"The only way to trap a god is if it takes physical form first. It can be anything from a houseplant to a kangaroo, but once the god chooses its form, one drop of its life force – in this case your blood – and the recitation of the god's name, and that god is trapped for all eternity. Unless, of course, the being who put it there, and only that being, decides to set it free. There is no other way out."
"If you put me in there and then you die, what happens then?"
"No more mocha lattes for you."
"So it really is like hell. Only worse."
He laughed softly, then took out a handkerchief and polished the glass.
I gave him a blurry once-over. "I guess you have nothing to worry about, then, being soulless and all."
"Not true." He tapped a corner of the kerchief on his tongue and continued to polish." I am a sentient being. I have an essence, an aura, if you will, just as you do."
"But it's not like a human soul."
"Neither is yours," he said, seemingly offended. "And thank goodness. Human souls don't tend to fare well. They were not created to survive the psychological atrocities of a hell dimension. The priest brought a soul back once. A young girl from a French village not far from where he lived. He'd fallen in love with her, and when her father refused the priest's offer of marriage, citing age as the main reason – the priest was in his forties and the girl was twelve -"
"Ew."
"- the priest sent her soul to hell."
"To punish her. And her father," I said, knowing how men like that thought.
"Very likely. But obsession is a tricky thing. Her family took care of her catatonic body, but she was no longer the vibrant girl he remembered, the one he fell in love with, so for the first time, he opened the portal again and called out her name."
I eased up in the chair, my curiosity growing. "What happened?"
"She woke up at home in her body, but according to his writings, she came back … different. He called her a berserker, most likely because she knew what he did to her and she screamed every time he came near." He leaned in, his voice full of intrigue. "But she became quite famous for a gift she'd received thanks to her time in a hell dimension. The gift of sight."
"Like psychic?"
"Indeed. She went by many names, but you know her as Joan of Arc."
Astonishment sent a pulse of electricity over my skin.
"Read the history books. There's a reason she refused to give out her real name to anyone ever again." He straightened his shoulders and said, "Enough. Let's get on with it, shall we?"
He turned to give the box to one of his minions. In that instant, Dead Guy appeared beside me and whispered into my ear. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I have no choice but to leave you now."
Alarm clutched around my heart. "You're leaving me?"
"Be ready." And then he was gone.
James turned back, took the pendant in both hands, pushed the latch on one side, then let it fall open in his palms. It was about that time I lost all control over my bodily functions.
"Be ready," Dead Guy mouthed again from across the room.
I barely saw him. I was much more concerned with the lightning strikes that burst from the pendant. The ones that lit the entire warehouse, that branched out and crawled across the ceiling, leaving sparks and burn marks in their place. I winced as a hot wind rushed over my skin, causing it to bubble and crack, the acidic sand peeling away at the reddened layers.
And yet none of that concerned me. Lightning, hot wind, acidic sand blasting away at my skin – that part I could handle. It was the other part that had me doubling over.
James's minions stepped back to a safe distance. All but one. Of course, he was the one with the knife.
James yelled over the noise, delighted with the events. "No human, unless gifted with sight, would ever have seen any of this! The priest could never have known the true power he'd held in the palm of his hands." He watched the swirling clouds and the lightning bursts and laughed. "I never imagined it would be like this."
Apparently the people inside the dimension screaming in terror did not compute. For me, it was agony. I didn't just hear their screams. I felt them. I felt flesh rip and bones crunch. I smelled burned hair and rotting wounds. I tasted old blood and fresh bile. This was not a place built to hold human souls. These people were not sent there because of the choices they made while alive. They were sent there because an asshole of the worst kind decreed it so.