“Aye,” he answered with a firm nod.
“You’ve seen Fatal Attraction?” I asked dubiously.
“Joost because Ah live in the Dark Wood doesnae mean Ah doonae have access tae the ootside world, lass.”
“Wow,” I answered as my eyebrows reached for the ceiling to show my surprise. I faced the wall again and shook my head. “Nice artwork. Not exactly warm and fuzzy,” I scoffed before facing Tallis again, finding him infinitely more attractive than the paintings.
“Naethin’ in the Oonderground City is, lass,” Tallis answered. I eyed him, only to find him looking at me with a smirk and a drawn brow. As soon as I wondered what we were waiting for, or whom we were waiting on, one of the three wooden doors in the room opened, but there was no one on the other side. Tallis turned toward it and nodded at me to indicate that I should go ahead. I started forward, my heart lodged in my throat, and crossed the threshold into the next room, with Tallis just behind me.
This room was more along the lines of what one would find in a toy store. There were floor-to-ceiling shelves on all four walls and each shelf was overflowing with toys of every variety—from dolls to model airplanes to drum sets. The only problem was that all of the toys were broken, misshapen, or otherwise in disrepair. I felt like I’d just landed on the Island of Misfit Toys.
Although there were no windows to speak of, the wall farthest from me had a door, which I hoped would lead outside.
“Um,” I started while whisking Bill’s phone from my fanny pack. I needed to check Jason’s text to see exactly where the soul that needed retrieval could be found. When I flipped open the phone, the “soul app” was already pulled up on the screen. It showed a red dot, which represented the lost soul. The red dot was superimposed onto a map that was a 3-D representation of each room inside the Toy Store. Looking up at the room around me and then down at the phone again, I said, “Um, it looks like the soul we need to retrieve isn’t in here.” Then I faced Tallis in confusion. “The way the phone is showing it, it looks like the soul is behind this room, and down a long corridor. Does that sound right?”
Tallis was spared the chance to answer because the door to the room opened, this time, revealing a young woman. She looked like what you’d find next to the definition of “dominatrix.” Dressed in a black leather corset and matching black miniskirt, she wore black fishnet, thigh-high stockings that were held in place with garters. Her platform shoes were also black, although the backs of them were bright red. They had the highest heels I’d ever seen anyone wear—something bordering on eight or nine inches. Her hair, too, was black and straight, reaching down to her elbows. It was styled with longish layers and bangs that were cut straight across. She was very pretty with bright red lipstick, and her light brown eyes seemed to glow from within. She wore black gloves on both her hands and a small, black, top-hat fastener with a feather on the back of her head.
“What do you want?” she asked in an Eastern European accent. She faced me, and her eyes drilled into mine. I opened my mouth, but couldn’t force the words out.
“We are haur tae see Jenny, Elizaveta,” Tallis answered, striding up and standing behind me.
Apparently having failed to realize I wasn’t alone, Elizaveta turned her attention to Tallis for the first time since walking into the room. Her eyes glassed over with the briefest indication of recognition, although she didn’t smile.
“The bladesmith,” she said in greeting as she allowed her gaze to drop from Tallis’s face, to his impressive chest and farther still—down to his muscular thighs, which were halfway covered by his kilt. I couldn’t help but notice that she stared at his crotch a little too long. Irritated, I cleared my throat, but Elizaveta didn’t bother looking at me. Instead, she merely nodded to Tallis before she sashayed back through the door, her hips swaying in time with her gait. How she managed to walk in those heels was beyond me, but I had to admit I was impressed.
Looking back at Tallis only to find his gaze plastered on her ass, I frowned, but he just shrugged his immense shoulders and offered me an innocent expression. “Whit, lass?”
“Nice, Tallis, really nice,” I grumbled and shook my head.
“Ah am boot ah man,” he announced, his words settling inside of me like an anvil dropped from a fourth story. They were the same words I’d said to him when he’d lambasted himself for his sexual feelings for me. So it was okay for him to recognize his carnal feelings for Elizaveta but not for me? It was a paradox that didn’t sit well with me and one I had to abandon because I had more important things to think about, namely my survival …
I followed Elizaveta down the long corridor until we reached a door at the end of the hall. She opened the door and walked in, holding it for me as well as for Tallis. Well, it would probably be more fitting to say she held the door open for Tallis because as soon as he walked through it, she eyed his backside hungrily and then offered him a suggestive smile when he turned around to check on me. ’Course, for all I knew, maybe he was turning around to check on her.
Rolling my eyes, I took stock of my new surroundings. Even though we were inside the building, the Styx bisected the room, flowing through one wall and into the other. It was as if someone had deliberately built the structure around the river because the hardwood floors terminated at the sandy banks of the Styx. In the far corner of the room stood a large, golden throne, which was upholstered in red velvet. There were probably another five or more women who were dressed just like Elizaveta. They appeared to be making the rounds inside the room, and most of them were near the river. They all towered over me in their skyscraper shoes. All of them didn’t fail to notice Tallis and a few of them smiled at him … suggestively. Others, who were bolder, sashayed right up to him and ran their hands across his chest. Tallis did nothing but stand there, smiling at each one in turn, while I felt like throwing up.
“Nice of you to warn me that the Toy Store is full of the horniest women I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” I grumbled.
“Apologies, lass,” Tallis answered with a wide grin. “Boot Ah dae recall informin’ ye that we had naethin’ tae fear here?”
“Looks like you need to be afraid of getting raped,” I responded with a frown as a strikingly tall blond rubbed herself against him.
“’Tis ah fear Ah would gladly face, lass,” he answered with a wink.
“Yeah, yeah,” I responded and took another few steps inside the room, wanting to get a better picture of what the women were looking at in the river. As soon as I was close enough, I could see countless glowing souls submerged in the murky Styx. Most were stuck in the middle of the river, gurgling, and choking on the swampy water. Some attempted to crawl up the banks of the Styx, using others to pull themselves forward. But none managed to get very far because they would inevitably start biting and striking at one another, thusly falling back into the water again. And if they lingered too long on the banks of the river, one of the dominatrix women simply pushed them back into the river with the pointed toe of her outlandishly high shoes.
“Tallis Black, the only visitor I’m ever actually happy to see.” I heard the soft, feminine voice and turned around to find a very attractive woman with long, wavy, black hair approaching us. Even though she was dressed similarly to the other women in the room, i.e., tight black leather pants and a bright red leather corset top, she didn’t wear any shoes. Not that she needed any because she was so tall.
“JennyAnn,” Tallis greeted her with a genuine, broad smile.
The woman walked right over to him and threw her arms around him, making sure to kiss him on both of his cheeks, as well as his mouth. When she pulled away from him, she ran her index finger down the line of his scar, leaning in to him to kiss the jagged edge that ended at his jawline. Then she whispered something in his ear to which I wasn’t privy. He responded with a deep chuckle as he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close, giving her another hug.
I found myself in a sudden ill humor.
“
You’ve come for your soul,” Jenny announced, not sparing me so much as a backward glance. She was extremely tall for a woman, maybe five foot eleven if I had to guess, and looked like she must’ve been in her mid- to late-twenties. I had to imagine, though, in Underground City years, she was much older if it were true that she’d been a resident of the original city, that is, before Alaire rebuilt it. Her green eyes and black hair, made her unfortunately, strikingly pretty.
“Aye,” Tallis agreed.
“I’ve missed you, bladesmith,” she said, while running her hands down his chest.
“An’ Ah ye, JennyAnn,” Tallis responded, looking at her in such a way that told me these two had some sort of a past. Friends schmiends.
“I heard about the decision that Jason and Alaire made, regarding your absolution, and I think it’s a horrible injustice and a travesty,” she continued, expelling a pent-up breath.
“Aye,” Tallis said again, but this time, his composure seemed to ratchet up a bit.
Then a smile broke out across her plump lips. “Of course, your absolution would have meant that I’d never see you again so I can’t say I’m that terribly upset about it.” She ran her hands across his pecs and then clung to one of his enormous biceps. “As it is, I hardly ever see you.”
“Ahem,” I cleared my throat, deciding to interrupt them before I found myself witnessing a live sex show. I hobbled forward, very aware that I was surrounded by the sexiest women I’d ever seen in my life, and, yet, here I was supporting myself on a poster-bed crutch, wearing a dirty sports bra and yoga pants with crude stitching up the front. Not to mention my fanny pack.
Never mind! I yelled at myself while I offered Jenny my most cheery smile, which I’m sure was fake as hell, but I couldn’t say I cared. “Hi,” I said as I politely extended my hand. “I’m Lily Harper.”
Jenny took my hand, but didn’t say anything to me. Instead, she glanced up at Tallis with a question in her eyes.
“Ah’m Lily’s guardian,” Tallis explained. “She is the one retrievin’ the soul.”
“Lucky girl to have such a guardian,” Jenny replied as she offered me a wide smile that made her appear even prettier. Her beautiful features suggested she could have been Native American. “I’m Jenny Harrington, but my friends call me JennyAnn,” she finished before winking at Tallis, and letting it be known she considered him a “friend.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I responded insincerely.
Jenny offered me a quick smile before facing Tallis again as her smile widened and her hands, yep, found his muscles again. Sheesh, this was going to get really old really fast. “How are the Grevels?” she cooed up at him.
“They’re ah bludy nuisance, boot Ah havenae killed them … yet,” Tallis answered with a secretive smile that appeared to be exclusively for Jenny.
“You know I would have kept them here if I could have,” Jenny said apologetically before showing Tallis her pouty face. “You were my last hope.”
“The Grevels are yours?” I interrupted, unable to mask the shock in my voice.
Jenny nodded. “Yes, they were mine, but unfortunately, they aren’t very good at defending themselves. They were no match for the bigger creatures in the city, so they started to die off. That, and Alaire doesn’t care much about endangered species, so I had to find them a new home.” She turned to their new home and smiled up at him suggestively. I suddenly wished that instead of Jenny we were dealing with Cerberus or Plutus or maybe even Pinhead, Jason, Freddy Krueger, Michael Meyers, Pennywise the clown, and Chucky and all at the same time …
“Ah was happy tae help, Jenny,” Tallis said warmly.
I was just about to comment when I heard loud voices coming from the room next door. They were swiftly followed by footsteps, and something I can only describe as a commotion. When the door opened, I watched four women, possibly Elizaveta’s clones, rushing through the door with … Bill in the middle of them?
“Babes, babes,” he started, shaking his head and holding up his hands in a play of submission as he eyed each one of them. “Look, you’re all fine as shit,” he said, pointing at one of the women who was wearing glasses. “And because of you, I’m now considerin’ myself a spectaphile, ’cause, girl, you got this naughty librarian, geek-freak thing goin’ on.” The women all started to grab him again, but he shook his head and took turns pushing them away. “I’m sorry, ladies, but Billy can’t be your concubone. Not when my craydar’s going balls out, which means you bitches gotta be cray-cray.” Then he turned around, saw me and a huge smile took hold of his round face. “Nips!”
“People mud-besprent in that lagoon, all of them naked and with angry look”
– Dante’s Inferno
TWELVE
“Where the hell have you been?” Bill demanded of me, rescinding his smile as a frown took its place. “I’ve been so freakin’ worried about you, I haven’t even been able ta put the moves on Delilah!”
“Where is Delilah?” I asked, suddenly worried that she’d accompanied Bill and somehow gotten lost in the shuffle of all the women in the Toy Store.
“She’s back at our apartment,” he answered indifferently before throwing his pudgy hands on his equally pudgy hips in an attempt to return to the subject he was interested in, namely, yelling at me. Meanwhile, the four women who’d accompanied him into the room, continued to rub themselves all over him, like cats in heat. One of them started kissing the side of his face, but amazingly enough, Bill didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he continued to glare at me. “Now you wanna tell me where the hell you’ve been?”
“I’ve been having dinner with Alaire; and before that, I was tending to Tallis, just like I told you I would,” I replied curtly. Bill spared a glance at the Scotsman, apparently not realizing until then that Tallis was in attendance.
“Dude, I’m even a lil’ bit happy to see you,” Bill said in a flat tone. He nodded briefly at Tallis who nodded back at him, just as briefly. Bill then held out his knuckles to the much larger man who, by this time, knew how to speak Bill’s language. The two of them butted their knuckles before a wide smile broke out across Bill’s mouth. “’Kay, Yeti, we can be besticles again.”
I figured that term had something to do with best friends and testicles, but being in no hurry to find out, I changed the subject. “How did you get here, Bill?”
“How did I get here?” he repeated quizzically. He dropped his head into his hand dramatically before facing one of the women who stood closest to him. “She wants to know how I got here.” The woman simply nodded as if she, too, wanted nothing more than to hear his story. Bill faced me again as his smile dropped right off his face. “I’ll tell you how I got here! I had to walk for four freakin’ days through that evil, hate forest with those freakin,’ crazy ass spiders an’ those messed up trees. I didn’t sleep for even like, an hour.” He turned to the woman on his other side and further explained, “’Cause that forest is like, haunted an’ shit.” Then he cocked his head to the side as he studied her. “But you’re, like, Elvira’s sister so you prolly get off on all o’ that scary Halloween crap.” The woman just nodded at him blankly and I momentarily wondered if she spoke any English. “Anyways,” Bill continued as he faced me again, “not only did I have ta travel through the scary-ass forest, but I had ta do it all by myself!” He shook his head like it was a huge tragedy, but I could tell he was proud of himself. And I wasn’t about to ruin his buzz by reminding him that as an angel, nothing in the Dark Wood could have hurt him anyway.
“Thanks, Bill,” I said with a warm smile.
Bill didn’t appear to hear me, though, and continued to shake his head and sigh. Repeatedly. “I’m gonna have ta sleep with a nightlight on for, like, the rest of my life,” he finished.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I started as more questions flooded my mind. “But how did you even know where to find me in the first place?” I was perplexed and amazed that Bill had not only taken on such a huge task, but actually succeeded.
br /> Bill ignored my question and put his arms around two of the women closest to him as he faced me again. “I swear, I’m so traumatized by the last five days that I can’t even focus on my getting laid parade.” I assumed that was just another term for his new band of friends who were still in the process of clinging to him, a shocker in and of itself. As a rule, Bill didn’t have much luck attracting the opposite sex. Well, that was before his visit to the Toy Store.
“Bill, getting back to my question …” I prodded.
“Yeah, yeah,” he started and frowned at me. “I wanted to call you an’ find out where the hells you were but then I remembered you had my phone. Soze I called Jason Skeletorhorn an’ told him I lost my AE phone.” Regular phones, aka phones not provided by Afterlife Enterprises, couldn’t access other AE phones, so it made sense that Bill would have gone to Jason if only in an attempt to get an AE-issued phone. “So the dude actually FedExed me another phone, an’ then texted me with our mission.” He reached inside his pocket and produced what looked like an iPhone. “So now, I got me ah brand spankin’ new smartie phone soze I can take snelfies!” He glanced at the woman to his right and elucidated. “That’s when you take a picture of yourself usin’ your phone while sneezin’.”
“Oh!” she responded and then giggled as she buried her face in Bill’s neck and proceeded to give him a hickey.
“You called Jason and got a new phone just so you could find out where I was and then you came all this way to get me?” I asked, tears welling up in my eyes because I actually found it hard to believe. Even though Bill drove me beyond crazy sometimes, he really, truly cared about me and at times like these, the point hit home.
“Does the Pope shit in the woods?” Bill replied, shaking his head like I was slow.