Highway to Hell Read online

  Highway to Hell

  Lydia Anne Stevens

  Text Copyright 2019 © Dragon Soul Press

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under the international and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Editing & Formatting by Dragon Soul Press

  Cover Art by Creator D.S. Durden

  Also by Lydia Anne Stevens

  Ginger Davenport Escapades

  Why Me? (Book 1)

  Why Should I? (Book 2)

  Why Not? (Book 3)

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to acknowledge my Mom and Dad, whose passion for motorcycle riding helped craft this book. It has been a blast asking about how bikes work, riding habits and developing an interest in the activity myself.

  I would also like to acknowledge Juli Beck, whose book trailer helped promote interest in Highway to Hell. Your graphic design abilities helped me out when I was floundering trying to create my own. I appreciate the work you put into the video and I love it so much!

  Another acknowledgement is due to Paige Wheeler. I thoroughly enjoyed my time as an intern with your literary agency. Your expertise and guidance were invaluable, and something I will cherish moving forward with my career.

  I would like to acknowledge my editor, Jade Feldman, for recognizing my vision and working with me as I transition my career from self-publishing to traditional publishing. The experience thus far has been phenomenal, and I look forward to our continued working relationship.

  This book is dedicated to the seven men and women from the Jarheads Motorcycle Club who lost their lives in the New Hampshire crash on June 21, 2019, the three injured members of the motorcycle club, the other surviving members of the motorcycle club, and all of the family and friends impacted by this devastating tragedy. I didn’t know you personally, but your charity work is appreciated, as well as your service in the Marines. Rest easy and may your ride to Heaven bring you peace.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  1

  "Hey, any of you able to connect?"

  The weight of Sugar, my Harley Davidson FXR3, settles from the custom-crafted, raked-out front end, onto the kickstand. Balancing a motorcycle while wrestling with a cellphone in the pocket of skin-tight leather pants isn’t easy. Green flames lick up the side of Sugar’s tank and settle back from live fire into the custom paint job, her growls kick down to a low purr. Stroking the side of the tank warms my fingertips. A text notification buzzed in my pocket half an hour ago, but now the buffering circle of pain-in-my-ass on the screen is spinning merrily away and won’t let me open it.

  Limbo, the first circle of Hell, is home sweet home and also where the Wi-Fi doesn't auto reconnect. For real, why does eternal torture have to suck so bad? In Heaven, the password would be handed out on gilded placards with a calligraphy font, but whatever.

  "Hell has Wi-Fi?” Tora dismounts from the back of Leona's ride. The new pledge’s #Cutie t-shirt is as out of place here as her skinny jeans. She’ll be rocking the leather and lace in no time.

  The rattling sounds of the rest of the motorcycle engines echo off the football field-sized room, causing her to have to shout above the noise. Floor lights run up each aisle of parked vehicles in the grey cement. The cavernous black stone room emits an eerie yellow glow. They look like eyes glinting up from the other eight levels of Hell below. Leona’s black eyes flare as she pulls her bandana down off her face and her gaze slides up and down Tora's body. Leo blinks, shaking her head from her stupor, and then throttles down the engine of her bike to idle and turns it off. She flips me off and looks out over the rows of vehicles, idling her libido for a minute.

  "Yeah, Baby Girl, but the network crashes all the time." Tabby pops her bubble gum and checks her phone. Her blond pigtails sway back and forth from the rumble of her bike. She didn’t seem to notice Leo’s lust-filled leer, but Faline did. She frowns at Leo and dismounts her camo colored 1942 Norton and begins wrestling the captured mark from the attached sidecar.

  “You going to give me a hand or what?” Her grey eyes flash like storm clouds backlit by a lightning-filled sky.

  Leo looks over and shrugs while Tabby puts her phone in her pocket and swings her leg over her bike. Tora’s eyes glaze over and her jaw drops in a newbie, no-clue-what-to-do expression, as she watches Fae wrestle with the mark and Leo slowly dismounts her bike.

  Setting my phone on Sugar’s tank, the buffering circle on the screen continues to spin as it tries to open a text from Auntie J. When the error message pops up and the network continues being a bitch, pressing the black button on the side of the screen locks it out of sight, out of mind.

  "Tabby, give Faline a hand with the mark. Auntie J texted so it’s time to check in. Leo, show Tora where we deliver the marks."

  "Aww man, Catriona, why do I have to deal with that piece of shit?" Tabby says.

  Hell no. Disobeying orders in front of the new pledge? Not cool. Tabby is popping her gum only a few steps across the garage parking lot. It sounds like firecrackers as it echoes off the walls, but my leather boots clunk louder, like the sound of gunshot under the vast open sky. But as huge as the garage is, there is nothing open about it. Nothing free, not even us.

  "It's the job, Tabitha. You signed on for the grunt work when you signed up for atonement." Flames flicker in the depths of her pupils, engulfing the blue irises, but she quickly tamps them out.

  "You're right. Thanks for the job, boss." Her pixie face tightens and she looks along the long row of vehicles at the pile of junk cars and accident debris. Hell’s own version of a scrap heap. Memories of my first few days down here swim in my head. The frame of Sugar was in the heap. Coping with being newly dead and damned for eternity was how Sugar ended up being rebuilt from the frame out.

  We’re all thinking the same thing when we look out over the garage. How easy it would be to escape. We could just get in one of the working cars or hop on our bikes and drive back through the portal of Hell into the human dimension and never look back. We wouldn’t really be free though. Not really. Not with all of Hell chasing us down and making us heel, and not until we finish the job. And the one after that, and the one after that, and so it goes.

  I nod at Tabby and give her a shoulder bump. I can play both sides of the court. Strict versus chill. Sometimes my girls just need a reminder of who they're working for and why. It keeps them in line when the temptation of the open road is staring them in the face every day. It would be all too easy to jump ship and make a break for it, but they've learned I'll be the fair leader if they all learn t
o play nice. Demons sometimes kick sand at each other down here in the box. Loyalty fits a demon about as well as a conscience fits a psychopath. At least I’d gotten the cream of the crop when my girls pledged into my gang. So far, none of them have pulled a runner.

  "You bitches are crazy! This can't be real!" Jeremiah, the mark, screams as Faline sinks her claws into the fleshy part of his underarm, forcing him to follow us.

  The yellow fire in her eyes, tail twitching in agitation behind her, and fangs protruding from her mouth should be enough of a warning, but Jeremiah Worthington doesn't recognize the direness of his situation. Having his soul captured in the human realm and brought to Hell by a band of biker demons is not the time to get lippy. It's ironic given his previous vocation as a pushy lawyer. I turn to him. This fool has been a pain in the ass since we picked him up.

  "The little girl you killed, Katie, was supposed to grow up and invent a device to utilize natural energy from the sun, the ocean, and the wind, It would have been powerful enough to turn the planet around from universal threats like global warming, animal extinction, and energy efficiency. She was going to save humanity." I don't understand all the science crap. It's more up Fae's alley, but point made here. I walk toward him and he cowers under the harshness of my heterochromatic stare. He sways closer to me a little. It’s my eyes. It always captivates the marks, no need to add the demonic flames to be hypnotic. It’s like they don’t know which one to look at, the blue or the green; but they always look away when they realize they have been caught gawking. Jeremiah is no different. A coward to the core, he wilts under my stare and tries to back away from me.

  Cowards and crooks have often been synonymous in my book and I would know, having been those things in my human days. I stand over him where he has tried to crouch down next to the sidecar and slap my palm against the metal. A deep metallic vibration rings from the side and I imagine given its vocation it would be the sound blood would make if it could scream. It certainly has seen its fair share of blood and bodies. Jeremiah is no different than the other marks and today’s testament is his own blood screaming through the side panels of the car.

  "Instead, she was taken too early because of your stupidity, Jeremiah. The only consolation is she has gone to a better place, but it leaves us having to deal with you." I keep my voice low. Damned or not, the marks are still sensitive, like they think they’re going to wake up from the nightmare. Trying to remain calm while still instilling the reality into the situation is critical to successfully delivering the marks.

  "I didn't mean for her to die!" He tries to pull himself out of Faline's grip as she hauls him back up to his feet.

  "The road to Hell, Sunshine…" I let the fire in my own eyes flare up so he gets a good look into the depths of some of the Inferno. Gone are the cool tones of serenity. There’s trying to ease a mark into the situation and then there is tolerating fools. Jeremiah has proven to be the latter.

  He turns beside Fae's bike and vomits. It splatters across the cement floor like a water balloon popping against pavement on a hot summer’s day.

  "Bloody Hell!" Leo's English accent is sharp as she dances away from him, kicking the toe of her boot trying to rid the clinging effluvium from where it sprayed her foot.

  Paved with the best intentions, I think as I watch him wipe his mouth on the back of his hand. I crinkle my nose as the rancid stench wafts toward me and stand. At least he didn't hit Fae's bike. She might have mopped it up with his face.

  “Are you kidding me?” Fae’s look of disgust mirrors not only my own, but the other Hellcats too.

  Leo winds up her barbed whip, which reeled him into the veil separating the human world and ours. There are still chunks of flesh caught in it and Jeremiah's eyes widen as he watches her. He glances down at his plaid shirt where the barbs ripped out of his stomach. Blood stains spread across the shirt. Shock and adrenaline must be keeping him from feeling the full effects of the injuries. That will come later. He may have left his corporeal body smeared down Route 666 from his last sojourn as a drunk driver, but the soul is just as corporeal in this dimension and capable of being carved out like Swiss cheese. I've seen it all before in this gig.

  Besides, it's not like he'd been a model citizen. He probably deserves whatever this place has in store for him. But who am I to judge? I certainly deserved it. I wince from the pain of my own mental kick. We’re often our own harshest critics. I sigh, staring down at Jeremiah. There isn’t anything I can do for him now. Not unless he’s offered a deal with the Devil, but those contracts come up on the side of rare to almost never.

  Jeremiah was the kind of lawyer to represent the worst sort of scum on the planet. Pro bono meant nothing to him. Back in my days being associated with a drug dealer, he might have been the kind of lawyer I turned to in a pinch. Down here, the souls of the shady characters in life fade in and out between light silver and ebony smoke, depending on their transgressions. Jeremiah, I'm not sure of. Me, I thought my soul was charcoal, now I'm down for being medium rare to silvery-gray. I pride myself on having the potential to be better at least, him probably not so much.

  His hazel eyes crinkle at the corners as he searches the garage, looking for a way out. Even if he figured it out, the portal we just came through wouldn’t open for him anyway. The giant black wall of rock is as solid as any cliffside on this side of Hell. It only opens up for those of us who have the coveted hall pass. Reapers, that is. Those who go out and mark the souls, and those who go out and collect them. We’re all different kinds too. I happen to prefer riding out on Sugar as compared to the most notorious of reapers, the dreaded four horsemen of the apocalypse. I don’t even think they have permission to start the apocalypse. I guess I’ll have to ask. But at least Sugar is a lot prettier than the pale horse of Death. I look around the garage, expecting to see a skeletal horse with a pale coat and fiery red eyes, but the stables of Hell must be located someplace else. The world is a big-ass place after all and Hell isn’t any different.

  I turn my attention back to Jeremiah. Beads of sweat run down his forehead and there's a yellow stain on the front of his khaki shorts, courtesy of the gang and I arriving at the scene of the accident to collect his soul. Death is a messy business. So is terror. Soiled underwear is par for the course. Which is why Limbo stinks like the rotten ass of a dead sardine when Tora opens the atrium door. My eyes water and I cover my nose with the sleeve of my jacket.

  "This is your reality now." I squeeze my eyes shut, dampening the flames burning within them, and then turn away leaving him to scream profanities at my back. As I push through the throngs of people milling about, I can feel my whiskers pressing against my cheeks, as my inner Hellcat threatens to shapeshift out. The ache in my spine is a telltale sign I need to get to the elevators and out of here before I make catnip out of some of these people.

  Some days, I hate my job. Why, of all the hotspots around the continental U. S. that are named after Lucifer himself, can't we get a back-alley entrance to the Underworld; one with some privacy so we can haul the marks in and then shove them into the hordes of people? In my opinion, this is the worst circle of Hell.

  "Excuse me, miss?" A dumpy looking woman with eighties-style brown hair tugs on the leather of my jacket as I glare at the woman. No one touches my colors.

  "I just oiled this leather yesterday." I swat her fingers away and check my jacket for fingerprints. Possessions and pride often go hand in hand down here. There’s not a lot left to live eternity for, besides the rare few things we can call our own. I was one of the lucky ones, given a shot at a second chance.

  "Oh, I didn't mean to smudge. I was merely trying to tell you there has been some sort of mistake. You see, I don't belong here." The woman gazes glassy-eyed at the long lines of people cueing toward the benches of judgement. It’s like organized chaos. They try to sort themselves out to go where they need to. It’s what humans do; make hierarchies and order. The rules are in place down here, but no one really knows what they are o
r how to follow them.

  I bite my lip, trying hard not to give her a false sense of hope. I wish everyone here might have a smidgen of a chance to come ride with me and the Hellcats and earn redemption for our souls, but not everyone is going to get the invitation. I guess Hell really does have gilded placards in a way. Maybe just not the calligraphy kind.

  "Lady, this isn't Welcome to Disney. Take a ticket and get in line. You can dispute your claim with the Drudes." I opt for the harsh reality even though the hurt look on her face makes me flinch. I rub my palm against the leather of my pants.

  "Drude? What's a Drude?" She looks at the high wooden bench at the far end of the atrium.

  It sits high, like a judicial bench, because it’s essentially what it is, but instead of a long line of middle-aged men in black robes and funky-looking wigs, the presiding judges, jurors, and possible executioners resemble nothing like privileged white folks, and more like nightmares wrapped in dirty-gray, and blood-splattered robes.

  "A demon. Usually associated with nightmares. When Lucifer wants to get all up in your business in the witching hour, he sends them out to prey on your worst fears. They invoke nightmares in humans. Then come back, bellies full in a manner of speaking, and regurgitate the crap to feed the negative energy down here." I tap my boot, wanting to get on with my business, but this sort of hold up feels like just another pesky customer service issue for me. When I entertain my impatient and irritable nature, I can’t help but think she assumes she has a coupon for get-out-of-jail-free, but she can't find it at the bottom of the endless bag of sorrow and regret. I don't have the heart to tell her the the lines in Limbo, heading for the Drudes working the table, are more like an all you can eat buffet for those demons. Only the buffet is self-delivered souls. Some of them are hauled off to the other levels of Hell for different kinds of torture, but most remain here, cast off to the sides and milling about like wayward sheep, unsure of who to follow but not aware enough to sort through their chaotic confusion.