Keeper of Crows (Keeper of Crows #1)(12)

The man’s mouth opened wider than seemed possible. “What have you done?”

“I tried to get away from YOU!”

A loud buzz came from overhead. The hole, the one that I’d widened ever so slightly, finally morphed, flexed, stretched, and ultimately sealed itself.

“No!” the woman next to me yelled, reaching out for what was gone. “How do we get back now?” she cried.

Her gray captor snickered. “You don’t.”

I’m tripping. That’s all this is. I’m in the hospital. No doubt Dimitri and his thugs worked me over pretty good. I’m on medicine and in a coma or whatever. I didn’t float in the air, and I certainly didn’t see a hole in anything over my head. There’s no fabric over the earth, anyway. They don’t have lightning leashes. This lady isn’t even real, and neither are the gray men. I’m having a crazy, drug-induced hallucination. Fabric doesn’t soak into skin. None of this stuff could possibly happen. When I wake up, if I wake up, I promise to call Doc. I’ll do anything. I’ll get straight.

The portly gray man did not mess around. This might be just a dream, but in it, he was the leader of the pair. The pecking order had long been established. “Let’s get them to the gate, Gus.”

Gus, the tall, skinny man with a goatee that matched his gray skin, didn’t even argue. “We’ll make a mint tonight, Chester. Bet the Reddies will be more than happy to entertain the pair of us.”

“They better be,” Chester snickered, rubbing his stomach as if he’d eaten too much. “Been a long go since we caught a pair.”

The woman who walked beside me bawled. She’d been crying since the hole in the sky closed. Her tears dripped onto the electric collar around her neck, immediately sizzling them into tiny puffs of steam. The grassy field we landed in was peppered with large boulders, and the surface of a small pond glittered in the distance.

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Pamela.”

“Why aren’t we gray?”

Chester snorted, but answered, “You haven’t been here long enough.”

“And where exactly is here? Oz?”

Gus nudged Chester. “This ain’t no wonderland, doll.” Gus was an idiot and had obviously never seen The Wizard of Oz or Alice in Wonderland.

“It’s Hell, right?” Pamela asked, bawling louder. “We died and now we’re in Hell.”

“It ain’t Hell, either.” Chester slapped Gus on the chest. “We didn’t properly introduce their new home. Ladies, welcome to Purgatory.”





5





Slimy snot began running from Pamela’s nose, oozing close to her upper lip, but Pam wasn’t worried about it, so why should I be? She shook all over as she stumbled, trying to keep up with Chester. I decided I wasn’t going to freak out. This wasn’t real. Eventually, I’d wake up from the coma and this nightmare would end.

“Pam, you need to calm down.”

“I’m not going to calm down! We’re in Purgatory! Don’t you get it? We’re not going back!” More tears sizzled on her crackling collar.

Okay, then. Have yourself a little bat shit crazy party, Pam.

I looked around, determined to enjoy the views of this so-called “Purgatory.” Maybe Dante had been in a coma. Maybe he had a crazy dream like this one before he wrote the Divine Comedy. I hadn’t read the entire thing, but my high school English teacher was obsessed with his work. She had illustrations and posters of artist renderings of what they imagined the characters and levels of Purgatory looked like. One was a stepped mountain with a different deadly sin on each level. If this was Purgatory, there were no mountains here.

Leaving the field behind us, we carved a path through a maze of abandoned houses. In the distance loomed an imposing cityscape, where skyscrapers jutted into the sky like any city you’d see on Earth. Everything was coated in varying shades of gray.

We followed the concrete road past homes and down a long hill. No people were outside their homes. No cars were being driven. Could one drive a rust-bucket in Purgatory? Probably not. Where would they get gasoline?

“Where’s everyone else?” I asked.

Chester answered, “In the city. Most people don’t live on the outskirts.”

“And we’re walking through the outskirts? These...neighborhoods are the outskirts?”

“You’re a bright one,” he snickered, nudging Gus, who looked back at me and laughed.

Pam just blubbered beside me.

“Are there more cities?”

Chester nodded. “All over. They’re abandoned, though. This is the only one that’s alive.”

Alive? It seemed dead to me. Of course, it was fitting if this really was Purgatory. Alleys were littered with dumpsters and puddles, reminding me of my last trip to The Castle. Townhomes sat empty; the curtains and blinds in the windows shut securely, while some doors were left wide open. There were no animals here, either. I expected to hear dogs barking, or perhaps see some cats slinking in the shadows, looking for food. Maybe they were in the city, too. Or maybe animals just didn’t come here.

“Why’d you come and get us? Isn’t it risky leaving this place to go through the hole into our world?”