When I came back into the tent, Cooper was curled up fast asleep.
chapter
five
Hellement
I lay there wide-awake beside Cooper; I’d managed to wind myself up enough that sleep seemed a distant possibility. On a whim, I pulled off my glove and held my hand above me, staring into the orange and purple flames, wondering at the mysteries that burned within.
Suddenly, the earthen bed seemed to slide sideways beneath me. I was blind, had the sensation of being smothered … and just as suddenly found myself standing beneath a bare yellow bulb on the concrete floor of an all-too-familiar basement. My flame hand was flesh again. I was in a small chain-link dog-pen cell in the corner of the basement; glass jars of memories I’d captured from the Goad glowed beneath the narrow single bed pushed against the gray cinder-block wall.
This was Cooper’s hell, or what was left of it. The hellement was linked to the fire that burned in my hand. I’d dragged Jordan into the hellement to teach him a lesson. It had been an unthinking act in more ways than one; I wasn’t exactly sure how I’d gotten in here during my confrontation with Jordan, and was even less sure how I’d come to be here from the tent.
And what would happen to my body while I was in here? Had I physically traveled here, or was I experiencing a psychic projection? If I’d left my body behind, what if my arm dropped and set me and Cooper on fire? The thought was worrisome to say the least.
“Okay, let me back out,” I said to the chain-link fence and the wall.
“Let me out, dammit.”
Nothing happened.
I tried to swallow down the alarm building inside me. After all, I’d gotten out easily enough before: I’d just willed us back to Jordan’s office, and there we were. It’d been easier than hopping into a pair of ruby slippers and clicking my heels. Only now … now that I was sinking in cold panic and not surging on the adrenaline of righteous rage, it didn’t seem nearly as simple.
Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes to concentrate. If I had made a hell for myself, how would I get in and out? Surely I’d engineer a portal, probably one just like the trans-spatial door we’d put in our old apartment that went to our practice shack in the woods.
I opened my eyes.
Before me stood a big red steel door, just like the one to the shack. I gripped the brushed stainless-steel door handle, turned it, and pulled the portal open.
And found myself lying on my back in the tent, staring at my flame hand.
Well, that wasn’t so bad after all, I thought. My relief was followed by an intense curiosity. What else could I do in the hellement, and what was still in there besides the jarred memories from the Goad’s victims?
I crawled out of the tent, walked to a clear spot on the lawn, and adjusted my skirt so I could comfortably sit on the grass without worrying too much about spelunking ants.
Hey, Pal!
“Yes?”
I’m going to try something. Please keep an eye out to make sure I don’t set myself on fire, okay?
“I’ve been trying to do that all evening, if you’ll recall. And what’s this ‘something’ you refer to?”
A piece of Cooper’s hell survived after I killed the Goad, and my flame is linked to it—I want to check it out a little more.
“Is it clear of devils? Is it stable?”
It seems to be, yeah … but I need to make sure. Thus my wanting to check it out and stuff.
“Do you think you can limit your explorations to an hour?”
Probably.
“Fair enough. I’ll watch for fire and send for help if you’re not back after the hour has elapsed.”
I concentrated on the flames again, and quickly felt the same disorienting shift before I appeared in the basement. The hellement was much as I’d left it; the big red door was behind me now.
So the portal had persisted; I took that as a good sign that I was indeed master of this little domain. On the other hand, maybe I only thought it was little. How far did it go?
The chains on the cell door fell off at my touch and crumbled into dust. No spells were necessary here, apparently. Perhaps the hellement was partially powered by my natural Talent? Spells are just a way of tapping magical energy and redirecting it, after all. Wishing