Stirred

How many circles in Dante’s hell?

Nine.

I’d only seen six.

Enough for a lifetime.

I placed my palms on my stomach, pressing, trying to feel some movement in response.

There was none.

I rubbed harder, panic jolting through me, wondering if somehow, with all the stress, with the eclampsia, the baby had—

There. She pushed back.

Thank God.

I rubbed my finger along the bulge and felt her tiny little hand.

“It’s okay,” I told my little girl. “We’re going to be okay. We’re going to find your daddy and—”

“Good, you’re awake. It’s time to get moving.”

I reflexively touched my earpiece.

“I’m done being the lead character in your sick little drama, Luther.”

“But there’s still so much to see. So much to learn. Get up and go through the door. You’ve got an old friend waiting for you.”

“I’m also done listening to you and your bullshit.”

I began to tug on the earpiece, felt my skin start to tear.

“Jack, don’t you dare—”

It abruptly pulled free, stinging like hell, warm blood dripping down my neck. I chucked the earpiece into the water, gave the camera the finger, and got to my feet.

The doorway led to dark, concrete hallways that forked just ahead, and I stumbled along, tired, thirsty, hungry.

Angry.

Very, very angry.

Too many people had died so this maniac could…

Could what? Show me how powerful he was?

Frighten me?

Teach me the value of life?

I already knew the value of life. And seeing it wasted didn’t make me value my own even more.

I may not have maternally bonded with my unborn child yet, but I had time for that.

I may have been treating the people in my life poorly, but I had some damn good excuses.

I may have been acting selfish, but I was entitled. I’d done a lot of good in this world. I’d taken a lot of bad people off the streets. And all I’d gotten in return were sleepless nights, guilt, and a lot of my friends and family hurt.

Truth told, I didn’t like myself very much.

But that didn’t mean I was lost.

Right?

I stamped my feet, which were cold and wet and losing circulation. Part of me wished I hadn’t thrown away the earpiece. While I was sick of Luther being in my head, he no doubt would have told me which direction to go.

Then I heard it.

Voices.

Singing voices.

One of them familiar.

I followed the sound, trying to determine direction in the dark with all the echoes. The corridors were like a labyrinth, turning, splitting, dead-ending. It was slow going, but I made steady progress, the volume increasing until I turned down a hall with a door at the end.

I opened it, getting blessed with the third verse of “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore,” stepping into cold muck, and seeing—

“Herb!”

“Jack!”

He was chained to the wall, one of those horrible explosive collars padlocked around his neck.

I hurried over for a quick embrace. He was even colder than I was, his hands tied behind him, but it was the warmest hug I’d ever received.

“Are you okay?” we both asked at the same time. It was followed by a mutual chuckle, which felt so good in the face of so much bad.

“Phin and Harry?” I asked.

I felt my friend’s shoulders go limp. “I don’t know. Haven’t seen them. Haven’t seen anything.”

I held Herb at arm’s length. “What do you…oh, Jesus. Herb…”

For the first time I noticed his eyes. Red.

Swollen.

Sewn shut.

“Got any Visine?” he asked.

I hugged him again, tighter this time. I needed to get him—both of us—out of there. I checked his back, saw his hands were bound with zip ties.

“My shoelaces,” Herb said. “They’re five fifty.”

I nodded, kneeling into the freezing muck and spending a hard minute unlacing his shoe. The cord Herb used for laces was parachute line with a minimum breaking strength of five hundred and fifty pounds. When I had the cord free, I forced an end between his wrists, against the plastic, and then rapidly pulled the ends back and forth, essentially using it as a friction saw.

The zip tie broke within seconds.

Then we indulged in a real hug.

“Are you here to save us?”

I flinched, having forgotten someone else was in the room.

I turned and saw a stout woman, also wearing a collar. She had a tiny, almost beatific, smile on her round face. But her eyes…

Unlike Herb, Luther had blinded her permanently.

I braced against the horror and tried to sound positive as I said, “My name is Jack Daniels. I’m a prisoner here, like you. But I’ll try my damnedest to get you both out of here. Was that your lovely singing voice I heard?”

“It was. Though your friend was doing pretty good on melody. I’m Christine Agawa. When I was younger, I used to dream that someday I’d be Cher. But now…Stevie Wonder, maybe?”

I already liked her.

“I always preferred Stevie to Cher,” I said.

I let go of Herb and began to look around the room for a brass plaque. It was on the wall behind Christine, next to a keypad.

I trudged over to it.

CIRCLE 3: GLUTTONY

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

I reread it again, but there were no numbers in the passage. I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to think.

“Herb, I need to punch in a code to open this door. There’s a plaque here. It says, ‘Circle 3: Gluttony, where there’s a will, there’s a way.’ Any ideas?”

“A way?”

“Yeah.”

Then Christine’s collar began to buzz.

I whipped my head around, but only managed to say, “Oh no,” before it exploded.

He’s spent so much time pla

The hardest thing to ensure was Jack’s safety. Even with all she’s gone through, Luther made sure he could help her at any given moment. The bear had an electronic collar, ready to blow if he took a swipe at her. The same with überagent Cynthia Mathis. The furnace and the pe

When you spend years pla

There were some unforeseen events. That idiot fangirl Lucy is still wandering around somewhere, but he’ll take care of her like he took care of her oafish partner. Phin and Harry ruined one of Luther’s submission chairs, but that was a last-minute addition anyway, since he hadn’t even pla

Sometimes you had to roll with the punches.

Improvise.

He had expected, however, for Jack to pull off her earpiece at some point. Or for it to malfunction. As a redundancy, Luther had the dozens of remote-control cameras in his playland all wired for sound. Speakers and microphones.

It will make one helluva movie when he edits all the footage together.

After blowing the fatty’s collar, he hits the intercom button on his control panel.

“She died because you removed your earpiece,” he says.

She would have died anyway, for another reason, but why not heap on the guilt?

Guilt will be Jack’s biggest challenge in the months and years to come.

Or rather, not succumbing to it.

He watches the monitor, sees Jack staring up at him.

But she doesn’t appear guilty.

Or frightened.

She seems pissed.

“Before this day ends, I’m going to kill you,” Jack says.

Luther doesn’t like this. He needs her humble. To understand what’s happening, and why. Defiance ca