Lord of Hell (Alex Holden) (4 page)

“What if there are souls left behind?”

You’ll figure out something. You always do.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, buddy.” I scratched behind his ear.

After an hour or two, the gods started coming up to me, thanking me for my hospitality and the gift of souls. All of them took some, but after the last god had left, half the souls still remained.

“Now what?” I sighed. “Sure, they’re not being tortured anymore, but this is still Hell, not any kind of paradise.”

Mew-Mew flicked his tail.
So why don’t you make one? You can do whatever you want in this realm. Create your own Elysian Fields.

“Holy shit, you’re right.” It was so obvious I could’ve slapped myself. “I could turn this into something nice, with trees and grass and bright sunlight.” I reached in my pocket for the black key. I didn’t think I really needed to hold it, but it helped me focus.

Why not put it next to the castle? That way you’d have something nice instead of all that screaming,
he suggested.

“Yeah, I could put it out back, like a huge garden.” That made me think of flowers, and flowers made me think of Elliot. “I could have Elliot help me design it.” The ultimate perfect garden. That was right up his alley.

I projected my voice so the dead could hear me. “I’m going to build you a paradise, the beautiful afterlife you deserve. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I set Mew-Mew down and stood. “You can help me with the rough draft. We’ll make something nice to put them in for now and improve on it later.”

We went to the area behind the castle, which was currently filled with people who’d murdered their own children. With a shove of power, I moved the forest of souls on pikes far out from the castle, next to the other murderers. It was a bit like shifting giant tiles on a game board.

Working from the bare slate-colored rock, I first filled the area with grass, adding a few rolling hills at the back.

How about a stream?
Mew-Mew suggested.

I added a stream and a lake, and a forest off to one side. A blue sky with a few fluffy clouds, paths through the forest, birds singing in the trees. “I think that’s good enough for now.”

I went back to the huge plain, which looked even more dull and depressing after being in the newly created paradise. Wondering how I was going to move all these souls, I tapped my foot. It was a bit more delicate of an operation than shifting a whole section of Hell. I took a long, deep breath and closed my eyes. Holding the black key tight in my hand, I focused on the souls below and shifted them to the paradise.

When I opened my eyes, they were all gone. I went to make sure they’d arrived. The souls were walking through the green grass and tall trees, staring around with wide eyes. I wandered around for a bit, smiling to see them in a beautiful place.

A huge yawn stopped me. It had been a long night and my eyes were starting to droop. I went home to my apartment and fell asleep with the scent of Hell still clinging to me.

***

When I got up, it was almost noon. I had text messages from Stefan and Emily, asking how it had gone, and some messages from Hayley. We’d talked on the phone, but I hadn’t seen her all week. I’d been too busy talking to gods and trying to find misplaced souls a new home. She’d asked how it went, when I thought I’d be home, and in the last message, had asked me to call her.

So I did.

“Alex, where were you? I started getting worried.”

“Sorry. It got late and I went straight to bed when I got home.”

“How did it go?”

“Good. The gods took about half the souls, so half of them are still left, but Mew-Mew came up with the idea that I could make a paradise for them. I can change Hell however I want, so I did. They have a nice place now, a happy little bubble inside all that horror.”

“That’s good. So they’re all somewhere nice now?”

“Yep.” I smiled. They wouldn’t suffer anymore. I couldn’t make up for all the time they’d been tortured, but I could give them a better future.

“So do you have time to hang out, then?”

I felt a little pang of guilt. When we were in school, we saw each other every day, and now I hadn’t seen her in a week. “Yeah. Are you free today?”

I heard the smile in her voice. “Sure. Can I come over now?”

“Yeah.” I got up and realized I was in my underwear. I’d stripped my clothes off, leaving a trail on the floor. I needed to get dressed in clean clothes. Oh, and I still smelled. “Uh, give me a half hour, though. I need to shower.”

“As much as I want to see you, I’d rather have you clean.” She laughed. “Okay, half an hour.”

I scrubbed until I got rid of the smell of smoke and despair. Clean and dressed, I went out to the living room to wait for Hayley. When she got there, I gave her a hug and a lingering kiss. It had only been a week, but with all that had happened, it felt like longer. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.” She took my hand. “So what do you want to do?”

“I’ve done so much traveling lately.” Even though I could go anywhere with just a thought, it was still being away from home. “Would you mind if we just stayed in and watched a movie?”

“Sounds good to me.”

We curled up on the couch and Mew-Mew joined us. Hayley sat up and blinked. “I can see him.”

“Huh?”

“You said he’s a ghost now, but I can see him.” Her expression was both curious and afraid.

I want her to see me. Should I disappear? Or leave?
He tilted his head.

“He says he wants you to see him. Does it freak you out too much?”

She glanced over at me. “No, it’s just… I’ve never seen a ghost before. But at the same time… I know him.” She started to lift her hand and paused. “Will my hand just go through him?”

I shrugged. “Try it and see.”

She put a hand out, her fingers brushing his head. “Oh! He’s solid.” She sank her fingers into his fur, giving him a good scratch. Mew-Mew purred and moved closer. “A ghost cat.” She smiled. “Life with you is never boring.”

“I hope not. If you thought dating the ruler of Hell was boring, you’d have
serious
issues.”

Hayley laughed and gave me a playful smack.

Chapter 5

The next day I called Elliot. “Hey, you know how you said you wanted to help?”

A pause, and slowly he said, “Yeeesss…”

He was probably afraid I’d ask him to do something crazy. “I have the perfect thing for you. I want you to design a garden.”

“What?”

I told him about the paradise I’d made in Hell. I needed to come up with a name for the place. Calling it a paradise was accurate, but a name would make it specific. Maybe my cult could talk about how they wanted to end up there after they died. Okay, that was creepy. “You can plan the perfect garden for it. Any kind of flowers you want, even stuff that doesn’t exist.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Could I do more than flowers? I mean, I have some ideas for landscaping orchards and lawns and all sorts of things.” He definitely spent way too much time watching HGTV.

“Dude, anything you want.”

“This is awesome!” I don’t think I’d ever heard him so excited. Then his enthusiasm dropped as he asked, “Do I have to go down to Hell?”

“I think it would be best if you did. But don’t worry, I’ll take you right to the paradise. You won’t have to see any of the scary stuff.” It definitely needed a name. Maybe Elliot would have some ideas for what to call it.

“Promise?”

“Yeah, I promise.”

I don’t know how Ares had such a flower-loving wimp for a kid. Then again, Satan had me. We had some things in common: anger and a rebellious streak a mile wide. But Satan hated humans and thought they should be his worshipers and servants, while I… Well, I guess I love humans, in my odd way. Especially the misfits.

“When do you think you’d be able to come down? Tomorrow?” The way he dragged his feet with most of my suggestions, I was surprised by his enthusiasm.

“Yeah, I can’t wait. I can sketch some plans tonight. I can seriously do whatever I want?”

“Sure. Even impossible things. It’s my realm, I can do anything. So if you decide to have, like, a waterfall that flows up, I can make it happen.”

“This is the best thing
ever!
”

“So I’ll come get you around—”

A prayer slammed into me, urgent, desperate, a dozen voices shouting in my head, calling for help.
Alex, help us! We need you! Everything is shaking!

Distantly, Elliot asked, “Alex? Are you still there?”

“I’ll call you back.” I hit the End Call button and dropped my phone on the couch.

The panicked voices kept shouting. I wished I could tell them to quiet down so I could concentrate, but it was a one-way connection. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on one voice amid the shouting. I picked out Tim’s voice, locked on to him, and teleported.

They weren’t kidding about everything shaking. “Holy shit!”

The kids in the group home were crouched with their arms over their heads, faces pale, and two of them were crying. My brain froze for a few seconds, and then it clicked. I’d lived in California for months, long enough to have gone through minor earthquakes. Except this was Indiana, not exactly earthquake central.

I glanced around for things to hide under. There were the beds, but there wasn’t enough room for all of them to fit.

“Alex!”

I turned and spotted Tim just as something crashed. “Everybody grab hold of each other. I’ll get you out of here.”

Something heavy in a nearby room slammed against the wall. It would be much better if I could get them out of the building. It wasn’t exactly built to be earthquake proof. Tim kept one arm over his head and grabbed the girl next to him. A few others linked hands.

“Grab on!” I repeated, and put my hand on the closest boy’s shoulder. I hesitated just long enough to make sure everybody was touching, then I teleported them out of there.

Outside, the ground rocked and things toppled over, but we were far enough from the building or any trees to be out of danger. Tim tried to get to his feet and stumbled to his knees. “There’s still people in there.”

“Shit.”

The noise of the earthquake was so loud I’d missed the shouts of the kids in the other rooms. I closed my eyes and tried to block out the rumble. Frightened voices filled my head, and I zeroed in on the loudest and teleported back in. There were fewer kids in this room, and a tall shelf had fallen over. The loudest prayer was coming from under it. I shoved it aside to find a dazed and bleeding girl. I grabbed her hand and shouted for the others to hold on. In seconds I was back outside with the second group.

“You okay?” I asked the girl. Blood trickled from somewhere on her head, and I couldn’t tell if it was a scrape or something worse.

“I don’t know.” Her eyes were wide and dazed.

Car alarms shrieked, the ground kept rumbling, things crashed and broke. The earthquake seemed to go on and on. A huge jagged crack went through one side of the group home, and for a moment I was afraid the whole thing would collapse.

Finally, the rumbling stopped.

Except for the car alarms, everything was silent. The blood pounding in my ears was almost as loud as the earthquake had been.

“Oh my God,” one of the kids said in a breathless voice. “Was that an earthquake?”

“Yeah,” I said. I knew earthquakes were possible anywhere, but to have one that was so violent and so long in an area that didn’t have a lot of seismic activity? What was going on?

Down the block I heard people shouting. All around the neighborhood things were broken, houses cracked and sagging. Some garages had fallen in; fences and trees had toppled over. The blacktop on the far side of the street had buckled several inches and a car was tilted into the long crack. At the end of the block, a house lay half-collapsed.

“Oh, fuck.” I’d gotten the kids out, but how many people were trapped and injured in their houses? They didn’t have earthquake drills here and most people probably didn’t know what to do.

“Someone check her and make sure it isn’t bad. I’ll be back.” I took off running down the block to the collapsed house.

“Hello? Anybody in there? Are you okay?” I waited but didn’t hear anything. What time was it? I looked up. Middle of the day, so most people would be at work. So maybe no one was home. “Hello?” I called again, projecting my voice. I winced as it came out louder than I intended.

“Help!” a voice shouted from inside.

The door was locked, but I kicked it open. It got stuck halfway on the warped floor. I stepped in carefully, aware the whole house could fall apart any minute. “Hello? Where are you?”

“Over here,” the voice called, quieter this time and obviously afraid.

I followed the voice to the collapsed part of the house. In the broken mess, an old man lay pinned under part of the wall. “Hang on, I’m coming.”

I stepped carefully through the rubble and pushed the wall off him, then offered my free hand. He blinked at me and stared for a moment at the way I was holding up the wall.

“Come on.” I moved my free hand closer.

He grabbed it and tried to get up, but grunted with pain. “I think I broke my leg.”

I considered what to do for a second. I could probably keep holding the wall and pull him out of the way, but it would be awkward and might cause him more pain. Or I could teleport him out of there.

I would make a shit superhero because I suck at keeping my powers hidden.

The old man exclaimed in surprise as we appeared on his front lawn. “I didn’t want to freak you out, but this was the fastest way to get you out of there.”

He blinked up at me. “How…? What did you do? What happened?”

“I got you out of danger. Don’t worry about it. I’ll go get one of my friends to sit with you until an ambulance gets here.” I glanced at the house, making sure I’d moved him far enough away. There was a tree on the other side of the yard, but it showed no signs of falling over.

A few people had cell phones and called an ambulance for the old man and the girl. Her injury didn’t look too bad, but head wounds were nothing to mess with. The adults from the group home were out in the yard. I felt a little guilty about leaving them inside, but it hadn’t occurred to me to look for them. They were all fine, though. A few bumps and scrapes, nothing else.