Page 13 of Hellbound

She hit the ground hard, hugging the knee of her wounded leg to her chest. Blinding pain robbed her of sight. She curled in on herself and rolled as far from the sludge as she could before the fire in her leg demanded her full attention. She clamped her jaw down on her screams and instead growled through the pain.

When Marian could see again, she slowly uncurled from the fetal position to inspect the damage. Her breath caught in her chest.

The ichor had eaten through the denim and left her with a blackened calf. Raw, pink flesh peeked through cracks in her skin. She hissed through her teeth as the initial waves of agony faded into something less consuming. Constant, but bearable.

But the smell of her blistering meat made her stomach roil.

Keep moving. You’ll live again and the pain will end. Think of the money.

Marian swallowed a whimper. Fuck, it hurt, but not badly enough to stall her any longer. She got to her feet and slowly made her way to the arch, limping into the depths of Hell.

The pain in her leg turned into a distant throb as far more disturbing possibilities captured her attention. Like the unidentifiable things writhing up the mile-high walls of this empty path. Stone undulated like liquid all around her.

Fear didn’t distract her long. She’d felt the draw of these artifacts before—a sixth sense that led her to unassuming corners where lost objects lay forgotten, buried in rubble. But this quarry was different. Its call too powerful to ignore.

A rhythm like a second pulse galloped alongside her heart, urging her on despite how her innards knotted with anxiety. She looked around the empty, dismal hall.

Where was she? Why did it suddenly smell like rotten eggs?

Faster. Move.

Marian broke into a shambling jog, ignoring the protest in her leg as she charged through the murk. Doors appeared beside her as she hurried on. None of them beckoned.

On she ran, feeling for the guiding tug that would show her the way. Faster and faster, her second pulse beat. She was getting close to the right door. To the key.

“Marian.”

All the air rushed out of her lungs as the sound of her own name cleaved her in two.

There were no voices in Hell. Other divers, on occasion, but Marian felt in her core that she was alone here. She spun around, but didn’t see anything that could have made that sound. When she turned back toward where the pull was strongest, her eyes widened.

The hall wasn’t empty anymore. Nor was it Hell.

Marian stood in a narrow corridor illuminated by anemic white light. Mint green doors flanked her. Drab gray tile underfoot. Dread ballooned in her chest. She knew this place.

“Marian.”

Again, the voice called out.

What was happening? Hell never looked like anywhere on Earth. It only ever presented its own grotesque creations.

But that voice. It couldn’t be …

Quietly, she stepped under the hard fluorescent lights of the hospital morgue and down the hallway she’d seen only once. Marian hadn’t wanted to come here in life, but her stepfather demanded it. When the staff stepped away, he’d dragged her by her hair down this hall to face what she’d done.

When she stepped into cold storage now, she heard it again, soft and frightened.

“Help me.”

This isn’t real, came a shrewd voice inside her.

She’d only ever seen other divers here and the occasional traveler—living people with the ability to manifest in, like temporary ghosts through the veil. Gifted, too, though rarely. Their kind didn’t need to leave Earth to profit from their strange little powers. Lucky-fucking-ducks.

And yet she couldn’t extinguish that burning question. Where were the true dead? The damned who’d lost this game with death? She wanted answers almost as much as she wanted two hundred thousand dollars.

Greg’s voice crackled through the din of her racing thoughts, each word clipped by static.

“Don’t look for answers there. You won’t find any. It’s—”