Hell's Gift by K. S. Haigwood Read Free Book Online

haven’t slept in over three centuries; I never tired while in Heaven. I was asking if you, demons, sleep here, in Hell?” But as I said the last word I found I was yawning.
    “I’m not a demon. I’m a minion.” Pogo chuckled lightly and closed his eyes.
    I sighed as I glanced down at my filthy hands and body. That woman had done a real number on me earlier. I didn’t have any other clothes to change into, and my shirt was in shreds from being skidded across the cobblestone. My skin tingled slightly where the acid-filled dirt was caked on my flesh. The tiny scrapes had yet to meliorate and I wondered how long the healing process would take. Kendra’s minor cuts and bruises recovered within a few days, but this wasn’t Earth. I had to keep reminding myself of that fact.
    Pogo was already snoring softly as I trudged through the muck to the stream that ran not ten feet from his bed. I needed to at least get cleaned up.
    I knelt down to wash my face first. The cloudy slough wasn’t very wide, only about fifteen feet across, but still wide enough to require a bridge for crossing, if there was even a reason to traverse to the other side.
    My torn sleeve fell to the water before the flesh of my fingers touched it. A white smoke arose from the creek and the material disintegrated on contact. The fabric continued to be eaten away and was quickly making its way to my hide. Terrified, I shouted and fell to my back, struggling to free myself of the cloth before I was eaten alive by some invisible parasite.
    The commotion awoke Pogo. He sat upright in his sleeping arrangement. “That ain’t water!” he shouted with wide eyes.
    I tried to control the heavy, fast breathing through my nostrils, but at the moment getting back into Heaven would have been an easier task to take on. I glared at him. “That information would have been useful before you went to sleep, Pogo!” I ran my fingers through my hair and forced calm and reason into my mind before I did something stupid, like picking Pogo up and tossing him as far out into the acid blizzard as I could.
    He seemed to sense my irritation with him and pulled the sleeping bag up around his throat. It couldn’t have been the fire in my eyes or the threat in the tone of my voice. No, it wouldn’t have been that at all.
    I took a controlled breath and glared at him through narrowed eyes. “You will not sleep until you give me some answers. Now, start talking.”
    Pogo was shaking. The sleeping bag slipped from his arms, making the sores on his flesh evident to me for the first time.
    “I’m not going to hurt you!” I chided, then lowered my voice when he slinked down farther into the bag. “Just please tell me a little of what to expect before I get hurt. You said you would help me, but all you’ve really done is sit back and watch me make a fool of myself.” I turned from him and began to pace. Seriously, I was better off on my own.
    “I’m sorry,” Pogo said in a quiet voice. “I guess I just assumed you would already know the creek was acid since it constantly falls from the sky here.”
    Jesus. Of course a stream in Hell would be acid instead of water. What the Hell was I thinking? Oh, that’s right, I wasn’t! I scolded myself for my carelessness. I really needed to start paying better attention. I was never going to figure a way out at this rate.
    I cleared my throat and sat with my back up against a column of stones holding the bridge in place. A wind had picked up and it had started blowing the acid ash up under the bridge. There really was no escaping the stuff. I looked at my fingers, blistered from touching the ashes earlier. The affected area was a few shades darker.
    “It’s the sores,” Pogo said, noticing my confusion. When I only looked up at him he continued. “The acid causes the sores and, because we have no water or anything sterile to clean the wounds, they get infected. You will suffer from boils, too. There really ain’t a way to prevent