Page 36 of Hellbound

“Sorry,” Tori said defensively. “I thought a conversation would be preferable to creepy silence.”

“Yeah, well, you thought wrong.”

“OK, then. Creepy silence it is,” Tori mumbled.

They’d moved into the sprawling foyer of the Tower with its signature rivers of gravity-defying sludge. Tori flickered like a dying bulb, then brightened again. The sight instilled a new fear in Marian: the possibility that Tori would vanish any moment.

“You can stay here indefinitely, right?” Marian asked.

“Now she wants to talk to me,” Tori sighed. “I think I can. I’ve never left Hell before I was ready, but I’ve never attempted to see how long I can stay. My little ‘power’ helps me with the traps that usually jettison other travelers.”

“You mean the lie detector thing? How does that help?”

“You’ll see.”

Marian took her word for it and focused instead on how her instinct reacted to the path they charted. The hum of the key grew stronger, a second pulse behind her breastbone. But her mind couldn’t keep up with the rapid shift in their surroundings; she’d taken the lead and let that instinct guide her, trusting that the unfamiliar passages were indeed the same ones she’d walked last time.

Tunnels swelled and contracted, morphing into hallways like the one Marian traversed on her last dive, only to decay before her eyes and revert back into dark, cramped caverns that activated Marian’s claustrophobia. All the while, static intermittently broke up her thoughts like radio interference. She knew this feeling, but she couldn’t remember what it signified.

Look for the hall of doors.

Once they’d reached it, how could she keep Tori from discovering what Mr. Vale was after? Would it matter once she’d found it?

She added it to the list of things she ought to have considered earlier.

But as they walked on and on, that hallway failed to manifest. Tori walked astride her in silence, speaking only when Marian’s steps faltered.

“What’s up?” Tori asked softly.

Marian’s jaw clenched tight. “This isn’t what I remember. There’s something …”

There’s something else here.

Then it clicked, and Marian’s stomach bottomed out.

“Fucking shit.”

“What?” Tori’s golden eyes widened. “What’s wrong? Is it the Remnant?”

Marian growled as she took off at a sprint down the shrinking tunnel.

“It’s another goddamn diver.” Marian’s mind raced as she bolted down the hall with Tori close behind.

Competition had arrived. Why else would there be another soul here at this exact moment? Divers were too few for run-ins to be coincidence.

She never should have put out a call for help, vague as it was.

The tunnel dumped them onto the ledge at the perimeter of an atrium set in black stone. Marian nearly stumbled into a waist-high barrier separating her from a long fall down to the bottom. The room was flooded with the coldest yellow light she’d ever seen.

The source hung overhead: a massive, pale orange sphere like a dying sun. A feminine figure emerged from a dark alcove down the ledge. Marian’s eyes locked on her, seething with suspicion.

The diver gripped the twisted railing, panting softly as she locked eyes with Marian. Surprise flashed on the stranger’s face, then vanished. She was barely taller than Tori and sported a bright red pixie cut, but Marian didn’t recognize her.

Tori’s golden light burned beside Marian as she and the unknown diver stood locked in a silent stand-off.

“Marian, what—?”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Marian shouted at the other diver, whose freckled nose crinkled in distaste.