Page 25 of Haunted Heart
“Do not feel bad about him. He is—hewasa scumbag.”
“Full moon nights are always busy in Hell.” Julia looks at me with a smile that’s almost apologetic. “It’s the living’s favorite time to do reckless things.”
She looks at Jonas. “You’re not truly dead, so you only see the illusion of your own hell.”
Her “as you know” goes unsaid.
“Okay, but what could have made him want to crawl into a literal oven?”
Julia floats beside me.
“What you see isn’t the full picture.” She looks at the silo, and her mouth pinches. “You’re not meant to be here, so you see the truth.”
“What do you see?” I ask.
“I see both truth and lie for the sins that aren’t my own.” She looks at us both. “Stand behind me and you might be able to use me to see what you can’t.”
Jonas and I share a look, but we go to stand behind her.
She has faded to near-transparency—through her, the farm is dark, but the same as it is in the living world. Except… it’s not.
The silo is the entrance to a market full of delicious treats and savory delights…
“So, Steven’s sin was that he was a foodie?” Jonas asks.
“His sin was not eating too much, but in taking without a thought to the needs of others.”
Jonas grimaces at the silo and then me. “So, what do I have to do to make sure I don’tactuallygo to Hell when Idodie?”
Julia looks up at him, stoic. “I don’t know.”
ELEVEN
The house is closest.Even though I don’t want to go inside, I head for the gate anyway.
There are too many dead things in glass that might well be alive in this portion of Hell. Julia’s house only has the remnants of her magic and mine… what lingers inside my grandmothers’ house could be strong enough to hurt us.
“I don’t think I want to go in there,” Jonas says as we start up the path to the gate.
“I can tie you up?”
He grimaces and then laughs, but it’s a sad and worried sound. “That would be even worse, honestly.”
But the gate won’t budge. And when I try to reach over to unlatch it, my hand hits a solid, if invisible, wall.
“The wards are strong,” Julia says. “We won’t get in without a heavy-handed spell from the living world to break them. It’s safe to say Dylan isn’t in there. Unless he’s strong enough of a warlock to have gone unnoticed by both of us.”
I let out a sigh of relief, and Jonas mutters a “thank fuck” under his breath.
He doesn’t tug for the ravine as we head back down.
“Not feeling lusty anymore?”
“I know it’s a trick now…” He doesn’t look happy. “Death orgy might be a great name for a metal band, but I don’t want to go out that way.”
“Good.” I keep him chained up anyway.
There are only two more places Dylan could be, so I head for the barn. The sty is on the way.
