Page 21 of Till Death

The inside of the room was dark with a single blinding spotlight in the center. The light reflected off a microphone stand looking straight out of the fifties.

Who knew Hell had a nostalgic streak?

I stood at the entrance to the land of the damned and strangely enough, no demons or Halflings waited for me in the shadows. Oh, no, I thought wryly. They were all up having a jolly good time in the mortal lands.

I’d done it. I’d gotten down to the heart of Hell and I had an unparalleled opportunity to get ahead of things now. Swallowing hard, I approached the microphone, pushing my unease to the side.

Darkness ate each step I took and followed at my heels like a dog. I knew what I’d see when I turned around. A whole fat lot of nothing. And that freaked me out more than it should have. I’d been here before but damn if it didn’t feel like the first time.

I cleared my throat and leaned in to take hold of the microphone. One shot. I had one shot to get this right and find Cole, then see about closing up the pits leading to the land of the living.

If everything went the way it should, then the moment I said his name, I’d find him. Easy.

Getting my hopes up felt like torture. Wasn’t that the whole point of Hell? Maybe I really had died and gone straight down, confined to one of the little rooms I’d seen and forced to live out my worst moments on repeat.

“Cole Masters,” I said with forced confidence.

There had to be a billion Coles trapped here.

Weirdly enough, nothing happened. I didn’t move even though I should have been given the option to view the billions of Coles. Okay, was something wrong?

Trying his name again gave me the same result.

“Um…Cole…Masters?”

I repeated the name again, hoping for something. Anything except listening to the strange way my voice echoed back to me. That was freaky enough.

“Cole!” I tried again.

Nope.

Nothing.

The waiting sucked.

“Cole, the half-demon. Has a dirty sense of humor. Hates Toyota Corollas. Loves killing things.”And me. He loved me.

I paused and rocked back on my heels, dread curling beneath my ribs and turning my heart back to ice. There was nothing but darkness. If his soul were here, I knew for a fact the room would spin and take us to the hallway where he was being kept.

Hopefully this didn’t mean that his soul was lost…forever.

CHAPTERSIX

Panic raced through me like fire.

Cole couldn’t be lost. No matter what I’ve been told until this point, I know it deep in my bones: there’s a way to get him back. Unorthodox and insane and nearly impossible—but there’s a way.

I screamed repeatedly into the microphone and the room remained unchanged.

This wasn’t working.

No shit. Had I actually expected it to?

Sadly, yes. I wanted the back door entry to be the miracle cure that solved all of my problems. No one said I wasn’t delusional. I had a very vivid imagination, and part of that included creating a happily-ever-after situation where I actually swooped in and saved the day, the way I’d promised. Except without killing him.

I’d really rather not kill him after what we’d been through. This was one promise I wanted to break.

There had to be a way to find Cole and get his soul back without using Bertha to turn him into a kabob.

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