by Jake Richter
Alex drew back, the taste of Ash still on his lips. He opened his eyes. She did too.
“Whoa,” Ash said.
For that moment, only Ash existed in Alex’s eyes. He studied her soul-achingly beautiful and vulnerable face. She looked up and blushed.
“That kiss, Alex, it was like…a kiss with a fist.”
“Is that a good thing?”
She smiled wearily. “It’s a glorious thing. I knew there was something about you. When I saved you. I gave you a little of me.”
Alex nodded. He understood. “And when I kissed you just now, I gave you a little power back.”
He reached down and grabbed her hand, helping her up, throwing an arm around her as everyone moved through a screen of shrubbery.
30
Alex followed after Minnie and Camille, who parted a cluster of shrubs to reveal a steep bank that dipped to the edge of a wide body of water. He could hear the sound of water lapping against a shoreline.
Alex hoisted Ash’s gun and helped her up while leading the others down toward the water’s edge. The water, which was beet-colored, pounded against the rocky shoreline, separating their present position from another landmass which was barely visible in the distance.
“We’ve got a choice, boys and girls,” Spence said. “We can wait for the things that go bump in the night to catch up or we can go across.”
Alex nodded. “We’re going across. That has to be the way my grandfather went.”
Alex spotted a foot trail, a section of depressed grass and weeds that led along the water’s edge. He made out barely visible footprints and realized someone or something had used this way before.
He looked back at the others. “We need to keep moving.”
Alex led the others down the trail for more than a quarter mile, keeping in sight of the water. He lifted his nose, smelling the strong fragrance of passion fruit. It was wild and alluring.
The area had become dense with foliage on one side. The water was no longer visible as a heavy bank of fog had rolled in.
Alex heard snatches of conversation, what sounded like muffled voices, but nothing was entirely clear. He rose cautiously to his full height and peered ahead. What he saw was incredible. High above the trees, bird-like creatures flew past on gossamer-thin wings, cutting through the sky, light winking off their golden wings like errant lighting strikes. They were headed across the sound. In their wake, green and purple tendrils of energy spread through the air. There was electricity, and Alex could feel its current dancing across the top of the water.
Then suddenly, the fog lifted. Alex shouted. “Look!”
By the water's edge was a small fragile dock with warped and splintered wooden planks, slick with algae.
Next to it was a small boat. The hull was chrome and peppered with ancient symbols. A set of four oars was visible, although they were unlike any oars Alex had ever seen. Shaped like the wings of a pterodactyl, they were translucent and a single black sail made of some type of metal stood tall at the center. On the bridge, the ship’s wheel was made of fine mahogany wood.
The small boat was deserted except for one thing.
A beautiful deer that rested near the prow.
Alex whispered. “It's a fawn.”
Spence was alarmed. “Why isn't the fawn moving?”
Alex considered this, but before he could react, the deer was standing on its back legs and then Alex saw it.
What looked like a face on the inside of the fawn.
The creature’s features morphed and its body transformed into that of a lithe, beautiful woman with chestnut-colored hair. The woman’s hair was jarring when juxtaposed against her icy-blue flesh which made it seem as if she’d been carved out of glacial ice. The long-limbed stunner motioned to Alex.
“Who are you?” Alex asked.
“I’m the channeler,” the woman cooed.
Alex whispered, “Will you take us across?”
The woman nodded. “There is a price.”
“Anything,” Alex said.
“I need your warmth,” the woman said.
Alex paused, then took a step as Ash grabbed his wrist. “Be careful,” she whispered.
Alex nodded and moved to the woman who took his hand and led him down along the shoreline.
The woman led him down a path to a clearing underneath a tree canopy. “You remind me of the last man that left me wanting. He looked very similar to you.”
Alex felt a knot in his stomach. “You mean, a…human?”
“No, I mean he looked physically much like you. A resemblance. He was a gentle spirit and eager lover.”
“My grandfather?”
“He certainly was grand!” she replied, blushing.
“We don’t have much time,” Alex replied. “There may be people looking for us.”
“Oh, I’m sure your grandfather would approve of our union.”
“Listen, we really don’t have—"
“What we have to do won’t take long,” the woman answered. “I have to be with you, but my thoughts will not be with you. Does that make sense?”
Alex nodded, even though, in fact, it made very little sense to him at all.
The woman knelt on the sandy beach at the edge of the water. He did likewise and she kissed him tenderly and Alex was suddenly tumescent, and hungered for more.
“I move with you as I moved with the man who looked like you,” the woman said. “I connect with the life force in others in order to empower them and show them the way forward.” She pressed a hand against Alex’s chest. “Can you feel it?”
Alex nodded. “I feel it.”
The woman kissed Alex again and he felt weightless and free and that’s when it happened.
His body trembled and the woman gripped his face and began whispering something to him in an ancient language.
Alex blinked and when he looked back he’d been sucked into the woman’s mind’s eye. He found himself soaring over the water to the land he’d seen beyond it. He was witnessing what the woman saw, awestruck at the ability to fly over the land which was vast and green, spreading out below him like a huge emerald tapestry.
He caught sight of a structure in the distance. It was a colossal castle with a keep and a moat that dwarfed anything he’d ever seen before.
As they drew closer the castle grew larger. Alex visually traced the outer stone walls and the turrets and ramparts that rose four stories into the air. The entire edifice was positioned on a high point that loomed over a valley and a river like some kind of idol.
“Do you see?” he heard the woman ask even though he couldn’t see her.
“I see it.”
“Your destiny awaits at the castle. That’s where he is.”
“Who?”
“The man you’ve come to find.”
Before Alex could respond, he was pulled back and away from the castle until he was once again facing the woman, who leaned in close to him. Alex blinked away stars, the path to the castle seared in his memory cells, realizing what she’d shown him.
“You knew him, didn’t you? You knew my grandfather.”
The woman slowly nodded and reached a long, wand-like finger down and traced a crude map in the sand that he committed to memory.
“He was here before. Your grandfather. This is the trail he took to the castle.”
“It’s inside isn’t it? The sickle’s inside the castle.”
The woman smiled and the map disappeared. “Follow the path, Alex, and you will find what you came for.”
Alex blinked and the woman vanished.
Staggering to his feet, he made his way back to the others.
“Did you take one for the team or what?” Spence asked.
“I found it,” Alex replied. “I found where the sickle is.”
Alex gestured for the others to follow him down to the boat. The five quickly boarded the small vessel and pushed off, navigating across the water to the land on the other side.
31
Alex thought about that night when his grandmother had called. The sound of her voice when she explained that his grandfather had been gone far too long. She did not want him to worry but even for his grandfather, this absence was different. She was worried.
He remembered how he’d spent days without sleep. Searching the internet, contacting authorities. Rides back and forth from his apartment to Illinois. Spence helping post messages, asking anyone and everybody if they knew where his grandfather was. And now. Now, Alex could finally feel his grandfather. He knew in his heart. He was close.
What’s more, he knew that finding his grandfather and the sickle was his purpose. This was what he was meant to do. It had all led to this. The emotion was overwhelming and his face showed complete determination. This was Alex’s moment!
But at what price?, Alex thought for an instant before his thought train was derailed by a voice.
“So how was it?”
He looked over his shoulder to see Ash eying him coolly. She took her gun back from him.
“She showed me something,” Alex answered.
“I’ll bet.”
“It wasn’t like that, Ash. She showed me a vision.”
“Of what?”
“A castle. My grandfather’s inside and he’s got the sickle.”
Ash nodded slowly, running a hand down the barrel of her gun. “If she knows where he went, do you think anyone else does?”
“You mean…Grimwood?”
Ash nodded.
“He’s gone,” Alex replied with a tight smile. “I’m pretty sure we beat him.”
Grimwood and Dante strode down what passed for the main street in the Otherworld’s small city. They took in the damage caused by the gangs, watched several city-dwellers dragging the bodies of others, who’d been beaten, into low-slung buildings.
“Why would anyone want to escape the Underworld to come here?” Dante asked. “This place is a dump.”
Grimwood stared up at the sky which was bathed in silty light which gave the appearance of perpetual twilight. “There is a cult among some of the mortals, Dante.”
“A religious cult?”
Grimwood shook his head. “The cult of the individual. Its adherents choose places like this over paradise.”
“Why?”
“Because they won’t abide bondage.”
Dante looked up. “Chains?”
“Not all subjugation is physical, Dante. There is a feeling, a strength of purpose, that comes from living beyond the purview of those who are in power.”
“You know this feeling, sir?”
Grimwood didn’t answer, but there was a look on his face that let Dante know that he had indeed known the feeling once upon a time.
Grimwood moved forward and caught sight of a shambling form off to the right. A small figure who was clutching himself, gimping down a dusty verge.
“There’s our man,” Grimwood said with a smile.
Dante followed at Grimwood’s heels as the big man drew up to the smaller figure.
“Oh, Thomas,” Grimwood called out.
Thomas Pollard froze. Slowly, he turned and looked back, his eyes expanding.
“You!”
Grimwood grinned. “Me!” He moved closer and threw an arm around Thomas, towering over him by almost two feet. “You weren’t trying to hide from me, were you?”
Thomas shrugged off Grimwood’s arm. “I was escaping from a pack of demons if you really want to know.”
“How interesting,” Grimwood said dryly.
“You can’t do nothin’ to me down here, Grimwood. Your powers are no good.”
Grimwood nodded. “There’s some truth to that, but I’m still very big and you’re still very small.”
“Rub it in.”
“Where are they?”
“Who?”
“The outsiders.”
“I don’t know.”
“I can tell by your eyes that that’s a lie,” Grimwood said. “Tell true or I will haul you bodily out of this place and take you back to the Underworld. And once you’re there, oh the things I’ll have done to you, Thomas.”
“I’m already dead.”
“I’ll make sure you die a thousand more times.”
Thomas swallowed hard. “What do you want?”
Grimwood grinned. “The only thing that matters anymore. Information.”
32
The boat reached the other side of the water where they moored the craft to the bank and stepped onto dry land. Alex stood and surveyed the area ahead.
They moved single file through a section of woods and down over a promontory that overlooked a valley. Following the path only he could see, Alex led everyone down through the valley and across a series of switchbacks until the five were standing before a massive tree in the middle of a section of tall grass.
The tree’s branches rose up into the sky like the horns on some great beast. At its base snaked a bulbous mass of roots and a hollow, a hole in the trunk, that was big enough for three people to enter.
Alex led everyone into the hole to a space that was dark and without definition. The five hopped down through a chamber under the tree, passing weird glyphs and stick-figure paintings of fairytale beasts that dotted the subterranean walls.They continued their trek down amorphous folds of stone and compacted earth. Up ahead, Alex could see that the unadulterated blackness gave way to a field of light. Alex moved at a more rapid clip, sprinting as he moved out onto a mesa that overlooked a contained environment, what appeared to be a multi-tiered, terrarium-like world highlighted by splotches of greens and browns and blues.
Naked gravel reefs gave way to shale ridges surrounded by shade trees and thick matted vines, and all manner of flora and fauna. Above this, at the spot where the sky met the underside of the earth, copses of stalactites glistened. Rows of glimmering mineral and rock shafts sparkled like stars, casting off spokes of bioluminescence that illuminated the hidden world. They skidded down the backside of the mesa and threaded through a narrow draw that dipped and dropped to a forest of dead trees.
“Are we in the clear?” Spence asked. “I mean, we escaped the demons and we’re on our way, so things get easier from here on out, right?”
Alex suddenly stopped and held up a hand.
He heard a disturbance in the air.
Ash noticed it as well. She held up a balled fist and urged everyone to crouch low.
“What is it?” Minnie asked.
Ash closed her eyes. “Something’s coming.”
“The exact opposite of what I wanted to hear,” Camille replied.
Alex closed his eyes as well and heard what sounded like water tumbling over rocks. The sound grew louder, resolving into the unmistakable clatter of footfalls.
He quickly opened his eyes and stood to his full height, and that’s when he saw it.
The head of an ax that was flying through the air, slicing through the tops of the dead trees.
Alex waved his hands. “TAKE COVER!”
Everyone took evasive action as the ax slashed past, barely missing decapitating Ash. Alex covered his head, listening to the whirring sound the blade made as it circled back around as though pulled by invisible string.
Another ax flew past, then two more. It was only by sheer luck and instinct that Alex and the others avoided being hacked to pieces by the blades.
Ash, Spence, Camille, and Minnie dove for cover under the fallen trunks. Spence looked up as one of the axes embedded itself in the trunk inches away from his face. He gulped and Minnie grabbed and pulled him down to the ground.
“That was close,” Minnie said.
“That’s how I roll,” Spence replied, fighting to catch his breath. “Constantly living on the edge.”
“Are you scared?”
“Shitless,” Spence said.
Minnie smiled and kissed him on the forehead as shouts rang out.
Twenty feet away, Alex was running toward the others in a low crouch, shouting: “In the treeline! Watch the shadows!
Alex caught the swift movements of a trio of figures as the battle axes snapped back into the strangers’ hands as if they were pulled by invisible strings.
Alex crawled over to Ash and the others. “The axes have some type of autopilot mechanism.”
Spence nodded. “Those things would be seriously awesome if they weren’t trying to kill us.”
Alex looked to Camille. “Can you do something about them?”
“Why me?”
“Because you know how to fix anything, so I assume you can unfix things too.”
Camille considered this and nodded but before she could react, something stirred in the woods. Everyone turned to see a figure emerge from the trees.
The figure gripping one of the axes was at least seven feet tall with a full red beard and jagged black tattoos inking his exposed flesh. His emerald eyes seemed to glow and his head, which was shaped like an elongated bicyclist’s helmet, made him seem more alien than human.
The Ax Man barked at Alex, “Who fights for you?”
Alex stood up, and then in a show of solidarity, the others stood up as well.
Ash, Camille and Minnie, and lastly Spence stepped forward with Alex. “WE DO!” they shouted in unison.
The Ax Man yelled, “So be it!” He flung his ax in the air, and it lit up like an over-decorated Christmas tree. Blinking lights along the elongated handle shone bright green and the leading edge of the aerodynamic weapon blinked red. Something unseen inside of the ax began whining like a missile locking on a new target, spiraling in the direction of—
“SPENCE!” Alex yelled. Who was running for his life, galloping through the trees. Ash fired at the ax but missed it.
He watched in horror as the ax made a bee line for his friend who was stumbling through the woods, fighting his way over a fallen tree, trying to avoid the ax. Alex mounted a fallen timber, shouting for Spence to get down as the ax rocketed forward and—