Where am I?

Chapter 29 of Love from Above

Jeremy’s Point of View

 

As consciousness slowly starts to seep into my body, the first thing I register is pain, everything hurts. The second thing I register is memory slowly rattling to the forefront of my brain. I jerk upright with a gasp. Slowly, my eyes adjust to the foreboding blackness around me. My brain, hopped up on a sudden rush of adrenaline, takes in a million details at once; the warm stone floor I sit upon, the rough cage surrounding me, the bubbling lava pools strewn about, and the strange creatures wandering around.

 

It takes a few minutes of head scratching to put the pieces of the puzzle together. So, if Kelsey is an angel, then that means Heaven must exist. And Heaven can’t exist without Hell. It is glaringly obvious now what happened to me as I drove home from school. I had been winding my way along the road between school and home when something huge and red had darted out of the trees in front of my car. I swerved to avoid hitting the thing and spun off onto the shoulder, coming to an abrupt stop against a tree. I remembered the airbag smacking me in the face as the seatbelt dug forcefully into my neck from the impact. The passenger window of my car had then been smashed in from the outside and rough hands had dragged me out of it, knocking me out before I could get a decent look at the hulking figure that had man handled me.

 

I become suddenly aware that my nose specifically is throbbing with pain. I reach up to gingerly feel it; sore, but not broken. I do, however, feel a crusty substance on the skin around it. I rush over to the small sink in the corner of my cell and look into the dirty mirror. Sure enough, dry blood is caked around my nose. That crash must have caused a nose bleed. I run water into my hands and clean my face as best I can.

 

Now, it’s time to get some answers. I peer out into the darkness beyond my cage and see a little creature lounging in a chair near my cell.

 

“Hey,” I call in his direction. He looks over at me lazily. “Who are you? Why am I here?” I ask.

 

“I’m Gor, a demon of the underworld. And you’re here because of your little girlfriend,” he says in a bored voice.

 

“What does Kelsey have to do with anything, you leave her out of this” I yell, anger boiling in my chest.

 

“We’ve been trying to get our claws on that one for months. But she’d never come here willingly. So, we saw our golden opportunity in you.”

 

I stagger back in horror, the truth of his words setting in. I’m the perfect bait to lure Kelsey into the underworld.

 

“What do you want with her?” I ask weakly.

 

“Isn’t it obvious? She’s in a prime position to fall. She broke the sacred rules. We can offer an alternative to becoming a fallen angel,” he says with a smirk.

 

“Fall? What do you mean? She’s going to be a guardian angel.” I say, playing dumb in an attempt to drag as much information out of him as I can.

 

Gor’s eyebrows raise slightly in surprise. “Not if the council finds out she’s in love with a human. That’s the darkest taboo for angels. If they find out, which they will, little Kelsey’s wings will be torn from her back and she will be doomed to walk the earth as a fallen angel.”

 

“But wouldn’t that be better? Then she and I could be together without the council breathing down our necks,” It is an entirely selfish thought, one I feel terribly guilty even suggesting, but at this point I just need to be as informed as possible while this demon is feeling chatty.

 

“You humans don’t know much about our world, do you? Sure, she’d be on earth, but her own body would become a prison for her soul. She would lose half her senses. Any touches shared between you two would be lost on her.”

 

“Which would be torture for her,” I say, finishing his thought.

 

“Bingo, but if she joins us, she keeps her senses as well as you. Tempting, isn’t it?” he says with an evil grin.

 

“But she wouldn’t be herself. She’d have to forfeit her soul to the devil.” What little I know of Heaven and Hell comes rushing to the front of my mind.

 

“Eh, you win some, you lose some,” he shrugs, not denying what I’d said. “But I really doubt she’ll be able to resist with your life on the line.”

 

About that, he was probably right.