Not A Chance In Hell
Anjelica opened her eyes. The sound of water rushing filled her ears. She imagined it sounded like the rustling of
wings. She could see her feet, bare somehow, toes pointed to the sky, a shadowy bruise on her instep. She could
breathe. She could remember. The boys had sliced open her red swimsuit, cutting it open the way you would a
lobster to get at the meat inside. Two of them held her arms, pinned her down while the other...
They were boys from school. Boys she never talked to. Anglo boys who all looked the same to her. To them, she was a
small, brown nothing.
Small, brown, nothing. It was chant, a taunt they hurled at her since childhood. It was part of who she was. Little
Angie: Small, brown, nothing. If she was mousy, that would be something.
Anjelica curled sideways. Someone was shaking her. Someone was talking from far away.
The boys cut her swimsuit away. One of them – the one with braces and a peppering of freckles – ran the flat of the
blade down her body to her navel. He was saying something, but all she could think was that she didn’t want his
mouth on her. His thin lips like thin strips of liver stretched over the metal brackets in his mouth. She understood
they expected her to lie still while they...
“Helli!”
Shaking again. Anjelica rolled her head to gaze into a pair of amber eyes. Nighna. Nighna had her by the shoulders.
Nighna was stronger than she looked.
Parts of things came into focus. She saw her feet again, and beyond them the tangles of writhing jungle gone dark.
It was not as exquisite as she remembered.
“How bad is it? Can you walk?” Nighna asked.
This confused Anjelica. Maybe Nighna hadn’t seen what happened. Hadn’t she noticed that the dagger was in Helli’s
hand? That she’d gotten the better of those boys?
Anjelica ventured a careful glance down her body. She was not clad in her swimsuit; however, her light cotton T-
shirt had been shredded to bloody rags.
“Holy cats,” she whispered. She probed her chest with the fingertips of both hands. They came away bloody. She
stared in detached wonderment at the bright red blood on her palm.
“It’s not my blood,” she said. “It’s the boys. The boys’ blood.”
Little Angie. Small, brown nothing…
“Helli,” Nighna said, her voice calm, steady. “Where is Oz?”
Anjelica felt a trill of panic coursed through her. “Oz?”
Nighna hauled Anjelica forward. She jostled her shoulders roughly when Anjelica’s head lolled bonelessly backward.
“I need to know,” Nighna began.
“I killed the boys,” Anjelica admitted. “I killed them. N-not Oz. Not him.”
Nighna leaned forward until their foreheads were touching. “There are no boys, Anjelica,” she said.
“But they... they’re the reason I’m here,” Anjelica said. She tucked her chin and sucked her lip to stifle a sob.
…if she was mousy, that would be something. Little Angie, small…
Nighna shook her again. “Listen to me, Anjelica. I need to know about Oz. I need to know. Did he do this?”
Nighna placed her palm close to the gaping hole on Anjelica’s chest. Anjelica could feel the warmth of fever in the
wound, could feel the proximity of Nighna’s hand like a shimmer of warning. But she felt no pain and knew from
experience that it meant the shroud of shock had settled over her.
Slowly, Nighna’s concerns congealed around Anjelica’s disjointed thoughts. Anjelica dragged her eyes to meet
Nighna’s again.
Nighna nodded, grimly.
“Anjelica,” she said. “Dear, we need to know. Can you tell me?”
Anjelica strained to remember. She heard screams. They meshed with the ones in her memory, blending with the
wind into a bitter howl that she felt like a pressure behind her eyeballs. What she recalled was how she had managed
to wrest free from the boys who’d toyed with her. She remembered the looks on their faces as she’d kicked the
knife from Brace Face’s hand.
And how it felt to turn that blade on them. She’d swelled with gladness at the flicker of fear in their eyes.
Not nothing now, she’d said. Not nothing now.
Tears brimmed and burned in her eyes. She’d been glad to kill them. It was the first thing in her life she had ever
done really well.
“It’s not what he saw,” Anjelica said, shaking her head. “He didn’t see.”
Nighna rubbed her forehead. She tipped Anjelica’s face to meet hers again. “Helli, did Oz bite you?”
Anjelica made a tired, dismissive sound. “What? No.”
She couldn’t really see the wound. It was high on her shoulder, near the bend of her neck. It was a deep, bloody,
mangled mess that ached and burned, but distantly. Had it been much lower, he’d have snapped her collarbone like a
twig.
Nighna lowered her eyes. Her head bobbed a single nod of understanding.
“I don’t know,” Anjelica mumbled. Her head floated, paddling toward the deep end of unconsciousness.
Nighna pulled Anjelica to her uncooperative feet. “I know,” she said. Nighna got an arm around her to keep her
steady. “Let’s get out of here.”
The pain was incredible but distant like a scream you hear from a long, long way away. Anjelica followed stumblingly
along, tripping, it seemed, over every root and thorny bush along the path. Once, her foot hooked in a cypress
knee and Anjelica sprawled.
The roots around her were not as treelike as she had assumed. They were arms and legs and fingers and faces bound
up in the trunks and branches, all of them frozen in the midst of tortured cries. The scent of them filled her – like
wood smoke and burnt flesh. Anjelica fell nearly eye to eye with one of the wretched souls and screamed.
Nighna lifted her from the slippery tangle. Tendrils of roots stretched toward Anjelica, their mouths contorting
around soundless pleas.
“Stop that,” Nighna commanded. “Stop it. We’re nearing the boundary of the forest. I need you with me, Helli. Are
you with me?”
No, she thought.
Whispery things darted around her, threading through the darkness. Small. Brown. Nothing. Good little Angie. Don’t
leave us here.
Anjelica felt herself nodding. “Yes,” she muttered.
The whispering grew to a scraping crescendo of screams. She felt them in the back of her skull, shuffling around in
there, clawing to get out.
Anjelica covered her ears. “It’s changed. What’s happening?” she shouted.
Nighna gripped Anjelica tighter. “It’s not changed,” she soothed. “You see it now for what it truly is.”
“What it truly is…” Anjelica repeated. She settled against Nighna, letting the demon carry most of the weight.
Above them, in the trees, Clarisse wailed like a child who’s lost her mother.
It was darker, at the edge. There was a lip of earth, black as talons, which rose at the border where the forest
turned into wasteland. Nighna dragged Anjelica up the slope. With each step the mud sucked at their ankles. Then,
inexplicably, the hill began a slow tilt backward like a boat rolling on the swell of a wave. The sod itself ran out from
beneath them, and all manner of creatures – demonic rabbits, rats, hedgehogs – slid along in the landslide.
Nighna latched onto Anjelica’s arm and continued to trudge onward and upward, oblivious to the running muck and
chaos around them. Ahead, gnarled trees had begun to heel over like tombstones in soggy ground. Birds burst from
branches, adding their startled cries to the incessant rumbling wind.
The whispers still called to her, still lapped at her eardrums with their jeers and accusations.
Killed the boys. You killed them, Miss Mouse. Not nothing. Not anymore. Stay…
“I have to stay,” Anjelica said. Blood pounded in her ears. Throbbed and ached in the wound at the base of her
throat.
“Don’t listen to it. We’re almost out.”
“But I…”
Nighna stopped. Hell went on around her, rending itself apart, but she got Anjelica by the shoulders. “You’re not
dead. Do you hear me?”
They were backsliding, losing ground. Anjelica could feel the wound palpitating with every beat of her heart. The
pain of it radiated in dull circles down the length of her arm. So she wasn’t dead. Nighna was right. But they had
come to hell for a reason.
And that reason completely escaped her. They had come for a reason. All of them…
“But Oz?” Anjelica asked.
“Oz is an innocent. He must find his own way.”
“And me?”
Nighna’s stern eyes softened with sincerity, even if her tone did not. “You will have to settle with your demons
another time. Right now, I need you to get your ass up this hill. Are we clear on this?”
The hill was cresting, throwing its mantle of shadow over them. Pebbles and other detritus tumbled down, coating
them in fine brown powder. Chunks of sod and mud broke loose as the wave of earth climbed skyward, groaning and
creaking like a capsizing ship.
Anjelica bit back a scream. “How?” she managed to say.
Relief washed over Nighna. Her lips set in a firm line, Nighna slammed Anjelica into the wall of earth.
Anjelica and Nighna toppled downhill, rolling and rolling, until finally they came to a crashing thump in the bottom of a
high-walled canyon.
Nighna got quickly to her knees. Clapping dust from her hands, she said, “Behold the Third Circle of Hell.”
Anjelica lay on her back, staring up at the ribbon of pewter light that ran between the somber walls of the ravine.
She felt her heartbeat in her ears. The alleged werewolf bite on her neck seared like an acid burn.
Nighna was on her feet already, one arm outstretched. She whistled a sharp call to Clarisse; within seconds the bird
answered. Anjelica saw her wheeling loose circles over the canyon.
“You can rest for a moment, but we need to get moving,” Nighna said. She paced within the bleak, cramped space,
her bootheels clocking on rough stone.
Anjelica rolled to her side. Her head felt like a split melon. For the second time that evening – if one could properly
call it evening in hell – she’d been lain out flat. Yet somehow, she struggled to her knees. And then, by miracle or
extra potent Slayer blood, she got firmly to her feet.
“I’d like to move on now,” Anjelica said. “If it’s all the same.”
Nighna squared her shoulders with Anjelica’s. Her hands rested on her hips, enameled fingernails sparkling in the
half-light. She nodded her approval.
“We will start down this road, then. It skirts the marsh and the worst parts of this place. With luck, Oz will reach
the citadel before we do…”
“Nighna, I never thought this would happen,” Anjelica blurted.
Nighna held up one finger. “I am not your confessional, Slayer. Hell is a strange, mutable place. We let our guards
down. What fools are we.”
Nighna’s hands returned to her hips. She stood, spine rigid, watching her with such severe scrutiny it made
Anjelica’s spine twitch. Though the wound burned and itched, Anjelica didn’t dare move while Nighna watched her
like that, like an owl getting ready for a snack.
“I want you to take this,” Nighna said. She reached into her leather sac and produced a small, cloth- wrapped
parcel. “Conceal it. Do not let anyone know you have it. It’s like an American Express card down here, and may be
our only way out. Understand?”
Anjelica folded back a corner of the cloth. She saw the grayish, blunted tip of a pinky finger and covered it back up.
“Andrew’s hand,” she said. Normally, she would have gagged, but in light of recent events, a severed hand with
pinky trauma didn’t quite rank on the gross out scale. “What do I…? What does it do?”
Nighna said, “It’s the last thing of value I possess. It bears my mark, which gives you my protection.” She ran her
tongue over her teeth. “I think Andrew would appreciate the irony.”
Anjelica re-wrapped the parcel and tucked it into the pocket of the robe Nighna had given her.
“That way, right?” she said, pointing down the passage made by the steep canyon walls.
Clarisse pecked a light kiss on Nighna’s jaw, then flew down the corridor ahead of them. Nighna followed, her
purposeful strides the only sound they could hear.
Anjelica set her jaw against the pain. Her thoughts and memories were returning to proper order now. She had
been seduced by the forest, but it was fading. In its place was a pervasive sadness, and something else. Something
more and less complicated. While she couldn’t figure it, Nighna would have understood. Anjelica felt guilt. Not only
for the boys she’d killed, for certainly there was that, but also for Oz. He was an innocent, so ready to leap to her
defense. But Hell had twisted it, turned his inner demon on her.
Perhaps it was just.
Perhaps it was what she deserved.
She strained to hear the whispering voices, but they had quieted. She listened then for the cry of a wolf, and heard
none.
Anjelica never minded silence, but this one unsettled her, especially in contrast to the raucousness of the forest.
The stones surrounding them were jagged with millions of razor-edged pock marks, as if the ravine had been
ravaged by a terrible plague. Remembering the tormented faces she’d seen in the trees, Anjelica trained her eyes
on Nighna’s shoulders.
Nighna seemed content with the quiet, but after minutes of walking, Anjelica had to say something, to make some
kind connection, if anything, to keep her mind from the pain in her neck.
“So,” she said. “This is the Third Circle?”
“Part of it. On the other side of this canyon, far below, there is a marsh in which those damned for gluttony must
lay beneath a ceaseless storm of hail and rain. The marsh is guarded by a three-headed beast of a dog that used to
belong to a friend of mine, long ago.”
Nighna sniffed at the remembrance. “Ciacco dressed that animal in diamond collars and employed lesser djinn to
trim and file its toe nails. They would polish its coat until it gleamed like onyx. Then he paraded the dog around like
some kind of prize. Of course, sometimes Cerberus got loose of its leash and would eat the servants of other nobles.
That’s how Ciacco lost possession of it, the ruddy pouf.”
Nighna continued to walk, but her tone switched to something more nostalgic than scholarly. “Demons must prove
their rights to something by maintaining control over it,” she said. “It’s something most of our kind have
forgotten. Their worth is not in their deeds, you see? It’s in the power they exert to hold onto something.
“For humans, it’s all about the eternal struggle between right and wrong. Demons bad. Humans good. It’s all simple.
But demons, they twist that against you. Sin and guilt are such cunning little barbs, Helli. True demons know the art
of wielding them with such subtlety that in the end, the victim never glimpsed the treachery.”
Anjelica listened. Her breathing shallowed. She tried to puzzle out what Nighna had said, tried to make the words fit
into a context that pertained to her situation. But she was a slow girl, never good with riddles or games. She was
small and ordinary in all things, save one.
Ahead of her, Nighna halted in the path. Anjelica, lost in her own head, plowed into her. But Nighna stood, still and
strong, staring straight into the gloom.
A second later, Anjelica saw the object that held Nighna’s attention. The canyon curved to the left, and in the bend
stood a single pike pointing accusingly to the sky. On the pike a rumpled figure dangled, his bare feet caked with
dried blood that pooled in dark circles on the parched ground.
Nighna’s hands went to her hips again. “Looks like the game finally caught up to you,” she said.
The man raised his dirty face to gaze at them with baleful eyes. The filthy curtains of his black hair fell over his
brow, but did nothing to hide the swollen twilight of bruises over his right temple.
“Nighna,” Luxe muttered, his voice no more than a choked groan.
“Luxe.”
“Cut me down, s’il vous plait,” he said. “I promise, I’ll go home and be… a good little boy.”
Anjelica was shaking her head, but she needn’t bothered. Nighna walked closer to the pike so that she could stare
up into Luxe’s broken face.
“Mais non, my love. Your precarious position suits us just fine,” she said. “Thellian left here, Luxe. What is it he’s
planning?”
Luxe’s body shuddered with a fit of coughs that turned into a painful wrack of laughter. “Thellian? Defeat destroyed
him, Nig’han’net. He wished only to find a way to restrain Morna and then go into hiding.”
Nighna stepped closer still. “I can tell when you are lying,” she said.
Luxe’s head bobbled. “No. I swear it to you. He had no plans. Please, mon amor. Release me. I will die here. You
know it.”
“Perhaps it’s what you deserve,” Nighna bit out. “You serve the dying order. You do nothing lest it benefit you.
And you see how it turns out with us, Luxe. Look at you.”
She half-turned, gesturing to Anjelica with a nod. “Come. We’re wasting time here.”
Clarisse chose that moment to descend and take perch on Nighna’s shoulder. Luxe raised his head and gave them a
twinkling grin.
“Ah, Nighna,” he said. “You were bloody stupid to bring that bird.”
As if that were a cue, a crossbow bolt burst through Clarisse’s breast. Her scream shattered the silence, and
Nighna dropped in a desperate scramble to catch the bird before she dashed against the stone.
Anjelica spun, searching the cliffs for their attackers. Then, she heard a heavy thump on the ground behind her.
She turned back to find Luxe standing at the base of the pike, arms out-stretched, an expansive smile on his face.
Nighna cradled Clarisse to her neck, working her fingers into the downy feathers. “You monster,” she said. “You
unbelievable monster…”
“Turnabout, Nighna,” he said as he closed the distance between them. “I am free of your bonds now. Free to leave
this place. Free finally to return home. And you. You can die here.”
Nighna bent low, her forehead almost touching the earth. “Why?” she cried. “Why this?”
Anjelica knelt beside her, still scanning the cliffs. But the bolt had come from a lower place. A man moved forth from
the shadows of the bend, holding his crossbow upright. Unlike Luxe, he did not seem so pleased at his part in the
ambush. As he neared, Anjelica saw who it was.
“Paolo,” Nighna said flatly. “You’re doing this for a nightclub in Paris?”
He shrugged, but managed to muster a look of remorse. “I guess my price was a little higher than I let on,” Paolo
said. He leveled the crossbow at Anjelica’s forehead.
“You were so concerned over Thellian, you never guessed my ambitions,” Luxe said. “All Hell is breaking loose, mon
amor. The Hellmouths will open, and demons will pour forth, once more taking control of the realm above. It is what I
have worked toward for centuries, and the last link of my chains is broken here.”
Anjelica tried to focus on what Luxe said, but too much of it sounded too large to believe.
Luxe rolled his eyes skyward. “They’re just so inventive, Luxe. All of their flaws and eccentricities and relations…
they’re fascinating,” he said, in a sickening mimicry of Nighna’s voice. “They are fodder,” he said, returning to his
deep and patronizing French. “They’re finished.”
Luxe bent to her level and twisted Nighna’s face to meet his. “Just like you, mon coeur. I imagine you feel quite
human now.”
Anjelica caught only a glint of silver; she wasn’t fast enough to stop him. Luxe had plunged a knife into Nighna’s
heart.
He left the blade where it was and shoved Nighna aside. Stepping over her, he cupped Anjelica’s face in both of his
hands.
“Blessed are the meek,” he said, “They are first to die.”
Anjelica recoiled, then spit in his face.
Displeasure clouded Luxe’s face, but only for a moment. He stood back up, wiping his face with the back of his
sleeve.
He said, “You will not die, though. Not little Anjelica Reyes. Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge, la souris. You
were Nighna’s servant, which means you now belong to me. Get up.”
Anjelica’s body quaked with rage. She stood up, and though she was a full foot shorter than Luxe, she counted on
that anger to level the difference between them.
“I would rather die than be in your service,” she said.
Luxe raised one shoulder. “Very well.”
He made a motion to Paolo, and the mistake of turning his back. Anjelica leapt on him, taking him down with the
strength of her momentum. She intended to rush him and run, but Paolo’s crossbow smashed into the back of her
skull.
And just before consciousness fled, just as Anjelica was sure Luxe would take the dagger from Nighna’s body and
use it to finish her off, she thought with all that was left of her hope, that she heard the distant, forlorn howl of a
wolf.
Anjelica opened her eyes. The sound of water rushing filled her ears. She imagined it sounded like the rustling of
wings. She could see her feet, bare somehow, toes pointed to the sky, a shadowy bruise on her instep. She could
breathe. She could remember. The boys had sliced open her red swimsuit, cutting it open the way you would a
lobster to get at the meat inside. Two of them held her arms, pinned her down while the other...
They were boys from school. Boys she never talked to. Anglo boys who all looked the same to her. To them, she was a
small, brown nothing.
Small, brown, nothing. It was chant, a taunt they hurled at her since childhood. It was part of who she was. Little
Angie: Small, brown, nothing. If she was mousy, that would be something.
Anjelica curled sideways. Someone was shaking her. Someone was talking from far away.
The boys cut her swimsuit away. One of them – the one with braces and a peppering of freckles – ran the flat of the
blade down her body to her navel. He was saying something, but all she could think was that she didn’t want his
mouth on her. His thin lips like thin strips of liver stretched over the metal brackets in his mouth. She understood
they expected her to lie still while they...
“Helli!”
Shaking again. Anjelica rolled her head to gaze into a pair of amber eyes. Nighna. Nighna had her by the shoulders.
Nighna was stronger than she looked.
Parts of things came into focus. She saw her feet again, and beyond them the tangles of writhing jungle gone dark.
It was not as exquisite as she remembered.
“How bad is it? Can you walk?” Nighna asked.
This confused Anjelica. Maybe Nighna hadn’t seen what happened. Hadn’t she noticed that the dagger was in Helli’s
hand? That she’d gotten the better of those boys?
Anjelica ventured a careful glance down her body. She was not clad in her swimsuit; however, her light cotton T-
shirt had been shredded to bloody rags.
“Holy cats,” she whispered. She probed her chest with the fingertips of both hands. They came away bloody. She
stared in detached wonderment at the bright red blood on her palm.
“It’s not my blood,” she said. “It’s the boys. The boys’ blood.”
Little Angie. Small, brown nothing…
“Helli,” Nighna said, her voice calm, steady. “Where is Oz?”
Anjelica felt a trill of panic coursed through her. “Oz?”
Nighna hauled Anjelica forward. She jostled her shoulders roughly when Anjelica’s head lolled bonelessly backward.
“I need to know,” Nighna began.
“I killed the boys,” Anjelica admitted. “I killed them. N-not Oz. Not him.”
Nighna leaned forward until their foreheads were touching. “There are no boys, Anjelica,” she said.
“But they... they’re the reason I’m here,” Anjelica said. She tucked her chin and sucked her lip to stifle a sob.
…if she was mousy, that would be something. Little Angie, small…
Nighna shook her again. “Listen to me, Anjelica. I need to know about Oz. I need to know. Did he do this?”
Nighna placed her palm close to the gaping hole on Anjelica’s chest. Anjelica could feel the warmth of fever in the
wound, could feel the proximity of Nighna’s hand like a shimmer of warning. But she felt no pain and knew from
experience that it meant the shroud of shock had settled over her.
Slowly, Nighna’s concerns congealed around Anjelica’s disjointed thoughts. Anjelica dragged her eyes to meet
Nighna’s again.
Nighna nodded, grimly.
“Anjelica,” she said. “Dear, we need to know. Can you tell me?”
Anjelica strained to remember. She heard screams. They meshed with the ones in her memory, blending with the
wind into a bitter howl that she felt like a pressure behind her eyeballs. What she recalled was how she had managed
to wrest free from the boys who’d toyed with her. She remembered the looks on their faces as she’d kicked the
knife from Brace Face’s hand.
And how it felt to turn that blade on them. She’d swelled with gladness at the flicker of fear in their eyes.
Not nothing now, she’d said. Not nothing now.
Tears brimmed and burned in her eyes. She’d been glad to kill them. It was the first thing in her life she had ever
done really well.
“It’s not what he saw,” Anjelica said, shaking her head. “He didn’t see.”
Nighna rubbed her forehead. She tipped Anjelica’s face to meet hers again. “Helli, did Oz bite you?”
Anjelica made a tired, dismissive sound. “What? No.”
She couldn’t really see the wound. It was high on her shoulder, near the bend of her neck. It was a deep, bloody,
mangled mess that ached and burned, but distantly. Had it been much lower, he’d have snapped her collarbone like a
twig.
Nighna lowered her eyes. Her head bobbed a single nod of understanding.
“I don’t know,” Anjelica mumbled. Her head floated, paddling toward the deep end of unconsciousness.
Nighna pulled Anjelica to her uncooperative feet. “I know,” she said. Nighna got an arm around her to keep her
steady. “Let’s get out of here.”
The pain was incredible but distant like a scream you hear from a long, long way away. Anjelica followed stumblingly
along, tripping, it seemed, over every root and thorny bush along the path. Once, her foot hooked in a cypress
knee and Anjelica sprawled.
The roots around her were not as treelike as she had assumed. They were arms and legs and fingers and faces bound
up in the trunks and branches, all of them frozen in the midst of tortured cries. The scent of them filled her – like
wood smoke and burnt flesh. Anjelica fell nearly eye to eye with one of the wretched souls and screamed.
Nighna lifted her from the slippery tangle. Tendrils of roots stretched toward Anjelica, their mouths contorting
around soundless pleas.
“Stop that,” Nighna commanded. “Stop it. We’re nearing the boundary of the forest. I need you with me, Helli. Are
you with me?”
No, she thought.
Whispery things darted around her, threading through the darkness. Small. Brown. Nothing. Good little Angie. Don’t
leave us here.
Anjelica felt herself nodding. “Yes,” she muttered.
The whispering grew to a scraping crescendo of screams. She felt them in the back of her skull, shuffling around in
there, clawing to get out.
Anjelica covered her ears. “It’s changed. What’s happening?” she shouted.
Nighna gripped Anjelica tighter. “It’s not changed,” she soothed. “You see it now for what it truly is.”
“What it truly is…” Anjelica repeated. She settled against Nighna, letting the demon carry most of the weight.
Above them, in the trees, Clarisse wailed like a child who’s lost her mother.
It was darker, at the edge. There was a lip of earth, black as talons, which rose at the border where the forest
turned into wasteland. Nighna dragged Anjelica up the slope. With each step the mud sucked at their ankles. Then,
inexplicably, the hill began a slow tilt backward like a boat rolling on the swell of a wave. The sod itself ran out from
beneath them, and all manner of creatures – demonic rabbits, rats, hedgehogs – slid along in the landslide.
Nighna latched onto Anjelica’s arm and continued to trudge onward and upward, oblivious to the running muck and
chaos around them. Ahead, gnarled trees had begun to heel over like tombstones in soggy ground. Birds burst from
branches, adding their startled cries to the incessant rumbling wind.
The whispers still called to her, still lapped at her eardrums with their jeers and accusations.
Killed the boys. You killed them, Miss Mouse. Not nothing. Not anymore. Stay…
“I have to stay,” Anjelica said. Blood pounded in her ears. Throbbed and ached in the wound at the base of her
throat.
“Don’t listen to it. We’re almost out.”
“But I…”
Nighna stopped. Hell went on around her, rending itself apart, but she got Anjelica by the shoulders. “You’re not
dead. Do you hear me?”
They were backsliding, losing ground. Anjelica could feel the wound palpitating with every beat of her heart. The
pain of it radiated in dull circles down the length of her arm. So she wasn’t dead. Nighna was right. But they had
come to hell for a reason.
And that reason completely escaped her. They had come for a reason. All of them…
“But Oz?” Anjelica asked.
“Oz is an innocent. He must find his own way.”
“And me?”
Nighna’s stern eyes softened with sincerity, even if her tone did not. “You will have to settle with your demons
another time. Right now, I need you to get your ass up this hill. Are we clear on this?”
The hill was cresting, throwing its mantle of shadow over them. Pebbles and other detritus tumbled down, coating
them in fine brown powder. Chunks of sod and mud broke loose as the wave of earth climbed skyward, groaning and
creaking like a capsizing ship.
Anjelica bit back a scream. “How?” she managed to say.
Relief washed over Nighna. Her lips set in a firm line, Nighna slammed Anjelica into the wall of earth.
Anjelica and Nighna toppled downhill, rolling and rolling, until finally they came to a crashing thump in the bottom of a
high-walled canyon.
Nighna got quickly to her knees. Clapping dust from her hands, she said, “Behold the Third Circle of Hell.”
Anjelica lay on her back, staring up at the ribbon of pewter light that ran between the somber walls of the ravine.
She felt her heartbeat in her ears. The alleged werewolf bite on her neck seared like an acid burn.
Nighna was on her feet already, one arm outstretched. She whistled a sharp call to Clarisse; within seconds the bird
answered. Anjelica saw her wheeling loose circles over the canyon.
“You can rest for a moment, but we need to get moving,” Nighna said. She paced within the bleak, cramped space,
her bootheels clocking on rough stone.
Anjelica rolled to her side. Her head felt like a split melon. For the second time that evening – if one could properly
call it evening in hell – she’d been lain out flat. Yet somehow, she struggled to her knees. And then, by miracle or
extra potent Slayer blood, she got firmly to her feet.
“I’d like to move on now,” Anjelica said. “If it’s all the same.”
Nighna squared her shoulders with Anjelica’s. Her hands rested on her hips, enameled fingernails sparkling in the
half-light. She nodded her approval.
“We will start down this road, then. It skirts the marsh and the worst parts of this place. With luck, Oz will reach
the citadel before we do…”
“Nighna, I never thought this would happen,” Anjelica blurted.
Nighna held up one finger. “I am not your confessional, Slayer. Hell is a strange, mutable place. We let our guards
down. What fools are we.”
Nighna’s hands returned to her hips. She stood, spine rigid, watching her with such severe scrutiny it made
Anjelica’s spine twitch. Though the wound burned and itched, Anjelica didn’t dare move while Nighna watched her
like that, like an owl getting ready for a snack.
“I want you to take this,” Nighna said. She reached into her leather sac and produced a small, cloth- wrapped
parcel. “Conceal it. Do not let anyone know you have it. It’s like an American Express card down here, and may be
our only way out. Understand?”
Anjelica folded back a corner of the cloth. She saw the grayish, blunted tip of a pinky finger and covered it back up.
“Andrew’s hand,” she said. Normally, she would have gagged, but in light of recent events, a severed hand with
pinky trauma didn’t quite rank on the gross out scale. “What do I…? What does it do?”
Nighna said, “It’s the last thing of value I possess. It bears my mark, which gives you my protection.” She ran her
tongue over her teeth. “I think Andrew would appreciate the irony.”
Anjelica re-wrapped the parcel and tucked it into the pocket of the robe Nighna had given her.
“That way, right?” she said, pointing down the passage made by the steep canyon walls.
Clarisse pecked a light kiss on Nighna’s jaw, then flew down the corridor ahead of them. Nighna followed, her
purposeful strides the only sound they could hear.
Anjelica set her jaw against the pain. Her thoughts and memories were returning to proper order now. She had
been seduced by the forest, but it was fading. In its place was a pervasive sadness, and something else. Something
more and less complicated. While she couldn’t figure it, Nighna would have understood. Anjelica felt guilt. Not only
for the boys she’d killed, for certainly there was that, but also for Oz. He was an innocent, so ready to leap to her
defense. But Hell had twisted it, turned his inner demon on her.
Perhaps it was just.
Perhaps it was what she deserved.
She strained to hear the whispering voices, but they had quieted. She listened then for the cry of a wolf, and heard
none.
Anjelica never minded silence, but this one unsettled her, especially in contrast to the raucousness of the forest.
The stones surrounding them were jagged with millions of razor-edged pock marks, as if the ravine had been
ravaged by a terrible plague. Remembering the tormented faces she’d seen in the trees, Anjelica trained her eyes
on Nighna’s shoulders.
Nighna seemed content with the quiet, but after minutes of walking, Anjelica had to say something, to make some
kind connection, if anything, to keep her mind from the pain in her neck.
“So,” she said. “This is the Third Circle?”
“Part of it. On the other side of this canyon, far below, there is a marsh in which those damned for gluttony must
lay beneath a ceaseless storm of hail and rain. The marsh is guarded by a three-headed beast of a dog that used to
belong to a friend of mine, long ago.”
Nighna sniffed at the remembrance. “Ciacco dressed that animal in diamond collars and employed lesser djinn to
trim and file its toe nails. They would polish its coat until it gleamed like onyx. Then he paraded the dog around like
some kind of prize. Of course, sometimes Cerberus got loose of its leash and would eat the servants of other nobles.
That’s how Ciacco lost possession of it, the ruddy pouf.”
Nighna continued to walk, but her tone switched to something more nostalgic than scholarly. “Demons must prove
their rights to something by maintaining control over it,” she said. “It’s something most of our kind have
forgotten. Their worth is not in their deeds, you see? It’s in the power they exert to hold onto something.
“For humans, it’s all about the eternal struggle between right and wrong. Demons bad. Humans good. It’s all simple.
But demons, they twist that against you. Sin and guilt are such cunning little barbs, Helli. True demons know the art
of wielding them with such subtlety that in the end, the victim never glimpsed the treachery.”
Anjelica listened. Her breathing shallowed. She tried to puzzle out what Nighna had said, tried to make the words fit
into a context that pertained to her situation. But she was a slow girl, never good with riddles or games. She was
small and ordinary in all things, save one.
Ahead of her, Nighna halted in the path. Anjelica, lost in her own head, plowed into her. But Nighna stood, still and
strong, staring straight into the gloom.
A second later, Anjelica saw the object that held Nighna’s attention. The canyon curved to the left, and in the bend
stood a single pike pointing accusingly to the sky. On the pike a rumpled figure dangled, his bare feet caked with
dried blood that pooled in dark circles on the parched ground.
Nighna’s hands went to her hips again. “Looks like the game finally caught up to you,” she said.
The man raised his dirty face to gaze at them with baleful eyes. The filthy curtains of his black hair fell over his
brow, but did nothing to hide the swollen twilight of bruises over his right temple.
“Nighna,” Luxe muttered, his voice no more than a choked groan.
“Luxe.”
“Cut me down, s’il vous plait,” he said. “I promise, I’ll go home and be… a good little boy.”
Anjelica was shaking her head, but she needn’t bothered. Nighna walked closer to the pike so that she could stare
up into Luxe’s broken face.
“Mais non, my love. Your precarious position suits us just fine,” she said. “Thellian left here, Luxe. What is it he’s
planning?”
Luxe’s body shuddered with a fit of coughs that turned into a painful wrack of laughter. “Thellian? Defeat destroyed
him, Nig’han’net. He wished only to find a way to restrain Morna and then go into hiding.”
Nighna stepped closer still. “I can tell when you are lying,” she said.
Luxe’s head bobbled. “No. I swear it to you. He had no plans. Please, mon amor. Release me. I will die here. You
know it.”
“Perhaps it’s what you deserve,” Nighna bit out. “You serve the dying order. You do nothing lest it benefit you.
And you see how it turns out with us, Luxe. Look at you.”
She half-turned, gesturing to Anjelica with a nod. “Come. We’re wasting time here.”
Clarisse chose that moment to descend and take perch on Nighna’s shoulder. Luxe raised his head and gave them a
twinkling grin.
“Ah, Nighna,” he said. “You were bloody stupid to bring that bird.”
As if that were a cue, a crossbow bolt burst through Clarisse’s breast. Her scream shattered the silence, and
Nighna dropped in a desperate scramble to catch the bird before she dashed against the stone.
Anjelica spun, searching the cliffs for their attackers. Then, she heard a heavy thump on the ground behind her.
She turned back to find Luxe standing at the base of the pike, arms out-stretched, an expansive smile on his face.
Nighna cradled Clarisse to her neck, working her fingers into the downy feathers. “You monster,” she said. “You
unbelievable monster…”
“Turnabout, Nighna,” he said as he closed the distance between them. “I am free of your bonds now. Free to leave
this place. Free finally to return home. And you. You can die here.”
Nighna bent low, her forehead almost touching the earth. “Why?” she cried. “Why this?”
Anjelica knelt beside her, still scanning the cliffs. But the bolt had come from a lower place. A man moved forth from
the shadows of the bend, holding his crossbow upright. Unlike Luxe, he did not seem so pleased at his part in the
ambush. As he neared, Anjelica saw who it was.
“Paolo,” Nighna said flatly. “You’re doing this for a nightclub in Paris?”
He shrugged, but managed to muster a look of remorse. “I guess my price was a little higher than I let on,” Paolo
said. He leveled the crossbow at Anjelica’s forehead.
“You were so concerned over Thellian, you never guessed my ambitions,” Luxe said. “All Hell is breaking loose, mon
amor. The Hellmouths will open, and demons will pour forth, once more taking control of the realm above. It is what I
have worked toward for centuries, and the last link of my chains is broken here.”
Anjelica tried to focus on what Luxe said, but too much of it sounded too large to believe.
Luxe rolled his eyes skyward. “They’re just so inventive, Luxe. All of their flaws and eccentricities and relations…
they’re fascinating,” he said, in a sickening mimicry of Nighna’s voice. “They are fodder,” he said, returning to his
deep and patronizing French. “They’re finished.”
Luxe bent to her level and twisted Nighna’s face to meet his. “Just like you, mon coeur. I imagine you feel quite
human now.”
Anjelica caught only a glint of silver; she wasn’t fast enough to stop him. Luxe had plunged a knife into Nighna’s
heart.
He left the blade where it was and shoved Nighna aside. Stepping over her, he cupped Anjelica’s face in both of his
hands.
“Blessed are the meek,” he said, “They are first to die.”
Anjelica recoiled, then spit in his face.
Displeasure clouded Luxe’s face, but only for a moment. He stood back up, wiping his face with the back of his
sleeve.
He said, “You will not die, though. Not little Anjelica Reyes. Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge, la souris. You
were Nighna’s servant, which means you now belong to me. Get up.”
Anjelica’s body quaked with rage. She stood up, and though she was a full foot shorter than Luxe, she counted on
that anger to level the difference between them.
“I would rather die than be in your service,” she said.
Luxe raised one shoulder. “Very well.”
He made a motion to Paolo, and the mistake of turning his back. Anjelica leapt on him, taking him down with the
strength of her momentum. She intended to rush him and run, but Paolo’s crossbow smashed into the back of her
skull.
And just before consciousness fled, just as Anjelica was sure Luxe would take the dagger from Nighna’s body and
use it to finish her off, she thought with all that was left of her hope, that she heard the distant, forlorn howl of a
wolf.
Very Long Author's Note:
With this chapter, I have finally done
with this story what I set out to do. That
is, every central character is completely
alone. I wanted to isolate them all from
those they rely upon most, to see what
they would do to get back to them.
The exception is Andrew and Dawn, but I
would argue that, due to Dawn's recent
recreational activities, she has never
been further apart from her family and
friends emotionally and mentally.
One thing I didn't want to happen has
happened in this chapter... it focuses
mainly on three of my original
characters. It's not what I intended, but
it wound up that way. There's mention of
Oz, but the main focus is Nighna,
Anjelica and Luxe.
This chapter seems like a logical end to
the first half of this story. The second
half will deal with the characters trying
to find their way back to what they
depend on as normal and comfortable.
I have never been able to take a story
line this far before. It has been an
experiment for me from the very first
scene I wrote for Wishes. I can't account
for it, but know enough to guess that I
shouldn't try. Sometimes, when I come to
the keyboard to write, I have nothing to
offer... but the story comes flowing out,
unconditionally and unbidden. It has
happened less with Anywhere, but it still
does.
Well, I'll wrap this up, lest my author's
note get a swelled sense of self and try
to out do the chapter. Naughty,
precocious author's note...
One thing I'd like to say, is that I never
imagined how much this fandom and this
story would affect my life. The
Buffyverse has opened so many doors I'd
have never experienced otherwise.
WriterCon this summer changed my life.
Meeting and talking to all of the
wonderfully talented and beautiful
women who hold dear so many of the
same things I cherish was priceless. But
even better than that is the ongoing joy
of communing daily with them and their
craft online.
Okay. Enough gushing. For now...
I did want to mention that while writing
this chapter, I researched The Divine
Comedy and Titus Andronicus. I stole
names and places from Dante, and ripped
off a quote from Shakespeare. I gave it to
Luxe; I figured Shakespeare wouldn't
mind, given the context.
Thanks to everyone who has read this far
and encouraged me along the way. Your
support has been the best gift you could
give. Thanks also to Mattallicarock, my
beta, who reads everything, even the
stuff I cut out, and questions everything,
even the stuff I chose to leave in. Thanks
also to Steve_H, Lauren, Kim and Sue, for
reading, encouraging, catching typos and
recommending! And finally, thanks to
Mary, who said I could change this story
however and whenever I wanted. It was
exactly what I needed to hear.
Love and hugs,
Celesteavonne
With this chapter, I have finally done
with this story what I set out to do. That
is, every central character is completely
alone. I wanted to isolate them all from
those they rely upon most, to see what
they would do to get back to them.
The exception is Andrew and Dawn, but I
would argue that, due to Dawn's recent
recreational activities, she has never
been further apart from her family and
friends emotionally and mentally.
One thing I didn't want to happen has
happened in this chapter... it focuses
mainly on three of my original
characters. It's not what I intended, but
it wound up that way. There's mention of
Oz, but the main focus is Nighna,
Anjelica and Luxe.
This chapter seems like a logical end to
the first half of this story. The second
half will deal with the characters trying
to find their way back to what they
depend on as normal and comfortable.
I have never been able to take a story
line this far before. It has been an
experiment for me from the very first
scene I wrote for Wishes. I can't account
for it, but know enough to guess that I
shouldn't try. Sometimes, when I come to
the keyboard to write, I have nothing to
offer... but the story comes flowing out,
unconditionally and unbidden. It has
happened less with Anywhere, but it still
does.
Well, I'll wrap this up, lest my author's
note get a swelled sense of self and try
to out do the chapter. Naughty,
precocious author's note...
One thing I'd like to say, is that I never
imagined how much this fandom and this
story would affect my life. The
Buffyverse has opened so many doors I'd
have never experienced otherwise.
WriterCon this summer changed my life.
Meeting and talking to all of the
wonderfully talented and beautiful
women who hold dear so many of the
same things I cherish was priceless. But
even better than that is the ongoing joy
of communing daily with them and their
craft online.
Okay. Enough gushing. For now...
I did want to mention that while writing
this chapter, I researched The Divine
Comedy and Titus Andronicus. I stole
names and places from Dante, and ripped
off a quote from Shakespeare. I gave it to
Luxe; I figured Shakespeare wouldn't
mind, given the context.
Thanks to everyone who has read this far
and encouraged me along the way. Your
support has been the best gift you could
give. Thanks also to Mattallicarock, my
beta, who reads everything, even the
stuff I cut out, and questions everything,
even the stuff I chose to leave in. Thanks
also to Steve_H, Lauren, Kim and Sue, for
reading, encouraging, catching typos and
recommending! And finally, thanks to
Mary, who said I could change this story
however and whenever I wanted. It was
exactly what I needed to hear.
Love and hugs,
Celesteavonne
 |
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 |
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 |
 |
 |
.Chapter Index.
Anywhere Out
of This World
Blood, Pressure
The Drawing Board
All's Well
Anywhere Out of
This World
Mourning Sickness
Welcome to Hell
Relative
Matters of Time
& Fishes
International Calls
Empty as Houses
Lusty Wrong Feelings
Enthralled
Thanksgiving
Seduced
Innocents Lost
Burn
Flashback
Not A Chance In Hell
Empty Rooms
Two Roads Diverged
Starfall
Blindsided
Not Her Own
Outta Here
The Valley of the
Shadow of Death
Comes the Rain
Smoke and Mirrors
Drawn to You
Team Angel
By Fire Reborn
Salvage
Ashes to Ashes
Life Is...
With A Little Help
Appearances Deceiving
Familiarity
Sweetness
Not All Who Wander
That Old Black Magic
For Lorne
Drawn Together
Lost to Sand
Fall of Triumvirate
Parallel Lives
The Lovers
Avenger
Double Cross
Pursuit
Ripper's Girl
Pandemonium
Negative Space
Raveled Threads
Asunder
Human Hands
Singular
Fragmented
Symmetry
Plans
Rogue Squadron
Legends
Anywhere Out
of This World
Blood, Pressure
The Drawing Board
All's Well
Anywhere Out of
This World
Mourning Sickness
Welcome to Hell
Relative
Matters of Time
& Fishes
International Calls
Empty as Houses
Lusty Wrong Feelings
Enthralled
Thanksgiving
Seduced
Innocents Lost
Burn
Flashback
Not A Chance In Hell
Empty Rooms
Two Roads Diverged
Starfall
Blindsided
Not Her Own
Outta Here
The Valley of the
Shadow of Death
Comes the Rain
Smoke and Mirrors
Drawn to You
Team Angel
By Fire Reborn
Salvage
Ashes to Ashes
Life Is...
With A Little Help
Appearances Deceiving
Familiarity
Sweetness
Not All Who Wander
That Old Black Magic
For Lorne
Drawn Together
Lost to Sand
Fall of Triumvirate
Parallel Lives
The Lovers
Avenger
Double Cross
Pursuit
Ripper's Girl
Pandemonium
Negative Space
Raveled Threads
Asunder
Human Hands
Singular
Fragmented
Symmetry
Plans
Rogue Squadron
Legends
 |