waist. “What do you say we put you to good use? How do you feel about an audience?” His hands were rough as they struggled with the buttons on my bodice.
“If she does belongs to Jake and he finds out, who knows what he’ll do ….” The boy called Nash sounded nervous.
“Shut up,” Yeats said and turned to the first boy. “Diego, help me hold her down.”
“Get your filthy paws off her,” said a voice so menacing it could have cut through steel.
Jake materialized out of the shadows. His dark hair was unbound and, coupled with his furious expression, it gave him a look of animal-like ferocity. He appeared a good deal more dangerous than the others. In fact when they stood side by side, the three youths looked like amateurs or naughty schoolboys who’d been caught breaking the rules. In Jake’s presence they lost their cockiness and looked paralyzed with fear. He seemed to tower over them and had an air of authority that made them cower. If there were echelons of power in Hell, this trio must have occupied one of the lower orders.
“We didn’t know she was, uh … spoken for,” Diego said apologetically. “We wouldn’t have touched her otherwise.”
“I tried to tell them she was …,” Nash began, but Diego stared him into silence.
“You’re lucky I’m in a good mood right now,” Jake hissed. “Now, get out of my sight before I put you on the rack myself.” They scurried back to the pit from where they’d come like jackrabbits. Jake offered me his arm as he led me away. It was the first time I was actually glad of his presence.
“So … how much did you see?” he asked.
“All of it.”
“I did try to warn you,” Jake sounded genuinely sorry. “Would you like me to try and erase the memories? I’ll be careful not to touch your old ones.”
“No, thank you,” I said numbly. “It was something I needed to see.”
9
Lake of Dreams
EVERY day that passed without news of Venus Cove added to my misery.
I could think of nothing but what I was missing in the lives of those I loved. I knew they must be frantic with worry. Had they guessed where Jake had taken me or were they ready to file a missing person’s report? I knew if I were held hostage anywhere on earth, the divine powers of my siblings would track me down. But I had no idea if their radars could reach deep into the core of the earth. When I thought about my family, I remembered the simplest things; the way my brother used to experiment in the kitchen, handling food as though it were art; the way my sister used to braid my hair with a skill only she possessed. I thought of Gabriel’s hands and the way they could make any instrument bow to his will and Ivy’s river of golden hair. Mostly I thought of Xavier; the way his eyes crinkled gently at the corners whenever he smiled; the smell of his car after we’d eaten burgers and fries in the Chevy overlooking the ocean. Although I’d only been gone a few days, I grieved for every moment that passed. Worst of all was that I knew Xavier would be blaming himself and I couldn’t do anything to ease his guilt.
Time became my biggest enemy in Hades. On earth it had been so precious because I didn’t know when it would run out, but here it was drawn out and immeasurable. The tedium was the hardest to bear. Not only was I a prisoner in Jake’s soulless world, I was also an angel in Hell and treated with either scorn or morbid curiosity by its elite. Most of the time I felt like a sideshow freak. There was something about the place that seemed to eat at me from the inside like a cancer. It was easy to give into it — stop thinking, stop fighting — and I could I feel it happening to me. I was terrified by the idea of waking one day no longer caring about human suffering or whether I lived or died.
For days after stumbling across the lake of fire and its associated horrors, I fell into a deep depression. I had little appetite, but Hanna was patient with me. Jake’s assistant, Tucker, had been assigned as my personal minder and was always around though he rarely spoke to me. Together they became my constant companions.
They were in my room one night as usual, Hanna trying to coax me into eating a mouthful or two of the broth she’d prepared and Tucker diverting himself by crushing paper into balls and tossing them into the fireplace to watch them ignite. I pushed away Hanna’s offer of dessert and watched her face crease into a mask of stress. Tucker looked up and shook his head at her in tacit communication. Hanna let out a heavy sigh and set down the dinner tray while Tucker went back to poking the embers in the fire. I curled myself into a ball at the end of my bed. The old Bethany Church felt dead and buried. I knew I would carry the horror of what I’d seen around with me forever.
We all started when we heard the soft buzz of a key card and Jake let himself into the room. He was obviously so sure of his authority that he hadn’t felt the need to knock and was totally oblivious to having impinged on my privacy. He seemed to believe round-the-clock access to me was wholly within his rights. I saw Tucker stand up and linger self-consciously, as if he should be making himself useful, but Jake ignored him and marched over to where I lay, regarding me carefully. Unlike Tucker, I made no attempt to get up or even turn my head to face him.
“You look awful,” he observed. “I hate to say I told you so.”
“I don’t want to see you,” I said dully.
“I thought you’d understand by now that there are far worse things in this place than seeing me. Come on now, you can’t blame me for what you’ve seen. I didn’t create this place even though I may have some jurisdiction over it.”
“Do you enjoy inflicting pain and torture?” I asked in a hollow voice, looking up to meet his eyes. “Do you get off on it?”
“Steady on,” Jake sounded offended. “I
“But you know it’s happening,” I insisted. “And you do nothing about it.”
Jake shared a bemused look with Tucker, who was frowning at me as if he thought I were an idiot.
“And why on earth would I try to stop it?” he asked.
“Because they’re people,” I said weakly. It was always so exhausting talking to Jake. It left me feeling as if I were running in circles and getting nowhere.
“No, actually they’re souls of people who were very bad in life,” he explained patiently.
“Nobody deserves this — no matter what their crime.”
“Oh, really?” Jake folded his arms. “Then you have no idea what mankind is capable of. Besides, they all had the choice to repent and they chose not to. That’s how the system works.”
“Yeah, well, your system stinks. It turns good people into monsters.”
“And that,” Jake said, wagging a finger thoughtfully, “is the difference between you and me. You insist on seeing man as inherently noble even when all evidence suggests otherwise. Humans — urghh!” Jake shuddered. “What’s noble about them? They eat, they breed, they sleep, they fight — they’re nothing but basic organisms. Look what billions of them have done to the planet; their very existence is polluting the earth and you blame us for it. If humans are God’s greatest achievement, he seriously needs to review his design. Take Tucker, for instance. Why do you think I keep him around? It’s to remind me of God’s fallibility.” Tucker’s face flushed crimson but Jake seemed not to notice.
“People are much more than that,” I replied, partly to cover up Tucker’s humiliation. “They can dream and hope and love. Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“Those are usually worse off because they’re so delusional. Empty yourself of compassion, Bethany, it won’t serve you well here.”
“I’ll die before I become like you,” I said.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” said Jake breezily. “You can’t die here. Only the earth entertains such ridiculous notions as life and death. Another one of your father’s little quirks.”
I was spared the effort of challenging Jake further when we heard voices in the hall and a woman sailed into the room with all the aplomb of a celebrity.
