The more the box worked, the smaller the final product, until all that was left was a tiny wooden trinket box. No way was I fitting in that.
“But only their souls would be banished. The people he stole souls from became catatonic, as the host cannot live without the soul.”
He walked over and picked up the box.
“He did this for almost two decades, until a group of very brave monks figured out what he was doing and set a trap.”
He carried the box over, displayed on his palm, very Vanna-esque, so I could get a better look. Adorned with carvings and iron fastenings, it looked both delicate and hardy.
“One man volunteered to send the priest through the portal, knowing what would happen to him when he did.”
He pocketed the box in his trench coat, then took the massive iron key and threw it into a fire they’d been stoking.
“Legend has it that once a soul or being is sent through the portal, the only way that entity can be brought back is if the person who originally sent him opens the portal and says his name.”
He took a poker and nudged the key slowly turning red in the fire, flipped it as though browning it on both sides for a more even, enjoyable dining experience. While James and his minions stood transfixed by the orange and yellow glow, I nodded to the departed guy, basically telling him to go fetch.
He appeared beside me again, pretending to want a better look in case James were to turn around. “I can’t get Rey’aziel,” he whispered. “He can’t see this. Not until you want him to know the truth, Charley. There’s a lot you don’t know.”
I didn’t know anything. That was the problem.
“So, just to be safe,” James continued as he roasted the key around a campfire and told ghost stories, “the volunteer sent the priest through the portal to the hell dimension – not Lucifer’s, by the way – and then the monks, normally a nonviolent bunch, beheaded the brave man so he could never open it and speak the priest’s name again.”
“Snap out of it,” Dead Guy whispered.
I scowled at him. “I can’t,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Of course you can. Stop overthinking it and just remember. It will take everything you have in your arsenal to take on Kuur.”
“Kuur?”
He nodded toward James. “He’s an emissary from Lucifer’s army. An expert assassin of any type of being in any of the known dimensions.”
“Well, his name is very manly.”
Dead Guy clenched his jaw. My humor wasn’t for everyone.
“Snap out of it before it’s too late.”
“Then what? It’s not like I can fight them.”
He stepped even closer. Cupped my chin and lifted my face to his. “Once you remember who you are, you won’t have to.”
“Got it!” James called out as he retrieved a small piece of metal from the fire.
He turned back to me, and Dead Guy appeared at his position across the room, staring into space as dead guys were wont to do. If James did see him near me, he didn’t seem to give a rat’s.
“And in their infinite wisdom,” he continued, because this was apparently The James Show, “the monks made this box to hold the portal. To keep it safe.” His expression changed to one of frustration. “Then they buried the box under a thousand feet of dirt and neglected to tell anyone where it was. Fuckers.”
I gave him a dubious frown. “That little box is holding a portal to a hell dimension?”
“It is.”
“Is it a hell dimension for tiny people? Because I promise you, I won’t fit.”
“Ah,” he said, understanding my doubt. “Your human mind has limited you to a certain way of thinking. Things don’t always work the way you believe they should. There are dimensions with creatures that fly from star to star, feeding off their energy. There are worlds with pebbles the size of your fingernail that could power this entire planet for all eternity. There is a galaxy with a world where the oldest living creatures are slowly melting and flooding the lands, drowning millions. There is so much you could have seen.” He held up a small silver key, formerly a big iron one, he’d fished out of the fire. “But hell dimensions can be fun, too.”
“Have you seen it?” I asked, growing more nervous by the heartbeat. Sadly, my heart was racing.
“Not this one.” He pointed to the box. “Only one way in or out of the dimension you’re going to.”
James put the key in the lock and turned. The lid opened with a soft sigh, and a light shone out of it. He reached in and drew out a beautiful round pendant. It was really a locket, but the top piece was clear glass. Inside was a smooth jewel, the likes of which I’d never seen before. My vision laser-locked onto it like a homing beacon. I sat transfixed. Wherever it went, my gaze went.
James laughed, delighted with my reaction. “It’s called god glass. And if you just happen to be a god, like you are, you will see the untold treasures of a dimension accessible only through this glass.” He seemed almost jealous of the things I saw. The dancing light. The shimmering water.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “How can that be a hell dimension?”
“There are many kinds of hell, love.”
The pendant emitted a soft glow of colors. “Why send me there? Why not just kill me?”
“Someone didn’t pay attention in God Composition 101. You’re a god. Gods cannot be killed except by another god. But they can,” he said, holding up an index finger, “be trapped. Especially one that has amnesia and can’t remember that it’s a god. But even then, there are rules. A set of conditions that must be met for the transport to take place.”
“Which are?” I asked to keep him talking. I squinted, gritted my teeth, made grunting sounds, all in an attempt to stop time. I finally gave up. Clearly I had a faulty timer.
“The only way to trap a god is if it takes physical form first. It can be anything from a houseplant to a kangaroo, but once the god chooses its form, one drop of its life force – in this case your blood – and the recitation of the god’s name, and that god is trapped for all eternity. Unless, of course, the being who put it there, and only that being, decides to set it free. There is no other way out.”
“If you put me in there and then you die, what happens then?”
“No more mocha lattes for you.”
“So it really is like hell. Only worse.”
He laughed softly, then took out a handkerchief and polished the glass.
I gave him a blurry once-over. “I guess you have nothing to worry about, then, being soulless and all.”
“Not true.” He tapped a corner of the kerchief on his tongue and continued to polish.” I am a sentient being. I have an essence, an aura, if you will, just as you do.”
“But it’s not like a human soul.”
“Neither is yours,” he said, seemingly offended. “And thank goodness. Human souls don’t tend to fare well. They were not created to survive the psychological atrocities of a hell dimension. The priest brought a soul back once. A young girl from a French village not far from where he lived. He’d fallen in love with her, and when her father refused the priest’s offer of marriage, citing age as the main reason – the priest was in his forties and the girl was twelve —”