Page 22 of A Match Made in Hell
I nod, then head inside so a room can decide it likes me, or whatever. Tunnels have been carved through the cliff, branching off in various directions, but I keep straight. The deeper I go the more the black walls glisten with damp. Flamed sconces light the way, but they’re not enough to mask the chill in the air. The same vines growing near the entrance chamber climb the walls here too, but the further I descend into the cliff the more they shrivel and die, leaves turning brown and rotten, their remains breaking from their stems and carpeting the floor.
Doors are constantly opening, closing, slamming, as other dead go in and out of their rooms. Most travel in packs. A few groups give me friendly glances when they pass, clearly marking me as a newbie, but I avert my eyes. I don’t want to know them.
I hate this. I hate the way they’re carrying on like this is normal, like they’re with their friends on some awful, hellish holiday. How can they accept they’re dead like this? I’m about to kick down the nearest door to get away from them, to lock myself away until it’s time for my next task, when one clicks open of itsown accord.
A tug in my belly tells me this one is mine. I approach it slowly, imagining this is how an inmate must feel before entering their cell for the first time. The room is dark when I step inside. I slide my hand along the wall out of habit, searching for a light switch, if such a thing exists here. I reach around blindly, willing there to be light –
A bulb illuminates on the ceiling. I jolt in surprise, staring around, but there’s no switch. The room is little more than a windowless cave with sparse furnishings; there’s a single bed with a brown quilt in one corner and a wardrobe in the other, with barely sixty centimetres between them. It’s almost as terrible as the room I had in the first year of university, except this one, at least, doesn’t have an ominous wet patch on the ceiling.
I sink on to the bed. The mattress dips under my weight. Great. A saggy mattress is exactly what I need to help me sleep in this . . . I was about to call it a hellhole, but it doesn’t have the same ring to it when I’m not exaggerating.
The wardrobe is ajar, devoid of the clothing Harper promised, and I wonder . . . If I got that light to turn on by itself, what else can I do? I focus all my energy on the wardrobe and picture soft, comfy pyjamas.
A pair appears. I let out a delighted squeak and grab them. Sunshine yellow, they’re almost enough to put me in a good mood, especially if it means peeling this dress off. I change quickly, picturing bed sheets to match, and when I turn round the brown quilt has changed into a duvet with flowers embroidered on the cover.
It’s the duvet from my childhood home. Mum chose it. A fist clenches around my heart, and I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them, the walls are covered in travel posters – beaches, glaciers, mountain ranges. Pictures I collected and kept in a boxunder my bed. Wedged in between the wardrobe and the wall is a violin. Mum had been a prodigy back in her day. I’d practised until my fingers were sore and blistered, but I’d never been good enough – my music teacher once described me asenthusiastic but screechy– and I spent most lessons squashing the urge to throw it on the floor in a fit of frustration.
I hate that thing, but my vision blurs anyway, because it’s a piece of home, a place I might never see again.
Just in case, I imagine a door. A key. A tunnel.Anything. No magical exit appears, which is disappointing, but unsurprising. Sighing, I climb under the covers, and will the light off.
The room goes black.
Alone, with only the sound of my thoughts rattling round my head, I bite my lip to stop myself from crying. I’mdead. I’m dead, and the only way out is to put my trust in the Devil, aka the one person I can’t trust at all.
When my eyes finally drift shut, my vision floods red. Blood splatters on a rock. A hand lies broken and twitching.
The image is washed away by a river of crimson. It flows, fast and rushing, through a dark tunnel, like a burst pipe in a rainstorm.
Within the flow of water bobs a skull, the lights in its eyes snuffed out.
9
I spend the next day exploring. Carefully. The last thing I need is another Void experience.
Following Harper’s advice, I first head to the balcony andthinkreally hard. A lift appears a few moments later. It’s nothing more than a semi-translucent black box, big enough to hold around twenty bodies. Generic music plays on repeat. I ignore a group of elderly women who are already inside and retreat to the far corner as it surges upwards in a cloud of smoke.
I pick the number seventy-seven at random, and when I re-enter the cliff I find myself in a greenhouse made of mirrors and filled with carnivorous plants that snap miniature teeth at the dead inside. The chamber is twice the height it should be based on the outside, but who am I to argue with the physics of Hell. Some parts are smaller than they should be: floor minus-four-forty opens out into narrow catacombs that force you to crawl around corners only to find demons with whiskers and pointed tails waiting for you.
I scramble out of there sharpish to find the level above is nothing but open space where pipes pump out a pink noxious gas. Humans sleep, slumped in piles, among the clouds. I have no idea if they’re having a good time or not.
It’s like roaming around the world’s largest airport or shopping complex. I could travel up and down for eternity andnot see it all. Asking to go to the top or bottom does nothing, fuelling my suspicion that the cliff continues forever. My eyes grow wider with every new sight, at the magic of this place, and if I wasn’t so determined to get out – Mum would consider everything I’ve done today as frivolous and time-wasting – I might admit that, if nothing else, Asphodel is . . .interesting.
Interesting, and dangerous. Because there are demons everywhere. They loiter at every turn, watching the humans with hungry eyes, like they’re waiting for someone to mess up. One snarls at me when I accidentally make eye contact, and I quickly scuttle back to the safety of the balcony.
After hours of exploring, curiosity finally gets the better of me, and I ask the lift to take me to Dionysus on level minus-two-nine-nine, the place Harper mentioned yesterday. This balcony is busier than the rest, and I have to force my way through several groups of raucous humans to enter the cliff and into a long, sloping black tunnel.
It’s unreasonably warm inside. Music blares in the distance; loud enough to make the floor beneath my feet vibrate when I draw closer to the large, domed arch that must mark the entrance to Dionysus.
Peeking inside, my jaw drops. It’s a cave, easily the size of a stadium, with lava streaming down ash-blackened walls. An array of vibrant cocktails bubble and steam on the bar top, like they’ve been pulled from a witch’s cauldron. At the back of the cavern, rocky stairs lead up to an empty throne – Sathanas’s, presumably – that overlooks the packed dance floor, teeming with demons and humans alike. Lights streak red, orange and yellow flares, like a swirling sunset above a band of humans dressed in glittery leotards. They’re playing an assortment of instruments, the music part dance, part rock, and loud enough to drown out every other thought in my head.
If the Void is the ailment, Dionysus could well be the cure.
‘Going to join them?’ a voice says from behind me.
I jump, spinning round to find Sathanas looking over my shoulder, styled much the same as yesterday: hair slicked back, dark trousers, a shirt he can’t seem to find the top two buttons for.
‘No,’ I say, just to be contrary. It’s either that or make a sarcastic comment that it’s nice he’s decided he has the time to talk after throwing me out yesterday. ‘Are you?’
