Giving Him Hell_A Saturn's Daughter Novel Read online

  “If they can,” Andre agreed. “You really sent Dane to hell?” He almost sounded impressed, if I disregarded the amusement.

  “Don’t laugh, Montoya,” Max mimicked in irritation. “Acme’s version of hell apparently has permeable boundaries.”

  “Dimensions,” Andre corrected. “We’ve been blasted through one of the dimension boundaries. I thought that was only possible in the Zone.”

  They were literally talking around me. And for once, I had nothing to say. Nothingness felt real to me. Just dark. And hot. But not fiery and filled with lost souls. Dimension hell almost made sense.

  Both Max and Andre had experience in walking through dimensional veils, although Andre had claimed he’d crossed time, which was how he made his occasional unreliable predictions.

  “Do we go looking for mirrors?” Max asked.

  That’s how I’d found him after I’d sent him here the first time.

  Before I could start worrying about my cat or the various people who might possibly miss me, Andre squeezed my hand. I wasn’t dead yet. My hormones responded predictably, even after I’d just boffed Max. Guess head sex didn’t last long. I started wondering if I could do the same with Andre.

  “There’s always a way out,” Andre informed us. “It’s just a matter of finding it.”

  “Party pooper,” I muttered.

  Andre chuckled as if he knew how I’d responded to holding his hand.

  Max didn’t laugh. They’d both been through war and various kinds of hell, so they were entitled to their own way of dealing with life-sucks moments. Mine was apparently to think about sex.

  Or get angry, but who would I get angry at besides myself?

  “I don’t think I can fling a flaming compact at Dane’s head and visualize us out this time,” I warned. “So how do you suggest we get out of here?”

  “The compact was probably a one-off,” Max agreed. “Not helping here.”

  He’d used the contact with the compact’s mirror to enter Dane’s body from the hellish dimension he’d inhabited at the time. Much too complicated to repeat, for sure.

  “When we’re out of here, I want to talk about Max being alive when Dane’s body is out there,” Andre muttered, apparently attempting to process what little he knew.

  “Don’t question us when you’re our dimension walker,” I retorted.

  Andre had told me that Acme’s chemicals had tossed him into other dimensions. He’d always found his way out. Maybe he could do so now.

  Except—we’d been associating the dimensional phenomena with the Zone. We weren’t in the Zone now. All bets were off.

  “Don’t see any mirrors into the world. Gloria probably didn’t have any. Should we go to the light?” Andre suggested.

  “I see a light at two o’clock,” Max agreed.

  “Got it. Let’s go, boys and girls,” Andre said.

  Not liking the dark, I kept a firm grip on both their ethereal hands. I could see a bit of twinkle ahead, but it didn’t pose much hope. One didn’t exit space through stars, after all.

  I couldn’t see, but all my other senses were tingling. Andre’s hand was tight around mine. Andre was not a hand holder, so I assumed the grip indicated he was as unhappy about our situation as I was. I hoped he wasn’t as scared out of his wits as I was. One of us needed his thinking cap on.

  I didn’t think we were in Gloria’s cellar anymore, Toto.

  I felt a slow thump, thump, as if feeling a giant pulse. And now that I was more or less functioning, I thought I could smell the crap our witch doctors had been burning, along with hearing their chants and rattles.

  “Not liking this, guys,” I said, just to hear something besides the insides of my head as we walked. Or thought about walking. Or drifted like ghosts. Real hard to say.

  “For good reason,” Andre said. “They’re probably splashing our bodies with holy water and rum and calling an ambulance. We need to get back or they’ll be pumping us full of stuff that will really mess us up.”

  “You’re jiving me, right?”

  “Hell . . . heck . . . if I understand it,” Andre said, belatedly covering up what we all feared. “But some part of us found each other, and that part needs to get back where we belong.”

  At least Andre was sounding bossy instead of talking in that weary, disjointed way he had when he’s stressed and fading fast.

  The bad part was that our dimension walker didn’t recognize this dimension—but Max did.

  “Don’t suppose it would help if we shout or sing?” I said in discouragement. “I’m kind of missing that red ragey thing that makes it so easy to just whack someone.”

  I felt both men glare at me. I shrugged. If I was going to die or wander lost forever, I wanted them to recognize that I was more than a misfit lawyer. They both knew a little about me, but even I didn’t know everything I could do.

  “Maybe it’s time you tried doing something useful instead of whacking someone,” Max suggested. He was closest to understanding my dangerous abilities since I’d killed him with them. Well, not exactly, but close enough.

  “You caught Tim without being red ragey,” Andre said. He hadn’t actually seen me do anything, but he’d seen the results.

  “You’re the dimension walker, Legrande. And Max found his own way out of hell,” I said, feeling helpless after my bit of braggadocio. “What makes you think I’m of any use here? Is that light any closer?”

  It didn’t seem to be.

  Seventeen

  I took a deep breath, smelled rat poison or incense or whatever Witchita Hagatha had been burning, and I tugged my companions to a halt. That I had the strength to stop two hunks who towered over me said something about this dimension.

  I didn’t hear medics or sirens. Yet. How long had we been out? Medics would make a special effort for a comatose senator.

  “I don’t understand one milligram of this,” I warned. “I’m hot.” I’d just had the steamiest orgasm of my life, but that wasn’t what I meant. “I see nothing. I can’t even see the two of you or my own hand. But I smell incense, and I think the rattling is louder.”

  “We’re still connected to the world through our corporeal bodies,” Andre said. He’d had some experience in dimension walking, so I listened. “But whatever makes us—us—is here, on the other side of the veil.”

  “We’re really holding hands in Gloria’s kitchen?” Max asked dryly.

  “Shut up, Max. Let me think.” I glared at the light that didn’t seem to lead anywhere. “I do stuff by visualizing. How do I visualize our souls popping back where they belong?”

  “Not easily. Keep moving while you’re puzzling that one out.” Andre tugged us on down the tunnel.

  The tunnel, with a white light ahead. Not sounding good. Andre could still be responding to his suicidal tendencies. I’m all about staying alive.

  “All right, we’re mentally or metaphysically connected somehow,” I decided, refusing to move. “If I can picture men as frogs—”

  “Frogs?” Max inquired with interest. He hadn’t been there for that episode.

  “Shut up, Max,” Andre mimicked me. He’d been there.

  “Can we picture our bodies sitting up and talking?” I continued, ignoring the boys.

  “Go with whatever you did to catch Tim,” Andre suggested. “That didn’t involve illogical rage. You’re whacko when you lose your temper.”

  True. I didn’t do a lot of thinking when my head was full of fury. “I don’t want to diminish your opinion of me, but I failed to turn a turd into a frog the other day,” I warned.

  “But you did a really bang-up job with the gnomes,” Andre countered. “How is that working for you?”

  “Shut up, Andre,” both Max and I said.

  “Can either of you feel the walls of this tunnel?” I demanded, since my hands were otherwise occupied.

  They obediently stopped and felt around.

  “Okay, that’s weird,” Max said. “I don’t feel anything, but I c
an’t push through. It’s as if nothing is there and maybe I’m nothing.”

  “Don’t say it, Andre, or I’ll send you back as a toad,” I warned.

  Andre snorted in amusement but obediently refrained from calling a senator a nothing. “That’s how it is over here. Although usually, I see things, not just this black hole.”

  “It was worse where I was before,” Max said. “It took a while before I could see and hear other people. I could sense the source of the heat and avoided it. And then I found Justy’s mirrors.”

  I could hear the fear and disgust in his voice. Or non-voice. He had a right to be afraid. We were trapped ghosts with no visible way back and people were about to haul off our bodies. I was too freaked to do more than shiver.

  “We don’t have too long if they’re hauling us off to hospitals,” I said, thinking aloud. “The docs couldn’t help when our friends went comatose, which is what I guess we are right now. But everyone in the Zone came back after Acme’s generator was turned off. I don’t think that works for us.”

  Especially since I figured Saturn had granted my wish that time, by bringing the Zonies back from la-la land, and the generator had nothing to do with it. I’d had to kill a mad scientist to earn a wish large enough to save a village.

  There was nothing evil down here for me to kill.

  As if in response to that thought, a haunting wail emerged from the direction of the light. I would have jumped out of my skin if I’d had any. The intensity climbed until the resulting explosion of noise bounced off invisible walls while we covered our invisible ears.

  Above us, the maracas and chanting grew louder.

  In the distance, beyond the light, I swore I saw a blue blob. It glowed briefly. The scent of incense became overpowering. The heat intensified.

  And then Gloria’s face melted in demonic laughter in a fiery ring between us and the light.

  “Damn you, Gloria,” I shouted.

  To my astonishment, the laughter turned to screams of anguish.

  In terror, I visualized Dane’s chilly kitchen and the sanity of chanting witches and voodoo doctors.

  ***

  “Miss Clancy moved!”

  I was shuddering and my ears were still ringing from that ghostly wail, but I thought I recognized Father Morrison’s soft voice rise in triumph.

  “Yeah, another live one here.” The maracas stopped shaking. “Hagatha, you saved a senator yet?” The voice was mocking.

  Swell. Our priests were having a competition over our dubious souls.

  Before opening my eyes to whatever havoc reigned, I took inventory of my body’s bruises. I could damn well feel them now. I ached in every bone.

  I was lying on an icy floor with cold drafts on my feet. I’d worry about catching pneumonia going from the heat of hell to Dane’s icy kitchen, except I couldn’t figure out if a heated soul worked the same as a cold body. Waaaay too much thinking involved. And I’d just proved that fear worked better than logic in this voodoo world.

  My essence wriggled with the memory of orgasmic sex, but my body didn’t. It just felt bruised from head to toe. Weird.

  Dane’s physical body had been burned, I remembered. I tentatively raised a hand to my aching head and pried my eyelids open.

  I wanted to shut them again, but unholy fascination prevented it.

  The professor looked even more primitive than I remembered. He was wearing face paint that resembled dried blood. His ratty hair was coming undone and the bones were rattling loose. He practically had his big bare feet in my face. They were painted crimson.

  I eased up on one elbow to watch Hagatha rub unguents into . . .

  Oh damn, she’d stripped Dane nearly naked. His charred clothes were piled in a stinking heap by the kitchen counter.

  Dane was one muscled dude, even if his burns now glistened with grease and smelled of scorched herbs. He shifted, apparently feeling the cold floor beneath him. And I’d just had soul sex with him? My gaze drifted downward, but Hagatha had left a towel over his privates. Sweet of her.

  I reached over and poked his ribs so he’d turn my way and wake seeing me instead of the witch’s wrinkled visage.

  His eyes opened and he almost smiled, until the priest sprinkled holy water over him. The curse he uttered wasn’t heavenly. Or dignified. Yep, Max was still in there. Arrogant politician Dane would probably have just died of humiliation or threatened to sue someone.

  I turned my head the other way. The prof was standing between me and Andre, which was why I got a big whiff of crimson toes.

  Andre was fully dressed, darn it. Apparently they’d just stripped Dane to address his burns. Bruises didn’t rate extra attention.

  “Wake up, Legrande, or they’ll start anointing you with chicken gizzards.” I couldn’t kick him. The prof was in the way. I had to drag myself into a sitting position and shove past knobby knees to poke him. I seemed to be dressed as well.

  “Go away, Clancy,” he muttered. “I’m trying to wish myself home.”

  I chuckled. “Good reaction but not happening.”

  I leaned my bruised—but solid—bones back against a kitchen cabinet and shoved away a feather Hagatha was trying to brush in my face. “I don’t suppose anyone called ambulances or fire engines or anything sane like that?”

  “No, why would we?” Father Morrison asked with honest innocence. “The authorities aren’t likely to believe in exorcism. And it’s probably best that they don’t know the senator was involved in one.”

  Hearing my own words thrown back at me had my eyes rolling, but I accepted the stupidity, for now. “Get moving, Senator,” I said grouchily. “It’s not getting any better if you just keep lying there. Better hang onto your towel, though.”

  “Bathrobe,” he ordered without opening his eyes. “Top of the stairs, to the right.”

  No one moved. With a sigh, I studied our exorcists. “Did you get rid of Gloria or will I be walking through a towering inferno if I use the stairs?”

  I remembered seeing her in the nothingness and hearing cries of anguish, but I’d also seen blue blobs and had soul sex. I wasn’t sure I hadn’t been having the weirdest sex dream of my life.

  Had I just visualized us to safety because I’d been terrified? I’d study on that later.

  “The tree is now ash and we’ve seen no more of the demon,” the priest reported. “It’s difficult to say if all is well, but all appears normal, and the evil emanations seem to be gone.”

  Maybe I’d finally released Gloria from Zone limbo into a real hell. If it wasn’t in a law book, I really didn’t want to know.

  “Fine, then.” I stood and looked around.

  Hell’s cellar door had melted and it looked as if the patio and back door had been bombed. Blackened timbers had collapsed into a hole below the floor. I blinked, then looked at our exorcists. “This is normal?”

  “The demon left and closed the door,” the professor said with a shrug.

  I poked Andre with my toe. “Up, Legrande. We need contractors before Hell’s Mansion falls into the cellar.”

  That brought both my slacker boyfriends to a sitting position. Taking one more long gander at Dane’s gorgeous body, I moseyed on out to the front rooms in search of clothing.

  The swinging door into the hall had been blown off its hinges. A blackened stain in the shape of a pentagram marred the terrazzo tiles of the foyer. I had a clearer idea of why they hadn’t called medics.

  I craned my neck upward to search the ceiling three stories above me. I didn’t see any exit holes from the tree’s rocket launch. It must have burned up in the atmosphere—which stank of sulfur.

  I jogged upstairs and located the messiest bedroom. Expensive clothes were scattered everywhere, as if Max/Dane had expected a servant to pick up after him—a luxury both men probably had experienced growing up. Fortunately, Max hadn’t risked crisping anyone by employing them in this hell hole.

  I found a plush navy robe and some slippers and carted them back down.
I could feel the ache of bruises from being sucked through doors and into walls. I was still a little woozy, but mostly I wanted a giant pizza.

  I met Hagatha packing up her boxes in the foyer. She glanced up at me with a puzzled frown and sniffed, as if I was the one who stank of rancid herbs.

  “Very powerful vibes,” she said, shaking her head. “You shouldn’t need us. If you wish lessons, let me know. The coven would welcome you.”

  Oh yeah, just what I needed, a coven of witches in my life. I’d sooner call on Max’s biker friends. I might, at that. Several of them were good carpenters. Witches . . . not so much, I bet.

  “Thanks, I think,” I told her. “I’ll help you with those in a minute. We owe you big time if you got rid of the demon.”

  “She’s gone,” the witch said, bobbing her head affirmatively. “We trapped her and sent her back where she belongs. No worries.”

  I refrained from snorting. My life was one big long worry. I’d just seen Gloria in a ring of fire one dimension away. “Send the senator a fat bill. He can afford it. But if one word leaks out . . .”

  She waved me off. “It won’t or we’d lose all our D.C. business. You have no idea what evil can be summoned by a bunch of demented politicians.”

  I had no idea and didn’t want one. Just the thought of heads of state calling up demons to do their dirty work sounded too probable to me. That would explain a . . . heck . . . of a lot.

  I dropped the robe on Dane and joined Andre at the blackened hole where the back of the kitchen had been.

  “The cellar was just below here,” I said.

  “Still is,” he said, studying the gaping maw where a floor should have been. “But it looks like molten lava with barrels.”

  Gloria’s rusted chemical drums had been solidified into the crud.

  Father Morrison sprinkled the last of his holy water across the hole. It didn’t steam. Whatever had melted was now solid rock. “We sealed the portal to hell,” he said as if he did this every day.

  Belting his robe, Dane came to stand beside us. I was overly aware of his height and breadth and nakedness. I told myself it had been Max down there in that hellish dimension, not Dane, but my long-neglected body wasn’t convinced.