Only there was no actual land at all. We were suspended in the air, and in a single heartbeat, both of us started to plummet.
Chapter 30
Before we’d fallen more than a few feet, my powers kicked in and I slowed my descent. Asher did the same next to me.
“We keep moving?” I asked him, hovering, my trident barely even a blip in my hand. It was so light, and I was almost certain it was shrinking. Soon I’d literally be able to shove it in my pocket.
“Yep, let’s move. This world is built on lands connected and separated via the veils. The souls go where they’ll have the most peaceful afterlife. We have to keep moving until we find where the Hellbringers rest.”
As we zipped across the air, I had a thought. Maybe we were going about this all wrong…
“Where are the Hellbringers?” I shouted, demanding an answer.
A path lit up in front of us, visible across the pale-yellow sky. The lighting here was akin to a sunrise, warm and soothing, and I could see lots of bird souls, a pterodactyl or fifty—holy fuck, dinosaurs—and other flying beings I didn’t have names for. I did recognize fairies, and … a few that looked like angels.
This was their land.
They paid us no mind as we dashed through them, intent on their soaring journeys. When we reached the next veil, Asher was a little ahead of me, knocking me back when he was rejected.
I laughed. “Just had to give it one more shot, didn’t you?”
His lips twitched. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
With a chuckle, I tapped his forehead. “I’m in here, buddy. You can’t hide anything from me. Don’t worry, your strengths lie in other areas.”
“Damn right they do,” he said, moving back so I could do my thing.
The next land was filled with cities, lots of shopping and restaurants and a very human-like existence. The souls here, they looked like supernaturals or … humans.
“Do humans come to this afterlife?” I asked Asher.
He was watching them scurry about below us—we were still high in the air, our powers shooting us along.
“I have no idea. I guess there’s no reason they wouldn’t. We all exist on the same Earth together.”
This was true.
Something about the sight of a familiar cityscape was soothing. I’d been homesick without even realizing it, and seeing streets so similar to where I grew up was the shot I needed to bring me back to reality.
“This world messes with your head,” I said to Asher, zooming toward the next veil. “I keep forgetting the urgency of our task.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “It’s a constant battle to remind my power that we must move forward. No time to hang out and play with our new weapons.”
Speaking of, the trident was no more than a few inches long now. I shoved it into the back pocket of my jeans.
“Remind me not to sit on that and stab myself in the ass,” I told Asher, and he chuckled.
“You got it, Maddi.” His features tightened. “I really don’t like being here. It’s not right for the living to walk this existence. I have no idea how the Atlanteans haven’t lost their minds.”
Another question without an answer. Another thing to worry about. We hadn’t spent a lot of time with the Atlanteans, so who was to say they weren’t suffering a lot more than we had seen. Maybe we were too late. We wouldn’t know the answer to that until they were back in our world … back with the living.
The next veil approached, and we pushed through it, and then the next, and another. We crossed lands and territories until I despaired of ever finding the Hellbringers.
Maybe they didn’t even exist here.
When we entered the next section, the heat hit me hard, and for the first time since this whole weird trip began, the path we were following dipped down, cruising close to the red ground.
Was this finally the right area?
