As safe as I imagine a body can be in freaking Hell, I rest beneath Mottle’s protective form — sleeping for gods-damn real this time.

When dreams do come, they are of floating in ocean depths. Over my face – a protective bubble of air allows easy breathing. That death beach I just escaped from must have shaken out some of my more pleasant impressions of Earth’s ocean. This water is cool and, though dark, it’s clear. No pollution. No goop. Lots of actual life. I’m reminded of a time at the beach one day surfing. Of wiping out on a giant wave and getting held under in the dark, swirling waters until my lungs screamed for release. This is like that. But peaceful and with more air.

Soft, silver light envelops me. Flickering. Far away a green blinker slowly moves in and out of the darkness. Could it be the lure of an angler fish? A great tubular body drifts nearby, mostly stationary. Some giant sperm whale. Its black eye watches but does not threaten. A school of krill rises up like bubbles all around. My name-curse sparks softly, adding to the various gentle glows in the dark deep.

I try to move, but a kind of seaweed is wrapped around my body. Great, so I’m stuck in fracking seaweed at the bottom of the ocean. If I kick lazily, I can move about a little, even if the seaweed holds me mostly in place. The whale’s black eye watches, offering little encouragement. Thanks for nothing, big guy. On the floor nearby is a round stone shape. Looks a bit like an altar. Lettering surrounds its top edge. The surface is flat, like a table top. Upon it rests a long, black box. For some reason, I’m thinking of Atlantis. Yeah, right. This is Atlantis.

I trace my hand along the box. It’s smooth with barely perceptible seams. Like a frigging puzzle box. Curious about this sea-floor artifact I’ve discovered, I start to look more closely. Electricity arcs out from the box — jabbing into my name curse. Fuck! I pull my hand back. Through the water, there is a chiming of bells. 10 Bells. Funny haha. It must be ten o’clock Berlin time. Mottle rustles, the ocean scene fades, and I wake up to a growling stomach.

Mottle folds back as I sit up, tail still lightly touching my right hand. He sends a query about the dream through our physical and mental link. A kind of – what the? I mentally shrug back at him. Just a crazy dream, I guess?

I look around. The still night of Hell filters through various cracks in the ceiling of Mottle’s little grotto. Water level in the cave has dropped. Distant flickers of lightning illuminate the cracks but the storm is long past. Must be about five o’clock A.M. Hell time. I feel around in my pockets, pulling out my phone. It’s busted and waterlogged. Now nothing more than an expensive paper weight. I think about chucking it, but pocket the thing instead. Resources here are damn sparse. Who knows when something in it might prove useful?

Thinking of resources reminds me of the water bottle. I crack open Perry-Fuckin-A and take a long series of swigs. Mottle somehow kept me cooler. But I’ve still sweat out a lot water. The guy probably saved me from fracking heat-stroke, though. Air here is just stifling. My phone’s bulk is an idle chunk in my pocket. Damn. I need a freaking clock. Meaning — time for more magic. Glancing at my name curse, I notice from the amount of silvery luminescence that my energetic vessel is already more than three-quarters full. It’s kinda like my battery for curse energy storage. It holds the stuff I naturally draw in from the multiversal spirit. Pretty cool, right? Most mages can easily get the gist of how much energy they have. It’s similar to the physical feeling of hungry or full. I get the hunger pangs and fullness part too. My name curse just gives me a more exact indicator. Almost as good as a freaking fuel gage. Well not quite. But you get the picture. This time, I have more than I should and I’m getting it faster than I typically would. A quicker recharge thanks to the five Mottle wisps peacefully humming away in the whirls and swoops of my curse. Oh, and Bob, don’t forget about frigging Bob, lurking in my shadow, who almost ate me back there at the cave entrance. Well, since I’m working with more magical energy coming in than usual, I can spare just a little for a minor permanent curse.

“Horologium!” I chant, and a semi-transparent chronometer face appears on my left wrist just below the name curse. Its characters blink in the darkness. Reminds me of those old digital watches from the 70s and 80s with the back-light you activate with a button. “Nice!” I’m probably more excited than I should be. But this is Hell, after all. Any comforts of home are damn mighty precious. “Now set,” I command my new time piece. “Time is 5 o’clock A.M.”

The magical watch flickers. An indicator flashes. “Time zone?” is the query.

“Well fuck, Hell’s Beach, I guess.” The chronometer dutifully records Hell’s Beach as time zone.

Mottle has folded himself up into a tee-pee pose beside me. His big, black eyes are watching me fiddle with Horologium. He lifts his tail and gently touches the back of my hand. Should get moving. Not safe. An image of Bob’s chameleon feet appears in my mind’s eye. Damn, Mottle, this is gonna take some getting used to. I see Bob’s feet leaving a residue as he walks. Another lizard-devil like Bob sniffs the film of goop with its flicking tongue and follows. Then another follows that one. There are many more in a burrow under the sand a mile or two off. Stelo-mal is the word that forms in my head. Bad frigging lizard.

I groan loudly. “Ugghh! They are like giant devil ants! So, Bob led the rest of them to us?”

Mottle sends an affirmative pulse up my arm. Now. Later too hot. I get an image of me passing out in the heat, laying on the sand ‘til I die, then becoming hell-vulture food. Talk about some big freaking vultures! OK, point taken.

“Yeah, yeah. I know. Frail hooman girl can’t handle Hell-hot. I get it.” I use the Bob word for human. I don’t know why, but it strikes me as funny. Bob, back there in my shadow, is silent. “Well, best get moving while mornin’s burnin.” I stand up and look around the chamber. A few crevices further up are about big enough for me to pass through. The lower water reveals more of the crack I squeezed through earlier. Not gonna risk that way again unless I must. Drinking one more swig of the Perrier, I slide it into my flannel pocket and motion for Mottle to lead the way.

Mottle unfolds his bat-carpet form, then flaps off toward one of the larger crevices. He lands beside it and waves me forward with his tail. I shrug, then clamber over boulders, find a narrow ledge, and wedge up into the hole. Mottle flaps ahead again – flying down a tunnel for about fifteen feet. With his claws, he latches himself onto the right side of an opening. Spread out like that, he looks like a hanging wall-rug. This is also funny. Oh jeez, I must be getting light-headed from lack of food.

I clamber up beside Mottle, already hot and super-sweaty from climbing in the crazy Hell-heat. I try to remind myself that the cave was cooler. My body’s not taking in the message my brain is sending it. The sulfur stink is also not helping with breathing. Chest is tight. I cough. Mottle gives me a concerned look. “Shut up,” I say to him. Not sure he understands. Maybe he does. That’s a smart bat… thing.

I look out onto a beach blasted flat by storm. All the dunes within at least a half mile of the freaking ocean are leveled. And this is on the steep rise to rocky area I sheltered in. Further down the beach to my right is a lower area that’s still flooded with stinking and goop-laden ocean water. Mottle flies ahead, lands on the ground, then waves at me with his tail. I clamber down, get my feet on the sand, and slog up to where he’s landed. Man am I seriously jealous about his ability to fly. He looks back at me with what I think is sympathy before launching off again. I let out an exasperated breath and trot after him. At least the sand is pounded firm by wind and water.

His glide down the slope is a long one. He lands about a quarter mile away, then gets busy digging at the sand. I don’t want to be alone in this place. It’s freaking surprising how I’ve already glommed onto Mottle as a kind of safety-net. But after meeting Bob, I’m more than a little paranoid about all the various monstrosities lurking about.

I’m really starting to feel seriously homesick. So I conjure up a familiar memory of paddling out into Earth’s much kinder ocean to surf alone — wondering if some predatory shark is swimming below me. Just a memory of me by my lonesome in the big-ass ocean. Easy access to any predator who may find me even a tiny bit interesting. The feeling here in Hell is similar. But a crap-ton more intense. Part of it has to do with stuff I know. Various bits that slipped by the Memory Draught are the opposite of freaking comforting. Unlike Earth’s ocean where a human interloper is oft-ignored, a human in Hell is the most sought-after prey of all. And as you’re probably catching on, fact is we’re sitting ducks in Hell’s crippling environment. So, Mottle leaving me a few hundred yards behind makes me freak out just a little.

Despite feeling weak with hunger, I put on the jets and sprint up to where Mottle is expertly ripping through sand. As I approach, I see what he’s after. It’s one of those mean-ass plants with the razor leaves, buried in the storm. Now he’s uncovered it. Careful to avoid the sharp protrusions, Mottle uses rear legs and tail to dig around and below. He shuffles deeper into the sand. Letting out a satisfied grunt, he stops for a moment. Then, he begins to thrash about. There is a ripping sound. He scrabbles forward, pulling and straining against the sand with his claws. I grab hold of him, helping him move whatever it is that he’s got hold of with his tail. There is one last rip. I fall as Mottle lunges up.

I stand, brush the sand off, turn around. Mottle has pulled a gigantic bulb out of the ground. It’s about two and a half feet across. The size of a large-ass pumpkin and covered in green and yellow splotches. Mottle starts tearing into it. I inch up to see about sharing in the feast. Doesn’t look appetizing at all. But I am really damn hungry and I’m gonna need some kind of sustenance. Especially here. I burned a lot of fuel yesterday in just a handful of hours. Mottle is gorging. Goop and pulpy stuff flies everywhere. It smells pretty foul. I reach out to grab some of the pulp. Mottle’s tail lashes out, pushing my hand away.

No. Poisonous to human. Let Mottle handle.

I flop back on my butt with a sigh of frustration. Figures it would be poisonous. “Of course, it is.” I rub at a bit of sand with the palm of my hand. To Hell’s east, the horizon is lighting up with pink and purple. The sun is coming. Though it’s at least 100 with like 70 percent humidity now, it’s about to start getting a whole lot hotter. I dig out the Perrier and take another set of gulping drinks. Gonna need it all.

Mottle has finally stopped gobbling up the plant’s bulb. Only a few stringy pieces are left. I wonder where he put it all. That thing was huge. He ripples over toward me. His blanket body coming into contact with my skin. Trust Mottle? The query flooding through me is tinged with urgency and fear. I’m not sure what to make of it. Weird.

“Yeah, I guess,” I reply. What do I really know about Mottle anyway? He helped me survive the night. He didn’t do anything to hurt me when he could have. He gave me some thoughts I assume are his memories. It could all be a ruse. But if he wanted to eat me or otherwise take me out he could’ve done it when I was sleeping. And clearly, he also just ate a crapload of food. Sure, I’m almost 100 percent certain I pretty much trust him.

Mottle pauses for a moment, then lunges forward and latches himself onto my neck. He’s lightning-quick. Catches me completely off-guard. I’m halfway through summoning my moon-shadow blade, when more thoughts flood into me. No hurt. Help. The sensation I feel from him is motherly. Like a parent to precious offspring. This is not threatening… but why?? Before I can think any more, Mottle freaking bites me. More precisely, two teeth-like things extend from his mouth area and enter my neck.

“The fuck!?” I shout as these teeth pierce me – thrusting into arteries beneath my jaw. God, I am so fucking dead! I can’t even freaking move!

How we feed young, Mottle thinks. Cool euphoria spreads out from my neck and over my body. Energy slowly fills me. There is a gland behind each tooth. It is pumping some sort of liquid food – directly into my veins. Mottle’s body made and processed it. Apparently, my body accepts it. After a few minutes, Mottle’s teeth withdraw. He flaps away. I can move again. I touch my neck. The holes ooze a tiny amount of blood. But they’ve mostly sealed. There’s a substance on them that must be coagulant.

I kick myself away from him. “Gods that was fucking weird!” He bends his head in a gesture that says he’s sorry. I feel so much better. I am not at all hungry even though my stomach is still completely empty. It oddly feels full. “No way! No fuckin’ way!” I shout this to him. Mottle offers his tail. I don’t want to take it. I can’t help myself because I’m too damn curious. When my hand touches him, his thoughts again flow into me. Myra hunger. Getting weak. No food. Mottle could give. Explain would just make scared.

“Make scared. Yeah. Did that.”

Myra feel better? Not hunger?

I have to admit, I do feel pretty frackin good. “Yeah,” I say grudgingly.

Good. Now Mottle keep Myra cool. And with that Mottle is again on my freaking back. His blanket-like body somehow sluffing the heat away. Gods, he’s quick. If he actually did want to kill me, it probably wouldn’t be hard at all in my present state. I remind myself he’s trying his best to help. And yeah, I don’t know squat about getting food here. That weird IV tooth injection thing really did the trick.

I stand up. He helps me with his tail and two hind-claws even as his foreclaws grasp my shoulders like football protective padding. His midsection spine runs down my vertebrae, lending even more support. His freaking head is on top of my own head like a helmet. Two bone teeth loop coolly over my scalp without stabbing. With the mental coordination we share, it’s like having three more legs, a rubbery protection all over me reinforced with bone, and a big furry helmet with two extra eyes looking out sideways. There’s weight to him, but his squarish, mostly wing body is all muscle. For a moment, it’s awkward. I take a step. His body springs and contracts lending force to my steps while somehow also cushioning. I take another step. Better. I take a third step and pow! we are bounding across the sand like a badass super-soldier and running-back hybrid.

This is just nuts. Like Mottle is somehow adapted to a weird human-Mottle symbiosis. I check my memory for anything about this kind of creature. Draw a blank. Huh — not like memory’s been worth a damn lately. Thanks Mom. Thanks Dad. Well, anyway, he’s clearly not a full-blown devil of the soul-sucking variety. Just some creature living in Hell who refuses to devour wisps and can somehow create this kind of natural bond with a human(oid). Also not far from the Hell-Gate. Coinkydink? I think not. This stuff has Beatrice and Mori planning written all over it. I suppose I could just be crazy-lucky. But in my experience, there’s no such thing as luck.

I notice my curse energy is a tad bit lower. “You took some of my magic, didn’t you?”

Mottle helps Myra; Myra helps Mottle.

“Hmph. Yeah. I figured.” So Mottle isn’t entirely wisp independent. But he can somehow siphon wisp energy without killing. Again, not typical devil stuff. My own wisp energy for magic comes from the multiverse at large and now also from the wisps I keep safe from Hell. Looks like Mottle has stumbled on a pretty good deal here. But I can’t complain. He is literally saving my fracking ass. “So where do you think we should go now?” I’m honestly curious. Maybe Mottle has some kind of plan for what to do with me. Until 7 o’clock Berlin time, which is probably about eight and half hours off, I don’t have a freaking clue.

Mottle doesn’t hesitate. Head toward wisp fields. Maybe walk-fly. I get a vision of walking up and gliding down hills with Mottle attached and using wings like a mix between hang glider and flying squirrel. Finish before sun’s high. Then find shade. Rest ‘til night. Journey longer in cooler dark. Then find wisps to help. Deal with Drivers, Form Makers. Mottle is a font of information. I see red devils with scaly skin, yellow eyes, and long front-sprouting horns when Mottle thinks of Drivers. I get the impression that these mean customers run around capturing wisps. For Form Makers, Mottle sends a picture of a kind of black un-wisp that shoots abyssal flux as black lightning bolts at the wisps to give them hellish forms. A lot of information and it’s all about as clear as mud. I look at my name-curse and see the wisps floating contentedly inside, safe from Hell, shining with their self-rejuvenating glow.

“Sure, Mottle. Why not. Let’s go save a few more wisps. You seem to have a stake in that. And somehow, it seems, so do I.”

(Want to read the first Chapter of Helkey? You can find it here.)

(Looking for another chapter? Find it in the Helkey Table of Contents.)