Stirred

She let out a small laugh.

“You a pepperoni and sausage kind of girl?” he asked, trying to keep her mood up.

“I’m from California originally. I like pineapple and sprouts on my pie.”

“That should be illegal.”

She laughed again. “And tofu. Nice, roasted chunks of tofu.”

“Sacrilege.”

“There’s a place in Arcadia called Zelo. They do a cornmeal-crust pizza with smoked mozzarella and fresh corn. It’s so good…I…I…”

She went back to crying. Herb had no idea what to say to her. He felt like sobbing himself.

“We’re going to die here, aren’t we, Herb?”

Herb set his jaw. “I’ve been in some bad situations before. Some even worse than this. You can’t give up hope.”

There was a moment of silence. Herb tested the length of the chain around his neck by carefully walking forward until it went taut. The chain was thick, heavy, perhaps five feet in length, which was long enough for him to sit down. But he had no desire to do so. There was some sort of thick muck on the floor, and it was cold. Damn cold.

His mind began to go to bad places, think terrible things.

“What’s your favorite thing to do, Christine?” Herb asked. “Favorite thing in the world?”

“I love to sing. I’m in the church choir.”

“I’d be honored if you sang a hymn for me.”

“Seriously? Now?”

“Absolutely. What’s your favorite?”

“There are so many. But I really love the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic.’”

“Glory, glory, hallelujah, his truth is marching on?”

“That’s the one.”

“That’s my favorite, too.”

Christine burst into song. She had a powerful, beautiful alto, as fine as any he’d ever heard. He tried to pay attention, to lose himself in her voice, but then he began to think about Jack. Where was she? What was Luther doing to her?

Christine went into “Rock of Ages” without being prompted.

Herb backed up against the concrete wall, which was so cold it hurt his hands. He had to assume Jack was dealing with the same thing he was. The same, or worse. Ditto Phin and McGlade.

Luther had pla

Christine was right.

They were going to die.

The warehouse was cold, dark, and endless.

He had a hunch Lucy couldn’t see for shit, because she kept clutching onto his arm and stumbling into things.

There was a time he might have had a little fun with her. Ripped his arm free, gone and hid behind one of the massive machines. Watch her stumble blindly around into hard metal objects.

Okay, even now, that would probably be fun.

He chuckled at the idea of it.

“What, D?”

“Nothing?”

“You just laughed.”

“Oh, I was just thinking of something.”

“Fine, don’t share.”

He sensed the hurt in her voice, and suddenly the idea wasn’t fu

They reached the end of the warehouse and arrived at a pair of doors.

Pushing his way through, Donaldson flicked on the froggy flashlight, swinging the weak beam across a stairwell that descended beyond the light’s reach.

“Better hold on to me,” Donaldson said.

Lucy clutched his waist.

For some reason, it felt even better than Norco.

My other foot slipped out from under me, and I was sliding down a steep, concrete embankment into a foot of freezing water, goopy mud sucking at my knees.

I scrambled up, gasping from the cold shock, spi

I slid back down, the water to my calves and a putrid stench rolling off the top of it, almost like the gaseous emissions of a swamp. Decaying organic matter and human waste in competition for which smelled worst. I gagged, feeling my gorge rise, biting it back.

Either I was losing my mind, or something had changed in the last five seconds, because I saw a light that hadn’t been there before. Some distance away—impossible to determine in the virtual darkness—the wavering of a flame.

I hesitated for a moment and then started toward it, wading through the frigid, stinking water, which now came all the way to my waist, each step a struggle as the mud suctioned my feet to the ground.

The noise of my splashing echoed through whatever room I’d entered—a bright, contained sound. Somewhere out in that blackness, away from the light, I thought I heard the sound of human groans.

The putrid water eased the pain of the blister on my right hand, so I trailed it underneath as I pushed on toward the light.

Drawing near, the water level dropped below my thighs, and then my knees, and then I climbed another concrete embankment and found myself standing on dry ground, legs coated in mud and worse.

A torch had been placed in a wall-mount, and beside it, in the flickering light, I studied another brass plaque.

CIRCLE 5: ANGER

While we were ru

Uprose in front of me one full of mire,

And said, “Who ’rt thou that comest ere the hour?”

And I to him: “Although I come, I stay not.

Inferno, Canto VIII

“Who’s there?” a man called out to me from across the room, and I could hear the pain and the stress in his voice.

Instead of responding, I lifted the torch and carried it with me back down into the freezing swamp, the cold setting in again as the water rose back up above my waist.

Under the flame, the surface of the water was a glittering black. Like oil.

The voice called out again, “Who’s there?”

“My name is Jack,” I answered. “I’m coming to help you.”

I still couldn’t see a thing beyond the light’s reach, so I used the direction of his voice to guide me.

Twenty feet on, shivering against the chill, my flame passed over a small island in the swamp. I stopped to stare. It couldn’t have been more than fifty square feet, and the concrete blocks that formed it only rose an inch or two above the surface of the water.

Two people lay draped across each other on top of it, unmoving.

“Hello?” I called out to them. “Can you hear me?”

“They’re dead,” the man in the distance said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“He made them fight.”

The firelight flickered off the wet steel of a blade still in the hands of one of the dead.

I held the torch closer, watched the light play off their faces.

Young men. Arms covered in gang tats.

Both wearing collars, which no doubt Luther had used to do his persuading.

I went on, and after another minute, the torch began to illuminate something straight ahead, the light glimmering off the chains that held a man crucified to a concrete wall.

“I see you!” I called out. “I’m almost there!”

My legs were cramping from the effort it required to move through the mud, but I persevered, waddling the last thirty feet, and then crawling up the concrete embankment to dry ground.