The Pentagram Child: Part 2 (Afterlife Saga Book 5)

by Stephanie Hudson

  “Are you going back on our terms?”

  “Not at all, the terms I believe stated you would let me release the Titans, and in doing so I need your aid…after all, my wings don’t work like they used to.” He said nodding up at the top of the arch, one that indeed needed flight to get to. The door when it opened would be big enough for giant Gods to walk through, that was for sure.

  “Very well.” I took his reasoning for what it was…another deception. One however I had little choice of avoiding.

  “Let get this shit over with!” I said cracking the vial in my fist and letting the infected blood of the ancients seep into my palm.

  I summoned forth my wings and let them take me until faced with Cronus immortalised in rock and very much a part of his people’s prison.

  Then I did something that was the very opposite of the reasons for which I had been born…

  I brought on Armageddon.

  Chapter 49

  Triple Crossed By Past Lives

  The second my hand crossed the opening, was the second my betrayal to my people was fully recognised. It gifted me with the power of foresight and held me immobile and defenceless against the attack. It was as if my blood supply had been replaced by rock and my back bowed, arching with the pain. My wings seized any movement as they too were affected. I was half expecting my body to slump with only my arm anchoring me to the mouth of Cronus. However this did not happen. Some kind of force kept me imprisoned and for the first time in my existence I felt like a living statue.

  The other half of the Temple of Lost Olympus flashed in my mind. And that was where the foresight started. This vision granted to me was utter torture and one I was helpless to stop. It showed the Temple of Fallen Gods flood with Lava until stone fingertips reaching up were the last thing on the floor to disappear.

  It showed angry Titans with flesh made from black rock and magma running through their veins. These giant Gods stormed through the Temple, as lava splashed up their legs. They smashed any trace that lingered of the Gods they loathed until only one remained. The biggest Titan roared up at the Temple’s crumbling ceiling, spitting lava like a volcano before lashing out an arm and decapitating Zeus in one blow.

  I felt my eyes rolling back in my head as the vision started to end with a blur of action and I didn’t need to see the details to know what came next. The Titans had all run at the mountain walls and burst free from Tartarus. But there was something else in my vision and I squinted trying to focus on what it was hiding in the background of Hell.

  “No…it, it can’t be…?” I said not sure if even my lips were moving in the real world. But it was the sight of a small mortal figure that stood at the edge of Tartarus as if awaiting the Titans to break free. Titans that I myself had just released…

  And with it releasing Hell on Earth.

  The vision’s thread snapped and unconfined me at the same time letting go of my hand. I fell backwards through the air onto the bridge and watched from on my back as the keystone and the mouth of Cronus closed. The stone eyes shut and the face of the king of Titans started to crumble away.

  I got up off the floor and without taking my eyes from the doorway watched as the protruding stones started to glow. The same symbols that were carved into the flesh on my forearms all appeared one by one on every black stone. But my thoughts were not just on the terror I had invited back to the world but on the small figure in my apparition. One that looked as if it was there for a single purpose. I didn’t know how I knew this but that was of little importance. No, what was important was that they were searching for something…

  Or someone.

  “It’s started!” Sammael shouted as the whole mountain started to vibrate around us. Small rocks rained down around where we stood and the floor beneath our feet started to pulsate. It wasn’t the same as the way the land trembles before an earthquake hits but more like watching a fast and heavy base line through a sub speaker. The volcanic dust created a fog in the air without being allowed the time to settle.

  I turned to growl at Sammael and the cause of what was to come…did he really understand the depth of chaos he was inviting to share his madness with?

  “You can’t control them!” I shouted over the sound of the mountain trying in vain to hold itself together.

  “We shall see!” He said nodding back towards the doorway that had now started to move and create an opening. The rectangular blocks twisted into squares and fell away one by one until the size of a castle door was now an opening. One big enough for any Titan to pass through.

  Once the doorway had emerged it didn’t stop there. The turning blocks continued to fold in on themselves until pretty soon I and Sammael had to step back to watch as the whole Pyramid caved in on itself. The rivers of lava that had once flowed up the sides became a gushing torrent that fell back on itself, acting like a glowing orange waterfall on either side.

  Pretty soon there was nothing left of the structure and all that was left was the heart of evil it had held captive all this time. It became obvious that what had held them imprisoned so effectively was the constant cascade of volcanic matter that was being poured on them from above. Now however, that containment was quickly diminishing down to nothing and leaving behind the frozen ash bodies of angry and defeated Gods.

  All of them were looking up at the Heavens they had once been banished from and all were cast with the same haunted empty eyes. Each of the eleven remaining had their arms in shackles behind their backs and the size of chain that secured them to the floor was one you would have found attached to the anchor of a super tanker.

  As the last of the encasing lava emptied down past their feet it became the moment of truth for I don’t think either of us knew what to expect next. The glowing chains first erupted into blue flames before bursting into ash and landing in the stream of molten rock like grey snow, melting on hot tarmac.

  What surprised me was to see each of them not only as carved black statues, but more so to realise they were the size of mortal men. In my gifted sight into the future they were seen as giants breaking free.

  They were all male as none of the Titan females were imprisoned. Also some of the Titan men were spared from imprisonment for various reasons that were only to benefit the new Gods’ ruling, so that left eleven Titans of both the first and second generation.

  We both waited on baited breath for what would happen next and both for very different reasons. Sammael’s eyes shone with unshed tears from waiting so long for this day to come. The anticipation showed not just in his demeanour but also the black blood that seeped from his nose and mouth. It trickled down past his chin and when dripping onto the floor the dirt sizzled like acid eating away at the rock.

  “Their time is now.” He said more to himself and I turned in time to see the Titans take their first breaths in this lifetime. I was just about to speak of his insanity when his next words were said from directly behind me…

  “And so is mine!” Then before I could react his arm reached from behind me and with the blade he now held he cut a slice across my chest. I bellowed in rage and spun to face him. His body started to fade and I reached out to grab his robes but the feeling of material in my grasp faded along with him. His last words to me haunted me more than what I was left to deal with…

  “Don’t worry about your Electus, I have plans for her and they…” He paused and nodded to the freed Titans before continuing…

  “…they have plans for you!”

  Keira

  I opened my eyes and never thought such a small action would hurt as much. One of them I closed as soon as I felt liquid trying to soak in. Was I lying in a puddle of water? It only all came rushing back to me when my vision was more a red fog that when cleared I saw the puddle of my own blood I was lay in.

  Yep, now I remember…I was dying.

  I squinted my eyes and tried to see past what was obviously proof of my last moments on this earth. Well at least the pain was gone and the numb side of death had o
bviously set in, thank goodness for small gifts of mercy. Now if only that mercy could be extended to small acts of murder…let’s say to insane, megalomaniac ex-boyfriends that wanted to destroy the world…yeah, that would be nice and dandy.

  “Ah…” I moaned as I tried to raise my head up and it felt like even having these thoughts was bringing back the pain. I closed my eyes again hoping the feeling would pass and instead what followed was a first class ticket to Hell on Earth.

  But that wasn’t strictly true as I found myself transported back to what I knew as Hell yes, but more importantly what I now knew was a deeper level of Hell… Tartarus.

  I remembered that day so clearly it could have been an oil painting hanging on the walls of my brain. I had just told Draven that he should learn his lesson for the next time he fell in love. It seemed so laughable now thinking back to the reasons why he kept so many secrets to begin with and not that his actions were suddenly condoned but more simply understood.

  That night I had woken in a different place I had laid my head to sleep and now I knew the reasons as it all seemed so blindly obvious now. Draven’s tie to this place was like living with a disease without the need for a cure….until now that was.

  And like that night I found myself looking at the same canyon only this time there was no Draven to draw me closer to the edge of the cliff. No, this time I walked those steps with a purpose I didn’t really understand. I walked those steps to quell the curiosity something the higher powers were relying on. I walked to the edge to see what they wanted me to see.

  The Everest sized mountain lay before me and unlike before the vast space wasn’t filled with row after row of soldiers. There was nothing but a vista of volcanic ash and dry crusted patches of dirt that went on until your eyes lifted to the enormous mountain, one I knew held the name Tartarus. I looked one way and then the other and saw nothing but the same dead landscape on either side as far as the eye could see.

  “So what do you want me to see?” I asked the forever nothingness around me and definitely not expecting an answer. So I was a little more than surprised when I got my answer in the form I did. As if on cue with my question the mountain side suddenly exploded outwards as if something gigantic had just crashed into it from the centre. At first I thought it was lava that had burst from within but then that lava started to take form or in this case, many forms.

  “Oh God…the Titans!” I gasped before covering my mouth in horror. The giant Gods stormed out one after the other and started to cut across the black desert in no time leaving destruction in their path. Molten rock poured from the opening and for one split second I thought I saw a winged figure looking back at me from what seemed to be the broken remains of what was once a Temple.

  I didn’t know how I could even see this greater distance than what was humanly possible but I put it down to the vision of things to come. And what was to come was charging at me right now. So I did the only thing I could do, the only thing my body would allow me to do in the face of such destruction. I closed my eyes and let my tears of fear fall down my face. I felt them linger on my chin a second before they fell and as soon as they did I opened my eyes one last time.

  It was in the hope of seeing that winged figure once more and I didn’t really know why. However what happened did so in painfully slow motion. It was as if everything around me was moving at such a sluggish rate and once my tears left my skin they too became a part of this world.

  I looked down at the droplets still on their slow decent to the ground and frowned in disbelief at what was happening. I looked back up to see the Titans too had slowed enough that they barely looked like they were even moving at all. I knew this was all part of the vision but even then it didn’t make any sense. I had been fully prepared to watch the Titans charging at me and only waking up the second they reached me…but what was happening now I couldn’t understand what the fates were trying to tell me?

  That was until I watched my tears land in the dirt.

  An action so innocent as tears from the heart were shed in a place like this and in sight of the damnation to come. What should have been a simple act created an eruption so immense I fell backwards landing on my buttocks. The second my tears had touched the ground it sent a shock wave across the canyon floor and straight towards the Titans. I watched on in awe as the rumbling floor rippled until it centred the Volcanic Gods and then…

  BOOM! There was an explosion of black ash that went up in a mushroom cloud as though a nuclear bomb had just exploded. The world around them started to split and branches of cracks spread out like growing fingers reaching out for safety. They finally stopped just short of where I remained frozen in the dirt.

  I tasted the dust on my tongue from being unable to close my mouth in shock. And this didn’t change when the ground erupted outwards and the Titans started to fall through Hell’s outer crust and into the mantel below. Just as the dust cloud started to settle I could clearly make out the bodies of Titans as their lava forms were being consumed by liquid metal.

  It burst out around their reaching limbs like chrome death dealers trying to drag them back to the core of the earth. One arm at the very last second reached up and out, erupting free from the ground closing around it. Then I looked on as first the molten metal consumed it, diminishing its fiery veins before the ground sealed around its elbow.

  The Canyon floor calmed and when the last of the dust settled all that remained in the vast space was one giant metal arm. It rose up like a monument to what could have happened on this day. I got up from the floor and just as I was straightening myself a great cracking sound echoed in the desert valley. I flinched as the cooled metal shattered from around the arm but left in its place one of black statue limb instead. One whose fingertips were reaching up to the Earth above, one I thankfully now knew it would never see again…

  And all from an honest tear shed in Hell.

  I woke from the vision coughing out more blood I couldn’t afford to lose. But for some reason what the fates had shown me had restored some of my strength…enough anyway to raise my head from the pool it lay in.

  Was that all it took to stop the Titans, one of my tears to fall at the mouth of Tartarus? Or was this all a trick and something that could never happen? If anything it left me more confused than before and questioning not only if the Titans had already been released or if I was even human?

  I decided to go one step further and raise my body as much as I could with how battered and cut up it was. Having every old injury afflict me all at once was what I could only imagine was like being hit by a car, one that felt the need to back up and roll over me a few times just to make sure.

  It made me not only curse being a clumsy human being but also being one that was obviously a magnet for danger. My hands shook as I used weakened muscles to push myself up to sitting and the only benefit to this painfully slow movement was that I hadn’t alerted Alex to my conscious state.

  He was stood near the altar as if waiting for a sign or something to happen. I could still see Draven’s essence floating there and obviously waiting for the rest of him to come back. Well I could sympathise as I was waiting for the same. I just needed him to come back to me now and bring back the proof I needed to know he couldn’t go through with releasing the Titans. No life on this Earth was worth more than the billions of people combined. I didn’t want to die by any means but knowing what sparing my life would mean wasn’t something I was willing to accept.

  “Come on, what are you waiting for?” Alex snapped down to where Draven had been lay and I frowned as my suspicions were confirmed. He was waiting for something. He looked like a man possessed or one jacked up on drugs. He couldn’t keep still and it was more than just anticipation that had him biting at his fingertips and transferring his body weight from one foot to the other.

  He was worried.

  I closed my eyes as even I could feel time was getting closer to Draven’s crucial decision and I couldn’t imagine how it felt having the weig
ht of the world on your shoulders. The realisation of what type of man Draven was caused me to suck in a deep and jagged breath. I knew he was a man of integrity and honour. I knew he could be kind and loving. I knew he could even be funny and damn but every girly cell in my body knew the man was the very meaning of sexy.

  But what I didn’t fully understand up until right this second was what he had to deal with. It was how he maintained the balance that was so crucial to not only human life but his own kind. The concrete sense of duty that was ingrained within him. Almost like he was engineered for it and I was the spanner in the works that made him question his decisions and act irrationally for the first time in all of his forevers lived.

  I was his Achilles heel and I could only pray to the Gods that I wasn’t the one that brought him to his knees.

  “You can do this…make the right choice…” I barely whispered the words but hoped their strength screamed out across the levels of Hell and were carried to Draven just when he needed it the most.

  However I was soon to find it had all been in vain. Movement in the corner of my eye got my attention and I turned in time to see Draven’s essence jerk violently on the altar.

  “What are you doing? Get away from him!” I shouted no longer caring if he knew I wasn’t unconscious anymore.

  “About time!” He snapped and for a second I thought he had been waiting for me to wake. But when it became apparent that I was being ignored I knew this had been the sign he had been waiting for. He turned away and dragged something the size of a body from behind one of the pillars out of view. I could barely make any details out but I saw whatever it was he had covered in a dirty sack.

  He dropped his burden and snatched something up from the floor. Revoltingly it looked like a hip flash made from crudely stitched human skin and I had to repress the urge to gag.