He stopped showing up, I think.
I step off the curb and into the empty street.
Clara, Jeffrey’s not in there, Christian says urgently. Come back on the sidewalk.
How do you know? I have a horrible, aching feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Because he’s not dead. He doesn’t belong here.
We’re not dead. Angela wasn’t dead, I say, and take another step, pulling them into the street with me.
We have to go, Christian says, glancing wildly toward the black arch. We can’t get off course now.
I have to check, I say at the same time, and then I let go and pull away from their hands.
Clara, no!
But I’m going. The emotions of the souls wash over me all at once, now that I don’t have Christian’s added strength to help me block them out, but I grit my teeth and move quickly across the street, onto the opposite sidewalk. Toward the pizza place. Each step draws me closer to the front window, which has a long, horizontal crack in the glass, like it might collapse into a thousand shards at any moment, but through the hazy pane I see Jeffrey, his head down, a filthy dish towel in his hand, swiping at a table in absent circles.
It’s worse than I thought.
My brother’s in hell.
20
ZOMBIELAND
I don’t take time to think. I burst through the door and go to him, knowing that any second now Kokabel and Samjeeza and who knows who else could be after us, painfully aware that I promised Samjeeza I wouldn’t talk to anybody but Angela, but I don’t care. He’s my brother. In that moment it occurs to me that maybe my purpose in coming to hell wasn’t all about Angela, after all. Maybe I was meant to save Jeffrey.
He does a double take when I approach him, then scowls. “Clara, what are you doing here?”
I guess I shouldn’t expect him to be happy to see me.
There’s no time for small talk, no time for explanations. I spot Angela and Christian on the sidewalk right outside the window, their mouths open in horror that I was right. “I need you to do what I tell you, just this once,” I say quietly, glancing around at the gray people in the restaurant, one person to a table, but none of them look up. Yet. I grab his hand and tug him toward the door. “Come with me, Jeffrey. Now.”
He jerks away from me. “You can’t show up here and order me around. This is my job, Clara. My meal ticket. It sucks, but one of the things about having a job is that I can’t exactly come and go whenever I please. Bosses tend to frown on that.”
He doesn’t know where he is. He thinks this is his normal life. I don’t have time to ruminate about how depressing it is that my brother can’t tell the difference between normalcy and eternal damnation.
“This is not your job,” I say, trying to keep calm. “Come on. Please.”
“No,” he says. “Why should I listen to you? Last time you were really freaking rude to me, and you yelled at me, and then you didn’t come back for all this time, and now you expect me to—”
“I didn’t know you were here,” I interrupt. “I would have come sooner if I’d known.”
“What are you talking about?” He tosses his dishcloth down on a nearby table and glares at me. “Have you gone mental or something?”
Oh, I’m on my way. Already the barrier I’ve erected between me and the emotions of all these people around me is corroding, and little whispers are getting through.
None of her business.
I hate him. I deserve better.
Cheated. They cheated me.
I blink furiously and try to clear my head, concentrate on Jeffrey, but then—
What is she doing here?
Oh, crap. I stare over Jeffrey’s shoulder, and there’s Lucy, framed in the doorway, her expression totally shocked to see me.
“You … What are you doing here?” she marches up and demands, her eyes full of fury, but her voice controlled. She slips her arm into Jeffrey’s. Just seeing her again brings the memory of that night at the Pink Garter rushing back, the fireball she hurled at us, her shriek as Christian cut Olivia down, what she vowed afterward. I swear I will kill you, Clara Gardner. And I’ll make sure you suffer first.
“Let go of him,” I say in a low voice.
Christian is suddenly by my side, staring at Lucy with fierce eyes that dare her to attack us here, like he’s reminding her that he killed her sister and he might have a glory sword with her name on it. Which makes me wonder if glory swords work in hell.
I really, really hope they do.
Lucy stares at me wordlessly, her hold on my brother’s arm tightening. I feel her hatred of me but also her fear. She wants to hurt me, to sever me in two with her blade, to avenge her sister, to earn the respect of her father, but she’s scared of me. She’s scared of Christian. Deep down, she’s a coward.
“We’re going,” Christian says. “Now.”
“I’m not going with you,” Jeffrey says.
“Shut up,” I snap. “I’m taking you out of here.”
“No,” Lucy says, her voice much calmer than what I can feel churning inside of her. “You aren’t.” She smiles at Jeffrey sweetly. “I can explain all of this, baby, I promise, but first, I have to handle something. You stay right here, okay? I have to go for a minute, but I’ll be right back. Okay?”
“Okay …,” Jeffrey agrees, frowning. He’s confused, but he trusts her.
She leans up to kiss him softly on the mouth, and he relaxes. Then she lets go of him, which kind of shocks me, that she’s releasing him without a fight. I brace myself for a sudden sorrow blade to the chest, but she brushes past me without a second look in my direction.
Then I feel what she intends to do. She’s going to the club, three blocks away. To find her father. To bring a whole world of hurt down on our heads.
She hopes that Asael will turn us all, me and Christian and Angela, to tiny piles of ash.
When she’s out of sight I turn to Jeffrey, who goes back to wiping down the table. “Jeffrey. Jeffrey! Look at me. Listen. We’re in hell. We have to go, like now, so we can catch a train out of here.”
He shakes his head. “I told you, I have to work. I can’t leave.” He moves to another empty table and starts stacking dishes.
“This isn’t the place where you work,” I say, careful to keep my voice even. “This is hell. Hades. The underworld. It looks like the pizza joint, but it’s not. It’s only a reflection of earth. This isn’t real pizza, see?” I cross to a table and grab a slice of fake pizza from the plate, hold it up next to Jeffrey’s face. It’s like a hunk of soggy cardboard, gray and textureless, dissolving in my hand. “It isn’t real. Nothing’s real here. Nothing’s solid. This is hell.”
“There’s no such thing as hell,” he murmurs, his gaze on the pizza, vaguely concerned. “It’s something church people made up to scare us.”
“Did Lucy tell you that?”
He doesn’t answer, but I see it in his eyes, the beginnings of doubt. “I can’t remember.”
“Come with me, and we’ll take a train, and everything will get clear again. I promise.”
He resists as I pull at his arm. “Lucy said that she’d be right back. She said she’d explain.”
“There’s nothing to explain,” I say to Jeffrey. “It’s simple. We’re in hell. We need to get out. Lucy’s a Black Wing, Jeffrey. She brought you here.”
He shakes his head, jaw tightening. “No. Not possible.”
Christian is pacing at the door, unwilling to wait any longer. You have to come now.
I turn to Jeffrey. “Come on, Jeffrey. Trust me. I’m your sister. I’m the only family you’ve got. We have to stick together. That’s what Mom told us, remember? Do this for me now.”