Pernicious | Kai Parker

Chapter 51

February 12, 2018

"It's hot as Hell in here."

"That joke is really getting old," grumbled Amelia as she and Kai move through the arid and seemingly endless field that would lead them to their next bit of torment for the day.

"You know," said Kai, "I never read any of those books on what Hell would be like. Somehow, it just... didn't interest me, even though I always figured I'd end up here someday."

"This is almost nothing like Dante's Inferno," Amelia assured him, stopping her walking just for a moment to catch her breath.

Instantly, tongues of fire sprang out at her feet, and she hissed, jumping ahead and forcing herself to keep moving.

"Distract yourself," suggested Kai. "Tell me more about Dante's Inferno."

"I've told you about it so many times in however long we've been here. Don't you get bored?"

"I never get tired of hearing you talk, Meli. It's sort of the only thing that keeps me sane. I don't know what the fuck I would have done if I had to go through this alone."

That was the point of Hell, wasn't it? Suffering? True suffering, for Amelia and Kai, would have been going through every last obstacle by themselves, without their spouse on the other side of them, cracking jokes or making witty comments.

Amelia had to thank the heavens for that stupid Protection Spell.

It was always a benefit for Kai to be thinking ahead and planning for just about anything.

The Protection Spell had worked differently than expected, and from their end, they weren't sure why. Kai had planned for them to be safe in case the Heretics (Nora, Mary Louise, and Beau) turned on them and killed the both of them, since they were the ones who'd known about the Linking Spell they'd performed in New Orleans. It didn't necessarily account for them being killed by Stefan and Valerie.

Thus, the Protection Spell manifested in the form of a link. They were permanently dead, and they were meant to stay dead. But rather than having to die repeatedly in Hell by themselves, they were able to go through it together.

Not the most romantic experience, but definitely better than being away from each other.

Nearly every day was the same.

They'd wake up standing in the arid field. They'd have to walk through it without stopping, lest they get burned, to get to a river, which was too deep to walk across, and would change temperatures without warning. One minute, they'd be frozen, barely able to move, and the next, their skin was on fire, and they were frantically trying to swim to the other end. Sometimes, the river would become violent, and thrash them around until they ended up right where they started, meaning they had to try to get across once again.

If they managed to get out of the river, they'd fall off a cliff, and slam into several objects on the way down, leaving them broken, bruised, bloody, and burning once more. They had to get up and keep going, or a flock of vultures would come to attack them, pecking mostly at their eyes, which would make the journey ahead difficult, because their next obstacle was a field of only thorns, which were large enough to completely impale their feet.

Then, once they were ready to collapse, they'd fall into a thick substance that smelled horrible, and left pus-filled welts on their skin. They'd get out stinking, sweating, and feeling like absolute shit. They'd have to go and stand in front of a large mirror, where they'd see, behind them, the ghosts of those they had killed. They'd hear them saying horrible things, proclaiming their hatred, and then, they'd have to feel the ghosts peeling their skin off, little by little.