I broke the surface, grabbing onto a log rushing past. Then I screamed because it wasn’t a log. It was Jonah.
He was charred and bark-like, his red hair patchy, but while unconscious and still cuffed with the magic-suppressors, he was alive. I didn’t know if this was an illusion or Levi had actually fricasseed him somehow, but I was pretty sure that using him as a floatation device was not bucket list worthy. Since I couldn’t help him until I found Levi, I released him and swam for shore.
Hauling myself out, I found myself confronted by a dense forest made of twisted metal spikes. Set into this impenetrable wall was a door barred with a rusted, heavy lock. I wrung an orange puddle of lava out of my shirt. “I played nicely with your ghost face and your stupid magmafall, but I’m done.” I held up the ring on the chain. “Show yourself right now or I’m out of here.”
With a creak, the spikes grew taller and more twisted.
“Yeah, you didn’t protect me. Accept it and move on. This self-flagellation is getting old, Levi.”
The ghost face appeared again, the eyes glaring at me.
I twirled a finger between the lava river and the spike forest. “Then this isn’t you playing martyr? Okay, must just be you throwing a tantrum like a little kid.” I rolled my eyes. “Jonah is a necromantic dick. I lived. I have a pretty good track record of doing that. Now punch him in the face and let’s move on already. I’m hungry.”
Jonah’s body flew out of the river, once more unblemished. Well, until he flew face-first into some of the spikes and his nose shattered. I had a feeling that back in reality Levi had smashed him into the concrete hallway wall.
“Happy now?” I raised an eyebrow.
The lock banged against the door, still very present. Was this what he’d learned to do growing up, making more and more elaborate worlds to escape into whenever real life got to be too much? Was this still how he was spending his adulthood?
I swear, I was getting him some new hobbies when I got out of here.
I tried to break the weather-beaten lock with my enhanced strength, but I didn’t even dent it. “Why are you making me work so hard? It’s me.” Manifesting lock picking tools, I set about opening it. It was so choked with rust that by the time I succeeded, my arms were aching and my hands were so sweaty that I almost couldn’t hold the lock picks.
The sound of that damned lock hitting the ground was one of the sweetest ones I’d ever heard. I wrenched open the door and stepped through.
I found Levi less than a minute later. He stood outside the open jail cell door, his head thrown back and his eyes completely black, a whitish blue magic pouring out of him like he was an evil video projector.
While the cell was visible, the rest of the isolation ward wasn’t. Levi was still surrounded by the metal spikes. His arms were outstretched as if he was conducting an orchestra, but his entire body shook under the weight of this illusion and corpses had rosier tints to their skins than he did.
I checked his eyes. They’d gone totally dead. There was no light to them, no awareness whatsoever.
“Levi?” I whispered. No response.
I repeated his name louder and more sharply but there wasn’t even a flicker that he’d heard. He’d never been unresponsive before.
My heartbeat thrashed in my ears. I grabbed him by the shoulders shaking him. “Answer me, damn you.”
Levi remained motionless, his arms frozen in what mockingly resembled a victory pose. This wasn’t a win. I was down and out in the last quarter and I needed a Hail Mary.
The easiest solution would be to tug on his magic. Just enough to shock him to his senses. I licked my lips, anticipating the taste of scotch and chocolate, then stilled. What if I couldn’t stop?
I rocked back and forth, my head buried in my hands. Sight, hearing, touch, all gone. That left taste and smell. If neither of those worked... I straightened up, my spine rigid. We’d wasted years dancing around each other. I wasn’t going to lose him now.
Clasping his face in my hands, I rose onto tiptoe and kissed him. It didn’t work.
“Fight, you stubborn bastard.” I kissed him again.
His arms dropped to his sides.
Yes. Cupping the nape of his neck, I brushed my lips against his again, pouring all my feelings into it: trust, care, longing, need.
He eyes blinked open, his irises once more a clear beautiful blue.
The normal world flicked back into view.
“If this is how I can have you, then I’ll take it,” he said and rested his forehead against mine.
“Excuse me?”
He laughed and touched the spot between my eyebrows. “Did you know when you frown, your eyes crinkle up, and I want to kiss you? I did. Good thing, right? Or how would I have created that now?”
“I’m not an illusion.”
“You’re real to me. I don’t care. Just don’t leave.”
“Is that supposed to be romantic? You idiot.” I punched him. “It’s really me. You think being sent to Sheol would kill me?” I made a raspberry noise. “Bitch, please.”
“Don’t mess with me.” He paced the length of the hallway like a caged tiger, refusing to meet my eyes.
Dread skittered through me. “I’m not.”
Pain flashed over his face. “You got locked in Sheol. The real Ash got herself out of a lot of impossible scrapes, but even she couldn’t do that.”
“You’re right. This is an illusion, but I’ll never leave you, baby. How could I? You’re perfect and you’ll always protect me.”
He stopped pacing.
“Also, I think Miles and I are going to be great friends for the
