and bustled off. "Hall of Burning Flesh?"
"Sounds like such fun! Are you coming?" Diamond asked, trailing after Margaretta.
"Er . . . no, I think I'll pass on the flesh-burning breakfast."
"Pfft," Diamond said, giving me a cheery wave. "This isn't Abaddon, after all. I'm sure they won't burn anyone's flesh at the breakfast. That would be totally unhygienic. See you later!"
I looked upward, at the sky, as if an answer to all my woes would be written there, but there was nothing but brownish gray sky that led down to the stark, inhospitable landscape. "Could this day get any weirder?"
No one answered me, for which I was strangely relieved. I decided that if I had a better chance than most at getting out of the (probably quite literally) godforsaken spot, then I'd best be looking around to find that way out.
I wandered around for what could well have been days. I know it was at least a few hours, because my shoes were beginning to show wear from the sharp rocks. The color of the sky didn't change, however, and I didn't seem to find any way out of the rocky-moor area, assuming Margaretta wasn't full of bull about there being welcome breakfasts in what sounded like the civilized part of the Akasha.
"I swear I'm going around in circles," I muttered under my breath as I glared suspiciously at a car-sized boulder vaguely in the shape of a hand flipping the bird. "You look familiar. Right. I'm going to go that way this time." I moved around the rude rock and came to a dead stop. Lying on the ground snuggled up next to the base of the boulder was a man. At least I thought it was a man.
"Hey. You OK?" I asked, not wanting to get close, but at the same time wanting to make sure he wasn't hurt or something. "Mister? Dammit."
I crept closer, my skin twitchy as I neared him, the devil in my mind pointing out that it was just last week that I'd watched a horror movie where a body that looked dead actually wasn't, and had leaped up in a manner guaranteed to cause incontinence in viewers, subsequently ripping the unwary couple who stumbled over it to shreds with long, razorlike claws.
I checked the guy's hands, but there didn't seem to be any signs of claws. As I neared him, I adjusted my image of someone who might need help, to someone who was long past it.
"Oh, you poor guy." I squatted down next to his head, taking in his gray skin, and cheeks so sunken, the cheekbones stood out in painful relief. His mouth was a slash of gray the same color as his flesh. He wore what was probably a very expensive weathered black suit coat and pants, but was now covered in the same brown dirt that tinted everything in the Akasha. His hands bore long, sensitive-looking fingers, the sinews that stood out on the backs of his hands lending credence to the fact that he was dead. "Did you die out here all by yourself? I wonder."
There were no obvious signs of injury, no blood, no mangled limbs. . . . It was as if he'd simply lain down and died. A strange sense of sorrow filled me at the sight of the man. He looked almost familiar, but as I studied his face, I realized that it must have been a trick of the shadows. Still, I felt an inexplicable, frustrated need to help him. Perhaps there was someone I could call to take care of his remains? Someone who would clean him up and give him a decent burial. I brushed back a lock of hair that lay across his forehead. His hair was dark brown, almost black, sweeping back from the brow down to about ear length. "When you were alive, I bet you were quite the hunk," I said, gently combing his hair into a semblance of order, wishing I could wash the dirt from his face.
Without thinking, my fingers trailed down the length of his jaw, his slight stubble rasping softly.
"Very hunky," I said, unable to keep from noticing the gently blunted chin, and barest hint of a chin dimple that had he been alive, would have driven me wild. His nose was long and narrow, but with a couple of little bumps in it that most likely owed their existence to acts of violence. "Were you a fighter rather than a lover, then?"
A brown