All Who Wander Are Lost (An Icarus Fell Novel) (11 page)

The next sconce was
a smaller, more feminine arm. We passed a wooden door, fiery roman
numerals blazing on its surface: MMI. It took me a moment to recall
my schooling and recognize it as two thousand and one–twenty-oh-one.

“
Looks
like you chose the right way.”

We continued past a
more doors and more sconces, each arm different than the previous.
One was considerably smaller than the others, created in the image
of a child’s. It sagged at an awkward angle, as if it had
trouble bearing the weight of the torch. I examined it as we went by
and realized it quivered with effort; as I watched, it went slack.
The torch dipped, flaming oil dripping onto the stone floor, then I
heard a whip crack and a muffled cry of pain. The torch came up to
level again.

I hurried to catch
up to Piper.

She’d stopped
in front of a door, the numerals MMXVIII emblazoned on its surface.

“
Here
it is,” she said.

“
Here
it is,” I agreed.

Neither of us
reached for the door knob. The air in the passage suddenly seemed
thick, filled with the smoke of the torches. I raised my hand toward
the knob with more effort than it should have taken, as though I
lifted a great weight along with it. I felt Piper’s eyes on me
and my cheeks went red, embarrassed at having trouble completing
such a basic task in front of this beautiful woman.

Open the damn
door.

My fingers brushed
the brassy knob—warm to the touch but not unbearable. I
gripped it, cranked it, and threw the door open, each movement
pronounced like a stage actor ensuring the people at the back of the
theater saw my actions.

A sickly-sweet
smell wafted from the room, a mix of flowers and something rotten. I
hesitated before crossing the threshold. I hadn’t seen
Elizabeth Elton in many years, since I was nineteen, when I had
scraped together enough money for a less-than-modest basement
apartment in the cheapest part of town. Beth was twenty years older
than me and lived upstairs with her abusive boyfriend and two
children born of different fathers—neither of them him. We got
to know each other one day when her man was gone on a multi-day
drinking binge. Sometimes I watched the kids for her while she was
earning money however she could; sometimes I shared her bed when the
boyfriend was away. I don’t know if he found out, but one
morning I woke up and they were gone.

She was the first
woman I ever loved.

We stepped into the
room and closed the door because there’s no telling what might
come traipsing down a hallway in Hell. An orange couch which looked
like it had been rescued from the side of a road sat against one
white wall streaked with smears of dirt. A coffee table and two end
tables provided resting places for half a dozen vases of flowers:
roses, carnations, and other blossoms of types I couldn’t
name. The flowers drooped, loose petals shed onto the dingy beige
carpet. Magazines with dog-eared covers spilled across the tables
and a picture of a sailing ship navigating a stormy sea, its captain
lashed to the mast, hung askew on the wall over the couch.

“
A
waiting room in Hell?” I asked rhetorically.

Piper provided her
now customary shrug and went to the door in the left wall. Four long
scratches marred its surface, the curls of wood carved from it
littering the floor below. I didn’t want to meet whatever made
the marks.

“
It’s
locked,” she said jiggling the knob.

“
Let
me try.”

I coaxed her out of
the way, careful not to touch her, and tried the door myself.
Locked, like she said. I threw my shoulder against it. Nothing.

“
We’re
not getting through this without a key.”

“
What
do you want to do, then?”

I looked from
Piper’s bluer-than-blue eyes to the couch and the disarrayed
magazines. “I guess we wait.”

We
sat on the couch necessarily closer than I felt comfortable with to
avoid some questionable-looking stains. I felt heat from her thigh
and shoulder only inches from mine and picked up a magazine to
distract myself from the probable rise of lust it would cause. The
issue I chose seemed like it would do the trick: the spring 2008
issue of
Torturer’s
Quarterly.
An
overhead photo of a man, his limbs humorously elongated as four
horses pulled him to pieces, adorned the cover.

Who knew Hell had
its own publisher? Everything I’d ever read about the
publishing industry suggested it shouldn’t be a surprise. We’d
probably find a few used car lots down here too, and a plethora of
law firms.

I flipped through
the pages, curious but trying not to look too closely at the
pictures. Piper sat straight and motionless beside me, staring at
the door. I turned pages and fidgeted, sometimes brushing her thigh
and feeling a wave of static electricity flowing through me. I
scooched myself as far away as the stain beside me—definitely
not a coffee spill—would allow.

After an
indeterminate amount of time measurable only by the flipping of
one-hundred-and-twelve pages of stomach-turning pictures and
articles explaining how best to insert bamboo under fingernails, the
lock on the door clicked. I put the magazine down over the ugly
stain and we both stood as the door swung open and a young woman in
a nurse’s uniform, her features disfigured like she’d
had a facelift go horribly awry, poked her head into the room.

“
Ms.
Elton will see you now.”

Piper and I looked
at each other—me with a disbelieving expression plastered on
my kisser, her looking like she wondered if I’d be chivalrous
and offer for her to go first. I was tempted, given we didn’t
know what lay on the other side of the door, but I couldn’t
bring myself to let her take the lead. Given the fact that those
muggers murdered me some months ago, perhaps chivalry is dead.

We stepped through
the door and traded the flowery-rotten smell for a rotten-flowery
one. The room was larger than the waiting room but with earthen
walls and no furnishings, decorations or trappings. A pit I couldn’t
see into from where I stood opened in the center of the dirt floor;
Beth huddled against the far wall, shivering. At the sound of our
entrance she curled herself into a tighter ball, face hidden in the
crook of her elbow.

“
Beth?”

I took one step
forward before electricity shot up my arm as Piper put her hand on
me, halting me. Elizabeth peeked out from behind her arm and her
eyes widened, her shivering stopped.

“
Icarus?
Is that you?”

“
Ric.
Yeah, it’s me.”

She stood and I saw
blood smeared on her thin, bare arms and the flesh of her legs
showing through the tatters of what once was a sun dress. Despite
her condition, it didn’t seem she was injured, and I wondered
to whom the blood belonged.

“
What
are you doing here?”

“
I
came for you.”

The look on her
face changed. She’d never been a beautiful woman, but the
smile helped things a bit.

“
Really?”

She walked toward
me, shoulders back and toes of her bare feet dragging along the
floor the way dancers walk during a performance. I didn’t
remember her walking that way when I knew her; perhaps they gave
dance lessons in Hell.

“
Really,”
I said glancing at Piper who watched passively. I guess I’d
hoped she’d look a little jealous with the exchange. She
didn’t.

When Beth had
crossed halfway to me, a bell rang—not an alarm bell or
someone summoning the butler, but the brassy clang of a ring bell at
a boxing match. Her smile vanished and revealed terror hiding
beneath. She turned away like she’d forgotten me and went to
the edge of the pit where she sat with her legs dangling over the
edge. I raised an eyebrow at Piper; not surprisingly, she shrugged.
We watched and, a few seconds later, the growl of a dog boiled up
out of the pit. A second growl made it a chorus.

“
Beth?”
I took one step toward her.

As disconcerting as
the growls were, it was the small, high-pitched voice which halted
my step.

“
Mama?”

“
Luke!”

Beth’s
youngest child; three-years-old last time I saw her. Her other boy
had been five.

What was his
name again?

“
Brandon!”

That’s it.

The growls turned
vicious and one of the boys cried out. Beth screamed. I wanted to
rush to her but didn’t, my head spinning. Nearly twenty years
had passed; I didn’t need to be a mathematician to realize her
sons should be adults.

“
Help
her,” Piper prompted, touching my elbow. The shock of it
jolted me into action.

Everything became a
blur. The children screamed, their cries overwhelmed by the snarling
dogs. Beth cried and screamed, stood and cursed at the dogs.

“
Leave
my boys alone, you fuckers!” Her hands were balled into fists
at her sides, all the sinewy muscles beneath her skin pulled tight
as she leaned forward.

“
No.”

I reached for her
and my fingers brushed the fabric of her shabby dress as she jumped
into the pit. Stumbling, I went head first to the dirt floor and
would have tumbled into the pit after Beth if Piper hadn’t
grabbed me. I looked at her and nodded my thanks then pulled myself
to the lip of the pit to see if I’d be able to salvage Beth’s
soul.

I wasn’t
ready for what I saw.

Both the boys—aged
near what I remembered them—were awash in blood. The dogs were
backing away from Beth, tails between their legs, and she held her
sons one under each arm. She sat with a puff of dust, pulled them
both onto her lap. The youngest, Luke, mewled like a kitten unable
to draw milk; Brandon silent and unmoving. Sobs tremored through
Beth’s shoulders as she wrapped her fingers around her sons’
throats and squeezed.

“
Beth!
Wait, no.”

I scrambled to go
over the edge of the pit but Piper stopped me. I reached toward
Beth, fingers clutching empty air. A minute passed; Luke pulled at
his mother’s grip, but his struggle soon stopped. After three
minutes, Beth let go and stood.

The dogs growled
and stalked toward her.