The Dirt on Ninth Grave - Darynda Jones Page 0,117
it. He reached in and drew out a beautiful round pendant. It was really a locket, but the top piece was clear glass. Inside was a smooth jewel, the likes of which I’d never seen before. My vision laser-locked onto it like a homing beacon. I sat transfixed. Wherever it went, my gaze went.
James laughed, delighted with my reaction. “It’s called god glass. And if you just happen to be a god, like you are, you will see the untold treasures of a dimension accessible only through this glass.” He seemed almost jealous of the things I saw. The dancing light. The shimmering water.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “How can that be a hell dimension?”
“There are many kinds of hell, love.”
The pendant emitted a soft glow of colors. “Why send me there? Why not just kill me?”
“Someone didn’t pay attention in God Composition 101. You’re a god. Gods cannot be killed except by another god. But they can,” he said, holding up an index finger, “be trapped. Especially one that has amnesia and can’t remember that it’s a god. But even then, there are rules. A set of conditions that must be met for the transport to take place.”
“Which are?” I asked to keep him talking. I squinted, gritted my teeth, made grunting sounds, all in an attempt to stop time. I finally gave up. Clearly I had a faulty timer.
“The only way to trap a god is if it takes physical form first. It can be anything from a houseplant to a kangaroo, but once the god chooses its form, one drop of its life force – in this case your blood – and the recitation of the god’s name, and that god is trapped for all eternity. Unless, of course, the being who put it there, and only that being, decides to set it free. There is no other way out.”
“If you put me in there and then you die, what happens then?”
“No more mocha lattes for you.”
“So it really is like hell. Only worse.”
He laughed softly, then took out a handkerchief and polished the glass.
I gave him a blurry once-over. “I guess you have nothing to worry about, then, being soulless and all.”
“Not true.” He tapped a corner of the kerchief on his tongue and continued to polish.” I am a sentient being. I have an essence, an aura, if you will, just as you do.”
“But it’s not like a human soul.”
“Neither is yours,” he said, seemingly offended. “And thank goodness. Human souls don’t tend to fare well. They were not created to survive the psychological atrocities of a hell dimension. The priest brought a soul back once. A young girl from a French village not far from where he lived. He’d fallen in love with her, and when her father refused the priest’s offer of marriage, citing age as the main reason – the priest was in his forties and the girl was twelve —”
“Ew.”
“— the priest sent her soul to hell.”
“To punish her. And her father,” I said, knowing how men like that thought.
“Very likely. But obsession is a tricky thing. Her family took care of her catatonic body, but she was no longer the vibrant girl he remembered, the one he fell in love with, so for the first time, he opened the portal again and called out her name.”
I eased up in the chair, my curiosity growing. “What happened?”
“She woke up at home in her body, but according to his writings, she came back… different. He called her a berserker, most likely because she knew what he did to her and she screamed every time he came near.” He leaned in, his voice full of intrigue. “But she became quite famous for a gift she’d received thanks to her time in a hell dimension. The gift of sight.”
“Like psychic?”
“Indeed. She went by many names, but you know her as Joan of Arc.”
Astonishment sent a pulse of electricity over my skin.
“Read the history books. There’s a reason she refused to give out her real name to anyone ever again.” He straightened his shoulders and said, “Enough. Let’s get on with it, shall we?”
He turned to give the box to one of his minions. In that instant, Dead Guy appeared beside me and whispered into my ear. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I have no choice but to leave you now.”
Alarm clutched around my heart. “You’re leaving me?”
“Be ready.” And then he was gone.
James turned back, took the pendant in both hands, pushed the latch on one side,