Zoe Archer - Sinner’s Heart

Her fingers moved down the length of his, until their palms met, and they clasped each other’s wrists.

He felt her pulse beneath his fingertips, and his throat ached. He tore his gaze away from the sight to look up at her face. Her eyes glistened.

Yet this was not enough. Still holding tight to her wrist, he stepped into the stream. Icy water flowed around his boots, and the rocky bed was slick, but he barely noticed. He pulled her toward him.

She gasped as she plunged forward, splashing into the water. And gasped again when their bodies met.

The stream twisted away, leaving them standing upon the ground. This, too, shifted beneath them like a restless animal.

He didn’t notice. He felt her, touched her. His mind stilled. His heart raced.

The length of her body pressed against his, warm and firm and living. Her arms were around his shoulders, pressing him tightly to her, and all he could do was simply feel her. In this vale of death, he knew only the sensation of Livia touching him and her in his arms. Made all the more wondrous and agonizing because it was their first and last time they would ever feel one another.

She pulled back enough to gaze up at him. “There is only one way to reach this place—death.”

“You did not die to come here.”

“But you did.”

He nodded once, brief and clipped.

She clenched his shoulders. “Gods. Why?” Her throat worked. “Why would you doom yourself?”

“If one of us needs to be alive, it must be you.”

“Don’t you understand,” she cried. “They will come for you. The demons. They’ll drag you to Hades. There’s no escaping them.”

“I’ve already felt them at my heels. If I can outrun them a little longer, long enough to get you back to the realm of the living”—he smiled faintly—“then everything is as it should be.” He threaded his fingers with hers. “It was my intent to find you and bring you back. I’ve accomplished one of those goals. Now it’s time to realize the other.”

“Nobody has ever returned.”

“You will.”

“But you shall not.”

He remained silent.

“Damn you,” she choked, pressing her face against his chest.

He held her close, cupping the back of her head. If they could only stay like this. If only they had more than this moment. It would have to sustain him for what was to come.

And so it would.

Bram tensed as screams like rusty knives punctured the quiet. Even the creatures perched in nearby trees muttered in fear at the sound.

“Flee,” Livia urged. She held up her hand, and glowing energy danced between her fingers. “I’ll attempt to hold the demons back. You might conceal yourself, find some other realm in which to hide. Please. I cannot watch them drag you away.”

He stepped back, her fingers still threaded with his. “I’ll run, but I’m taking you with me. I will see you back amongst the living. And then . . .” He made himself grin. “Hell will have to contend itself with a true Hellraiser.”

Bram didn’t know what the creatures were that intended to haul him to Hell—whatever they were, they’d be damned unpleasant, and he had no intention of letting them succeed in their goal—not until he’d gotten her safely to the other side. With Livia’s hand clasped in his, he raced over the twilight hills.

Shadows and gloom spread over the landscape, oppressive in their absoluteness. This was a place in which the sun never rose. The ground radiated no lingering warmth, the grass and trees were fed by darkness.

Even with the creatures in pursuit, there was a physical tug within himself, pulling him down into the underworld. He gritted his teeth, fighting that demand.

Yet as Bram’s heart pounded, he felt the heat of Livia’s skin. And he heard the enraged pursuit of large, leather-skinned creatures. Their shrieks echoed over the hills, their fury a palpable thing.

Dark shapes gathered at the corners of his vision, and then he saw them. It would have been better to have remained ignorant of their appearance. They stood eight feet tall, and resembled putrefying corpses, their flesh hanging from their bones or else pulled tight in a decaying bloat. Some had patchy hair, but others’ skulls gleamed through a web of skin, and their eyes were burning green orbs stuck into the sockets. Claws and serrated teeth ensured their prey would not escape.

Livia would be free. And then he’d contend with the demons.

“Where are we headed?” she gasped.

He did not break stride. “To find a way out.”

“If this can happen, it will require an actual door.”

“Know of any doors?” All he saw were hills and more hills.

“No,” she panted. “Hold—the gemini use doors in the vault where they keep souls. The vault lies just beyond the Ambitus.”

“Then we need to find that vault.” He helped steady her when the ground buckled. The demons’ growls sounded as they too fought against the unstable ground.

“Your soul is in it,” Livia said. “But when the demons get hold of you, your soul’s also pulled into Hell.”

“Going there, anyway.”

“Not yet,” she shot back. “We can use your soul as a beacon, have it lead us to the vault. Use our thoughts to find them both.” She chanced a quick look behind her. “Concentration’s difficult.”

“Has to be now.” Bram kept his body moving, fighting to stay ahead of the demons as well as stay upright whilst the ground continued to reform itself beneath him. His mind and purpose, however, worked to find his soul’s presence.

Everything was chaos and darkness. The Devil had possession of his soul, yet Bram almost doubted it existed. But he felt Livia’s certainty, her belief in him, and, as they ran, he joined his thoughts with hers. Her presence filled him.

To his shock, he began to sense something. What was it?

“Yes,” she encouraged. “More.”

There—a gleaming warmth he instinctively recognized. His soul. A shock to feel it, when he’d been so sure it didn’t exist. But she’d brought him to it.

“Cleave to it, hold fast,” Livia urged.

Following the beacon of his soul, he pushed through the layers separating the worlds. The dead landscape around them drifted away like smoke. He sensed Livia’s own will, joining with his as they struggled upward, to the Ambitus.

Triumph surged when, just ahead of them, stone walls began to materialize from the darkness. Whatever it was, he and Livia had willed it into being.

And then they were inside.

Glancing around, he took in the chamber in which he and Livia stood. Calling it a chamber seemed too defined a word, for the heavy stone walls appeared to dissolve into twilight as they rose upward. Overhead, men and women drifted like autumn leaves. They skated across the surface of a too-large moon, their gazes searching, but vacant.

Bram turned his attention away from these shades and back to the nebulous chamber. The visible walls appeared thick, and large flagstones covered the floor. Along the walls were heavy wooden shelves. Upon the shelves, spherical objects rested. They glowed, these objects, brilliant, radiant. Replete with life. Simply to look upon them filled him with a bittersweet pleasure.

Souls.

“The vault of souls,” Livia murmured. “Where your geminus keeps its plunder. It steals them from unknowing or foolhardy mortals.”

“Stole,” Bram corrected. “The thing’s dead now. It can’t thieve anymore.”

The shelves were crowded with souls, some brighter than others, yet all of them painfully beautiful to look upon. The geminus had been busy, the foul bastard.

“There,” Livia said, pointing to the far end of the vault, where a heavy wooden door marked the only way out.

They hurried toward it. Passing the numerous souls upon the shelves, he felt their life and vitality reaching out to him, warm where everything else in this terrible place was cold. The souls promised strength, power, the living essence of humanity. Intoxicating.

As they hastened farther into the vault, they came upon a large, thick table. A silver salver rested atop the table. An object lay upon the salver. Its golden radiance bathed the table, surprising in its intensity.

His soul.

Bram approached it warily, with Livia trailing behind him. He scowled in disbelief when his eyes grew hot. His soul should have been a cold black slab of rock, or a sickly, viscous lump that oozed acid. But he never anticipated this . . . this lambent beauty.

Anger scoured him. Didn’t his soul understand that there was no beauty in him? Nothing good? How dare this thing shine like a little sun, insisting through its luminosity that he could be capable of decency and honor?

He was seized by impulse to grab his soul and throw it to the ground, crush it beneath the heel of his boot.

Livia neared the table with his soul, face alight with wonder. “This is yours,” she whispered.

He did not question how she knew. “Yes.”

An unfamiliar sheen gathered in her eyes as she stared at his soul. “You disputed its existence, but look how it shines.” She turned to him with an unexpected scowl. “Curse you for throwing it away so easily.”

The soul’s brilliance still felt like an indictment. He took no pleasure in it, only knew the chasm between what he might have been and what he was.

The stone walls of the vault rattled. They shook with a noise like thunder, and over this came the demon’s screams. They were trying to get inside.

“Come,” he said, “it’s time to get you from this place.” He tore himself away from his soul, pulling her behind him.