All Who Wander Are Lost (An Icarus Fell Novel) (27 page)

“
I
know why you’re here.”

“
Wish
I could say the same thing.”

“
You’re
here to rescue souls sent to Hell because of you. I’m one of
those souls. Take me back.”

His grip on my
shirt front loosened and he backed away a couple of steps. The
expression on his face changed from leering menace to a look of
desperation, longing.

“
After
everything you did to me, I’m supposed to be your salvation?”

For a second, he
looked like I’d punched him. For years, I’d often wished
I had, but I resisted the urge—it seemed like there might be
better ways to hurt him right now.

“
This
could be your own salvation, Icarus.”

He added a
sibilance to the last letter of my name, highlighting the fact that
he refused to call me Ric—one more reason to leave the bastard
rotting away in Hell, like he deserved. I didn’t regret
letting Azrael take his soul because of what it meant to him, only
because it caused harm to others.

I stepped closer,
feeling like I possessed the power now. I had what he wanted.

“
Forget
it. You got what you deserved.”

“
Icarus.
Please.”

He grasped the
front of my shirt again, but this time with no violence in the
action, only pleading.

“
You
have to take me to Heaven.”

“
No,
I don’t.”

“
Please.”

He released my
shirt and sank to his knees looking up at me, clenched hands held in
front of his chest.

Begging.

I suppressed a
smile.

“
Please
take me.”

I made a show of
rubbing my chin, considering my options. I shifted from one foot to
the other, scratched my head, then went back to my chin again.

“
Heaven,
huh?”

“
Yes,
please.”

“
And
you think you deserve to go to Heaven?”

“
I
am God’s servant.”

“
And
God’s servant kills people?”

“
That
wasn’t my fault.”

He looked over his
shoulder like a man expecting someone behind him, listening in. I
glanced around, too, but there was nothing but flat plains for miles
in every direction—no way for anyone to sneak up and
eavesdrop.

Paranoid
bastard.

“
He
made me do it.”

“
Who?”

I had a pretty good
idea who he meant, but I wanted him to say it.

“
Who
made you do it?”

The priest shook
his head and dropped his gaze to the ground. He may have whispered
something but, if he did, it was too quiet to hear.

“
Tell
me and I’ll think about saving you.”

He shook his head
harder, refusing to speak the name. What’s the big deal? I
knew Azrael was behind it; he’d orchestrated Father Dominic’s
murderous rampage to steal my soul back from Mikey.

Why won’t
he just tell me?

“
What’s
the big deal? Why won’t you just tell me?”

Being afraid of the
archangel in life, I understood, but when you’re already in
Hell, how much worse could it get? Not for the first time, I
wondered if more was going on here than I realized.

Father Dominic’s
shoulders trembled and I thought he might be crying.

“
Are
you crying?”

He raised his eyes
and glared at me, the tears on his cheeks shimmering in the
red-orange light. The muscles in his jaw bunched and released,
bunched and released.

“
Take
me with you.”

His voice was low
and firm, lacking the begging tone smothering it a moment before. He
lowered his hands, held them at his side clenched into fists. He
didn’t stand.

I looked him
directly in the eyes and saw the hatred he felt for me burning deep
inside them. Pictures of me as a child being punished, degraded,
abused seemed to flicker across their bloodshot surfaces. The look
on my face must have given away the fact I’d seen them dancing
in his irises because the bastard smiled.

Fuck you.

“
No.”
I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “Burn in Hell.”

The priest jumped
straight from his knees to his feet like a child might have been
made to do in P.E. class. I snapped into a fighting stance, ready
for him and looking forward to kicking his ass all over Hell, but he
disappointed me. Instead of coming at me, fists flailing, he threw
his arms up in the air, hands open, fingers crooked. I stared,
confused. For a second, nothing happened except for Father Dominic
looking melodramatic, then the ground trembled beneath my feet.

An earthquake in
Hell? A Hellquake?

Probably not
terribly unusual but the timing to go along with the warped priest’s
gesture threw a scare into me. I stumbled back a step out of
surprise and Father Dominic repeated the gesture. The ground shook
harder. I looked around, frantic, searching for the nearest doorway
under which to cower like we’d been taught as kids but, of
course, there were none. There was nothing at all.

Until the rock
walls rose out of the ground.

They pushed
straight up toward the sky, each looking like a daisy growing in the
spring, filmed in time-lapse photography on the nature channel. I
blundered in a rough circle, buffeted back by the rock walls on all
sides. They rose up twelve feet, fifteen feet, twenty, their sides
sheer and smooth like unpolished marble. The rumble of rock grinding
against rock rattled my eardrums and I threw my hands against the
sides of my head to protect them.

Above it all, I
heard the priest cackling like the maniac I’d always known him
to be.

When the ground’s
reverberations ceased, I stood hunched with my hands over my ears
for a few seconds, waiting to see if the ground would quake again.
It didn’t, so I lowered my hands and glanced around.

I wasn’t
surrounded on all sides, but close enough. The gray clouds roiled
above my head, a misty whirlpool in the sky. A stone hallway
stretched out before me, the demon-priest standing twenty feet away,
leering at me, yellow teeth exposed, black eyes gleaming.

“
What
have you done?” I attempted to sound unconcerned. I didn’t.
I wasn’t.

“
You
should have agreed to take me back.”

“
What
have you done?”

The maniac smile
clung to his face like a baby gorilla hanging on to its mother for
dear life and, to really piss me off, he threw in an equally
maniacal laugh. It did the job.

I lunged forward,
legs pumping as my feet churned and slipped in the fresh scree
created by the growing rocks. They found purchase after a second and
I shot forward, determined to tackle the priest and show him how I
really felt, in case I’d missed making it obvious up to this
point. Dominic’s evil smile broadened and he tensed, readying
to receive whatever I threw at him. I decided on a roundhouse punch.

My fist looped
forward and, at the last second, the priest waved his hand and the
air in front of him shimmered then went opaque. My fist and face ran
into the freshly minted rock wall at approximately the same instant
and I fell back on my ass, dazed.

I lay on my back,
watching the ugly sky as a trickle of blood ran down the side of my
face from a nose I wouldn’t need a doctor to tell me was
broken. At least it distracted me from my throbbing hand. When the
world stopped spinning, I saw Father Dominic perched atop the wall,
staring down at me. With some effort, I climbed to my feet, though I
must have looked like someone fresh off the Mad Hatter’s
teacup ride at Disneyland.

“
What
did you do?”

The priest spread
his arms, gesturing at the area around me.

“
Take
a look,” he said. “I think you’ll find I’ve
done a fine job.”

I did as he said
and glanced at the walls on all sides of me. The one I’d run
into was solid, but the others all had openings. A long passage ran
from one; the second had a short corridor which took a hard left and
went out of sight; the third ran for fifteen feet finishing in a
dead end. It took a few seconds for my addled brain to clear enough
to realize what I saw.

A labyrinth.

“
That’s
right, Icarus. A labyrinth. A maze. There’s a way out, but it
might take you eternity to find it.”

He stood on the top
of the wall towering twenty-five feet over my head, looming,
laughing.

“
I
was your last chance. You’ll never get out of Hell now,
priest,” I said feeling silly and impotent shaking my fist at
him.

“
Neither
will you. Bet you wished you had wings now, don’t you,
Icarus?”

He jumped down to
the opposite side of the wall, laughter trailing after him. I
gritted my teeth and clenched my fist then cringed at the pain both
caused. After a few deep breaths, I opened my mouth, intending to
make fun of the priest for screwing up his mythology—the
labyrinth was on Crete, a maze meant to keep the minotaur for King
Minos. Nothing to do with Icarus. The words burbled near my lips
when I remembered my own readings: Daedalus built the
labyrinth—Icarus’ father.

I
hate Greek mythology.

Bruce
Blake-All Who Wander Are Lost

Poe’s leg
hurt desperately; blood stuck her pants to her thigh. She wiggled
her fingers, felt the rock she’d embedded them in grind
against her flesh and, face pressed against the stone, looked up at
the sheer cliff stretching above her. The stinking fog limited her
vision but, as far as she could see, there were no knobs of rock or
outcroppings to serve as hand and footholds. She looked down at the
mist nipping at her feet. Somewhere below, the demon Abaddon waited,
resting, licking his wounds. Somewhere above—Trevor.