Giving Him Hell: A Saturn's Daughter Novel (Saturn's Daughters Book 3) (28 page)

“Andre can see your blue form. If you can send it up there, maybe he’ll follow you down too. You’ll like talking with him.” Just call me a silver-tongued devil.

Interesting. I am very tired. I will try to send the projection above for a brief period. Then, it is rest time.

We work, we produce, we rest, yeah, I got it. “Do you have a name?” I asked, hoping to keep him talking.

We do not have names. We just are.

I could sense his departure. I closed my eyes and sent a prayer to Saturn. Being buried alive didn’t seem like a fair ending. I should have at least taken out a few more villains before I died.

If only I knew who the villain was in this picture, I could damn him and wish Saturn to get me out of here.

The temptation was strong to damn Graham Young and then wish for escape, but he wasn’t any more evil than most of corporate culture as far as I was aware. And the evidence seemed to point at MacNeill more than Young on the eminent domain. Still, greed didn’t make him guilty of crime much less evil.

Maybe I should curse my absurdly sensitive conscience.

One cautious, painful step at a time, I eased down the tunnel. Remembering escaping from beneath Hell’s Mansion through sheer terror, I tried visualizing myself safely above ground. Nothing. I tried cursing Gloria again. Still nothing.

Maybe I needed to be more specific. I tried visualizing a hole above me. No light appeared. I pictured Andre digging at the rubble in the tent with shovels and backhoes. Didn’t hear a sound.

I was running out of ideas in the face of failure.

The only thing that kept me moving away from the place where I’d entered was the tug of voices. I really needed to know that someone was looking for me.

The hideous shriek wailed louder. An enormous bat flew out of nowhere. And the floor fell out from under me. Again.

Twenty-seven

The dirt carried me deeper into the earth on an avalanche of debris. Admittedly, I freaked. I cursed and tried to scramble up the slide while it was sliding. My wounded leg screamed in agony.

I really needed a villain to vent my rage on, but I only had myself. I was sort of avoiding damning myself. Being buried alive was probably better than eternal damnation. Probably. I hadn’t reached maximum freak-out yet.

Visualization was safer . . . but I’d already proved that once I did it on someone, it didn’t work again. So I’d resist visualizing myself out of this mess until I had no choice.

The air in this lower level was worse than outside, far worse. Sulfurous fumes gagged me, but I had to breathe. I remembered tales of miners dying from toxic gas below the earth. Mines couldn’t be much more toxic than this polluted waste-ground I was buried under.

“Are you still there?” I called to my blue friend.

No answer. Did that mean he was resting? Or couldn’t hear me?

I was alone, breathing toxic gas, and buried under the Zone. And now I couldn’t hear anyone—not even the shriek.

I wanted to weep, but I was too frightened, too tired, and too angry. “All right, Saturn, what do I do now?”

Saturn, as always, didn’t answer. “Themis, can you hear me? Want to send some help, please?”

Nothing. That was the rotten part of this blasted Saturn’s Daughter job—I was on my own. If I knew where to turn in my badge, I would—or cut out the tattoo, which was all I had that resembled officialdom.

I dug my boot into the first layer of the slide and reached above me, burrowing my fingers into the loose dirt. It wasn’t much of a handhold, but I could lean against the slanted fall of loose debris and lift the other leg to scoop a foothold for the other boot. It hurt, but not quite as much as I expected.

I didn’t know what good it would do to reach the tunnel I’d just fallen out of, but the blue lights had been friendlier, and I’d heard voices up there. Down here was just nasty dangerous.

Of course, up there had been bats and wailing shrieks, but compared to sulfurous fumes, they didn’t seem so bad any more.

By the third boot hold, I thought I could make out the weird blue glow above. That’s when the loose gravel gave way, and I fell backward, hitting the cement below.

Cement
, I thought groggily, before passing out.

***

“Clancy?”

I groaned and tried to wake, but my head pounded as if someone was beating sledgehammers on it. Multiple sledgehammers.

“Clancy, you’d better be down here or I’ll put up a memorial saying
She gave her all and it wasn’t much.”

“Andre?” I rubbed dirt off my eyes and rubbed my sleeve over my nose. I must have been buried under an inch of crud.

“What the crap have you done now?” he asked grumpily.

“Dug a hole to hell?” I asked tentatively, still smelling sulfur and not entirely clear what had just happened. But I certainly wasn’t cold. “Where are you and can you get me out?”

“Don’t know. Still not seeing you.” Andre’s voice came closer.

“You’re getting warmer,” I said idiotically, leaning my head back against my rock pillow and staring upward, remembering something about a tunnel up there.

And then, Andre’s
essence
was there. I frowned, trying to figure out how I knew that. I waved my arms around, but I couldn’t feel him. “I can sense you, I think, but I can’t see a blamed thing.”

“I’m on the other side of the veil.” His voice was right beside me. “I know you’re there somewhere but I’m not seeing you yet.”

“Oh swell,” I muttered, wondering if I should sit up but lacking the energy. “Gives new meaning to the blind leading the blind.”

“I’m not into philosophy. We need you out of there. They just threw Graham Young into the loony bin. His fascist idiots found a new gun supply, and they’re shooting anything that crosses their path. Stoning them was probably not a good move.”

“Nah, gassing and waking them up was the bad idea. I’d hoped stoning had taught them a lesson.” I sighed. How did one learn what was possible without experimentation?

“Gassing them?”

I could hear him near my ear and had a sense that he was lying beside me. I waved my hand around and thought I brushed against . . . essence. “I could hold your hand when we were under Hell’s Mansion. Why can’t I feel you now?”

“You’re avoiding the question, Clancy. You gassed the gnomes?”

I could swear I felt his hand brushing dirt off my face. “Can you see me?” I demanded. “I can feel you now.”

He chuckled low and sexy in my ear. “I found you. You gonna stop me from copping a feel?”

“Andre, you obnoxious twerp . . .” I tried smacking the hand toying with my chest but naturally, I didn’t connect with anything.

“Am I making you mad enough yet, Clancy? Want to bounce us back upstairs?”

I swear, his hand parted my shirt buttons and slid beneath my bra. My nipples tightened just thinking about it. Except I was in the flesh this time, and he wasn’t, so it was probably just my imagination.

“I tried getting mad. It didn’t work. I need a bulldozer. And if you don’t stop that, you’re gonna lose an arm once they dig me out. Are you comatose again? Hitting the drugs?” That’s one of the ways he slipped out of his body and into the ether—drugs. Exhaustion and emotional overload was another. And apparently being slammed by the Force in Max’s kitchen. Over-achiever was our landlord.

Invisible kisses played along my ear and jaw and my hair practically stood on end. Even invisible, Andre was electrifying.

“I had a bulldozer. I was digging my way down to you when I think one of the thugs shot me,” he admitted. “I’m probably comatose. Or the bulldozer ran over me and I’m dead. Nothing better to do here than to explore tunnels. And you, now.”

I could almost feel his leer as he stroked my breasts to attention. I thought he planted a kiss along my jaw, then nibbled a nipple, but it was all sensation. Good sensation. Forget the bleeding leg. I wanted more. He’d been operating a bulldozer? To find me? I wish I’d seen that.

“Not quite as good as the real thing,” he said with regret, caressing my breast. “If I get you out of here, will you go to bed with me?”

“Andre, you’re a dirty low-down ratfink pig, and if you don’t stop that, I’ll damn you to perdition along with Dane.” I didn’t mean it, of course. His kisses and invisible hands were distracting me very nicely. He’d revved my hormones nearly as well as Max had.

“Not what your body is saying, sweetheart, but go ahead, get mad. Let off some steam. Maybe you’ll move dirt.”

I groaned as he cupped my breast and played erotic games. “Maybe this is why monks are celibate,” I muttered.

“Makes them more powerful when they pray?” Andre asked in amusement. “I’m all for that. Let’s experiment.”

He ran his invisible hand up my red leather skirt and found the elastic of my tights. I nearly rose off the rocks.

“Get mad, Tina,” he whispered. “I don’t think it matters if I can’t pry off your clothes. I don’t think clothes matter when I’m like this. I just need to touch you, and you’ll let me in.”

He did—he touched between my legs, and I did—I opened for him. Next thing I knew, the damned man was inside me somehow, rocking my socks, and the ground beneath us was shaking so hard, dirt fell on my face. The earth quaked. Literally.

I screamed in release, heard Andre’s muttered moan of half shock, half pleasure as he achieved some kind of visceral orgasm, and then the sky fell. Dirt plumed everywhere, coating my face and clothes.

Stunned, I couldn’t move, although no heavy weight pressed against me. I thought I felt Andre still inside me, but not as intense as before. And then he was gone, I was alone, and there was a great gaping hole in the ceiling on my right. I could see the blue bowl of the sky far, far above.

The second greatest orgasm of my life, and this time I was buried beneath the Zone. Crap. Did I only get laid when I was in deep doo-doo?

Dirt and gravel trickled from the ceiling, covering me with fine dust, but not so much that I couldn’t struggle to a sitting position.

“This has gotta stop,” I muttered under my breath, trying to shake the addled languor of great sex so I could return to reality. Other people got knocked unconscious and had concussions. I had paranormal wet dreams.

I was so shaken that I just buried my head in my hands and didn’t attempt to find a way out of the hole that sex had opened. I’m sure there was a metaphor in there. The polluted air made me groggy, but I thought I detected a harbor stench now that I had a vent.

Had I dreamed the Cookie Monster Space Alien too?

***

Ultimately, the cops and firemen used heavy equipment to lower a line down the hole, and Schwartz swung in to haul me out. I snuggled against his rock hard body and clung to reality.

He dumped me unceremoniously on a canvas spread across the polluted mud. People crowded around as Schwartz unhooked himself from the line. I wasn’t sure my head was fully recognizing faces yet. I picked out Cora and Tim in the crowd but not Andre.

Medics were on hand. I think I told them to get their fucking fingers out of my face. I pushed up when they started waving needles at me. I’d had more than my fair share of hospitals and had no intention of ever seeing the inside of another.

They examined my wounded thigh and puzzled over the scratch that had made such a bloody mess of my clothes. I didn’t have the brain cells to puzzle over the lack of pain. I just wanted everyone to leave me alone. I wanted Andre. Where was he?

An idiot journalist shoved a microphone in my direction and risked eternal damnation. I recovered enough of my senses to stop my imprecation just in time. “I need to get out of here,” I muttered.

“You need to go into the hospital for observation,” a worried young medic argued. “There are dangerous fumes down there.”

“Tell me about it.” Fumes that made me dream about Andre had to be dangerous. “Where’s Andre?” I asked, grabbing Schwartz’s arm and hauling myself to my feet.

A bulldozer idled nearby. The tent I’d hidden in was now dust. There was a damned big hole where it used to be. Andre had dug half the harbor trying to reach me? Where was he now?

My head spun a bit once I was upright, so it took me a moment to realize no one had answered my question.

Once I did, my heart sank. I glanced at Cora. She had her garter snake out, writhing and frightening the news crews into standing back. They needed to learn the difference between harmless and poisonous reptiles, but I wasn’t in the mood for enlightening them. Cora’s expression told me I wouldn’t like the answer to my question.

“Take me to Andre,” I insisted. “Right now.”

Medics protested. Reporters yelled questions. Tourists made helpful suggestions. Cops tried to hold back the crowd. I just hoped they were holding back lunatic gnomes as well, because I was starting to understand that Andre’s visit hadn’t been a dream.

Schwartz and Cora took my arms and elbowed their way through the masses. Night had descended while I was down under. Outside the jury-rigged spotlights over the tent, I caught a glimpse of the dark harbor and saw no steaming geysers, no blue blobs, and no gnomes with guns in hand. And no Andre.

We stumbled through the demolished fence and up the alley. Ernesto opened the back door of Chesty’s, and the delicious aromas of marinara and garlic bread emanated from the kitchen. My stomach rumbled. Judging from the darkness, I’d missed half a day and several meals.

Ernesto lifted a hand in greeting, saw the crowd of tourists and reporters following us, and gestured for someone in the kitchen.

Sarah sauntered out, her Godiva hair barely concealing her pointy breasts. She waved a sign advertising free garlic bread.

The crowd behind us wavered. Schwartz chuckled and practically lifted me off my boots to hurry me past Chesty’s back door and the aromas of dinner.

“Let’s scoot before the mob knows what hit them.” He steered us down the next alley, behind a protective Dumpster, out of sight of the masses.

We took the back way home. I wasn’t too steady on my feet, but Cora and Schwartz were strong. And determined. I knew something was wrong.

I didn’t know if I had the strength to deal with it.