Gimlet licked her cornurus blood off the Raven’s face.
Cross emerged from the mist with brand new holsters for his revolver and for the holey obsidian blade.
“You like?” He modeled his new accessories. “I traded in some of your useless objects to get ‘em. Hope you don’t mind.” He surveyed the three dead hounds, who hadn’t turned to Nothing because they born in the underworld. “Looks like the party started without me,” he said. “You alright, Gimlet?”
The cornurus grunted as if to communicate how tough she was and that a pack of hellhounds was nothing to her.
“Here, let’s get these ropes off,” said Cross. “We don’t need them anymore.” He untied the Raven.
He must’ve felt safe owning all the objects, leaving her with no weapon to fight with. He was safe for now. She didn’t know exactly how she was going to get out of her predicament. But whatever his plan was, she would make sure it wouldn’t go well as soon as the opportunity presented itself. She wouldn’t make the same mistakes thrice.
“We shouldn’t let good meat go to waste.” He chopped the beasts up, and shoved her down to her palms. He grabbed the back of her head and forced her face it into the meat like she was a dog.
“You do the gathering this time,” he said.
Each day of the following week was just a blur of a horrible journey to nowhere under the blistering blue sky.
First, Cross forced her to walk through the Vale of Mourning. The lost love of the spirits that dwelled there drained her being. Her mind sloshed with dejected thoughts of how she had pretended that she chose her solitary lifestyle. In reality, she had been cast out of society for mediocrity. She was too good to be a demon but too bad to be considered righteous, let alone holy. The best of both worlds, she would proclaim. Not of any world, she would lament. She was unwelcome everywhere.
She staggered across the iron bridge that passed over the flaming river Pyriphlegethon. The husk on Gimlet’s feet merely sizzled as she trotted over the bridge, but the sweltering metal softened the soles of the Ravens boots and scorched her feet.
Cross opened his parasol. It didn’t really shade him from the sky but it drizzled rain onto his head. He stuck out his tongue and caught the droplets.
She peeled her justaucorps halfway off.
“You keep that on,” said Cross. “Remember what you said about people with fair skin? They can’t take too much heat, and I wouldn’t want you to burn. Not yet anyway.”
The Raven took out her canteen from her belt and held it to her mouth. A distinct bang rang out, and the canteen jerked as if smacked with a club.
Devil’s water spouted from the canteen’s new bullet-sized hole. Cross aimed his gun and fired a second round. The canteen snatched out her hand and tumbled down into the river Pyriphlegethon.
He tossed her a calabash from her sack. “Try that instead. I thought these would have spoiled by now.”
She dodged out of the way. The fruit bounced on the bridge and she squashed it under her boot. The juices fizzled on the heated metal.
“Drop the next one and I drop you,” he said.
“Do it,” she said. “Burn me and get it over with.”
“You’ll burn when I say you will. You didn’t burn me and get it over with. I risked getting my head chopped off twice. I spent nearly a week trying to find my way out of Sheol and almost ended up in Hell. But I was saved by three little creatures that you went and burned. If you think drinking from the calabash is the worse I got planned for you, you’re wrong. So maybe you should drink it. Who knows? The poison in that fruit might be more merciful than me.”
He pitched another calabash, which she caught this time. She split the fruit open and drank. It was the sweetest thing that had touched her tongue in years, the most delicious liquid that she had ever tasted in the underworld. She swallowed every last drop of juice hoping it would eventually put her out of her misery before Cross upped the ante.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Refreshed.”
“Don’t joke. I really want to know. Do you feel any different?”
“I do.”
“How so? How different?”
“At first I felt like you weren’t so bad. Now, I feel like I should’ve burned you myself when I had the chance.”
“I can relate to that. Keep walking.”
Cross refused to allow her any rest or food for two straight sleep cycles. The heat from raging blue sky ate away at her and drank all the liquids from her body.
They reached the black hole that was the prison Tartarus. Concentrating on the eerie silence deep within the prison kept her mind off her melted feet and mushy brain for a while.
Some of the most powerful beings were locked inside Tartarus for all eternity, but the hush of the void suggested no life remained inside. Each realm sang its own melody, but the voice of Tartarus was nonexistent. It didn’t hum, muffle, or even breathe. It was frozen, not just in time, but suspended in a way that the realm could have been a figment of one’s imagination. No one would hear the screams of the spirit inside. She wanted to jump in the black hole and disappear.
Weariness spread over Cross’s face with each passing sleep cycle. The storm under his parasol raged stronger the more they progressed around the edge of Tartarus. She used its growing intensity to estimate how long they had been traveling.
What started out as a drizzle on the first day became a thunderstorm the following day. On the third day, the canopy pelted him with torrential rains, but he seemed too enraged in his defiance to close the parasol. He endured the beating shower as if to prove to himself how strong he was, or either he was too consumed with rage to notice the welts developing on his neck and cheeks.
On the fourth period of sleep, the canopy hailed ice; the day after that a blizzard of snow fell from it. Cross’s teeth chattered, but he brushed off the snow like it was minor dust on his jacket. He flicked her lighter, and the fiery salamanders huddled around his neck. It seemed to warm him, but hurricane winds blasted out of the parasol on the sixth sleep period, and finally, a lightning storm struck him on the seventh.
He fell off Gimlet and closed the umbrella, joining her under the broiling blue sky. Painful heat rashes had developed all over her neck and chest and her insides squirmed from lack of eating. He had only fed her at the last possible second, and then only shared nibbles of food.
Just as they finally passed the black fortress of Tartarus, a dust storm approached on the east wind. It was too big and wild to be the Rudimen. It was a regular sand blaster. Cross lifted her up onto Gimlet’s back and she blacked out.
She woke up to a fire. Black dust shot-blasted the ground outside their cave. There was zero visibility beyond the entrance. Painful legions had formed on her stomach as a result of her insides nearly biting their way out desperately seeking food.
Cross, who ate leftover hellhound meat at the fire, showed a rare sign of mercy and slid a bowl of devil’s water toward her.
She crawled to it. Her fingertip touched the bowl. He kicked the bowl over, spilling all the water, and burst into evil laughter.
She was too weak to even bother getting angry. Besides, drinking and eating only prolonged her torture and postponed the inevitable. She didn’t want to give up on herself, but a part of her knew that some soul was bound to give her such treatment, eventually. Cross was just the lucky soul who would finally burn her for all her misdeeds.
The temperature changed from the intense heat of the blue sky to a black frostbitten chill the nearer they closed in on the realm of Yomi. They met a fork in the road at the edge of Yomi and stopped. With the Inferno directly to her right and Yomi to her left, there was such a stark contrast of hot and cold that one side of her baked while the other side froze.
“Which way are we going?” she mumbled through her peeling lips.
“That way.” He extended a hand into Yomi. “Nine nights of beautiful black sand. Even demons are afraid to march through here. The Tribu
lation is retreating there.” He pointed southeast. “And the Anarchists are coming here.” He pointed north. “But no one will set foot in this realm except you and me.”
The maniacal grin of a madman who had been pushed too far glared on his face and his eyes glinted as though demonically possessed, but not even he, in that moment, would have used demonic influence as an excuse. He owned his crazy. He was a man no longer on the edge; he had already leapt over the cliff.
Yomi was one of the enigmatic realms of the underworld. Since no soul was known to have ever survived a walk through the black lands of the Nothing, no one knew exactly what dwelled inside the realm except miles of Nothings. It was the realm of certain second death.
The Raven’s fright upset her breathing, which was already damaged from the fumes the Inferno exhaled.
“It might get a little nippy in there,” he said. “And I don’t like the cold.” He unfolded her justaucorps and slipped his arms into it.
“Now, after you, please.” He waved a hand.
She didn’t budge. Anger got the best of her.
“Start walking!” He blasted a fork of lightning at her feet. Gray sand spurted into the air.
She staggered her first step into Yomi. Gimlet grunted and held back.
“You too, Gimlet!”
The cornurus bucked, but rather than gently caressing Gimlet’s horn as he always had, Cross poked the cornurus with his pink parasol and zapped her with a short burst of lightening. Gimlet cried and paced forward.
Inside Yomi, the chill scorched the Raven’s skin just as much as the heat from the rest of the underworld had, and the frigid air intensified the scent of charred meat beneath their feet.
Cross snuggled inside the object-hiding blanket while she shivered violently. The harder she breathed, the less air she could pull into her lungs, and the poison she managed to inhale swelled in her chest and stole her breath.
Her knees buckled, and she careened down a hill of filthy Nothings. The blisters on her face split open. Her skin felt as if it were on fire.
“You can do this, Raven,” said Cross. “If I can walk across Sheol, you can do this. Now, get up!”
Slimy black rain fell from the black sky. She swayed to her feet, taking abbreviated steps. Her wings acted as sponges and soaked up the thick oily liquid raining down, and the extra weight bogged her down more.
By the second day her legs could no longer hold her weight, and she was reduced to crawling through the wet soot of the Nothing; it blanketed all the land in Yomi. So much ash, it resembled sand. In some areas it was elbow deep. Billions of souls must have met their second deaths there.
Her fingers slipped through their eye sockets and her palms crushed their brittle foreheads. They were as dead as anything could get in the underworld, but she sensed they were aware of her dragging herself over them. She had an eerie feeling that they were watching her.
Periods of sleep went by without any rest. The fires of the Inferno shrank until she and Cross had traveled so deep into Yomi that the flaming landmark could no longer breach the darkness in Yomi.
They were completely engulfed in the black stained realm. Just as the light of paradise touched everything, the darkness in Yomi clutched the world around them in its grasp. Yet, she could see Cross as clear as day as if it weren’t dark at all. For whatever reason, the darkness didn’t touch them.
Besides the hundreds of shriveled souls who had died second deaths, she saw nothing else for miles; she heard nothing in their vicinity which was unusual for the underworld; she smelled nothing, and felt nothing. The only life in Yomi was her, Cross, and Gimlet. And the Nothings.
Whispers surrounded her ears. “The Raven must fly south,” said the whispers. “You have work to do.”
Her desire to survive must’ve been slipping out in the form of hallucinations. But then, Gimlet twisted about as if spooked. She could have been dreaming that too though.
“Who are you?” Cross called out into the open. “Show yourself.”
The Nothings sprang to life, slithering around and moaning absent cries. They swarmed and swirled along the ground circling her, Cross and Gimlet. The black circle of spirits shrank, forcing the three of them closer together.
What the Hell was going on? Nothings never moved or spoke. They were nothing after all. She may have just discovered the reason why no soul had ever escaped Yomi.
The Nothings had gathered in great mass. If they had any intelligence at all, they likely coalesced to make themselves more powerful. There was always power in numbers. That would only mean that second death wasn’t quite the end for spirits.
Was there truly an end to anything?
The Nothings grabbed the Raven’s limbs and clung to her wings. She could barely keep her chest off the ground, let alone fight them off. She didn’t want to become whatever the hell they were.
The muscles in her arms dissolved to mush, and her elbows gave way. She dropped face first into the soot and surrendered. Nothings entered her nostrils and clogged her lungs. She coughed them out her mouth until hands pulled her under.
ICE CLUNG TO CROSS’S SKIN, but he remained numb to the black bite and immune to fear. The fact that the Nothings had suddenly come to life merely reaffirmed the underworld’s trickery. It would have made less sense to him if their liveliness were all an illusion or a figment of his disturbed imagination. He would have even welcomed such a hallucination if only because the reality of what was actually happening was much more demented. How long had these creepy things been playing dead? Were they always lurking around and spying? Why would they show their true nature to him at this moment?
Hate raged in his roasting heart for the pointlessness of life and the absurdity of death.
He struck the Nothings with lighting, but when one exploded, another materialized in its place. They kept attacking, one blob after another. They were surrounded by Nothings for miles.
Gimlet hopped around in panic with nowhere to run. Cross fell off the cornurus, losing the top hat, and his necklace slipped from his shirt.
The Latin cross shined brighter than it had ever shined before, more brilliant than the flaming skies, nearly as dazzling as the light of paradise, and it touched the darkness the way nothing else could.
The Nothings recoiled and wailed.
Cross took the necklace in his hand. He focused the heavenly light upon the Nothings, and it repelled the devilish dark. The Nothing’s bubbled and clumped together forming a black mass of despair that overpowered the light and absorbed it.
A swarthy funnel of mourning twisted up to the dreary sky, and from the tornado emanated a shadowy serpent. Jagged fangs hung out of its enormous jaws.
Cross stared directly into its bleak eyes, standing firm, mentally prepared to burn. “I didn’t realize I would receive such a welcome,” he said. “I hope you enjoy the offering I brought you.”
The serpent split its jaws apart and crashed its mouth down onto Cross, swallowing him whole. Arms yanked him downward. His collar ripped off his shirt. He tumbled into the beast’s stomach.
Charred heads of difference sizes lined the walls, some large enough to swallow others. They bubbled and writhed around in a floating motion. He didn’t recognize any of their slimy, sooty faces. They were all black and ugly as ever.
They all spoke at the same time. Millions of whispers surrounded him, some in his own language, and others in languages he couldn’t interpret. It was as though they were compensating, speaking as many languages as possible so as to not go misunderstood.
Even the parts he could understand failed in making any sense. The voices rattled off numbers and formulas and equations. They spoke of dates and names of souls he didn’t know. Not only were they calculating and judging him and reading him, they talked amongst themselves. They asked each other questions and answered them. They argued and then agreed on how to proceed.
“Behold,” they said. “It is not yet time for you to join us, Charles Hill.”
“Ho
w do you know my true name?”
“Do you not remember us? It has been quite a while.”
“I don’t know who or what the hell you are, and you definitely don’t know anything about me.”
The voices laughed in all their various accents. “There is little we do not know, particularly when you are the subject. We know that you rob and steal, lie and cheat. You’ve received and sold stolen objects. You have even robbed innocent souls of their personal objects. And that’s just what you’ve done in death. Of course you would not be here in the underworld if not for all the sins you’ve committed in life.”
“I didn’t come here for a lecture,” said Cross.
“We know perfectly well why you’ve come to us.” The Nothing’s fell silent and the hundreds of eyes picked him apart. The mouths whispered and discussed him. “Unfortunately for you, we do not judge. Nor do we punish. We welcome all souls and receive all as they are. However, you have presented yourself to us prematurely. Devour the light we shall. Together. As one. Yet on a day that is not today.”
“What do you mean?”
“You shall come to know the answer when you have finished current concerns. Shepherd the girl. Then you shall join us, and we shall escape the underworld forever. We will wait for you, Charles Hill. Our savior.” The Serpent dissolved from around him and evaporated like black fog swept away in a gust of wind.
The Raven lay face down and motionless in the soot, unburned. His hatred for her had washed out of his heart. He no longer craved revenge. He felt that he had already gotten his retribution by torturing her for the past few weeks.
Unfortunately, the Nothing told him that if he were to shepherd her, he would burn and become a nothing himself. That spooked him more than it ever had.
He hadn’t even planned on surviving the trip through Yomi. He was going to burn himself after he burned the Raven. But now he knew that becoming a Nothing meant more than simply dyeing a second death. It meant joining another miserable entity. He couldn’t allow that to happen. He had to survive.
BURN IN HADES Page 18