Flame Unleashed (Hell to Pay) (25 page)

Jerahmeel’s unnatural howl mixed with her split voice keening 150 years of anger and pain. The two sounds swirled like a furnace-hot wind, flying in all directions, battering against Ruth’s mental shield. The shrieks hit her so hard, her mind compressed, like a window about to shatter.

“My lord, Satan, why have you forsaken me?” he yelled.

“Sorry, you’re not a messiah. And you were forsaken from the moment you were created.” Odie twisted his blade again to scrape metal against metal in the center of Jerahmeel’s body.

“How much longer?” Ruth yelled to Odie. Her mind couldn’t take any more psychic onslaught without imploding.

“Keep going,” Odie called back. Determination lit up his face. Flickering shadows created ghostly shadows as he pushed harder.

The pain etched on his handsome face mobilized her into action. She shoved the knife in with her augmented strength, willing all of her power to discharge through her arm into the blade.

Jerahmeel swiveled his head around again, the unnatural movement making her stomach churn.

“I loved you. I would have given you the world. Why did you betray me?” His eerie ember stare bore into her.

“You do not deserve love, only death, for a horror like you,” she said.

“Enjoy true hell.” Odie grinned.

The explosions coming from within Jerahmeel blasted through Ruth’s bones and into the mountainside. Rocks fell all around them. One glanced off her arm, drawing blood.

A few seconds later, she looked down. Still bleeding.

She no longer healed. Oh, no.

“Almost there,” Odie called out.

With one final, horrible, percussion of pain and light, Jerahmeel disintegrated into a giant cloud of dust. With a vacuum like whoosh, the cloud shrank into a tiny pile of ash. Her ears rang with the sudden eerie silence.

Their breaths rasped harsh in the empty cavern.

She searched the structure.

Nothing.

No movement, no nasty laughter, no glowing fingers. Nothing.

“Did we—” she said.

An expression of wonder transformed Odie’s features from pain to happiness. Did he have a few more lines around those pale eyes? Was that a streak of gray in his beard?

“We did.”

He pulled her into his arms, the movement stirring the ashes in the slight breeze.

Breeze?

Deep rumbling began up high. With gut-wrenching cracks, rocks began to fall.

A few feet away, a car-sized boulder crashed into the floor, pulverizing lava rock into gravel.

“Odie?”

The light from the fire area had dimmed to the faintest glow.

A deep, grinding sound like a locomotive engine driving into a wall of ice came from high above them.

“
Mon dieu
! Run!”

Good news and bad news: they were no longer immortal. Odie winced as a rock glanced off his back. The injuries they were taking on could no longer spontaneously heal. He should’ve factored that possibility into his plans. How were they going to get out of this disintegrating death trap alive?

Grabbing Ruth by the arm, he dragged her away as another huge block of stone exploded on the floor. He dodged falling rock to reach the opening to the passage out of the cavern, finding the flashlight where he had laid it a few feet into the tunnel. Clicking it on, he shone it down the passage as smaller rocks fell in the tunnel. Ruth sagged against the wall as she bled from cuts on her arms. She panted in the gritty air.

“We’ll die if we stay here,” he said.

He pulled her along as he scanned for the orange tape on the walls. A few pieces were missing or covered in dust from the rock falls, and he cursed every time he had to search for a marker.

Ruth yelped behind him and yanked against his arm. When he turned around, the sight of blood running from a cut on her forehead stopped him.

“Can you keep going?”

“Yes,” she yelled over the din of rocks falling.

The entire world flew apart around them.

It had taken him nearly an hour to get into the cavern. No way did they have that much time to make the return trip. They would be crushed and buried long before then, at the rate this place was crumbling.

Orange tape, orange tape. He stumbled on the heaving floor and endured impacts by rocks raining down.
Keep going.

Endless side passages presented themselves. He kept searching for the proverbial trail of breadcrumbs as he maintained a grip on Ruth’s wrist. She grunted every so often when she would trip or hit the wall. He knew rocks struck her, but he had no choice. They either had to get out of here as fast as possible or die. There was no middle ground.

The rumbling deafened him until his world boiled down to the roar of the mountain collapsing on them, the flashlight shadowing the passage, and Ruth’s hand in his.

Faster. Go faster.

He had to get Ruth to safety. She had risked everything to help him fulfill his plan. He refused to let her perish because of her efforts.

Fresh rock fall blocked the passage, and he skidded to a stop.

“Oh God,” she said.

When she panted, puffs of vapor came out in the cold air. She clutched at her arm, staunching a wound, but blood oozed through her fingers.

“Can we go another way?” she asked.

He spied a small orange tape about a foot away from the rubble.

“No. We have to go through it.”

Frantically, he began digging through the pile as Ruth held the flashlight. His hands were bleeding, but he no longer cared. All he wanted was to be out of this tomb.

More rocks fell behind Ruth and the rumbling increased in intensity.

“Odie!” she screamed.

“Come on.”

He shoved her through the small opening he created in the pile of rocks. Continuing up the tunnel, they dodged more falling stone. With a crash, the entire passage right behind them exploded in a blast of dust. Too close.

Keep following the orange tape.

Refusing to let go of her hand, he dragged her along the passage. She was his lifeline to sanity. He was her lifeline to escape this tomb.

Suddenly the ground gave way and they sank up to their knees.

In snow.

In snow?

They were out!

His ears rang in the open air. He heard the faint sounds of rocks falling back in the passage.

And then silence in the bone-chilling night.

The snowy weather from when he entered the passage hours earlier had given way to a cold, clear starlit night on the mountain.

Ruth shivered in her torn red gown. The flashlight beam caught snow settling in her dust-covered hair. Trails of blood dried on her arms and face. She never looked so beautiful.

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard, loving how their skin had cooled to normal temperatures.

“We made it.
Mon dieu
, we made it!” He whooped.

“Oh my God,” she said. “Is it real?”

“No more slavery as an Indebted. No longer will we be forced to do things no person should have to do.”

She sagged in his arms, and he held her until her shivering got his attention.

“You need to get warm.”

He pulled gear out of the large backpack stashed nearby. A pair of boots, snow pants, and a sweater for her. Hats and gloves for both of them. The extra pair of snowshoes. She wouldn’t be completely outfitted, but it would to be enough to get them off the mountain.

“What’s that?” Ruth asked as she tucked her dress into the waistband of the insulated pants. The lumpy fabric and her dirty face made for an endearingly sweet mess.

“What’s what?”

Concentrating, he heard it. A rumble in the distance, steadily growing louder and deeper. The ground shifted beneath his feet.

Mount Shasta was a snow-covered dormant volcano, housing the portal to hell.

They had just torpedoed the portal to hell.

Inside a dormant volcano.

Covered in snow.

“Let’s go. Now!” he yelled.

“What?”

“The mountain’s going to blow!”

“What—”

He cut her off with a slash of his hand, shoved boots on her feet, and strapped on the snowshoes. Cramming a toboggan on her head, he turned downhill and shined the flashlight into the darkness that had fallen.

“What?” she yelled.

“Something bad is coming. Run!”

They ran awkwardly in the gear, both of them tripping a few times until they got the hang of the movement. He could have used that Indebted strength and endurance right about now. Damn, how his thigh muscles screamed as he paused to use the GPS to retrace his steps to the main meadow.

Upon arriving at the open meadow, a recent avalanche of snow and torn-up trees had settled across the expanse. He motioned for her to follow him as he traversed below the worst of the slide. Too long, they were wasting precious time. Although he struggled for oxygen at this altitude, he didn’t dare stop moving.

The sounds of disaster continued all around them. Some rumbles were close by, some on the distant peak high above them. When he looked back up the mountain, an eerie glow emanated from its moonlit tip.

Glow? What would glow on the mountain?

Not a mountain. A volcano.

Lava.

Mon dieu.

Lava plus snow.

A deadly combination.

Jerahmeel’s death had woken the sleeping mountain at the worst possible time.

“Ruth, go faster. You have to move faster.”

“I’m trying.” She panted, her quick puffs of vapor punctuating the cold air.

She galloped along in the snowshoes, off balance as she stepped into a soft snowdrift, then moving faster on packed snow. The glow behind him had changed. Sparks flew off the mountaintop behind him.

Sparks?

Not sparks. At this distance of a vertical mile below the summit, those were actually car-sized chunks of molten lava ejecting from the bowels of Mount Shasta.

What happened when superheated tons of rock met massive amounts of snow?

They had just run out of time.

Gasping, they struggled down the mountain. The GPS signal put them very close to where he had parked the car, but could he find it in the darkness?

He scanned the snowy landscape, frantic to find the vehicle.

Damn it, where was the parking area?

Distant detonations evoked images of a Vulcan hell rupturing behind him. It no longer paid to look; survival hinged on getting out of here.

Ruth stumbled and landed on her face with a hard
oof
. As he turned to pull her back to her feet, the sight behind her turned his blood colder than the snow beneath his feet.

The entire top of the mountain slid in slow motion toward them.

Clouds of glowing ash poured out. Foreboding orange light illuminated the slowly moving wall of ... everything.

That mass of destruction might be a mile away, but it was picking up speed, coming right down a natural alley carved into the mountain.

The alley ended below where the car was parked.

“Go! Go!” he shouted.

He left her behind as he sprinted straight down the snow-covered road until he saw a glint in the darkness. The car, parked right where he’d left it, right in the path of liquefied molten death.

Reaching the car, he flung open the back door, threw his pack inside and kicked off his snowshoes. He dug around the front floor mat until he heard a clink. As he grabbed the keys, another rumble sounded, this time very close.

When he looked back, Ruth clambered across the snowy parking lot, awkward in the snowshoes. Right behind her, a wall of snow piled behind the forest service gate began to move.

Hot lava contacted the icy rocks, causing surreal pops of boulders bursting. Massive tree trunks snapped under the weight of ice, lava, rock, and mud. A wall of liquefied debris headed right toward them.

She kept a few feet ahead of the steaming mountainside, her face the picture of terror with death literally nipping at her heels.

“
Mon dieu
, come on, come on! Get in!”

He reached over, opened the passenger side door, and turned the key in the ignition.

Click.

True panic, more than anything he had felt before now, fisted his heart in a grip that took his breath away.

Sweat prickled his forehead.

“Start,” he whispered.

Click.

Damn it.

It wouldn’t matter if she made it to the car; they were about to be buried alive inside of it.

He pumped the gas pedal a few times, trying something, anything, to help.

The image in the rearview mirror reflected a giant moving wall of darkness closing in.

He turned the key and sent up a prayer.

The vehicle turned over, almost begrudgingly.

It finally caught, and then purred.

Ruth dove into the front seat.

“Go, Odie!”

Before she could get her feet properly in the car and the door closed, he took off down the mountain. He grabbed her coat and hauled her back into the vehicle when the snow yanked off her snowshoe. Half lying on the seat, she heaved her one remaining snowshoe-clad foot into the passenger side. She slammed the door closed and shot him a wild-eyed look of terror the likes of which he had never seen.

In the red illumination of the brake lights, the snow moved in a muddy, piping-hot wall behind him. He was barely staying a few feet away from the leading edge.

If the lava caught so much as a back wheel, they were dead.

Pushing the woefully inadequate car to go faster, he sped down the treacherous switchback road.

Ice rimed the windshield, rendering wipers useless. He could see nothing.

“Put your seat belt on,” he said between gritted teeth.

Of course the seat belt wouldn’t matter if the lava and snow engulfed them. But if he somehow avoided the avalanche of mud and debris sliding down the mountain, he didn’t want her injured by something silly like a vehicle crash. Mortal danger. Something he hadn’t thought about in over 250 years.

“You too.”

“No time. Do me a favor. Hold this.”

He unclenched one hand from the steering wheel, fished in his coat pocket, and handed her the GPS. Gripping the wheel again, he skidded down the road. Unfortunately, the rock fall was so bad that he continued to dodge large chunks of mountainside that littered the pavement.