Hell Bound (Seventh Level Book 2) (16 page)

The only weak spot in the security was behind the recording studio. It worried Mark the out-of-date gate had been removed without first ordering a new one. It had been hauled away by the contractor before Mark or Wade realized what had been done. Mark posted a guard in the area full time while they waited for a new one, but it was a boring job. More than once, he found the guard with his feet propped up and fast asleep. Ever since the first incident of finding the space unguarded, Mark had taken to keeping a camera zoomed in on the guards working in that zone. He also personally walked back to check on them at least once an hour to make certain they weren’t sleeping.

As many times as Mark stressed the importance of being alert, he assumed everyone understood his policy on the matter, but what he discovered during this check surprised him. The guard was nowhere to be found.

“Damn it! I told them over and over if they needed to go to the bathroom to radio for a replacement.” He kicked the plastic chair and sent it flying through the air. It bounced off the back of the studio and finally landed several feet from where it had once sat. Mark slipped his two-way radio out of its holder. “Peter, where the hell are you?” He waited a few seconds for a reply, but there wasn’t one, so he headed to the studio. The closest bathroom was inside. Peter probably thought he could slip in and out without anyone being the wiser. Such blatant disregard for orders was the very last straw. As soon as he located the man, he was going to fire him.

Once inside, he switched all the lights on. “Peter! Get your sorry ass out here!” He waited a few moments for a reply, but when none came, he stormed through the building to the restroom. It was easy to see even from several feet away the door was standing wide open and no one was inside. Just in case he was wrong, he headed over, flipping on the light, and looked around. Peter wasn’t there.

A loud crash coming near the front of the studio had Mark running in its direction, but when he reached the door to the entrance, there was nothing there to indicate anything had been disturbed. It wasn’t until he released his breath he realized he had been holding it. A cold breeze caressed Mark’s cheek and a high-pitched giggle filled the air. He made a three-sixty turn and scanned the studio. He was on his second turn when he spotted Pamela seated in the chair Wade usually sat in.

She crossed her long legs and smiled his eyes shifted to her exposed thighs. She crooked her index finger at him. “It’s just me and you. I could show you such a good time. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.” She uncrossed her legs and left them spread open so he could see she wasn’t wearing any panties. Not missing a beat, she pulled her skirt up higher so he could see her more clearly. Inserting a couple of fingers inside herself, she leaned back and closed her eyes. “I haven’t been with a real man in a very long time.”

Mark stepped backward closer to the door. As if sensing his retreat, Pamela opened her eyes. She stood and slowly glided in his direction. Watching her progression with trepidation, Mark reached behind him and grabbed the doorknob, but before he had a chance to turn it Pamela was pressed herself up against him. From across the room, she looked stunning, but up-close her skin was flaking and peeling and she smelled like death.

She must have noticed when he wrinkled his nose at the scent. “You have no idea what a woman has to do to stay this beautiful.”

He stepped backward but the move only played into her hands because now he was flat against the door with nowhere else to go. She hemmed him in by pressing her chest into his and placing each hand onto the door by each side of his head. “You’re keeping me from something I want very much. It is rightly mine. Wade signed the contract of his own free will. I will have the boy.”

The smell emanating from her was overwhelming and sickening, but in spite of it, Mark tried to remain calm. “You’re welcome to go with me up to the house and discuss the situation with Liam. I understand you’re both working for the same boss. Surely the two of you can work it out to everyone’s satisfaction. Liam tells me he’s more than willing to call his father in to mediate the disagreement.” Mark felt around behind him and finally found the doorknob again. He turned it and pushed Pamela away at the same time.

She grabbed the front of his shirt to hold him into place. “Do you really think you can threaten me? You have no idea who you’re playing games with.” Her face quivered and all of her muscles rippled and trembled. She let out a long painful moan. When she jerked straight as a rod, her fingers released Mark’s shirt. He took the opportunity to open the door and was about to run outside when Pamela’s skin pooled onto the floor as if all of her bones had been removed.

Mark was too horrified by the sight to notice the dark entity leave her body and float through the ceiling and out of the studio. When he stepped forward to get a closer look, her skin disintegrated into black flakes of dust and blew away. He pulled his two-way radio out of its holder and held down the button. “Liam. Come down to Wade’s studio. You’re not going to believe this shit.”

* * * * *

Trying to put off going to sleep for as long as possible, Mark took a hot shower and then channel surfed for over an hour. For more than a week now, his eyes had felt as if they were filled with sand and he had the headache from hell. It was all because he couldn’t stay asleep once he finally dozed off. Sleep was no longer his friend. The nightmares were getting worse and always left him feeling depressed and helpless. In each one, Anne begged him to save her from Septem, but before Mark could figure how, Septem would intercede and wake him up. The last thing Mark would see before opening his eyes would be the black, seven-horned demon enveloping Anne until all that was left was her long, beautiful red hair.

Knowing he couldn’t put off the inevitable, Mark switched off the TV. He needed to get some rest if he was going to keep Wade, Morgan, and Cole safe from Septem. Even though Mark had tried to convince himself the dreams were nothing more than nighttime illusions, his gut was overruling his reasoning. It felt too real to be a simple trick of his mind, and ever since his first meeting with the demon, Mark knew when dealing with evil, all things were possible.

Mark tossed and turned for over forty-five minutes. The harder he tried to go to sleep, the farther away it seemed to be. But just as he decided to give it up as a lost cause, exhaustion won. Within in seconds of drifting off, he found himself deep in the middle of a dark forest, desperately running toward the sounds of Anne’s despondent cries. But it was like running in quicksand because no matter how fast he tried to get to Anne, he didn’t feel as if he was making any ground. It didn’t help when every two steps his bare feet would become entangled in vines and underbrush. To keep from falling over, he needed to remove them from around his ankles.

“Mark! Please help me.” The haunting plea was followed with the sounds of long drawn out sobs echoing into the air around Mark leaving him confused about which directions the cries originated from.

After a moment of listening, it seemed as if the sobs were coming off toward his left, so he turned and ran as fast as the heavy underbrush would let him. He was only able to run a few feet before his legs entangled in vines and he went crashing to the ground face first. He reached down in order to remove the vines from around his ankles, but as soon as he wrapped his fingers around them, they wiggled and squirmed. He quickly realized, instead of vines he held a handful of black snakes. One of the serpents slithered up his arm and another wrapped itself around his wrist. Without stopping to think, he swiped them all off and jumped to his feet. He made the mistake of looking down to see if there were any other snakes in the vicinity. The ground was covered in them. The sight was enough to make him start running again.

A voice in the back of his head screamed for him to wake up. It couldn’t really be Anne crying and he wasn’t running barefoot across thousands of black snakes.

“Mark.” This time Anne’s plea was a soft whisper. It raised the hairs on the back of his neck. It was as if she was right next to him, so he stopped and turned around. “Save me.” The sensation of a finger running across the back of his neck froze him dead in his tracks.

Turning, he strained to see in the darkness, but could only make out the trunks of the nearest trees. In spite of the panic trying to close his throat, he screamed, “Anne! Anne!” He spun full-circle, and listened for her reply, but heard nothing. Unwilling to give up, he tried again. “Anne!” Motionless, he held his breath.

A crackle of leaves drew his gaze toward the ground, but before he could see what made the noise, two hands grabbed his ankles. An unnatural force pulled with such strength he fell face-first. He hit the ground with an impact that knocked all the air out of his lungs. A sharp pain in his chest made it almost impossible to inhale and when he finally managed to draw a breath, damp leaves and dirt filled his mouth and nose. The scent of mold and decay permeated the air. The awful scent was so overwhelming, he gagged. He tried not to throw up, but in spite of his best attempts, steak and baked potato came spewing out of his mouth and nose into the dead leaves and bushes nearby.

Mark used the back of his hand to wipe the puke from his mouth. When he attempted to stand again, the sounds of giggling gave him the strength needed to get back onto his feet. The high-pitched snickering was coming from every direction. If things weren’t disturbing enough, hot puffs of air touched his arms and face. He swiped at the area around him, but found nothing. With his concentration locked eye-level at the blackness surrounding him, he was startled when something tugged on pant legs. His first reaction was to kick out in an attempt to dislodge whoever was holding on, but all his kicks only hit empty air.

“Wake up. This is only a dream. Just get up and everything will be okay.” Mark closed his eyes and tried to regain control over his panic. He was asleep. All he had to do was shake himself awake and everything would be fine.

A sinister voice came from behind him, “Don’t be stupid. Just because it’s a dream doesn’t make it any less real. There’s nothing more powerful than the mind.”

His eyes shot open and he whipped around. Mark tried to scream but nothing came out.

His mother’s rotting face was stretched into a wide grin. Pieces of decomposing skin broke off and fell onto the front of the dress he and his grandmother had buried her in eight years earlier. “You can’t help Anne. She belongs to Septem. He’ll never let her go.”

It was impossible to look away from his mother’s decaying flesh, but when she reached out and touched his cheek, he took two steps backward. It would have been farther but a tree blocked his retreat.

“Save me instead.” She stepped toward him. The stench of her hot breath fanned his face. Even though his stomach was empty from where he had thrown up a few minutes earlier, he gagged.

The rough bark of the tree bit into his exposed flesh. Since stepping backward was now impossible, Mark stepped sideways. With the reek of putrid breath no longer clouding his mind, he tried to reason out the situation. It was only a dream so there was no reason to be afraid. His dead mother wasn’t standing in front of him and Anne wasn’t sobbing nearby. All he had to do was wake up and he would be in his own bed inside Wade’s house.

“Don’t. This is our chance to rescue Anne.”

Mark was surprised to hear Liam’s voice, but he eagerly turned toward the welcoming sound. His old partner clapped a hand on his bare shoulder. “Is this a dream or something else?”

Liam shrugged. “Most dreams are something else. It’s why people wake up screaming from nightmares and try to hold onto the ones where we get to see the people we love who have died.”

It was hard to do but Mark looked over at his mother. “So my mom is really here?”

Liam forced Mark to return his attention back to him. “We can’t help her but we can help Anne, so focus on me and nothing else. Stay close to me and do exactly as I say. This is not a place you want to stray off on your own and get lost.” His face turned deadly serious. “You may be offered a deal here by either Septem or my father. My father will try to convince you it is the only way you’ll ever see Anne again. He is an exceptional liar. Believe nothing you see or hear and listen only to my words.” He squeezed Mark’s shoulder hard enough to leave bruises. “You can trust me. This is the reason I accepted my father’s offer to be Soul Collector, so I can save people.”

Mark’s first test about only focusing on Liam came a few seconds later when his mother whispered, “Baby boy, please take me with you. I don’t like being dead.”

It broke his heart to hear the pain and sadness in her voice. All he had ever wanted was to save her one day from her life as a prostitute, but his last year in high school an officer from the New Orleans police called his grandmother with the news she had died from a drug overdose.

Instead of turning around to look at his mother, he concentrated on Liam’s eyes. “Let’s find Anne and save her.”

Liam nodded. “She’s not far, but Septem will do everything within his power to keep her. She’s special to him.”

It wasn’t easy to keep from turning around. His mother was sliding the bare bones of her fingertips down his back. Chill bumps were covering his entire body and the hairs on his arms were standing up.

Liam snapped his fingers an inch for Mark’s face. “Focus.”

Mark nodded. “I’m trying, but it’s not easy.”

As Mark looked on, Liam’s eyes turned red and he peered over Mark’s shoulder at his mother. Liam clapped three times and shouted, “Be gone and worry us no more with your presence!”