Heart and Soul by Jackie May (reading list .TXT) 📗

into action. I stick my arm up the gargoyle’s asshole—elbow deep in warm, sticky innards—and squish its hairy balls as hard as I can.

Several things happen at once. All throughout the courtyard, candles spontaneously ignite with sickly green flames. The gargoyle’s asshole clenches tightly against my arm. It’s searing hot, burning through my jacket into my flesh. The same happens to Russo—the gargoyle’s mouth chomping down on his bicep, sinking teeth into his muscle. We both cry out in pain. The solid stone door rumbles, then swings open. The gargoyles release us and close their orifices tightly.

My jacket is unharmed, but when I pull my arm out of the sleeve, steam rises from a dark ring of burnt flesh all the way around my arm above the elbow. Russo’s bicep is bleeding from several deep bite marks. As we grumble in pain, Hillerman says, “Look above the door. What’s happening?”

The invitation card is on fire. Green flame engulfs its left edge and slowly moves to the right. It reminds me of a loading bar on a computer screen.

“I think we’re on the clock,” I say. “Like a timer.”

Jay says, “Shayne, your arm…”

I slip it gingerly inside my jacket sleeve. “We’ll look at it later. I really don’t want to be inside this thing when the timer goes up. Russo?”

“Copy that.” He leads us into the mausoleum.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. The room is enormous—much bigger than the outside, which should be impossible, but I no longer try to make sense of demon things. Torches lit with green flames line the circular wall, creating an otherworldly glow with no shadows.

Towering over us are three colossal statues—a leopard ready to pounce, a roaring lion, and a fierce wolf with teeth bared. At their feet is a passageway cut into the stone floor. Stairs lead down into darkness.

After I describe it, Hillerman explains, “It’s a representation of Hell. From Dante’s allegory.”

“From whosits whatsit?”

“A poem. 14th century Christian. The dark woods, the circular room, the animal guards. It’s Dante’s Inferno.”

“You know what’s down these stairs, then?”

“Various levels of sin and depravity, what else?”

“Sounds like New Year’s Eve with my family. What are we waiting for?”

Standing at the top step, Russo stares down into the blackness with an uneasy look.

“This isn’t really a ‘ladies first’ kind of place, Russo.” He nods and swallows hard, but can’t seem to make himself take that first step, so I suck it up and say, “Then again, I’m not really a ‘ladies first’ kind of lady, am I?”

I take the lead, stepping carefully down and down and down. Total darkness eventually gives way to a soft blue glow. Wet moss grows from cracks in the stone. Water trickles from the low ceiling just above our heads. It’s not quiet anymore. There are now two unmistakable sounds: the patter of rain against windows and the ecstatic cries of sexual pleasure.

“Right, so…I take it the first sin is lust?”

“Why? What do you see?” Hillerman says.

“You wish. If you wanted to see, you should have come down yourself.”

We get to a landing that splits in two directions. Straight ahead, the steps continue downward. To our left, a carpeted hallway leads to an extravagant bedroom. Floor-to -ceiling windows awash with rain scatter a kaleidoscope of sensual moonlight. The euphoric moans don’t come from any one place. They are all around. Not loud, but close-sounding, right in my ear. Maybe they’re even coming from me. It sounds like me. It feels like sounds I could make, if only Jay were here.

There he is, in fact. Standing naked by the bed. He’s mostly in shadow, but I know that athletic silhouette. That wedge of blonde hair, tattoos of chemical formulas around his neck.

He turns toward the windows, and in the shimmering moonlight I see he is smiling. His eyes are soft and clear and untroubled. This is the other Jay, from before the underworld shattered his existence. I met this Jay once. We talked over a game of poker about normal things. He was low-key charming and a big-time sweetheart. The kind that is so earnest in bed. I wonder what pleasureful faces he would make if I took him by the—

Hillerman’s voice comes crashing into my ears. “—said before to not let your minds wander. Can I get an answer? Anybody?”

It dawns on me that I’ve seen this place before. Back in Arael’s East Side lair. The bed and the rain and the sounds, everything. Only that time, I saw both me and Jay tangling our naked bodies together in the bed. Since then, we’ve made that vision a reality, many times over. Was I seeing the future back then? Can demons know the future?

“Give me an answer, Shayne. The timer’s going fast.”

I hope they can’t tell the future, because this time, I’m not in the picture. There’s a busty woman behind Jay. Her hands glide up his hips and the ridges of his abs, and his sharply-cut pecs. She spreads her arms wide to become black-feathered wings. She rises to her full height, towering over Jay with a crow’s head—that enormous needle of a beak.

There’s a scream, and this time I know it definitely comes from me.

“There you are,” Hillerman says in my ear. “What the hell’s happening?”

“We’re moving on.”

“The timer—”

“I know; we’re going. Russo.” He stands transfixed, staring down a blank hallway, nothing but stone. I jerk on his arm. “We’re going.”

He follows me in a daze. I drag him down more steps, now toward a red glow. Instead of trickling water, this time the stones are wet from dark, sticky blood.

“What’s the next circle of Hell?”

“Hard to say. The interpretation varies. What do you see?”

“Blood. Lots of blood.”

“Violence and murder. Don’t stay there.”

We get to another landing, where horrifying screams of pain jolt our nerves. Russo wants to look down the hall, but I slap his face away and muscle him forward. “How many more are there?”

“Should be one,” she says. “Leopard, lion, wolf. Three