I looked down upon Allison, “I’m so sorry." A tear ran from my eye to my lips. I raised the axe above my shoulders.
"Stop!" Growled the demon. It reached over and ran it's blackened hands down Allison's face, removing her gag. She looked into my tear soaked eyes and said words that cut me to pieces. "I love you."
The demon stuffed the gritty gag back into her mouth. "Now, you may proceed."
I nodded my obedience and swung violently down. Allison's body screamed when her voice couldn't. A blinding pain pierced my soul as the axe stuck into the blood stained leather strap that tied her down, cutting Allison free. I dropped to my knees. “Father forgive me, I know what I have done.” I cried with every fiber in my being. The room flooded with bright light that burned white hot. We wailed in excruciating pain. The demon was knocked to the floor, kicking and screaming. Sunny swung and missed widely, clanging his sword against the stone wall. “They’re blind,” I whispered, undoing the remaining straps. Allison was unconscious, the intensity of the light must have knocked her out. I grabbed her body and threw her over my back.
A voice cried out from behind the light. “Run!”
We burst into the long hallway of the dungeon, by passing the moaning screams of it's tortured inhabitants. My knee buckled under the weight of Allison’s body while we twisted and winded up the stone staircase. At the top was a door. I took my chances, lowering my shoulder and crashing through it, tumbling into the street. Allison lay unconscious. I picked her up and ran zigzagged through the bloodied streets and dark alleys.
Trapped like mice in an endless maze, our time was limited. I turned the corner, tripping and falling before ramming into a brick wall. I scrambled to find an exit but we were surrounded by brick. The faint commotion following us was growing louder. My heart beat grew right along with it.
“Hurry, down here.” A hand reached through the sewer drain and motioned us to it. A second hand reached up and removed a false metal plate. The space just wide enough for Allison and I to squeeze through. “Hurry, this way. We must hurry!” We were lead through an underground maze even more complex than the streets and alleys above us. The tunnels gave way to caverns and then back to tunnels. An entire network underneath this city of evil. We came to a small room whose walls were made of iron. The door slammed shut behind us.
“Please, I beg of you, take me. Leave the girl be. She’s been through too much. She’s broken anyway, and of no use to you. Please! I would make a much better slave.” I pleaded with the two that brought us there.
“We aren’t here to hurt you.” The man said. "Calm down. I’m Jimmy, this is Sarah."
In front of me stood a tall slender man dressed in black. He was sharp looking and I'm ashamed to admit but rather handsome. His hair, which hung to his shoulders, was salt-and-pepper with more pepper than salt. He had a chiseled jaw and dark, deep-set eyes, the kind that penetrate your soul and hold it captive. He reminded me of a sleek and rugged gunslinger, like those in an old western movie. He was an intimidating fellow. There was an intensity to him that without saying a word garnered the attention of the room. His piercing eyes squinted as he sized me up. It was difficult to stand eye to eye. I sensed no anger, just a commanding presence. A powerful personality.
Jimmy's hand reached out and touched my shoulder. "We’re here to help.” Silence fell over me. “Well, you asked for it didn’t you?” Jimmy tilted his head in bewilderment, waiting for my reply. It never came. “Father forgive me. I know what I have done.” His emphasis on the word done sent spit flying into my face. I blinked rapidly and wiped it from my brow. “The Father in heaven hears even the faintest cries from his children. He never turns a deaf ear when asked for forgiveness." Jimmy said. "As soon as he heard your request he sent word to his Angels, who passed it on to their charges, who passed in on to their charges, and so on and so on. You get the point. It finally reached my commander who then passed it to me.”
“Well, I can tell you he broke my arm and neck. I didn’t much appreciate that.” I was finally able to speak. “Some God he is.”
Jimmy raised his brow. “Go on, please.”
I collapsed on the floor, exhausted from the chase. “I was on earth, possessing some poor kid when all of the sudden there was a flash of bright blinding light and I was hurled back to the pit at breakneck speed. Hence the broken neck.”
Jimmy let out a roaring laugh which ignited my humiliation. I snarled, he wasn’t fazed. “You must have ran into the boy’s Guardian Angel. Let me guess. Some mortals did a cleansing on the house to get rid of unclean spirits such as yourself. The prayers of the group were heard by the Father who sent the Guardian Angel to deal with it. Guardian Angels aren’t cute chubby fat kids with wings. They're known to be fierce defenders of their charges.”
“So there really isn’t a Son of God?” I asked.
“Oh, I assure you there is. They say his spirit rages with the glories of a thousand heavens." Jimmy glowed.
“They say? Typical. It’s always ‘they say,’ or some other second hand account. Everyone says how great and powerful he is, yet, no one can say for certain if he's nothing more than a bedtime story. It’s the same thing over and over again that the lunatic preachers shout from the street corners each Sunday in my town. They’re delusional. All of them!” Rage swelled up from my gut as I clenched down tightly forming a fist in my hand. “If he's so powerful then why doesn’t he assert himself. Come down and prove his existence. End the uncertainty that has plagued the earth for thousands of years! You’re a fool!"
“Reasonable deniability.” Jimmy said.
“What!” I shouted, barely catching my breath.
“You can’t have faith and free will without the ability to deny the existence of God. Your lack of spiritual understanding makes you the fool now doesn’t it.” I felt Jimmy was mocking me. With no ability to control my impulses I swung at him but missed and fell to the ground.
"Hold one big guy. Slow down." Jimmy said.
“The Guardian Angel was bright. What’s with the light? It burned so fiercely," I said, pulling myself up.
“That would be the love of God. God’s own substance. His essence if you will. All of his Angels have it. To them it is the core of their being. Love. To you, yeah, it probably burns like hell.”
I stood up and acknowledged my defeat. I needed Jimmy's help to get Allison and I out of this place. “Well, that’s just fine and dandy. Congrats to the Angels, well, at least the so called good guys. Remind me to buy them a drink sometime. I just don’t want to run into any of them anytime soon.”
Jimmy looked me in the eye. “Some do you know.”
“Some do what?” I asked.
“Angels, come down here. The bravest and most courageous will, on occasion, dare to enter the jaws of evil. It’s their love for humanity, for us, that compels them to enter this forsaken land. They're just as vulnerable here as you and I, only, they have the strength to resist this realm and all its wickedness. They need to dial down their love in order to become manifest in this realm. Asking an Angel to dial down his love for lost souls is like asking a child not to open his presents on Christmas day. They have become so spiritualized, so etherized, that it becomes near impossible for them to stay in a world of evil such as this for very long, but, a few have pulled the feat on rare occasion. That's why they sent me. My soul is more in tune here. To be honest, I wasn’t all that different from you until I was rescued. Now I'm helping poor souls such as yourselves as part of my work, part of my growth process. We belong to an organization, a hierarchy that stretches all the way to the top.”
“Top? Top of what? What’s at the top?” I asked.
“God,” Jimmy replied. “To advance our own spirituality and to become closer to him we help each other get free from this place of terrible oppression, free from our past sins, free to move on to better things.”
Jimmy’s eyes beamed with compassion and grave warning. “I won’t lie to you. I’ve studied your case, you’
ve got a long, painful road to redemption. You must pray for forgiveness but it can be achieved.”
"I used to pray. It was a long time ago. It didn't work. I decided that it wasn't for me." I said.
"I assure you it does work. It takes effort, practice, but it works. Try it." Jimmy said.
I got down on one knee, feeling incredibly stupid, “dear God, please forgive my sins. Amen.” I opened my eyes. “I don’t feel anything.”
“It’s a start, believe me, it’s a start.” Jimmy said.
“Why can’t God just zap me to heaven and we’ll call it a day?”
“It doesn’t work that way. You wouldn’t expect to one hundred pounds over night would you? You wouldn’t ask a toddler to take his college entrance exams would you? When we die we don’t just magically sprout wings and fly to heaven, spending the rest of our days floating around a golden city in the clouds. No, a soul has to be molded, cleaned and polished, so that nothing defiles the Kingdom of God. Besides, if you were zipped up to heaven right now it would be the same result as an unprepared Angel coming down here. The pain you would feel would be a hundred times worse than what you feel right now. Your soul needs to be cleansed. The sin and rust removed. In your case, I would buy the economy sized bottle of Rust-Oleum.”
“Very funny, ha-ha, I can’t stop laughing.” My mouth was straight as an arrow when I stared into Jimmy’s eyes.
“What now?” I asked.
“I can get you to the edge of the city. Those are the limits of my abilities. Sarah will guide you beyond that. Well, that’s assuming we make it to the edge of the city.” Jimmy said.
“What do you mean, if?”
“Hell is not an easy place as you well know. The worst of humanity comes here. Every tyrant, murderer, and oppressor has walked through its fires. Escaping is even harder.”
“What are the odds?” I asked. Jimmy didn’t give an estimate.
“We need to keep a low profile and pray. Faith and prayer are the best way to raise your vibration and pass undetected.”
“Raise my vibration?”
“Sin is a great and heavy weight that holds a soul from ascending to God. The scum it accumulates through a life of evil keeps it anchored in the darkness, chained until it’s sin is washed away. Your spiritual body became heavy with sin and that's why you fell into darkness. Your soul's vibration has slowed to a snail’s pace. Cleansing it is the only way to speed it up. An engine runs better when it is clean, does it not?”
Jimmy led us in a prayer for protection. My hands shook worse than an alcoholic on Monday morning. Beads of sweat poured out my pores. “Come on Will, shake it off, it gets easier with time.” Jimmy said. Sarah had yet to utter a word. Her appearance was normal but her silence was callus. Allison was catatonic. Her only utterance was a groan every now and again, unaware of her surroundings. I was painfully lonely.
“We can use the tunnels to move through a good portion of the city, then we’ll have to go above ground.” Jimmy said.
“How do we get past the gate?” I asked.
“Not sure. Have faith. You can only eat when the fruit is ripe.”
“That’s reassuring.” I sighed. Jimmy never flinched. He was confident, like he had done this before and simply knew everything would be ok.
The tunnels were dark and difficult to manage. Jagged and loose brick lined every step of the way. The smell of death filled the tunnels. Jimmy was able to manifest a cloth to cover his mouth. I had no such luxury. He was also able to provide a spark of illumination in the darkness just by thinking about it. I asked him how it was so. How he was able to produce light. He said that I hadn’t the ability to understand. Part of me wondered if he was lying, if this was all a trap and he was leading me right back to the dungeon I came from, ready to trade me to the devils like a prize pig at a county fair.
“Ok, this is it. Let’s rest for a bit.” Jimmy said.
“No argument here.” The weight of Allison’s body had twisted every muscle into knots.
Jimmy turned towards me. “We're going to have to go above ground soon."
“What about the demons?” I asked.
“They'll be hunting you, no doubt, but they won't be able to stay in the city very long before being pulled back down by the weight of their evil souls. There's a reason they’re kept in the basement, if you know what I mean.”
“Believe me. I know.” I nodded.
“Our biggest concern is their recruits.”
“Recruits?"
“Didn’t they offer you the same deal they offer every poor soul who first arrives? 'Recruit followers and bring them to us. You will be greatly rewarded.' It’s the same spiel they've been spouting for a thousand years. Only, the pledges are dumb enough to fall for it. They bring a couple followers to the demons, who in turn torture and rape them, and then send the recruits back out to find more. The process is repeated over and over until the newbie realizes there is no pot of gold at the end of the damnable rainbow."
"Unfortunately, word travels like a forest fire down here. The demons will get wind of anything suspicious. They have recruits laced up and down the city streets.”
“How do we stay hidden? It’s going to be obvious that I'm carrying Allison. We’ll stick out like sore thumbs. How many times have I seen one soul helping another in this place. That’s right, I haven’t.”
“Calm down Will, remember, have faith. Leave it to me.”
Jimmy removed his shirt. “That’s a nasty gash you have on your chest.” I said, looking at the large scar that ran across his heart.
“I lived in a time and a land that did not honor the first amendment, and I was never one to hold my tongue.”
Jimmy placed dark hoods over our heads. Sarah wore tattered and dirty rags. Allison was placed in a rickety wooden cart. The kind you see a donkey pulling in olden times. Chains were placed around Sarah and Allison’s necks and we made our way topside. “Keep your head down and follow me. Do not make eye contact, just go about your business.” Jimmy said as we looked out upon the street. It was mostly quiet, other than a few distant screams. We walked through the first two blocks undeterred. No one thought anything unusual until a woman came screaming out of a building. It was a brothel house. The woman was cursing and screaming at a man for “not paying an honest wage.” The man quickly turned towards her, calling her a whore while grabbing the back of her hair and throwing her to the ground. She tried to flee but was quickly caught and beaten. Her bloody body lay motionless in the gutter as the man stood over her. Two additional men came running out of the brothel. They were bigger, fiercer, than the first man. At their sight, the first man took off running and was chased by one of the other men. The third man stopped by the woman’s side and looked her over. He growled in frustration as he picked up her limp body and threw it into a dark alley. Emerging from the blackness were two glowing red eyes and a mouthful of jagged teeth. The woman vanished quickly as her body was dragged further into the alley. I shuddered.
“Hey you!” The man shouted in our direction.
“Keep walking. Look down.” Jimmy whispered.
The man suddenly appeared in front of us. He was a brutish specimen. Strong and muscular with long dirty black hair and matted beard. It smelled as if he hadn’t bathed in months. His teeth were rotted and his breath poisonous.
“I need a new girl.” He must have been the owner of the brothel or at least some type of bouncer. Jimmy tried to step around him but the man sidestepped to block. “In fact, I want both of your woman!” He reached out to grab the chain from Jimmy’s hand but Jimmy jerked it away. My blood was hot and I was ready for a fight.
“No sale!” I said, stepping between the two. The man angered and swung, but missed. His partner returned, dragging the bloodied and broken man who tried to escape behind him. Upon seeing our confrontation he simply released his captive who limped off screaming, and charged for us. The blow knocked me off my feet. My head bounced off the gritty cobblestone street. The chain around
Allison’s neck flew out of my hand. My senses were scrambled and I couldn’t regain them in time as the brutish man charged for Jimmy. It appeared that he ran right through him, like Jimmy wasn’t even there. A ghost. Jimmy grabbed Allison’s chain and the two men took to me. One grabbed me from behind and held me up while the other tore pieces of flesh from my torso with long knife like fingernails.
Jimmy stood and watched. The beatings were hard and deliberate. Were my screams not loud enough? “I knew it! I knew this was a setup! You sold me out! You traitor!” I screamed at him. He waited patiently with his eyes closed until the two men tired and left me to rot. Jimmy seemed almost pious through my blood soaked vision. When enough strength had returned I pulled myself upright, a raging temper ignited. “What the hell was that!” I yelled into his face. Jimmy slowly opened his eyes. It took everything I had not to strike.
“I warned you not to engage them. You should have turned the other cheek as I had done. Remember the first rule. Follow my lead.”
“They would have murdered us and taken the women!”
“How do you know that? You mustn't assume anything. You must exercise faith or you will never get out of this place. Violence only breeds more violence. They feed off of its energy. The darkness works its way in until you are powerless to fight it. You of all people should know this.”
The insight was sobering. We walked the rest of the way in silence. I watched a man throw himself out a window in a desperate attempt to end his life. He only succeeded in breaking every bone in his body. God only knows how long he laid there in suffering. There is no death here.
I had seen enough of this place. I couldn't see it before, rage blinded me, blinded me to pain and sorrow. I scurried behind a broken statue fountain. Blood poured where there should have been tears, my tears, mixed with the blood. From my knees I asked for forgiveness, begged for it. There was pain in my heart where the anger had been. The pain was great but I wanted more. I wanted the pain to wash away the anger. I was done.
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