“Mary Bell?” Dell asked. “You’re Iris’s daughter. And Kegan’s mother.”
Mary nodded. “We all saw what you did to save Sarah, and that might give us a fighting chance.”
“Us?” Dell asked.
They appeared from thin air. Hundreds of them, each of them dressed in the same clothes that they died in, and Dell was surprised to discover many of them in maid’s uniforms, which meant that Sarah was right. The Bells had been luring women into the house to kill them.
Dell stood, his eyes peeling away from the hundreds of people that surrounded him, and turned his attention back to Allister and Mary, who stood side by side. “So we’re dead?”
Allister frowned. “Well, that’s what’s so strange. We’re dead.” He gestured to the circled ghosts. “But you’re not.”
Dell blinked, his brain growing foggy with confusion. “How is that possible?” He pointed back toward Satan’s army in the valley. “Those are—”
“Demons, yes,” Allister said. “But as I mentioned before, we’re not in hell. It’s possible that this… purgatory, is able to consume living tissue.”
“So what does that mean?” Dell asked.
Allister and Mary both slowly lowered their eyes.
“What are all of you—GAH!” Dell’s ankle gave out and he collapsed to the rocks. He reached for the hem of his jeans and pulled up the pant leg and then widened his eyes in terror.
Icy scales appeared just above his shoe and slowly crawled up his leg. He reached down and touched one, and it multiplied under his finger. He quickly retracted his hand and rolled down his jeans.
Suddenly, Dell’s body sickened. And it wasn’t just a physical pain. The poison spreading up his leg and coursing through his veins also affected his mind, exposing the darkest corners and unearthing the worst memories of his mind.
He saw his father leaving, and he relived the ridicule from his classmates, the embarrassments of his youth. The images flashed in his mind like a vile highlight reel, the moments passing quickly and slowly at the same time, forced to relive his shame.
It was an endless pit that he was cast into, and Dell thought he would fall forever. But it was the touch of a gentle hand against his cheek that pulled him from the darkness, and when he looked toward the light, he saw only one face: Sarah.
The darkness faded, and when Dell came to, he realized he was holding Mary Bell’s cheek, and she was holding his. Dell quickly let go and retreated, embarrassed.
“You saved her,” Mary said.
“Sarah’s alive?” Dell asked.
“Yes,” Allister answered. “You took her place. And now she has a chance to end this.”
Dell frowned. “How?”
“The orb,” Allister answered. “It is the key to opening the portal and unleashing the armies of hell onto Earth.” He looked to the horizon and the valley of demons that surrounded them. “When the gate reopens, the dark lord will use the energy from our souls to propel his army onto Earth. That’s why we were collected. That is our purpose.”
Dell deflated, unable to comprehend the insanity of his situation. He kept waiting to wake from the dream, but the images that surrounded him did not fade. He was stuck between hell and Earth, surrounded by the dead and demons, and on his way to becoming one himself before vanishing into nothing as hell was released upon the mortal world.
79
Dawn pierced the horizon, the first rays of light breaking through the barren trees. Winter’s breath had stripped them of vegetation, transforming them into sticks that stretched toward the early grey blue of morning.
Sarah had sprinted into the woods, churning her legs as fast as they would carry her while her heels smacked the uneven earth covered in dead grass and leaves. Her muscles and lungs burned, but she didn’t slow down. She didn’t stop. Because while she had escaped the clutches of the Bell family, she still felt the shadow of their reach clawing at the back of her neck.
Eventually the cold, exhaustion, and fatigue overrode the fear propelling her forward, and Sarah slowed, then collapsed to her hands and knees, dropping the sack she’d carried from Pat’s house. She sucked wind, her lungs burning with every breath.
It was the first time she’d stopped since leaving Pat’s place. No, she thought. There never was a Pat, just a witch who managed to trick her. Whatever idea of Pat she thought existed, she had to push from her mind.
Sarah tilted her head up, catching the silhouettes of a few trees that blocked the sun struggling to gain momentum over the mountains. There was no wind, no rustling of dead leaves, no chirp of birds or animals, nothing but silence and Sarah and the still earth beneath her.
She wiped the sweat from her forehead, smearing some of the dirt across her skin, and then shifted to her side, sitting on her hip. She was trembling and freezing. Sarah frantically reached for her pant leg and rolled up her jeans, finding the pale flesh of her legs. Not icy scales, her own skin.
Sarah carefully ran her fingertips along her skin. She laughed, choking on the excitement, then quickly examined the other leg, finding it bare of any frosted blue scales as well. She checked her arms and hands and lifted the shirt to examine her stomach. They were gone. She was cured.
Sarah collapsed on her back. Tears of joy leaked from her face, but she wiped them away, knowing that if she was alive, it was only because of what Dell had done.
Sarah turned to look at the sack on the ground. She stared at it, hesitant to once again open Pandora’s box. But it was the only lead she had, and Sarah wasn’t sure how much time she had to figure it all out.
Sarah grabbed the bag and dumped its contents onto the cold soil, then opened the first
