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

“What’s the third sin?”

“I told you, it’s hard to know.”

“Take a guess!”

“Just tell me what you see.”

“Green. There’s green light down here. I don’t understand. How could there be anything worse than lust and violence? What else is there?”

“Are you serious? How about greed. Gluttony. Wrath. Blasphemy. Use your imagination.”

There’s no landing this time. The steps end in a circular room bathed in a pale green glow. There aren’t any torches. The ghostly light comes from underneath the floor, which is clear, as if it’s made entirely of…

“Ice,” I announce. “The floor. It’s like a lake that froze over. I can see down into it—” I jump back with a startled shout. At my feet, just a few inches below the surface, a man’s face is frozen in the ice, twisted in agony, his mouth and eyes gaping.

“What is it? Did you say ice?”

I turn in circles, losing count of the faces, the bodies trapped in ice, their hands reaching for the surface. “Ice,” I repeat between rapid breaths. “The floor is ice. There’s people in it. Frozen.” Hillerman gives no response, which scares me. “Say something. Which sin is this? What does it mean?”

“There’s nothing else there? What else?”

“Tell me what sin this is.”

She dodges the question again. “Where’s Russo? Why’s he not saying anything?”

“He’s out of it. Russo?” I wave my hand in front of his glassy eyes. “I don’t know. He’s checked out.”

“Not good. The timer—”

Jay’s voice interrupts. “Shayne, get out of there. You’ve got a couple minutes, tops. Turn back.”

“Okay, wait, here’s something.” At the center of the frozen lake, a deep cavity is carved into the ice in the shape of a coffin. I approach cautiously, scared to see who or what is inside. To my relief, it’s empty. “Like, a tomb or something. It’s empty.”

“Don’t get in it,” Jay blurts.

My patience runs out. “Holy shit, babe, it’s a good thing you said that, because I was just about to climb down in there and take a nap!”

“Just get back up here!” he grumbles.

Hillerman tries to reach Russo. “Danny? Talk to us. What do you see?”

I watch him closely. He seems to be thinking hard—too hard. He drops to a knee at the edge of the ice coffin.

“Danny, if you’re hearing whispers, you need to do what they say.”

My heart goes bump. “What? I thought whispers were bad. You said to listen to your voice. Only your voice.”

“We’re out of time.”

“Then we bail! We don’t give in.”

Russo reaches down into the tomb, and when he pulls his hand back out, he’s gripping a long, pointy dagger made of ice.

“Guys, there’s a dagger. He just pulled it from the coffin. Russo?”

“That’s it,” Jay decides. “I’m coming down.”

“Give it a damn second,” Hillerman hisses.

“Russo? Buddy, what you got there? Charlotte, I’m asking you for the last time, what is this place? What’s the final sin? And don’t tell me you don’t know. There’s bodies trapped in ice. That seems pretty specific to me. If that’s from the poem, then you know exactly what’s supposed to happen.”

“Tell me what he’s doing,” she responds. “Tell me, and I’ll tell you.”

“He’s not doing shit. He’s just staring at the dagger. Now tell me! Whatever is supposed to happen, I’ll do it myself.”

Jay shouts, “No! Just wait for me.”

Hillerman makes up her mind. “Russo won’t do it. We’re coming down.”

“Don’t!” I shout. “Jay, if the timer runs out, we’ll all be trapped.”

It’s too late to stop them. I already hear their quick steps. They rush onto the ice. Jay immediately slips, falling on his ass. As I help him, Hillerman stalks up to Russo and wrenches the dagger from his hand. Her face is red with anger. “As always, I have to do everything myself. You’re right, Shayne. Bodies frozen in a lake of ice is in the poem, when Dante reaches the final circle of Hell. It’s reserved for the crowning achievement of the worst, the most degenerate of sinners. This place is for the betrayers.”

I’ve just helped Jay to his feet when Hillerman plunges the dagger into his back, burying the ice blade all the way up to the hilt. It’s razor point thrusts out of his chest, spraying me with hot blood.

After that, I remember only still images. No sound—sound went away, like hitting a mute button. I remember that I saw the confusion on Jay’s face. I saw him lifeless on the ice, and Hillerman shouting at Russo, and Russo wrapping his big arms around me. I remember seeing my own feet kicking at the air. Russo carrying me away. The last image was Hillerman dragging Jay’s body into the ice coffin.

I see pine needles in the snow. It’s strange-looking snow. Not white—it’s green from the candlelight in the courtyard. But it feels like snow. It’s cold and wet where my hands are buried in it. I’m on hands and knees. My hair falls down around my face. Tiny, smoldering holes form in the snow where tears fall from the tip of my nose.

I’m aware of Russo somewhere behind me, breathing hard. Muttering something about whispers and fog in his mind.

With a deep rumble, the mausoleum door begins to close. Hillerman rushes out of the darkness, then turns and helps Jay to stumble out just before the door seals shut. The green candles extinguish all at once, leaving us with only the moonlight.

Breath surges into my lungs. Leaping to my feet, I throw myself at Jay, crushing him with my arms. He crushes me back, gasping and wheezing. “I’m here,” he says between painful breaths. “I got you.”

“Son of a bitch, Brenner,” Russo exclaims. “How are you standing here right now?”

I rip open the front of his shirt. There’s no hole, no blood. But he drops to his knees with a painful grunt, obviously wounded. Steam rises from under the back of his collar. I push the shirt up his back. There, where he had been stabbed by the dagger, bright red