Giving Him Hell: A Saturn's Daughter Novel (Saturn's Daughters Book 3) (34 page)

The ex-senator staggered around with a face full of cat fur. His gun skidded across the floor. Max grabbed Milo, bless his heart. I’d love him forever for that. He nearly collapsed under the weight of Mighty Cat, but Milo was apparently in a hurry to escape and went willingly, draping over Dane’s big shoulder like a fur stole.

MacNeill fell to his knees, still screaming. I hadn’t really noticed his screams amid the others but it was eerie and high-pitched now, kind of joining with the Force’s shriek.

I pried off Andre’s hand and shoved him toward the entrance. “Tell our voodoo priests to dance harder.” I still didn’t know if I’d exorcised the demon. I didn’t feel so powerful that I wouldn’t welcome a little help.

The cracked concrete floor couldn’t hold much longer. I leaned over and tried to haul my victim back to his feet. Saving MacNeill’s soul from damnation wouldn’t do much good if he was buried under ten tons of tunnel.

Not that I knew I’d saved him yet. I just still had that problem with the death penalty for folks not legitimately convicted in a court of law.

Andre shot me a look of disgust, leaned over, and hauled a squalling MacNeill to his feet.

A cracking groan emerged from below us, as if the meteorite was shattering like the tunnel. I’d ordered Saturn to close the portal to hell. Stupidly, I hadn’t really believed he would.

I had to believe now. A huge chunk of concrete fell from the ceiling, smashing not a yard from our heels, obliterating the gun—thank you, Daddy. Milo leaped off Dane and raced for the entrance.

Not as smart as my cat, Max grabbed his father’s other arm.

“Blue, this is your chance!” I shouted, inhaling enough dust to make a garden gnome as we ran for the entrance. “Get out, get out, save yourself if you can!”

I had no way of knowing if he heard, if he could, or if I was just batshit nutso. I just wanted the poor creature to be safe. He gave no evidence of hearing me.

More tunnel ceiling dropped in a shower of concrete and dirt in our path. We scrambled over the hunks, hauling MacNeill, who seemed dazed and without any idea of what he was doing. I could hear chanting and singing and . . . gunfire? firecrackers? . . . above as we tumbled over the mountain of concrete, one step closer to escape.

The shriek crescendo reached a peak similar to that of Gloria and her tree going up in flame. I knew that noise. I grabbed both Max and Andre and held on as the vacuum whoosh of the hell hole closing hit us.
Again
.

The vacuum power yanked MacNeill out of our grasp, and he flew backward into a mountain of rubble, landing hard. I hung on to Andre and Max as best as I could, but we all collapsed into a heap on the floor, fighting the suction with our combined weights. Max and Andre each wrapped an arm around the nearest concrete debris and another around my waist.

This time, we weren’t dragged across an entire mansion and slammed into a wall. The rubble may have saved our lives. Or our souls. I wasn’t in any condition to work it out.

We huddled in a ball until the source of the vacuum blast was sealed off. Which, of course, was when we heard a more ominous rumble.

I’d really done it this time if the meteorite was being sucked into hell.

Thirty-two

We all grabbed various parts of MacNeill and hauled him upright, then ran as fast as our bruised and battered legs would take us to the entrance. The rumbling grew louder.

We must have looked like gray ghosts when we emerged from the ground, into the sunlight. Even the witches backed off. Maybe they thought they’d raised the dead.

The earth cracked in a growing pattern behind us. I wanted to stop and kiss the ground and rejoice in the sky and breathe clean air. We didn’t have time.

“Run!” I shouted, pointing in the direction of Milo racing across the field to Edgewater.

Andre was right on my heels, barking orders to his various employees, who began running for the street.

Leo already had part of his cop team herding tourists back to their cars as the dirt beneath our feet shook and the cracks widened in the harbor mud. The rest of his men dashed up to the industrial park to set off alarms and warn the workers to evacuate.

Taking their bodyguard status seriously, Lance and his boys grabbed a staggering Max/Dane and hurriedly hauled him toward the waiting cars. Max ordered them to get me, but I wasn’t cooperating.

I dodged the boys and ran toward a bewildered Paddy. He stood at the front of the crowd with his bicycle, trying to sort out the unscientific action in his scientific head. I dragged him in his son’s direction, and ran into the crowd, madly shouting, “Follow the cat!”

Milo had a habit of escaping unscathed and was as good a leader as any.

Intelligently, half the crowd obeyed and fled the crumbling, cracking harbor toward the safety of the pavement. The other half lingered in fascination as the hell hole belched gas, dust, and magic particles for all I knew.

Releasing Paddy now that I had him moving, I grabbed Hagatha’s elbow and forced her to hurry despite her usual dithering. Her coven ran faster.

Slowly realizing the ground was falling out from beneath their feet, the rest of our audience began running for the hills or their cars.

The field shook and groaned, but this time, no water shot into the air.

The priest prayed aloud as he ran. Dr. Voodoo shooed his scattered students off the cracking dirt and kept them on our heels. I think they were dancing with happiness as they pounded their drums and shook their maracas and lithely scrambled for safety. A real live demon razing must have added to their curriculum knowledge.

The ground continued to crack and rumble as a sea of humanity fled up Edgewater. I feared if I looked over my shoulder, I’d turn into a pillar of salt. Or run into someone.

The news crews were torn between filming imminent disaster for the noon news and getting their padded rear ends to safety. When they finally panicked at whatever they saw behind me and ran up the side streets toward town, I knew it had to be bad. Still wasn’t looking. The crashing, banging, cracking cacophony was scary enough.

I kept my eye on Milo. He maintained his pace so I could see him, but he was heading toward my office and home, exactly where I wanted to go.

Alarm sirens screamed at the plant. The gargoyles shrieked for a minute or two in accompaniment, then dropped into sullen silence. I glanced at the one on the florist’s shop, and he shrugged at me.

Professor Nganga helped me haul a huffing and puffing Agatha up the steeper part of Edgewater. The blacktop seemed to be fine, for a change. The uproar behind us was dropping from train-rushing tornado volume to the steady pounding of hurricane-sized smashing ocean waves.

Miraculously, the air held only dust and a lingering stench of sulfur—no pink particles or poisonous green gas.

MacNeill’s limo rolled to a stop beside us and the driver leaned out. “The senator said I should take you outta here. Hop in.”

I opened the door and pushed Agatha inside. I gestured to Father Morrison to join her and lifted a questioning eyebrow at the professor, but apparently thinking about his students, he shook his head. A few more of the elderly witches trampled up, and I waved them inside. It was a limo. It could hold them.

The younger witches seemed to have partnered with the voodoo students, and they were all chattering excitedly and taking pictures of the devastation with their phones. With the invulnerability of youth, they had no interest in escaping the most exciting adventure of their lives. Only the elderly understood how senselessly life ended.

I could hear the Harleys roaring off in the wake of Max/Dane and his father’s car. Nearing the crest of the hill, I was finally forced to look over my shoulder for Andre. He was walking backward, watching the destruction of the harbor.

And what a lovely obliteration my curse had caused. I watched in awe.

The entire contaminated zone—from Acme all the way down to the old chemical plant—was separating from solid ground and tumbling into the bay. I didn’t think anyone would be fishing there anytime soon. Pillars, docks, rusted smokestacks, burned-out chemical tanks, all crumpled and spilled into the water with the cracking ground. Waves lapped against the blacktop where the Dumpsters used to dance.

The garbage cans had worked their way up the alleys to avoid rusting out their bottoms.

Clouds of dust settled over the landscape, but the blue neon buildings still gleamed through the gloom.

“Perhaps I should believe in the priest’s God,” the professor said thoughtfully. “It wouldn’t hurt to have all the deities on our side.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking we need all the good gods we can summon, because the bad ones are out to get us.” I watched another chunk of real estate fall into the harbor, followed by a puff of smoke.

Acme and the other plants were on a hill, far enough above the devastation for their walls to be safe. But broken pipes hung off the side of the newly formed cliff. The pump to hell wouldn’t be extracting meteorite anytime soon.

“Bye-bye, Blue,” I said mournfully. Maybe the meteorite would protect him, but without his pipes and wires, he’d have a hard time spying on the Zone again.

I didn’t intend to take credit for anything. Turning, I found my cat waiting patiently outside my office. Ned held the door open, but Milo wouldn’t enter until I did. Checking to make sure that Andre wasn’t breaking his neck walking backward, I hurried on with the professor and the students.

A crowd awaited us inside my lobby, standing around the blinking Christmas tree as if this were an office party. Katerina and Julius, looking worried, hugged me briefly, then harder when I told them Andre was right behind me. Cora and Sarah were pumping coffee from my giant urn and sharing with anyone who held out a hand. They’d gathered most of the town up here to safety with their telephone calls, so Andre had a royal audience when he finally entered.

“Think Acme is still interested in buying out the Zone now?” I called from my perch on Ned’s desk. I was still pumping adrenaline and my head hadn’t completely processed the fact that Andre had almost sold us out, then walked through hell to save me. Well, he’d been Special Forces and suicidal in his past, so there was the crazy quotient to consider . . . but we’d had amazing sex and he’d scared me shitless, and I just couldn’t handle the roiling emotions any longer.

The room got quiet as we awaited Andre’s verdict.

My mouth was gritty with dust, and I was shaking like a leaf, so I sipped coffee and pretended nonchalance. My court of law was pretty weird, but I tried to stay in command of it.

Black silk wasn’t pretty when covered in thick layers of grime. Even Andre’s glossy black hair had dulled to the gray of old age, but there was nothing old about the fire in his eyes when he reached me.

He yanked me off the desk, spilling coffee everywhere. Before an audience of all our friends and neighbors, he kissed me.

I had no clue why. I’d been pretty damned obnoxious. But it was better than being strangled. Far, far better. Confusion cast aside, I fell into the contact with great enthusiasm, wrapping my arms around his neck and digging my fingers into his filthy hair and exchanging heated breath and lots of tongue. We both stank from sweaty fear but who cared? We celebrated being alive, bodies still intact.

He yanked me closer, and I would have been climbing his legs, except loud applause broke out, and I had to shove him away.

“I take it that means it’s back to business as usual,” I said, still shivering but for a different reason as we pulled apart.

“If they don’t condemn the entire Zone,” he agreed with a shrug. “We’d better let the city inspectors verify the town is stable before we return to work.”

“So we’ll still need representation on the city council,” Katerina said, rolling up in her chair.

At Andre’s reluctant nod, his mother gestured. “Back to our petitions, children! Where’s Jane? We need a press release immediately. Ned, come with me—” She rolled off, leading her army of adoring slaves.

Julius stopped to examine us both. “The story, please, over dinner. Shall I expect more lawsuits?”

“MacNeill,” I warned, coming back to ground with a hard thump. “And the skeletons. We should find out who went missing while working over there.”

“Not now on the skeletons,” Andre warned. “They’re buried under a ton of debris and half the harbor. And your boyfriend walked off with the evidence. Find out about MacNeill.”

Grasping that skeletons beat out civil lawsuits, Julius waited.

I called Jane in my apartment to tell her it was safe to return, then punched in Max/Dane’s number. He picked up immediately.

“Justy, why aren’t you in the damned limo? I need you and not batty witches to deal with this mess!”

“No, you need a doctor for Mikey and your PR person to deal with the explosion at Acme and a board meeting to put someone else in charge besides daddy dearest. And while you have him with you, you’d best start talking to Paddy for a change and pass the board meeting on to him while you quietly disappear into your mansion and have a fundraiser complete with nuns. If the media captured any photos of you with a voodoo priest, you’ll never survive Christmas.”

His sigh was loud and expletive laden. When he calmed down, he asked wearily, “Where are you? Is everyone okay?”

“I’m in my office and my partner is gearing up to sue anyone who moves and his wife is petitioning for a seat on the council and you’d just better lay real low. We have no idea what the damages are. Gloria’s trust fund might be better put to work repairing . . .” I looked for a proper PC description of blowing up hell. “Repairing the Zone’s infrastructure after today’s devastating collapse of Civil War tunnels.”

“Right.” I could almost see him pinching the bridge of his nose as he adjusted his thinking. “Mikey is raving. We’re at the psych unit now. Want to tell me what really happened?”

“You think I have a clue?” Shrugging at Julius and Andre, I took the phone to my office and closed the door to continue this conversation. “I think he was possessed. I can make up theories all day long, but if Gloria opened a hole to hell in her basement—and demons or whatever creepiness you want to believe infected her—then there’s some chance the same thing happened to Mikey.”