
A shadow had gotten my attention. The shadow was a huge stone snake with a skull as its head. The thing must have been ten feet long and at least three feet wide. It was carved across the arch and down
its left side.
I focused back on the room we had entered. It was the pumping music that now filled my veins. The thumping was heavy and angry, the noise drowning out all the rest around us.
The crowd of men dispersed as we made our way through the nightclub. Large cages sat around the room. Some were empty; others had women dancing naked in them. All the men that sat around drinking didn’t pay attention to the female dancers anymore. All their eyes were focused on me.
It was like the brakes slammed on in my head, and I stopped walking, making my kidnapper stop too. He leaned in, speaking in my ear over the music. “Trust me, you don’t want to stop here.” I glanced around and could see some of the men getting up. A hunger in their eyes had me nodding, and we were on the move again. The men sat down. No one seemed to walk in our way; in fact, they all moved to the side.
We reached a set of double doors. Once we were through them, the music vibrated behind us. My ears rang as I tried to adjust to the quietness of the concrete hall. “What do you want with me?” I asked. My voice sounded almost foreign to my ears.
He opened a door to the left. Three men sat playing cards. They all looked up when we entered, and each man straightened up. They were all large. They could have crushed my kidnapper easily, yet they all showed respect and fear. Each man had a gun tucked into the waistband of their pants. No one spoke.
We moved through another steel door and into a lavish room. The red carpet under my feet was lush. My feet sank deep into it. I nearly wanted to take off my boots in case I got it dirty. Two chairs sat in the room, back to back. They were wooden, and carved around them was the snake with the skull as its head. Its empty eyes seemed to stare at me.
I looked around the room. There was nothing else in it: no windows, no doors, nothing; just these two large chairs that looked more like thrones. My kidnapper let me go, clapped his hands once, and a young boy appeared. I nearly fell over.
Laughter filled the room. “For a demon hunter, you’re not very steady on your feet.”
“How do you know what I am?”
The young boy held out a goblet to me. The man took one. “Take it,” he said. I did, and the young boy vanished. “I know all about you. In fact, I have been searching for someone like you for a very long time.”
I didn’t drink from the goblet the boy had given me. I wasn’t that drunk. In fact, I think I was sobering up, and pretty quickly. Another person who wanted something from me. He must have known I was Lucifer’s daughter. Sneaking out on Nicolas didn’t seem so great now.
“I’m being rude.” He smiled, and I didn’t smile back. “My name is John.”
I was expecting some tongue twister of a name or a scary name. John. John was safe. He smiled again. “I won’t keep you long. All I need you to do is sit on the chair.” His arm swung out towards it, and I felt my confusion grow. He took me so I could sit on a chair?
“If I do, you will let me go?” I asked.
“You have my word.”
I snorted at his reply. “The word of John from Hades. That means a lot to me. What will happen if I sit on the chair?”
John glanced at the chair. “Honestly, I don’t know”
“Well, then I won’t be sitting on the chair.”
John wasn’t smiling now. “I really was hoping you wouldn’t say that. One last time, I will let you reconsider.” I felt the movement behind me I swung around, only to find the young boy holding a baseball bat, I wasn’t quick enough. It connected with my face. The pain was like fire on my skin. I only had to endure it for a couple of seconds before I passed out.
Waking up in a cage had me groaning. It was like déjà vu. My jaw was sore like I had taken a punch, and not a baseball bat to the face, and I wasn’t alone.
A young girl sat in the corner. Her knees were drawn up to her face, her arms wrapped tightly around her legs. It was just me and her. She must have been ten or eleven. What were they going to do with her? What were they going to do with me?
I looked away from her. I didn’t need to worry about her; I had to worry about myself. I didn’t want to notice how she shook, or how her bare arms were covered in bruises. I didn’t notice how her hair was all stuck together, like she hadn’t washed in a very long time. I didn’t notice the dirt under her nails. Nope, I didn’t notice anything about the neglected and abused child in the cage.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I stood up. The little girl glanced at me, but when I looked at her, she ducked back into her arms. I stopped pacing and watched her as she raised her head slowly. The way she looked at me didn’t feel right.
She wasn’t afraid. It was like she was calculating—what? I didn’t know. She dropped her head back into her lap and started to shake, making me question what I had really seen in her eyes. I didn’t say anything, but rubbed my temples. A headache was brewing, and I knew it was going to be killer.
A row broke out between a woman and a man in the cage across from me. The row seemed to be over food. He wanted her lunch. She didn’t hand it over. Instead she threw it in his face. I suppressed a smile until his fist connected with her face.
“Yeah, Jackass,” I screamed grasping the bars. He bounced on his feet like a boxer, his hands poised ready, as if the poor woman was going to bounce back after that thump. She was sprawled on the floor. There was no way she could go up against him. He was huge, his veins bulging in his neck. He didn’t even glance at me, his eyes fixed on the woman.
“I’m talking to you, ugly,” I screamed. This time, he did look at me with his one green eye, the other socket empty. “Yeah, you. Leave her alone.” I wouldn’t have been so brave if two sets of bars didn’t separate us, but I couldn’t stand here and watch him beat a defenseless woman either.
But his moment of distraction cost him dearly. It all happened quickly. The woman was up, a grin on her face. She did a roundhouse kick, knocking the man clean on his back. A blade appeared. She launched it into his heart, turning him to ash. She stood, straightened her ponytail, and looked at me. “Thanks for the concern, but I can take care of myself. The name’s Carla.” She talked as fast as she moved.
“Wow. You’re fast. Abigail,” I said.
“Well thanks, Abigail.” She moved away from the bars and picked up her plate, gathering the food off the floor before she sat back down and started to eat.
“You must be new.” The little girl stood beside me, her eyes downcast.
“You could say that,” I said, moving away from the bars. My head was aching. I sat down and rubbed my temples.
“You don’t know what she is?” The little girl stood close to me. “She’s a Sprevit.”
“So what? A Sprevit is a super fighter?” I asked.
The little girl smiled and sat cross legged in front of me. “Only towards men, not women. She’s like a scorned woman; she hates men. All Sprevit do. That’s their purpose. They find men who are bullies to women and kill them.”
I found myself smiling. “Not a bad purpose to have,” I said.
The little girl smiled too. “So your name is Abigail?” Her question threw me. Or rather, what threw me was the note of desperation for me to answer it. What difference would it make? There must be thousands of Abigails in hell.
“Yeah, why?” I asked.
She lifted her shoulders. “Nothing, just curious,” she said.
“Yeah, more curious than afraid. What did you say your name was again?” I said, not feeling right about this girl.
“I didn’t.” Her answer had her standing. She moved back to the corner, pulling her knees up to her chest and burying her head again, the same way as when I first entered the cage. That wasn’t weird or anything.
The cage opened, and John stood smiling. “Have you had time to think?” he asked.
“Yeah, I have, and I’m still not sitting on your chair.”
His smile fell. He nodded at someone beyond the cage. To men entered, and I was dragged out. “Wrong answer,” John said as he slammed the cage door.
&n
bsp; I looked back at the girl. She wasn’t burying her head now, she was taking everything in. I soon lost sight of her as I was taken back to the room with the large wooden thrones.
“I don’t want to force you,” John said. “But I will if you don’t co-operate.”
I looked from the chairs to him. “Bullshit. You obviously can’t force me onto the chair or you would have already. You don’t strike me as the patient type.”
He smiled and stood back. “You’re right, Abigail. I can’t force you, but I can persuade you, and I have a lot of time.” He moved behind me, lifting my hair away from my neck, his thumb stroking my bare skin. I pulled away, but then I couldn’t as he tightened his grip on me.
Everyone seemed to know who I was. Did I give off a smell? But maybe he had just had overheard me talking to Carla.
His breath moved towards my ear. “I can take everything away from you, but I can also give you something you want very badly.” He moved around me, his breath brushing my cheek. He looked into my eyes, his lips an inch from mine, his breath against my lips. “It’s something that your heart desires.”
“For you to die,” I said, and he laughed at my not-so-funny joke.
He moved away, letting me go. “No, Abigail. I can give you your mother.”
The world stopped moving. I stared at John. He didn’t seem to move either. “Breathe, Abigail.”
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
His command had me taking in air again. My body shook. I wasn’t sure if I was going to cry, collapse, or smile. I couldn’t touch on one emotion. “You're lying,” I whispered, praying that he wasn’t. Praying that just once, I could get something this easily.
John nodded to the man on my right, who had stood patiently. He left the room, and my heart started pounding. Something in me felt like it was breaking. It was hard to describe, but I knew if it broke, I would never fix it again. Desperation clawed at me. “Please don’t lie to me,” I whispered again as a tear fell.
