Deep Water

-ten-

We were through the portal in a nanosecond. I was pushed through the blinding green light and my feet hit soft ground. When the black spots dissipated, we were no longer in my living room, but on the skirts of a giant city lit up like a disco ball. There was nothing special about it from what I could see. 

I spun around on him, "What were you thinking? You can't just throw people into random portals! You know, I have half a mind to kill you right now, that's what this is for, right?" I yell, waving a gun I had swiped off a demon before adding him to the soldier chain. The sky responded to my rage with a loud clap of thunder, which stood out on the otherwise cloudless blue sky.

I watched as Luc's eyes go wide, I could see the fear surging through them as he swiped the gun from me with that stupid super speed of his. "You can't have this here. They'll kill you at the city gates!" he hissed at me.

 "Well, why don't you use your freak powers to destroy it?" 

"Do you want to set off an explosion that makes an atom bomb look like toddlers' play?" He looked appalled that I would even suggest such a stupid idea. 

"Geez, okay!" I snatched back the gun, and shoved it at the base of a large bush, muttering on bout his lacking reflexes. "Happy now?" I started walking past him, having no clue where I was going but knowing full well he is going to follow me.

***

When we get to the border house, the guard scowls at me and Luc, throws some foreign currency at Luc's face, and waves us through. Luc cracks a wide smirk as he counts the money, completely oblivious to the questioning look I'm throwing his way. "Care to elaborate?"

"Blaise lost a bet." He simply stated.

"What was the bet?"

"That I couldn't get you here." To this, I had no words. No witty comeback. No reaction other than this, "Well aren't you too big for your britches."

"Sometimes I completely forget you were forced into the southern lifestyle until you say something like 'too big for your britches,'" He says casually as we walk the line of the twenty-five foot tall stone wall fencing in the inner city.

 I wanted to change the subject quickly so I didn't have to think about how disappointed Grandma Jo would be if she knew that I didn't become the southern bell she trained me to be before she passed. "This isn't how I thought Hell would look." 

"That's because we aren't in Hell, at least not yet."

 I stopped abruptly, "Then where the hell are we?"

"Nice pun."

"You know I couldn't pass up the opportunity. But seriously, where are we?" I ask exasperated.

"This," he points to our right, to the city within the wall, "is known as Half-Way. Made for beings who can't live in their origin place and don't belong in Heaven or Hell. That over there," he says, pointing to the darkness outside of the fence, "is what I like to call No Man's Land. Walk far enough and you get into Black Society territory. Go there and you most likely don't come back."

"So are they like the mob or something?"

"Or something. The man who leads the Society is responsible for this whole end of the world situation. He thinks he can run the Afterlife better than the council in charge now."

"And the Afterlife is what exactly?"

"When you can go to several different places when you die depending on how you lived your life, how you died, and what species you are. You get the jest of Heaven and Hell, and I already explained Half-Way, but there are a few more and some are located in this dimension. The inner dimensional Afterlife colonies are the Black Society, which is by invitation or application only for those who are on trial to go to Hell, and the Realm 10-56, which is for people who committed suicide and do not meet the Hell requirements. The outer-dimensional are mainly for specific species. All Afterlives have at least one representative, and they all make up the council, making general rules for all of us and trying the maintain peace between all of the domains. My father is the representative for Hell, being he is the Lord of the Underworld, but don't get me started on those logistics and territories. We'd be here for hours." He takes a deep breath, winded from his spew of information. I open my mouth, about to speak, when he says, "And ending one round of confusing facts, here comes another. Welcome to headquarters." But there was nothing. We were still about a mile from the first city building and about a quarter of the way around the gates. 

"Umm... have you gone brain dead from that portal? There's nothing here." I looked at him like he was crazy, but I was only met with his look of great satisfaction.

"Hey, Axis. I don't think you have to worry about extra security. The most paranoid person on Earth didn't even know she was standing at the door of HQ."

A strange voice answered, "Well she's from Earth so that's not saying much."

"Hey! And I'm not paranoid, I'm observant. Who is Axis?" Noticing a string of speakers tucked against the base of the wall. Then a square of turf at my feet lifted perfectly from the ground to reveal a tall girl almost hunched over in a small box. She sprung into Luc's arms and pulled him into an embrace so tight I'm surprised she didn't break one of his ribs. 

She steps back to assess me, her six feet towering over my five-foot-barely-nothing frame. I kept my chin lifted and looked her right back in the eye, refusing to cower in her evaluating stare. I must have done something right because after a while, her face broke into a friendly grin and she took me into a hug equally as crushing as the one she gave Luc.

"Well, I'm Avis, you're Magnolia, and," she said, and turned to Luc, "we have important updates and discoveries to discuss." 

"I hate that she used my full name," I told Luc, which he smirked at and gestured me into the box, following behind just before the doors closed and it lowered down into the darkness of the ground. Turns out it was an elevator.

Coolest secret lair entrance ever.