by J. P. Rice
He focused on me, his glowing red eyes sending shivers down my spine. “Lucifer is pleased with the beginning of this conversation. Let’s move along now.” He extended an arm for me to take the lead.
I rounded the corner and the wind increased exponentially, ruffling my shaggy blond hair. Off to the side of the rotunda was a big open field full of what appeared to be dancing souls, fighting against the wind.
“Welcome to lust. Lucifer’s favorite of all the sins.” He smiled, showing off a long set of fangs. “The souls stuck here have enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh without being in love or married. For some reason, that is looked down upon by most people. Lucifer sees it the other way and mashes loins with whomever he wishes.” He capped the statement with a sleazy wink.
I stared out at the people and asked, “What exactly is going on here?”
“Perhaps you recognize some of these historical figures.” He pointed as he continued, “There is Caesar and Cleopatra.”
They were both nude and it appeared as if they were playing that game where you get really close to another person without actually touching them. Either that or some sort of weird dance.
Lucifer went on, “Over there you have Helen of Troy and Paris.”
The nude couple was doing the same awkward dance as Caesar and Cleopatra.
The guide pointed again and said, “And right in front of them is Guinevere and Lancelot.”
The legendary knight of the Round Table turned away from his eternal lover and faced us. Even from forty feet away, I saw the striking resemblance Alayna was always talking about. I did look like Lancelot. Our matching blue eyes locked for three seconds, and he jerked his neck, focusing back on Guinevere.
Lucifer explained, “They can get close enough, but when they try to touch their lovers, the wind prevents them from making contact. Do you have any lust you care to confess?”
A recent act jumped into my head. “I recently impregnated a woman after having casual sex with her. We got drunk. One thing led to another, and I took pleasure in her flesh. We aren’t married or in love with each other.”
Lucifer’s dark eyebrows arched. “Lucifer would like some juicy details about the sex.”
“What? Now?” I asked, confused.
He laughed awkwardly. “Never mind. Lucifer was only seeing if you would go for it. These are lies, by the way. You are in love with her and she is in love with you. You two just don’t realize it yet.”
What was he talking about? Burn and I weren’t really an amorous couple. We were together for the benefit of Dante and our future child, but that was it. Did I have feelings for her? Sure, she was a great person. But it wasn’t love. Was it?
I knew I had some other business to take care of down here and rubbed the talisman in my robes to make sure it was still there.
I shook it off and tried a different avenue. “All right. There was this girl named Emily. I tried to convince myself that I was in love with her, but looking back, maybe it was lust.”
A woman fought against the winds and ran toward us. As the nude woman neared me, I recognized her. Emily. Of course. She tried to run into the circular rotunda and accost me, but Lucifer stepped in to keep her at bay. He planted a palm against her forehead and held her back. As her tiny fists flailed away, she screamed, “You piece of shit. You sent me here. You should stay here with me.”
I still thought about Emily with more frequency than I’d like. Wishing that everything could have worked out with her. “I’m sorry for what happened. So sorry.”
She stopped throwing fists, but Lucifer still held her back. “You need to get me out of here. Break my neck again. Kill me again. Put me out of my misery.”
Breaking her neck was one of my biggest regrets in life. “But then your soul will be here forever.”
She rolled her eyes and tried to charge at me again, but Lucifer’s hand remained planted against her forehead. “Everyone’s souls are here forever, don’t you understand? Souls have been here for thousands of years. Kill my soul. Kill me again. Finish me off.”
“Lucifer is satisfied. Start your path to the next circle.” He grabbed Emily by her shoulders, pulled her closer and then heaved her back into the wind storm. Within a few moments, he was right on my heels, descending to the next level.
We strolled through the next automatic door and around the rotunda again, corkscrewing toward the center of the earth. Round and round we went until we arrived at a flowing river of blood and fire. People floated by periodically, most attempting to get out of the nasty sludge.
He extended a long finger tipped with a hooked claw. “Look there. It’s Guy de Montfort and here comes Dionysius I of Syracuse. Their souls are forever tied to violence. Lucifer rather likes violence. Oh look, there is Centaurus.”
Centaurus reached over to get onto dry land, his legs and hooves kicked like crazy, splashing blood and sparks of fire around. Lucifer extended his right arm and used the butt of his palm to shove Centaurus’s shaven chest. The half-man, half-horse splashed back into the bloody waters with the impact of a well-executed cannonball.
Trying to avoid the splash, I jumped back, holding my hand over my face for defense. Luckily the slop missed me, splashing down a few feet in front of me. The fire quickly died on the stone floor with Lucifer stomping out some of the blaze.
He warned, “They can be wild in the violence chamber. Lucifer has to remind them who is in charge every now and then. Violence is a skill not possessed by every man. Some beings are afraid to hit another in the face. So averse to violence to the point of fecklessness. What say you about violence, young soul?”
This was right up my alley. “I know violence very well, sir. I’ve done my fair share of wrecking shop. I’ve killed many supernatural bad guys without giving it another thought.”
Lucifer tossed his head around and pushed a few loose locks of hair behind his ear. “Sounds more like wrath to Lucifer’s ears.”
All right. He wanted something more personal. “I killed my own father. It wasn’t for envy. It wasn’t treachery. He was a piece of shit. It was the violence he’d instilled in me. It came around to bite him. But I was the one who killed him. It was me.”
Lo and behold, my father came floating by. This was like the worst trip down memory lane. His grizzled hand reached out, and he said, “Mikey. Give me a hand Mikey.” He grabbed hold of land and stopped.
He looked up at me, his eyes wide with desperation. “Why’d you do it to me, Mikey? I wasn’t never gonna kill you. You know that.”
Typical, dad. Nothing was ever your fault. “You shot me in the chest like four times. It’s not like we were doing that father and son thing where I have an apple on top of my head and you shoot it off. You tried to get me, but I got you first. We both know that was how it would end up.”
He reached out with the red river water covering his hand and dripping down onto the small strip of land. “How can you say that? I’m your father. Now help me out of here, you ingrate.”
“You were my father,” I said as I stepped on his hand and watched him fall back into the bloody river.
He floated away trying to fight against the powerful current and screaming the entire way, but my eardrums ignored it. I did not feel sorry for killing him. My father had fucked me up more than any other person. He was the absentee father I dreaded I could become. The bastard disappeared from my vision, but unfortunately, he would never leave my head.
Something hit me on the shoulder. Turning to my left, I saw that Lucifer was motioning for us to keep moving downward. He led the way as the next door opened and a rush of heat blasted me in the face, glazing over my nose, cheeks and ears and then cascading over the rest of my body.
My sweat glands sent their little soldiers to every pore on my body. Two steps later, the perspiration broke out, covering my fiery skin. We circled around about four times and encountered a forest of dull greens and drab browns. As I looked closer at the landscape, I realized the souls were stuck in the bushe
s and trees. They scrambled, trying to get free but only entangling themselves even more.
Harpies hovered over the landscape, occasionally swooping down to feed upon the trees and bushes. They had the body of an enormous eagle with the neck and head of an ugly crone. The souls screamed out in agony when the nasty-looking harpies flew down and chomped down on them. The harpies weren’t eating the souls, just causing major discomfort.
Lucifer tugged on his chain mail jacket to straighten it out. “We’ve entered the land of treachery. Lucifer is torn on this here sin. While Lucifer doesn’t mind it per se, it isn’t one of his favorites. Lucifer prefers stabbing a man in his chest or face, not his back like a coward.”
Well, then. Don’t piss off Lucifer, double time.
He gestured by pointing with his head. “That small bush over there is Brutus. Even though Caesar had become a tyrannical nightmare, both acts can be considered treacherous. One does not excuse the other.”
That messed up my line of thinking about being worthy of heaven and hell. How could that be possible? If I was worthy of the depths of hell, wouldn’t it be impossible to get into heaven? Confused, I paid attention to Lucifer again.
He pointed lazily, seemingly bored with this part of the trip. “There he is. Not exactly brother of the year. Cain is the epitome of treachery. Have at him, harpies. Never let him rest. Treachery runs rampant in many souls. Even young ones. Do you want to confess?”
I asked, “Is my father on this level too? That would probably save us a lot of time.”
Lucifer shook his head and waved a finger of warning in front of his chest. “One cannot be in two places at once. Not in hell, at least. You will have to convince Lucifer in some other way.”
“Okay. Let me think.” The answer was so obvious, it was smacking me in the face. But I didn’t want to believe that he could be here. I didn’t really understand the significance of the appearances of people I’d known. Were they really stuck here? Or were they just here to scare me straight, so to speak?
I thought about Marcellus Wallace’s warning to Butch in Pulp Fiction. It was time to say, fuck pride. Pride wouldn’t get me to the next level or bring back my friend. I lowered my head. “One of my best friends. His name is Reg.”
Lucifer hopped onto the dull green grass, leaned down on one knee and dug his hand into the ground. Soil and grass flew over his shoulder as he kept digging down. Lucifer ripped his hand out of the hole with a handful of tree roots.
“Keep talking,” he said as he pulled on the tree roots, winding them in hand over hand, like he was leisurely tugging on a rope.
It was time to come clean and actually confess to my actions. “My friend Reginald Danforth. I betrayed him. I could make a million excuses, but I drove a stake into his chest. And I need to take responsibility for it.”
“You don’t say,” Lucifer commented snidely and continued pulling on the tree roots.
A mighty shadow conquered the light and an oak tree appeared in front of us. Tall and glorious. Lucifer yanked on the tree roots a few more times, pulling the trunk close to us. He dropped the roots and stepped back.
The tree trunk rotated and turned one-hundred-eighty degrees, exposing a soul that had been worked into the bark.
It was Reg.
Oh shit.
Chapter 7
His facial and body features were distinct, albeit crafted from the wood. A crazed, desperate look clung to his face. “Mike, you gotta tell Jonathan about me. He’s my only hope. I know you’re trying your best to bring me back, but I need Jonathan.”
How did he know what I was doing? His body hadn’t moved in weeks. How could he see that shit? “Reg, I’m so sorry about what happened. I wasn’t in my right mind. The implant had taken over. I’m so fucking sorry, man.”
The dryad version of Reg spoke in a softer tone, “It can all be forgotten if you just tell Jonathan.”
Lucifer started to pull me away. I slapped his hand and said, “Wait. I need to talk to this man.”
“The door shuts when the door shuts,” Lucifer announced casually and walked away.
I had to follow him. Plus, I didn’t know what to say to Reg other than I was sorry. “I have to go, Reg. I’ll take care of you. Don’t worry.”
“Promise me that you’ll tell Jonathan. Promise me that,” he demanded.
That put me in a vise. If I told Jonathan about killing one of the members of his vampire clan, he’d just kill me. I’d be right back where I was standing right now. I felt terrible about it, but I pretended that I hadn’t heard him and hustled after Lucifer.
I jogged through the automatic door and it slammed shut right behind me. We spiraled down for about a minute until we arrived at a strange marshland. The ground looked like spongy black wasteland. Suddenly, the ground began to quake. A large fissure split the nasty ground in front of me and several of the souls fell into the opening.
“It goes without saying, but here lies wrath. Beware the occasional quake or tremor. And the geysers of foul marshy waters, those are a real pest. There is Alexander the Great. Conquered half the world in his day. That was some serious wrath.” The corners of his lips curled up devilishly. “Lucifer approves of wrath. And there is another man who is a symbol of wrath.”
Adolf Hitler, dressed in his Nazi uniform, dodged a falling shower from a spurting geyser of funky liquid.
His red eyes lit up brighter with excitement. “Wrath is the last level because it takes the most intestinal fortitude. If many men are afraid of sheer violence, wrath can never be attained. It takes a real...commitment, shall we say. The Gods of War will always be battling and there will always be vessels to carry out their wishes. What know you of wrath, young soul?”
Little did he know that wrath was right up my alley. “I might be here as a young soul, but I’ve inflicted a good bit of wrath in my day. I’ve killed more supernatural monsters than I dare count. In fact my first two murders were a couple that I destroyed with my own two hands.”
“Lucifer is not convinced. Perhaps you are looking at an eternity in the circle of treachery.” He gestured to the land of funk.
He wanted me to be more specific and dredge the river of my mind for some more painful memories. “You know I’ve killed my best friend. I also gave my mentor up to the enemy. And my most recent bout of wrath happened just a week ago. I killed a Japanese sorcerer. His name was Kobayashi. I took off his arms with two fireballs, but I still wasn’t satisfied. So I got on top of him and choked him to death. I gouged his third eye out so he couldn’t look into my soul and watched as his eyes rolled back into his head for the final time.”
Someone in a hooded robe fought against the nasty conditions and approached us. As the man neared, he lifted his hood. Three eyes. Kobayashi. I squeezed my robes and felt the talisman.
Lucifer said, “That was what Lucifer wanted to hear.”
I heard the trap door to the next level open and the echoing bark of a dog erupted from the other side. Cerberus.
Fuck. I had a crucial decision to make. If I went after Cerberus, I couldn’t get Kobayashi to reverse the curse and my children would be in jeopardy. If I went after the sorcerer, I wouldn’t be able to get Cerberus’s tooth and get back into Sleepy Willow to save Alayna.
As I weighed the decision, I pondered going to the next level and wondered if I could get back to this level. And if I could make it back, would I find the sorcerer again?
As Lucifer tugged me toward the next circle, Kobayashi turned and ran. Assuming Cerberus would stay on the final circle, I jumped onto the mucky ground and raced after Kobayashi.
Raced would be a vast overstatement. Due to the nasty conditions and my feet getting stuck in the mud, it amounted to no more than a slow jog. Kobayashi was having a difficult time as well, weaving around the bubbling geysers and dodging falling materials.
The smell of death lingered in my nostrils as I caught up to Kobayashi. Stepping around an erupting geyser, I reached out and grabbed his robe. The staine
d burgundy fabric stretched, frayed and a small piece ripped from the rest of the robe.
My momentum pulled me away from Kobayashi, who took off running again. I threw down the red scrap of fabric and chased after the sorcerer again. My long steps caught up to him again and I reached out to grab him.
The marshy earth started to tremble. I wondered if Artoise was jumping in to help me, and scanned the area for his presence. As I tried to figure out what was happening, the ground fissured right in front of me.
Scrambling backward to avoid falling to a sure death, the divide widened, leaving me on one side and Kobayashi on the other. The smug bastard smiled at me, turned and walked away. My children were going to be cursed, I thought, as I looked across the twenty-foot separation. Much too wide for me to jump.
“Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff.”
I spun around expecting to be eye to eye with Cerberus, but my trusty hellhound stood about ten feet away. She sauntered up to me and dipped her shoulder close to the ground. It took a few moments, but I deciphered that the animal wanted me to get on her back.
Carefully, I swung my leg over the animal’s back and tried to get comfortable. Without anything to hang on to, I wrapped my arms around Darkwing’s neck. The dog backed up and positioned herself facing the fissure.
One leg after the other, the hound charged ahead, quickly building up speed. As we got halfway to the jump, I panicked, wondering how this huge dog would be able to make it across. That wasn’t even taking into consideration that I was hanging on her back.
It was too late as the dog reached a full sprint, having no issues with the sloppy ground. Mud and muck flew from her paws as we approached the opening. I fought off the urge to vomit and felt Darkwing lower her body, preparing for launch.
Her legs propelled forward like a spring, and we were airborne. I made the mistake of looking down. The bottomless pit made my stomach churn and I raised my chin to face forward again. The hound had made a mighty leap, but as our forward momentum started to die, we fell like a boulder.