Lucid Nightmares

Chapter 6

As they walked the streets of Hell, Gwendolyn held Christian's arm with such a tight grip that he thought he was in trouble for something. She kept looking around corners before turning them or stopping up at a crack in the pavement, tiptoeing around it and holding Christian behind her. Christian was starting to wonder why anyone ever goes to parties in Hell if they're this dangerous.

He was also fascinated at how Hell itself was such an indescribable mess. The buildings weren't even consistent; some looked like normal houses, others looked like Japanese apartments, German hostels, Spanish villas. Christian even thought they passed an igloo.

They had walked for around ten minutes when Gwen pulled him into what looked like a pawn shop. The sound and smell of decisive whispering and tobacco smoke filled Christian's senses. He wondered why this was; this seemed more like the atmosphere for a shady bar. But then his nose caught something under the smoke, something... irony. Like blood.

Before he could further investigate this, Gwendolyn dug into her pocket and fished out a coin, which she flipped onto the floor of the suspicious pawn shop. The magic elevator spawned in a swirl of flame, and Gwen quickly pulled a confused Christian inside.

"Hey, wait," he said, "why couldn't we have done that in the first place? We do it all the time."

"Yes, but we don't go to entirely different Rings of Hell all the time," Gwen explained patiently. "We just go to different parts of THIS ring; this is the Pride Ring, basically the main ring of Hell, mostly because all of the other Sins stem off of the Pride Sin. Certain areas of each Ring kind of blend together with each other, sort of like a gateway to make traveling between them easier. Right now we're heading to the Greed Ring, so we needed to find a place with concentrated greedy energy to get there easier; without that energy, we'd either be sent to a different Ring or one of the other circles that are used for torture and shit."

"So that's why we had to go to that pawn shop?"

"Yeah, it was either that or the jewelry store, but that was toooo faaar..."

The elevator doors opened and Christian gawped. The massive mansion before them looked like it was made of pure gold, and, knowing Mammon even for a short time, Christian guessed it probably was. It was so fancy that it almost looked like a casino, with lights strobing all over its base and a huge multi-layer fountain acted as a stand for a huge gleaming Mammon statue, his smug face, cane, fedora and everything. Many people in fancy clothing were chattering excitedly as they entered.

Gwendolyn gagged. "Stuck-up piece of... Ugh." She looped her arm around Christian's and led him slowly forward, talking quickly.

"Okay, so, like I said, be careful about who you talk to. There are certain things that will attract the wrong kind of attention, like drinking a different-color wine than the host, adjusting your clothes with your non-dominant hand, blinking three times in a row..."

Gwendolyn kept talking, but Christian felt a gaze on his neck. He turned his head and locked eyes with another boy around Christian's age with dirty blonde hair, a crisp tuxedo, and a skull mask that covered the right half of his face. He was walking with an older man with the same tuxedo and skull mask, this one covering the left half of his face. The boy winked at Christian, who flinched and narrowed his eyes. Something about this guy...

"... Checking your watch when the time's at an even number, having an opinion... Hey. Christian. You listening?" Gwendolyn snapped in Christian's face, and he blinked a couple times. "Ah-- that was two. Be careful about that."

Christian looked back at the boy, but saw that he was already entering the mansion ahead of them, along with the man he was with. He blinked, wondering how they could have gotten there so fast.