Laveau’s shrieking echoed all around me. The fire turned from green to blueish white. No, it didn’t change colors; it froze. I didn’t believe fire could freeze, but it did. Just hovered there like an ice sculpture. But not before one of those tendrils lashed out at the puppet-man and engulfed him.

  Frost crept upward, starting at his toes and crackling along until he too was blue-white like Hell itself. His skin splintered off in chunks, then the bone, and whatever else. His eyes became piercing sapphires, reminding me all too much of the possessed yeti I’d met recently.

  This was different by spades.

  It didn’t cause just a tingle or an itch in my Black Badge mark either. This was all-encompassing.

  “The portal is open, Rosa. The time has come to step through,” Willy said, just before the puppet’s head shattered to snowy dust.

  Darkness and light inverted. Down became up—more accurately, no direction seemed right anymore. Things just floated without anchor or hold to reality. Everything distorted. The very air before us split in two, like someone dragged a sword through it. My whole body—no longer numb—felt turned inside out. I think I joined Laveau in screaming, and when I stopped, I wasn’t sure where I was.

  The ground shifted to a murky, gloomy darkness. And though snowflakes drifted all around me, there was no touch of Christmas joy. They didn’t dither downward or pile up. Just fluttered on the chill air. Like I said, I don’t know how to explain it. There simply was no down. No up. Our whole world spun. Frost clung to my clothes and my hat and beard. Everything.

  And the cold. I longed for numbness because I’d forgotten what it was to be freezing, and all at once, I could feel again like a normal human. My very bones chattered.

  “R-R-Rosa!” I called out, shivering.

  I put my hand in salute over my eyes to see better through the endless snow. What had been a slit in the sky was now an all-encompassing chasm. Things—dreadful, horrible things—moved in the darkness. Shadows large and small, making inhuman sounds and insect-like clicks.

  I ignored them until I spotted Rosa, standing across the strange inky tundra with the drunk in front of her. He had his arms wrapped around her. I could make out his face, but it wasn’t his. As he held her, he glared right at me and smirked.

  “I should thank you, James Crowley. You brought her right to us.” That same deep voice filled the air all around me, only now it had more form to it. Echoing deeper and deeper, endlessly inward.

  “Get your goddamn hands off her!” I shouted.

  “She no longer has to hide.”

  “Whatever you are, I’ll kill you. Let her go!”

  His laughter kept getting louder and louder in my ears. Familiar laughter. And that was when I realized exactly who I was dealing with. What a damn fool I’d been, tempting fate with the eyes of the unholy upon me. The eyes of the Devil.

  Not Lucifer. He was too lazy and fat on his throne to handle anything himself. No. This was the same demon I’d thwarted back in Revelation Springs. A master of mischief. Chekoketh.

  “You,” I spat.

  “I told you I would see you soon,” Chekoketh replied. “Welcome to my domain.”

  I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. This couldn’t be Hell… could it?

  “You son of a bitch! Let her go!”

  “I think not.”

  “You have me here. So let’s dance, demon. If you can take me.”

  “I have no interest in you, Hand of God. Only her. But your despair will be a welcome addition.” Icy air gusted against me, like it was his breath. I could almost sense him reaching out to choke me.

  I squinted against it. The air choked my lungs as I spoke. “What do you want with her?”

  Again, his callous laugh rattled me to my core. “All this time with her, and you still have no idea. Shargrafein is right about you.”

  That was it! Shar could help. I dug into my pocket and pulled out the mirror. My hand shook, fumbling to flip it open. When I did, despair became my bedfellow. No reflection or light. Just more of the same void. Totally black. Lifeless. Hopeless.

  “Good for nothing angels!” I shouted, shoving the mirror away.

  I looked back to Rosa. The demon mirage posing as Willy released her from his embrace, stepped back, and extended a single hand, like a gentleman encouraging his woman to go on ahead.

  Bastard, lying piece of shit. If it ever really was Willy, Chekoketh intervened to send her right to her doom.

  She glanced back, looking past me, through me. There was longing in her eyes.

  “Rosa, get away from him!”

  She took his hand.

  “No!” I shouted.

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  They started to walk together, hand in hand. I charged like a battered mule. The snow turned fierce, balls of ice and sharp shards whipping around and stabbing at me. The gust twisted into a gale. I fought against it with all I had, taking the cuts and bruises in stride.

  A screeching creature leaped at me from within the rift. The Hellish blizzard and tenebrosity caused by the demon made it impossible to discern much, but there were plenty of scaly legs and gnashing teeth.

  I pulled my pistol and put a bullet through those very teeth.

  “Let her go!” I shouted again.

  Something else swooped down, digging talons into my shoulder. My feet lifted, and I fought, managing to tear my knife free of my boot. I slashed up at a bat-like wing and the sinuous appendage severed from its body. But that didn’t relinquish its grip. Together we toppled, the thing unable to find balance. I slashed again, and again, until we crashed hard to the ground. My face hit first, and again, I felt it. I felt every damn bit of it. Tasted blood in my mouth.

  I rose, one word ravaging my mind: run.

  That was something I’d always been good at. Whether it was running from trouble, or into trouble—the physical action all the same.

  Except I couldn’t. Not this time.

  Rosa and Chekoketh kept walking, though I could tell she was hesitant. Rosa was too smart to fall for tricks. A part of her had to be resisting.

  “James!” her voice reverberated in my head, but I didn’t see her lips move. “James!” it called again, reminding me of how much I liked hearing it from her mouth.

  “Rosa, you can beat this,” I called out. “You can move on!”

  I pushed toward her while more scions of Hell came for me. I unloaded every bullet I had. Stabbed my knife dull. So long yearning to feel human again, and now I had that awful pleasure. Be careful what you wish for.

  My body was battered and bruised. Gashed, cut. But like a barreling freight train, I never slowed. Gained ground on them too.

  Shouldering a beast out of the way, I grabbed my lasso and lashed out. The loop swirled through the air, a perfect toss right for Rosa’s waist. Then, I was suddenly yanked back, and it fell just short.

  My feet flew out from beneath me and I fell flat. Rolling over quickly, I saw an icy chain around them, wielded in one hand by something truly awful. In its other, it gripped the staff of a scythe too large for any mortal to wield.

  Its tattered black cloak billowed in the storm, draped around skeletal limbs. A hood rose to a sharp point above its head, only there wasn’t a head… Just pure blackness.

  A reaper.

  “It’s futile!” Chekoketh bellowed. “She is ours. She will be our champion.”

  “She don’t belong to nobody!” I spat.

  I was all out of bullets. All out of words. All out of moves. I tried to get my feet free, but the chain tightened, making my foot go numb. Then the reaper started to wind it around his wrist, dragging me ever closer. The storm either died down, or I got used to it enough to see. Behind him, grotesque creatures and beasts of all sizes and types amassed. All of Hell had shown up for this party.

  Only, that wasn’t all.

  Until then, I’d been too much a fool to look back. Beyond all the monsters was a gateway to the swampy shrine right where I’d been before.

  I hadn’t been transported to Hell. Somehow, through Rosa and Laveau, and maybe me, Chekoketh had used our power to open a Hellmouth while we contacted another realm and created a portal-rift between realms. The Hellmouth all around us, I was caught between worlds, stuck in a sort of purgatory.

  The air rippled and whirled. Flying demons swirled by the dozens.

  “Eternal damnation is not enough,” Chekoketh said. “No. I have a special torture reserved for you, James Crowley. For you and all the Hands of God. We have wallowed in the dark too long.”

  “You’ll unleash this nightmare upon my kind?” I replied as the reaper dragged me closer and closer.

  “The White Throne’s favored Children will be like lambs to the slaughter.”

  “Where’s the sport in that?” I barked, desperate. “No wonder your master lost.”

  “You cannot goad me, human,” Chekoketh said.

  I was mere feet from the Reaper now, its scythe extended. I expected the worst, but instead, the curved blade dug under my back and scooped me up until I found myself face-to-face with the faceless hood.

  “The White Throne has its servants like you,” Chekoketh said. “We have ours. That is your fate, Crowley. To be my Reaper. To gather all the souls that fall at Rosa’s hands after I unlock her true power.”

  Suddenly, the chains loosened, and I dropped to my feet. A face began to appear in the hood. My face.

  “My slave. For eternity…”

  “I’ll fucking kill you!”

  Close enough to use my knife, I brought it up and lunged. The blade stopped in front of the Reaper, my whole arm going board-stiff. All my muscles burned with white-hot agony like I can’t even describe. All I could do was scream until my voice went raw.

  Chekoketh’s laugh boomed like thunder. And just then, something else stole my attention. The Hellish beasts started to panic, groaning and screeching. Some fell, others ran. Still others sought refuge deeper into the swirling rift.

  A pack of Hellhounds started to stampede over each other and only the ones that could fly were safe.

  The Reaper, however, held its position while I kept roaring in pain until, out of nowhere, the cloak ripped in half and the ghostly thing vanished in a wisp of black smoke. My body came free, and my knife plunged forward, where it was promptly caught.

  “What have you done, Hamsa?” Judas asked, wearing a loose, billowing black robe strangely similar to the Reaper.

  Black blood trickled down from his lips and that air of dignity from earlier was replaced by his more feral nature. Blue-black veins sprawled all over his face. Long, sharp fangs glistened with that same dark fluid. And his dark eyes were tinged like fire.

  “This wasn’t me,” I said.

  “Yet here you are, Hamsa.” He took my arm. “The beasts pour through. We must depart.”

  “Not without her.” I pulled free and pointed back at Rosa. Though she was barely visible through the fog and snow now. Almost gone.

  Judas stepped past me and looked through the rift, back at our world.

  “Which of you is it this time?” Judas said calmly.

  Then, Rosa stopped. Everything stopped.

  “You?” Chekoketh spoke. “It can’t be you.”

  “Mammon? Moloch? Ah, no. I know that voice. Chekoketh.”

  “You would dare show yourself here?”

  “Azrael never was very fond of you.”

  “Enough of this. Destroy him, my pets!” Chekoketh’s command was obeyed without hesitation. Regardless of the fear clearly raging through the demonic army, they all turned and crashed upon us. Wings slashed from the sky. I swung blindly as the snow swirled, but if I’m being honest, I was pretty much useless in this fight. I blinked once, and Judas stood exactly where he had been, calm as ever.

  A dozen or more monsters dropped dead around us. Judas licked his lips.

  “Get her!” I barked.

  He nodded, then zipped across the tundra in a blur. More beasts stirred in the distance. Growls and roars rang out like a chorus and the storm got so intense, I was blind. Could barely stay upright against the driving wind.

  Calling out for Rosa, I squinted to try and see anything. Before I knew it, Judas was in front of me, Rosa’s body slung over his shoulder. She looked to be unconscious, and her skin was deathly pale.

  “Betrayer!” Chekoketh bellowed. “Deceiver! It could have been you to stand as our champion!”

  Judas glanced up. “I am no one’s servant.”

  “Is she al—” Before I could get my words out, Judas took my arm and pulled me toward the Hellmouth’s exit. Creatures slashed and bit at us but found only air. He moved so fast, it was dizzying.

  “Judas!” I shouted, but it was buried amid the roaring wind.