Hell's Gift (40 page)

The shouts and screaming from the tortured sent chills throughout my body. I made a mental note to stay hidden as best I could, so I didn’t become one of the tormented souls I couldn’t see.

I caught movement out of my left eye and whirled just in time to brace myself as what appeared to be a small gargoyle-like creature tackled me, knocking me off balance and backward over the edge of one of the many high-rises I’d seen after entering into Hell’s belly. Tumbling down the steep hill head first, feet passing over my head for the third time, my pack strap broke free from my shoulders about twenty-five feet down. I managed to grab the loose end, but my spear was nowhere in sight. All the while, the serpent-like creature clung to my body, riding the wave of flips and bounces as if it were on a thrilling carnival ride.

I fought to tear him from my arm and he wrapped his little exoskeleton limbs around my waist, shimmying down until he clung tightly to my thigh, hissing and snapping at me every time I attempted to pry him free. I finally gave up and concentrated on turning my body so I could stop myself from rolling down the hill that was obviously never going to end.

I threw my hand out and grabbed at the first thing it hit. I was going too fast to clutch the stationary object in my hand, but I did manage to turn my body in a different direction so I could dig my boots into the muck, slowing the momentum of the fall to a stop.

Breathing heavily, and one hand clutching an odd branch protruding from the face of the muddy cliff, I finally looked down.

“Jesus,” I muttered, and closed my eyes as I firmly pressed the front of my body to the stinky, slimy muck and hung on for dear life. I’d thought the hill was getting steeper, and I had been right; only about ten more feet and I would have fallen straight off to an approximate two-hundred foot drop-off into a massive burning canyon of fire.

I looked around me. There was no way to prevent myself from falling into the giant pit. Even if I could manage to climb to the top, there was nothing for me up there except the door to the previous syde. God knew I didn’t want to attempt Lust again, so that option was out. I looked out to the sea of fire and twenty or so cone-shaped cliffs around me, and couldn’t see anything beneficial to working my way around to the other side of my own personal cone cliff.

“Dammit,” I swore. “Isaiah!”

“I’m here. I’m thinking, Rhyan. You need wings.”

“Send me some on down here, will ya?” The odd branch I clung to gave and dropped me a little. “I’m gonna need them now,” I added.

Isaiah sighed in my mind.
“I can’t send you wings. Dig your feet in more so you don’t put as much weight on the bone.”

My brow furrowed. “Bone?” I said, then looked up to my hand, and what my fingers were grasped around. I looked away quickly. “Christ. How am I holding onto a bone, Isaiah? I thought if you died here, you came back to life to suffer through more hell?”

“One does. That one just hasn’t revived yet. Then again,”
he pondered,
“they might come back as something else completely different, like a flesh-eating fiend of the undead. Of course, zombies aren’t real on Earth, but I certainly wouldn’t rule anything out there.”

“So, he’s really alive?”

“Yes, and I don’t think he will be too happy when he wakes and notices he has someone dangling from one of his appendages. Looks like a femur bone. I’m sure the rest of him is around there, close.”

“You are such a comfort to be around.”

“I do try.”

After giving a heavy roll of my eyes, I noticed a vibration in the small mountain, then suddenly knew it wasn’t the hill that was quaking; it was me. I looked down to my leg at my new companion. He was trembling so violently that it was shaking my entire body.

“Why are you so frightened? You have wings,” I spat, and then my eyes grew wide as I realized what I’d just discovered. “You have wings!” I exclaimed.

The creature peered up at me, seemingly harmless now that I wasn’t trying to beat his head in and throw him to the great pit below. He made a few audible sounds that I couldn’t decipher or translate, but I was sure it was the creature’s language, and I could tell he was trying to communicate with me.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

“Not the smartest phrase to use at the moment, Rhyan.”

I gave a light chuckle and kept my attention focused on the creature. “Can you fly?”

He rattled off another stream of incomprehensible sounds to my ears, but then nodded and spread his wings out wide. The span of them had to have been at least eight feet from end to end.

I laughed out loud. “I guess you can. Think you can carry me?”

The arch of his little eyebrow popped up and his thin mouth moved a little to the side as if he were calculating in his head his body weight and mine to see if his wings could carry us both. He finally gave what I could only take as a smile, then energetically crawled up my body. The quick movement caused the bone to slip more and he jumped from my back to wrap his arms and legs around my head, uncontrollably quivering as if afraid he would fall again.

I couldn’t breathe with his arm covering my mouth and nose, or see with his other arm in front of my eyes, and I could tell the bone was about to break loose from whatever it happened to be attached to; I shuddered at the thought of it being a pelvic bone, then briefly wondered where the rest of the leg was, the part at the other end of the femur bone. Most people had a little more, like a tibia bone, several bones in the foot region and five little wiggly ones at the end.

I reached up and pried his arm away from my mouth. “If you can fly, why are you so afraid of falling?” I asked, then took in several deep breaths.

He muttered more incoherent words, then I heard his sharp little teeth as they went into a frenzy of chattering.

“He seems to be afraid to fly, Rhyan.”

“I bet if I chucked him off the side of this cliff he would get over that phobia real fast,”
I said through my mind, then tried to calm myself so I wouldn’t scare the beast more when I spoke. “Look, you’re going to have to get us both out of here, so if you’re afraid of heights, then you just need to try not to think about it until we reach solid ground. There’s no other way. You have to get us down. Do you understand?”

The chattering stopped and he loosened his grip on my head, said a few words, then jumped from me to the muck and started climbing back up the hill.

“Hey! Where’re you going?” I shouted up at him, but he never looked back. “That’s great.” I huffed, then tried to rearrange my grip on the bone. All the blood had drained from my arms and my hands had begun to tingle. I knew I couldn’t hang like that forever, but I would as long as I could; I hadn’t come all that way to give up at the very end.

Something moved in my peripheral vision and I turned my head to look, then a smile spread across my face as relief filled my tired bones. “Ha ha, yes!” I cheered. He’d found my spear, and he had it grasped with his hand-like feet and flying toward me. He flew past me once; I assumed, so he could figure out exactly the best way to land with a big stick clutched in his landing gear. I motioned with my arm for him to get closer, and the bone I was hanging from detached from the hill. I let go of it and struggled to dig the toe of my boots in further, but the angle was too steep and the mud too slick and I began to slide.

“Rhyan, grab hold of something!”

“I’m trying. There is nothing within my reach,” I said, but still prayed something would magically appear out of thin air to save my hide.

I heard the creature squawk, then felt the wind of his wings at my back, but I was traveling too fast to seek him out. My right foot slipped off the edge. Desperately searching with the toe of my boot, I couldn’t feel anything but infinite space below. There was nothing else solid to stop my descent. My arms scrambled around in a panic, attempting to grab something, but there was nothing, and it was too late. The weight of my lower body hanging from the edge was too much and gravity took over from there. I fell back first toward an untimely death.

I was falling and there was nothing I could do to stop it from happening. I was getting closer to the pit of flames with every valuable second that passed.

“I’m sorry, Isaiah.”

“Me, too, son,”
he replied sadly.

Refusing to turn and watch the floor of Hell rush up to greet me, I used my last remaining moments to pray, hoping like hell someone up there besides my guardian angel could hear me. I prayed someone got Josselyn away from Lucifer safely, and that she would never again set eyes on the Prince of Lust. I prayed that Kendra and her family stayed safe and out of Murry’s reach. The Lord knew that I would enjoy ripping the heart from his chest if he hurt her in any way.

I prayed for Malcolm’s safe return back into the Heavenly Realm, so that he could guide me back through the seven sydes of Hell. I needed my friend and I wouldn’t accept that he was lost forever.

I wasn’t giving up on my mission either. All of Hell would completely freeze over before I would say those words. I didn’t feel like I had failed. It was just going to take me a little longer to accomplish my goal.

I could feel the heat intensifying at my back, and knew it wouldn’t be much longer.

Lastly, I prayed for Abbi. My wife, my true love and my soulmate; she would be disappointed, but I knew she would wait for me, and I knew Lucifer couldn’t touch her unless I gave up. I prayed for her to have strength and never stop believing in the love we have for each other, because it alone was stronger than any Hell anyone could make me go through.

The temperature was so extreme I could smell my hair scorching. I was just about to tell Isaiah goodbye when he shouted through my thoughts.

“Open your eyes!”

I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I did as ordered. My eyes flew open and all I could see were black wings and the spear handle that was within my reach.

“Grab it, Rhyan!”

A rush of adrenaline and hope shot through me, thrusting my arms forward; my fingers closed around smooth wood and my new companion whisked me away.

The added weight had him batting his wings double-time, but he gradually put distance between us and the great fire down below.

Chapter 51

From the sky, I looked out across the lands of Wrath. It really was a nightmare come true. The scenery had changed from the cone-shaped mountains and fire, to thousands of men and women in hand-to-hand combat with each other. It appeared one either had to kill or be killed, and I was glad my new friend with wings didn’t seem to be landing amongst the carnage. I had no urge to kill, and certainly no desire to become demon food.

There were large mountains in the distance with more gargoyle-like creatures flying above them like vultures waiting for something to die. I had a feeling that was where we were headed, and I wasn’t positive my new buddy’s friends would be as courteous as he’d been.

As if reading my mind, he jiggled the spear, and when I looked up to him he closed his eyes, then opened them again.

“You want me to close my eyes?” I asked, and he nodded. I was happy he could understand me, even though I didn’t have a clue what he was saying unless he mimicked what he meant, but I didn’t have a great feeling about the direction we were heading in if I had to play dead. Without any options left, I huffed and let my head fall to my bicep. I would have let it slump to the front, but I wanted to be able to peek through my lids at my surroundings whenever I got the chance.

I felt the creature’s hands move on the spear handle, then felt the roughness of his calluses on his hand-like feet close over the top of my knuckles, so it appeared as though he was holding me to the wood like a prisoner…or maybe caught prey. I had to admit the little guy was pretty intelligent, but I hoped his friends weren’t smart enough to see through the scheme. I didn’t want to be buzzard food, either.

We were nearing a large cave opening, high up the mountain façade, when my new friend let out a high-pitched squawk, alerting the others of his arrival. I clenched my jaw in regret, and forced myself to stay calm when the two-hundred or so huge bird-like creatures began to dive into the cave.

“I better not be supper,” I growled out through unmoving lips, and could have sworn the beast snickered.

Well, there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot I could do about it if I was intended to be the gourmet meal. I could struggle beneath the animal’s hands and free myself, but that would only ensure my death soon after, for I would fall at least a hundred feet to solid ground. If I happened to live through the injuries it would most definitely inflict, I’d probably be praying for death to greet me.

I shuddered as I recalled Murry was the Death of that particular syde. I’d already made up my mind that he wouldn’t have anything beneficial to give me, so seeking him out wasn’t necessary. I knew he could find me, probably knew exactly where I was already, but I wouldn’t go looking for him. That was one object I could do without.

The instant temperature drop as we entered the cave was cool and refreshing on my damp skin; almost made it worth being stuck in a cave with a flock of carnivores, but not quite.

Eager sounds from the other beasts were growing louder to my ears, and I chanced a peek through the slits of my eyes, but found we were in total darkness. It was hard not to worry we would run into something with as fast as he took some of the turns and dips further down into the mountain, so I just concentrated on the beat of his wings echoing off the cave walls and prayed I’d eventually find my way out safely.

We rounded one last curve and light spilled over a vast open room full of the small beasts. I quickly shut my eyes when the volume became deafening, but I’d caught that they were all perched in rows, from floor to ceiling, around the perimeter of the large room.

Great. The main course had finally arrived on a spear. Even with as nervous as I was, I managed to stay still and keep my eyes closed.