Better off Dead Book Four Read online

  It took an agonizingly long time where I questioned everything, but finally he squeezed my hands.

  I hadn’t thought I’d been capable of crying anymore, but a wave of bittersweet grief took me. My tears were so numerous, they could have extinguished hellfire.

  “Sonos, there’s no way I’m going to break this dream. It will affect you, won’t it? I don’t know that much about dream and soul magic, but I know if I break something sacred to you, you’ll never be the same.”

  He squeezed my hands again.

  This brought more tears to my eyes, but it also gave me the one thing I needed. Anger. “I’m gonna find out where you are and break you out. I’m gonna get out of the Deep. I promise you that,” I spat.

  He squeezed my hands again, but he was becoming weaker. I hadn’t been paying attention. If I had, I would’ve realized that the ballroom was breaking up more and more. One of the only things still standing was the chandelier, but that too was giving way to the fractured universe around us. One by one the little crystal beads were starting to reflect planets and nebula. Some were even growing flowers and moss. Others looked as if they were made from dirt and the ash of the deceased.

  “Sonos. Please, there must be something I can do to see your face. Just let me talk to you one last time.”

  There was a crack from above me. The chandelier gave way. Sonos knocked into me, pushing me out of the way just in time. But the chandelier fell on top of him.

  “Sonos,” I shrieked with all my heart as I shoved up.

  The chandelier hadn’t crushed him, but it was pinning him.

  I jerked down to my knees and let magic spill over my body as I got ready to wrench the heavy chandelier off his chest, but I couldn’t. He was becoming plastic again. As I stared at the rest of the ballroom, everything was becoming fake once more.

  “Sonos,” I screamed.

  He reached a hand out to me. He grabbed me. He squeezed my fingers once more, and a few delicate touches of heat transferred from his palm.

  Then there was a crack like no other. The ballroom gave way. It didn’t sound like a building falling apart. It was far more ominous. It was nothing more than a simple crack of glass.

  Suddenly I was brought back to the realm of the Deep. I was down on my hands and knees. In front of me was the snow globe. It was broken.

  The two little plastic figurines inside were on their sides. While the woman was fine – the man had been broken in half.

  “Sonos,” I screamed until I could’ve burned through my throat.

  My hands were tingling. All over, it felt like I’d grabbed hold of every flame in existence. This energy rushed up from within me. As I stared at the snow globe, I realized it was coming from it. Magic was making its way across the dust and out of the little plastic male figurine and into me.

  I clutched my arms and started to shake. “Sonos, no. I didn’t break your dream. I didn’t mean to. Sonos, I’m sorry.”

  Suddenly that little plastic male figurine just crumbled into ash. I tried to clutch it up, but it already disappeared by the time my hands reached it.

  I froze.

  I was now surrounded by Sonos’s magic. It was some of the strongest power I had ever experienced. In a way, it even rivaled the Deep.

  “... Sonos?” I whispered. “Sonos?” I screamed as I squeezed my eyes shut. I collapsed forward and pressed my hands against my face. I rocked back and forth, but he did not return.

  I’d broken his dream. There was no going back.

  Chapter 4

  I’d been a fool. A selfish idiot. I hadn’t thought about the consequences of activating the snow globe in the Deep. Of course it wouldn’t have been able to survive in this world.

  Though all I wanted to do was remain there, down on all fours, crying for eternity, the Deep had another idea. As more of Sonos’s magic surrounded me, it picked me up. At first I only floated ever so slightly above the dust surrounding me. But more and more I began to drift higher. “What... what the Hell is happening?”

  It was like I’d been given wings. I’d cast numerous float spells before. They all felt the same. It wasn’t like you were actually floating. That was to say you didn’t get this light feeling in your stomach as if gravity didn’t count anymore. What it would feel like was that you were walking, just not on the ground.

  But this was true floating. It honestly felt as if something was rising within me – this energy that could never be kept down.

  It had to be Sonos’s power. That just made me scream with grief and anger. “No, Sonos, I don’t want this. No—”

  I didn’t have any choice. I was rising through the Deep. I caught more glimpses of its ever-changing expanse. I swore I saw everything in reality. From the hearts of stars, to the depths of black holes, to the expanses of human minds. All of it broke around me as I rose higher and higher.

  There was no fighting the process. There was nothing to hold on to except for myself. So I collapsed my arms around my middle and tucked my head down until I was in the fetal position. I rocked back and forth in the sky.

  As I rose higher and higher, I started to glimpse the various realms of Hell once more. I saw everything, from sprawling metropolises to old graveyards. There was every single place you could imagine a damned soul spending eternity.

  There was fire – everywhere. It burned in great big pits and traveled along through reservoirs in the massive cities. It glimmered in streetlights that were dotted along at regular intervals.

  I swore I saw the Devil’s throne room again. Then I glimpsed higher until I viewed those barren wastelands where waiting souls were kept.

  I... I swear I had the option to travel anywhere.

  I could feel this potential picking up around me. It was Sonos’s magic, and as Sonos had always been a General of the Damned, there was no realm of Hell that was blocked off from him. All I had to do was concentrate.

  Gritting my teeth hard, even though all I wanted to do was remain in my grief, I tried to concentrate. I needed to find somewhere safe to go to regroup. The only place I could think of was Sonos’s own house.

  As I concentrated, a megalithic city resolved around me. It was one of the biggest areas in all of Hell. It rivaled anything on Earth. Not only was it massive, it looked hyper-modern. But at the same time, it was interspersed with every form of architecture you could think of from every single culture on Earth. There were Egyptian pyramids, burial mounds, mausoleums, and shrines.

  I continued to concentrate. It wasn’t until I grabbed my engagement ring and fixed it in my fingers with all my might that I finally felt myself sinking down.

  The magic of the Deep broke around me, and I landed down on my hands and knees in the middle of the street.

  I would’ve assumed that Hell wouldn’t have transport, but it very much did. I jerked my head up just in time to see a massive horse-drawn cart barreling down on me. And before you have a chance to think that a horse-drawn cart isn’t a particularly terrifying road vehicle, back up, because these horses were not Earth equivalents. They were massive, they breathed fire, and their eyes glowed this palpable violent red.

  My senses kicked into gear just in time, and I rolled to the side. I watched the rider of the cart wave a fist at me like he was some pissed off New York cab driver.

  Staggering to my feet, I stared in total horror – and wonder – at the world around me.

  There was a Victorian dress shop just to my side. Beside that was an opium den. Just down from that was a biotech company. As I stared across the street, there was every kind of restaurant you could think of – including ones that only sold liver. Human liver, ghost liver, cow liver – you name it. It was a liver emporium.

  I made the kind of face that deserved. Then I became hyper-aware of the fact of where I was and what I was wearing. I stared down at myself. I was in that blue dress from the snow globe. How it had remained on me I did not know.

  I should stick out like a sore thumb in it, but I didn’t. As I’d a
lready said – I’d arrived beside a Victorian dress shop. And while most of the dresses in the window were adorned with ghoulish things like ghosts and skeletons, you’d have to get up close to see that my gown just had sequins and beads.

  I grabbed my dress, clutching it in white-knuckled hands. “Sonos, is this a message from you? Are you still with me?”

  People were walking by. One man – or half-ghoul, half-ghost dressed in a top hat, a hospital gown, and heels, frowned at me. “You must be a new arrival. Do not call on a holy general’s name in vain.”

  “Holy general’s name?” I whispered.

  So I couldn’t even call out Sonos’s name anymore? That had been taken from me too.

  Feeling sick, I wrapped my arms around my middle and placed my hand against my tummy. I pushed it in, forcing my other hand to form a fist.

  I staggered forward. I accidentally fell against a lamppost and slipped into the road. Once more I had to jerk out of the way before I could be flattened by those horse-drawn carts. Though, to be fair, it wasn’t just carts they were drawing. They were responsible for all traffic, which included oil tankers, busses, and massive tanks. Obviously the only propulsion system they had in Hell were these horses, but considering their power, anger, and speed, there was no need for other vehicles.

  I slipped in behind several ghosts. I ignored what they were discussing until one conversation practically slapped me in the face.

  “They say Sonos has disappeared,” one of them hissed. “His bride-to-be sacrificed him for her life. What a wicked woman.”

  I became so stiff, I almost couldn’t move. I went to shove a hand forward, turn the ghost around, and cry in their face that that hadn’t been the truth, but I couldn’t. Because it was the truth.

  Unknowingly, I’d sacrificed the snow globe to get myself out of the Deep. And considering... considering that little plastic figurine of Sonos had crumbled to ash, then maybe he really was dead.

  I began to tremble. They were these massive, all-encompassing moves I couldn’t hide from. They practically became convulsions. I fell against the streetlamp, now wrapping my arms around my middle so tightly, they could’ve melded with my organs.

  Several passing ghosts and ghouls stared at me angrily. “Don’t mess up the streetlamps, you tramp,” one of them said. “You’ll just make more work for the cleaning crew. And dry your eyes before you inundate the Hell River beneath you.”

  The pissed-off guy pointed down to one of the channels of hellfire beneath me. I hadn’t even been paying attention to it. I was standing over it, and sure enough, my tears were trickling down into it. These little bursts of steam accompanied every one.

  I didn’t know why the majority of people I’d passed looked and spoke like they were out of Victorian England, but it didn’t last. The more I continued through the city, the more I realized there were pockets dedicated to each time.

  I tried to listen in to any other conversations in case people were discussing Sonos, but they weren’t. They talked about a variety of things. Not one of them, however, was terrified about the impending end of everything. You would think if people knew how close Hilliker was to manifesting the Banished, that these idiots wouldn’t be discussing stock prices and celebrities, but their continued existence.

  They weren’t. Which told me they didn’t know.

  I knew I had to dry my tears, straighten up, and look like I belonged here, but I couldn’t. And nor could I find Sonos’s place. I tried to concentrate again, but I could no longer glimpse the city in full. Just as frustration began to own me and remind me that I was wasting precious time I didn’t have, I looked up to see something. No. That wasn’t right. I came to a sudden stop on the side of the street as if someone had placed a hand on my shoulder. Then my chin inclined upward as if a gentle touch had alighted on my neck and cheek.

  I stared across a cross-section of the city until I saw a mansion on top of a hill. It was massive. It put my castle to shame. It looked more like a sprawling city. It was protected by a huge gate made out of solid flames. It wasn’t the flames or the mansion that got my attention – it was the lingering touch along my cheek.

  ... That was Sonos’s house. I was sure of it.

  I began to run. At one point I even darted out in front of some of those horses. They looked ready to trample me down, but I managed to get out of their way. The whole time as I ran toward that mansion, I did not straighten my head once. I kept it inclined in the correct direction, even as I ran downstairs, across courtyards, and through overpasses.

  I saw the whole city. I ran through various time periods and cultures. It should’ve captured my attention, but nothing could. Only the promise of Sonos’s home reached out to me.

  There... there was a tiny possibility that he wasn’t dead. Wasn’t there? Could there be a hope that he was alive somewhere? Because wasn’t there always a hope?

  I knew how pathetic that sounded.

  But I also knew I had to hold on to something.

  I clutched my cross, though I wasn’t stupid enough to pull it out from underneath my top. It was only just hidden by the low cut of my bodice.

  I darted out in front of more ghosts and ghouls. Some of them were discussing Sonos. More of them were blaming me. I didn’t care. I was so focused, Hell could have exploded around me, and I would’ve still run for him.

  Finally I ascended that hill and reached the gates. I didn’t slow down. For the gates opened for me like the arms of a lover.

  There were several ghosts on the street that led up to the mansion. As they saw the gates open for me, they spluttered in startled surprise. I didn’t turn to see their faces.

  As soon as I was through, the gates closed.

  I crumpled down onto my knees and stared up at the mansion. It rose above me like an open hand. Collapsing my palm over my face and pushing my fingers in, I staggered up.

  I ran up to the front door. It too opened for me. I didn’t even have to reveal my engagement ring.

  Then... then I was inside.

  I fell down to my knees, suddenly realizing how weak my body was. I collapsed onto my face. I cried there on the cold stone floor. It was carved – everything was decorated in this mansion. If I tugged my head up long enough and stared through my waterfall of tears, I could appreciate that this place was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. It was clear that whoever had designed it had an eye for the finest things a mind can create.

  I don’t know how long I remained there, crying, clutching at my cross and rubbing at my arms. Finally I pushed up. The dress swirled around me.

  I was in some kind of atrium. There was art on the walls. I expected it to be other generals, but it wasn’t. It was various scenes from around Earth – from mountaintops, to valleys, to untouched waterways. It was calming. I continued on. There was a staircase to my side. I took it, a trembling hand on the banister to keep myself steady. My slippers crunched clean carpet that was thick and soft. It was richly patterned. It had a blue-and-white peacock design that led the eye.

  I climbed the stairs. I reached the landing. I walked along it. I peered into rooms. There was everything you could imagine, from clinics to libraries to storerooms. There was a dining hall – there was even a café for one. There was a sitting room. There was a sauna. There was a whole cinema. But in every single room there was only one seat.

  I collapsed my arms around my middle again, but this time it wasn’t in grief – at least not for my loss.

  “You must’ve been so lonely,” I whispered to myself.

  I continued to check through the rooms, but I only ever found one seat in each one.

  I finally found some art that wasn’t landscapes. It showed Sonos. On his own. He was dressed in various garb indicating that the photos and paintings hearkened from different periods of human history. But always he was on his own.

  A few more tears touched my cheeks. I brushed them off.

  I continued down the corridor.

  I didn’t kn
ow what I was looking for. Surely by coming to his house it meant I was finally safe? I didn’t need to search through his various rooms. But what was the point of being safe if I didn’t have a plan? I had to figure out where they were keeping Lilly. This was not helping. But I couldn’t stop. And soon I realized why. I opened a door at the end of a relatively nondescript corridor. There were no other doors in it. There was no art. There was no distraction. Hell, the carpet was plain, too. But as my hand locked over the handle and through trembling fingers I opened it, I walked in to see a room and an office. There was a bed, and there was a desk, and there was a chair – and that was it.

  This was his room. You would think, judging by the rest of the house, that it would be the most opulent place of all. But it wasn’t. It was so plain, it looked like a prison cell.

  Clasping my trembling fingers over my mouth, it took me a long time to unstick my feet. I walked over to the bed. My whole body shook. I eventually managed to pry my fingers back and touch the pillow.

  Instantly I felt his heat. Or at least a last lingering trace. But as I trailed my fingers over the simple fabric, it disappeared. So too did his scent.

  “Sonos,” I whispered through a terrified breath. “Please don’t leave me.”

  I pushed back from the bed. I walked over to the desk. There was a piece of paper on it. It was blank. There was an inkwell with a pen. There was no ink in it.

  I frowned at it. I opened the drawers of the desk, but it only contained blank paper.

  ... It was as if Sonos had never had anything to write – no journal to share, no thoughts, no memories, no hopes. And yet he had been waiting his whole life to have something to share – for what was the point of the paper and pen otherwise?

  I let my fingers trail over the pen before I plucked it up. As I held it, it seemed to have this oppressive weight that couldn’t possibly be there, considering how easy it was to lift.

  I considered it for a few seconds. That part of me that thought it was heavy wanted me to drop it, but some other far stronger part kept it aloft. I inched closer over the desk. Then I finally found the gumption to write something. This very much was not my house, nor my bedroom, nor my paper. I had no right to interrupt Sonos’s private life. And yet I wrote anyway.