“Caressa?” Knight asked as he faced her expectantly.
“She’s being released,” Caressa said with an edge to her voice. It told me she was in no way happy about the fact I was being released. I, myself, couldn’t comprehend what release meant exactly.
“My hearing has been scheduled?” I asked, standing up from my sitting position on the floor, my legs suddenly buckling with pins and needles. I braced myself against the bars and shook out one foot after another, forcing the blood flow back into my body.
Caressa glanced at me and frowned. “No. There will be no hearing.”
“I don’t understand,” I started but she breathed out impatiently and propped her hands on her hips as if to say I needed to keep up with her.
“I’ve received orders from above to release you of all liability in this case and personally ensure that you go back through the portal to Splendor, Earth.”
“What?” I started and then I realized what that meant. I backed away and shook my head, standing between her and Knight. “No, I won’t leave him.”
I turned to look at Knight, only to find he was smiling, as if this were the best thing that could have happened. Caressa faced him, shaking her head, her anger palpable. “You have no choice,” she said and addressed me impatiently. “We need to leave soon so I’ll give you a few minutes to say your goodbyes.”
She then walked out of the cell, locking the heavy door behind her as she strode up the hallway to discuss something with the goblin.
“Knight,” I started as I felt tears in my eyes for the umpteenth time since I’d arrived in the Netherworld. “I am going to get you out of here.”
He shook his head. “You’re free now, Dulce.” Then he smiled again and it beamed of true happiness. “That’s all I ever wanted.”
He grabbed hold of me and pulled me into his arms, kissing the top of my head. The tears in my eyes were now streaming down my face and I felt as if something inside of me was breaking.
“I’m not giving up,” I said as my voice caught in my throat. “I’m not giving up.”
“Dulcie, please do me one favor, that’s all I ask.” He took a deep breath. “Just never come back here. Go through that portal and live out the rest of your life. I want you to be happy.”
Even though I nodded, I could never agree to leave him here. My mind was racing as I thought about the possibilities, the ways in which I could prevent tomorrow’s execution from ever occurring. I would fight my damnedest and if I failed to save him, at least I would go down in a blaze of glory, knowing I did everything I could.
Knight gripped both sides of my face and there was fire in his eyes. “Promise me.”
I swallowed hard. “I promise.” And it was the first time I’d ever lied to him outright.
Knight pulled me close and kissed me with hard, passionate lips. “I will always love you, Dulcie O’Neil,” he whispered.
#
Once I changed out of my Netherworld prison scrubs and was back in my jeans and t-shirt, Caressa escorted me from the prison and into her ANC company Towncar. We both were silent as we made the long trek to the parking lot—silent even as Caressa started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. She drove down a residential street, complete with a netted overhang stretching from street lamp to street lamp, probably to shield residents from the flying creatures.
As we exited the city limits and started on a rural road where there were no longer any netted canopies, we had yet to meet another car. After five minutes straight, I had to imagine we were en route to the airport. I cleared my throat and started in on my plan A.
“You don’t have to take me to the airport,” I started.
She glanced at me in the rear view mirror and frowned before turning back to the road in front of her. “I have orders.”
“So break them.”
She shook her head and glanced back at me again, her blue eyes narrowed. “Why?”
I shrugged and stared outside at the trees that blurred by and the azure sky, complete with white puffy clouds. It was a beautiful day, such a contrast to the dark, tempestuous storm that was brewing within me. I eyed the back of Caressa’s head again and caught her reflection in the mirror. “Because you don’t want me to be released and neither do I.”
“So what?”
“It should be me in prison and you and I both know it, Caressa. Knight is innocent and he’s being punished because someone higher than both of you in the ANC doesn’t like him.”
Caressa nodded but her lips were still tight. She must have taken her foot off the gas because the car suddenly slowed down considerably. Good thing there wasn’t anyone behind us or they probably would have rear-ended us.
“So what do you propose to do about it?” she demanded.
I tapped my fingers against the faux leather interior of the Towncar. “Well, I won’t be able to do a damn thing if you take me to the airport and force me to go home.”
“So, what, I should just let you go?” she asked, laughing sarcastically and shaking her head. “So I can end up being interrogated for not ensuring your return to Earth? Yeah, that sounds like a great plan.”
I was hungry, tired, dirty and my heart was broken. I really didn’t want to deal with Caressa and her bad attitude. But, I managed to keep my cool. Point for me. “What if it were as simple letting me escape?”
“It would be hugely suspect.”
I wasn’t going to give up so easily. “You could talk your way out of it, Caressa. You know you could.” I paused and took a deep breath. “Isn’t Knight’s life worth it?”
It took me by surprise when she suddenly jerked on the wheel and pulled to the side of the road. Good thing I was wearing my seatbelt or I’d have hit my head against the window for sure. She put the car in park but didn’t turn off the motor. Instead, she turned around to face me and her expression was a thoughtful one, as if she were seriously weighing the idea.
“Let’s say I let you go; what good will it do for Knight? How are you going to be able to do a damn thing for him?”
She’d bitten. Things were looking up. “I have the benefit of having nothing to lose. I’ll figure out the rest as I go.” Yes, I fully realized I was pulling a Bram plan; i.e., not actually having a plan but making one up as I went along, but at this point, I didn’t care. I just needed to talk Caressa into releasing me and the rest would come to me. Inevitably, it always did.
She sighed and faced forward, completely quiet as she apparently considered the options. Then she undid her seatbelt and stepped out, shaking her head at her own apparent bewilderment that she was agreeing to any of this. She walked to the rear of the car and opened my door.
“Out,” she said and watched as I undid my seatbelt and stood up. Then she shook her head at me and frowned. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she muttered.
“You know it’s the right thing to do.”
She crossed her arms against her chest and her lips were tight. “You need to make damn sure that whatever plan you’re working on is a good one because I don’t want to see that Loki die.”
I nodded. “Well, we both have that in common.”
“I don’t want this to look too suspect,” she started as she took a deep breath. “No one will believe me if it doesn’t look like a struggle.” She chewed on her lip for a second or two. “And if you get caught, you can’t be picture-perfect either.”
I nodded, getting her gist and braced myself for what I had coming. She smiled and drew her arm back, unleashing her fist into my face. I felt the blow all the way down to my feet and took a few steps back before losing my balance and toppling into the dirt. I gripped my injured cheek and pulled my hand away, as I noticed blood trailing from my busted lip. “Holy shit, Caressa,” I started and threw her a frown.
She smiled and looked impressed with herself. Then she glanced down at her meticulous skirt suit and grabbing each side of her jacket, yanked until the buttons burst off and fell to the ground below her. She grasped her s
ilk, off-white blouse and ripped that as well.
“Um, don’t think you’re going to get out of this without a little payback,” I said, smiling.
She glanced at me and returned the smile. “I was just preparing myself, Dulcie.”
Then she braced herself, feet shoulder-width apart and motioned for me to come at her. I took a deep breath, clenched my right hand shut, making a fist and unfurled it in the same spot where she’d nailed me. Once my fist made contact with her cheek, her head bounced back with the force and I could hear my knuckles cracking. She gripped her cheek and glared at me.
“You didn’t have to make it so hard!” She checked her lip with her fingers for a sign of blood but there wasn’t any. “Shit, that hurts!”
I laughed, still tasting the blood from my split lip. “You wanted real. That’s one hundred percent Dulcie O’Neil.”
“Go,” she said as she continued cradling her injured cheek. “Before I change my mind.”
I nodded, heaving a huge sigh of relief. “I need one more thing.”
“Really?” she asked and shook her head like I was unbelievable; but I could see there was a smile buried there, just underneath the bravado. “What would that be?”
“I need Gabriel’s phone number or his address. Both would be great.” Then I took a deep breath. “And I need a ride to the Grosvenor Hotel.”
“Anything else I can do for you? Maybe pick up your dry cleaning on the way?” Her levity told me that things were good between us. Not that we’d ever be friends, but we were both tough women who were fighting the man. And there’s an unspoken code of respect and recognition between tough women.
Caressa walked back to the driver’s seat and reached into her purse which was sitting on the passenger seat. She glanced back at me. “We’d better get in before one of those flying sons of bitches tries to grab us.”
I was so wholly engrossed in our cat fight that I hadn’t even considered the flying menaces. I wasted no time in opening the back door and throwing myself inside. Caressa took a seat in front of me and pulled the door shut as she picked up her cell phone. I have to admit the cell phone surprised me in the Netherworld, considering everything else seemed to be circa 1960.
Caressa thumbed through her phone and then faced me. “Do you have a pen?”
“No.”
She shook her head and reached inside her purse, producing a piece of paper and wrote down Gabriel’s information. Then she faced me again. “I can’t take you to the Grosvenor; it would look too suspicious.” Then she fished inside her purse again and pulled out two hundred dollar bills. “This is all I have on me but it should get you bus fare.”
“Caressa, I don’t have time to take the bus.”
She exhaled and shook her head, turning around to glance at me. “Has anyone ever told you what an utter and complete pain in the ass you are?”
I smiled and cocked my head to the side, pretending to consider it. “Um, yes.”
Fifteen
After Caressa begrudgingly dropped me off about a quarter mile from the Grosvenor Hotel (to ensure no one would see her or her car) and made me promise never to cross her path again, I collected all my things and searched, in vain, for Bram. Where the unpredictable vampire was, I had no idea but I also didn’t have much time to wait around for him. Not after Caressa said she would have to protect her own ass and report that I’d escaped. She promised to give me the rest of the night but come the morning, she would have to announce to the ANC that I had overpowered her and escaped. How she planned to explain delaying the report about my disappearance until the morning, I had no idea; but as far as I was concerned, that was her problem, not mine. I had plenty of problems on my own plate to keep me occupied.
So not finding Bram, I left him a note, telling him to return to Splendor—that there was nothing he could do for me at this point because I’d taken matters and my fate into my own hands. Now no one could help me—not Bram, Knight, Caressa…not even Quill’s surrender to the authorities. I guess you could say I’d become a renegade.
After lugging my bag downstairs, the concierge called me a cab and a few minutes later, I found myself en route to Gabriel’s, clutching the piece of paper where Caressa had scrawled his address and phone number.
“Here we are,” the cab driver said and pulled to the side of Wilson Street, in front of a large grocery store. Even though I was still a good quarter mile from Gabriel’s apartment, I didn’t want to involve him and I figured it wouldn’t be smart to be seen pulling up in front of his apartment building.
I glanced at the driver, and saw she was a harpy. She had a beautiful body—large breasts and a small waist that flared into broad hips. She was dressed in skin tight jeans and on top, sported what amounted to a bra. Her face, though, in true harpy style, was that of an old crone—deep wrinkles, spider-web fine, grey hair and deep-set, bubbly brown eyes juxtaposing a nose that was in a word, generous. She was the epitome of the saying: “Drink ‘em pretty.”
“That’ll be two fifty,” she said in a smoker’s voice before she erupted into a coughing fit that sounded like she was suffering from emphysema.
“Um, I only have two hundred,” I answered with a sheepish smile as I handed the two bills Caressa had given me to the harpy, hoping she might find it in her miserable soul to give me a discount. If anyone needed a break, it was me. Holy Hades, I’d been through hell and back...
She frowned as she turned to face me, her beady eyes narrowing beneath her bushy eyebrows. “What else you got on you?” she demanded.
I sighed. I didn’t have much and I was sure she was hinting at street potions or the like. “I’ve got clothes.”
She craned her neck so she could get a better look at me and seemed to be raking me from head to toe. “You look about the same size as me.”
“My bag’s in the back. Take what you want,” I muttered. She nodded and opened her door, retrieving my suitcase from the trunk. She plopped it on the front seat, opened it and started sorting through my clothes, throwing things that suited her fancy over her arm.
“We’re good,” she said after she’d wadded up two shirts and two pairs of jeans and tossed them onto the passenger seat. Damn, she got my Seven For All Mankind jeans. Son of a bitch!
“Great,” I muttered and opened the door, rechecking the paper in my hand that proclaimed Gabriel lived at 3676 5th street. I walked around to the front seat, closed up my bag and started forward.
“Have a good night,” the harpy growled at me as she unrolled her window. Then, appearing to choke on something, opened her mouth and spat some sort of brownish liquid into the street.
“Thanks,” I answered dismissively, trying to keep my gag reflexes under control while I watched her drive away.
I started walking down Wilson Street, looking for 5th Street which was supposed to cross Wilson. A few minutes later, I hit 5th and took a right, finally arriving at 3676 and heaved a sigh of relief.
The building was non-descript, seventies style, and tan. It was three stories high, on a residential street lined with rental properties and tall pine trees. There was an overhead net covering the street like a huge, arcing fishnet stocking, reminding me of the one I saw with Caressa. How anyone could live in this battleground was beyond me. I’d definitely seen enough of the Netherworld to know I never wanted to come back…that is if I ever got the chance to leave.
Not wanting to waste any more time, I ran up to the double doors leading into Gabe’s apartment building. Once inside, I noticed an elevator and hit the button to call it. Luckily, it arrived quickly and I wasted no time in leaping inside and hitting the button that would take me to the third floor. Once there, I hightailed it down the hallway, searching for apartment number 354.
Finding it, I took a deep breath and knocked. Now was the time of reckoning.
Please be home, Gabe, please be home, I said to myself, keeping my fingers crossed all the while.
Apparently someone up there was smiling down on me or mayb
e the God of bad luck just wasn’t paying attention to little ol’ me because the door opened and revealed a confused Gabriel. But the important point to note was that, confused or not, Gabriel was home. My night was suddenly looking up.
“Thank Hades, you’re home,” I said and shook my head in relief, before noticing that his chest was bare and he was wearing a pair of worn jeans, looking like a dream come true. I gulped as soon as I saw his chest, realizing it was the exact copy of Knight’s and that thought caused my heart to constrict.
Knight is going to be fine, I told myself in the hope that I wouldn’t become a blubbering mess.
“Dulcie?” Gabe asked, obviously surprised to see me even as a smile spread across his face. “Did you… did you both get out?”
I shook my head and hated the look of disappointment in his eyes. “No, Gabe, and we need to talk. I… I need your help.”
He chuckled. “Well, you’re definitely adept at playing the part of damsel in distress.” He shook his head in apparent amusement and turned around, walking into his apartment.
“Sorry,” I said absentmindedly. “I guess I’m not much for greetings.”
Gabe eyed me with an elevated brow and just smiled. Then, apparently noticing that I was still standing outside, he motioned for me to enter with a wave of his hand. “No loitering… Didn’t you notice the sign on your way up?”
I laughed and suddenly felt intense relief. Why? I wasn’t sure because it wasn’t like I was any closer to sparing Knight. Of course, getting Gabe’s help was a step closer and even though I had a hell of a lot more to accomplish tonight, it was a step in the right direction. And, hey, it felt good to have a friend in this shithole.
I took a few steps inside his house and noticed it was decorated decently well, considering it was a bachelor pad. The walls were a dark cocoa, combined with the chocolate leather couch and rich wood furnishings. It had a definite warm flavor to it. A huge entertainment system dwarfed one wall, complete with surround-sound speakers. Boys and their toys…