by TJ Adams
“We spend our time waiting upon your summons to the Halls of Judgement.”
“In other words, you spend your immortal life lazing around.”
“Not when I have such a captivating woman to keep my mind and time occupied.” He pulled Mora’s hand toward his lips and kissed her palm.
“I hope her disappearing to hunt jinns is not your idea.”
“Mora’s mind is strong. I would not assume my power to force my will upon her.”
“God, you’re smooth.” I slumped down in one of her single seaters.
Mora sat on the edge of Ezekial’s armrest. On his chair, I noted, not mine.
“I made him promise to never use his influence on me.”
“And you trust him?”
“Of course, he’s an angel.”
“Which means nothing.”
Ezekial had also failed to let Mora’s hand go. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing the angel had shown such a fondness for her. I felt better knowing he shadowed her. Whatever fancy powers the angels had at least he could hold back death if it came knocking for her again.
“I’m not going to talk you out of leaving because I believe in what you must do. No jinn should be free. You have the backing of the elementals and an angel, so I know you’ll be safe.”
“Mora wields her power like she was born fighting.” Ezekial said.
They exchanged a deep look, which made me uncomfortable. Someone would be excused for thinking these two had been a couple for years. If that’s what they were.
Our cozy threesome was interrupted by Kiara, coming late for the discussion.
“Did you tell her?”
Mora cast a glance between Ezekial and me. “Why are you guys looking at the space between my two lounge chairs? Who’s there?”
“Your sister. She’s come to tell you not to go.”
“We’re not having this argument again, are we?” Mora sighed and rose to her feet.
“And why is she sitting on the angel’s armrest and not yours?”
“I would’ve thought that obvious.” I said.
“What’s obvious?” Mora said.
Ezekial kept quiet, which was wise, and watched the two of us intently.
I waved a hand at her. “Your sister is being over protective again.”
Because the room wasn’t crowded enough Akako chose this time to appear, hovering in the air in front of me.
“Holy bejesus, what’s that?” Mora staggered back a few paces.
“Wait, you see Akako?” I said.
Eyes beady, she nodded.
Ezekial rose languidly from his chair and snaked an arm around Mora’s shoulder. “That is a kagi, a clan spirit. A creature of the void. Nasty lot, known for groveling”
Akako’s chest expanded to twice its normal size and his gray coloring turned a fever looking red. Despite his obvious outrage he kept his tongue in check. I’d say kagi and angels had a complicated history.
“All very interesting, but as Bounty says, why can I see it? Does that mean I’m going to start seeing ghosts next? What about Kiara?”
“Your powers are growing. The influence of the elementals grows stronger every day. All these things you ask are a possibility given time.” Ezekial sounded bored with his revelation.
Akako ignored the two of them and turned back to me with an exaggerated flounce and bowed deep. “My lady, I bring you information of great value.”
At the mention of my lady Ezekial’s eyebrows rose. I flicked a sheepish glance at Kiara and found her expression of similar surprise.
No point hiding it. “What is it?” I sounded impatient.
“Firstly, I would very much appreciate a little information of my own.”
“Servants don’t ask for anything.” Ezekial said.
At the mention of the word servant, Akako flicked an indignant glance toward Ezekial.
“I only ask one thing of you.”
“What is it?”
“The vision of beauty you were with the other day.”
“You mean, Cynthia.”
He spun in a circle. “Ah, yes. I should’ve guessed such a wonderful name would belong to her.”
“Is he talking about our Cynthia?” Kiara said.
“And how would I go about pleasing one such as her?”
Kiara mimicked gagging.
“By staying out of her way. Can we get to my information?”
“The woman you were with at the hospital. She is having another visitation.”
“Jesus. By the soul snatcher?”
“Is there another?”
“What’s going on?” Mora barked.
“Sorry, Mora, gotta go.”
“Wait?” Kiara yanked my arm. “Have you tried talking Mora out of leaving?”
“No, I told her to pack some warmer things.”
Mora’s face screwed up in annoyance at the partial conversation going on without her.
“How could you, Bounty?” Kiara said.
“Is my sister saying something negative about me going jinn hunting?”
“My lady, you must come quick or you will be too late.”
I clenched my fists and yelled, “shut up all of you!”
Everyone turned to stone, perhaps I should blow my cool a few more times. “I’ve got to go. You lot handle your own problems. Akako, lead the way.”
The ugly little thing was turning out to be useful.
I latched on to his mental thread and followed him through the supernatural highway. We ended up in the hall of someone’s house.
“This way, my lady, you must be quick.”
He darted off in front of me. About to pass through the closed door after him, it suddenly vortexed inward and I found myself sucked through the swirling turbulence. The ferocity of the winds pulled at my limbs, stretching them until they felt meters long. My body became like rubber, twisted and wrapped up tight. The shriek that fell from my mouth was swept away by the lashing winds. And then as quick as the vortex formed it dissipated and I was thrown forward onto my knees.
My gloomy gray surrounds looked like a place I’d been before, only darker, ominous and ladened with regret.
Akako popped up in front of me, his skin blending in such that he was almost invisible.
“You were not quick enough.”
I knelt back onto my heels and sunk my head. “Bloody thing sent me here. Wherever this is?”
“The soul snatcher’s graveyard.”
“Is this his sick joke?”
“In my experience, the soul snatcher does not understand humor.”
“How much do you know about it?”
“Enough to know the souls are cursed for eternity.” Was that pity in his voice?
“Is there no way of freeing them? Cynthia told me she was able to reconcile with her loss and heal herself, which set her free.”
“Alas, it is cruel to hear I was not there to stem the flow of her sadness.”
“I’m sure she’s most aggrieved about that. But it means the souls bound to the soul snatcher can be set free.”
“Sadly these people carried their yearnings to their death. And now they live in the limbo of their desires. They do not understand what has befallen them and so they cannot help themselves.”
I pushed to my feet. “I can help them. I can communicate with the dead.” Suddenly the gloom of this place turned bright. “The soul snatcher made a terrible mistake sending me here.”
“If only it were that simple, my lady. This is the graveyard, yes, but there are no souls here. It carries them deep within its belly. It is their perpetual desires that gave birth to the creature and it is what keeps it alive.”
“They spend eternity within its belly, that’s gross.”
“That is the way of the natural order.”
“I wish everyone would stop using the natural order as an excuse for shit situations…Oh, Jesus, we need to go. The soul snatcher is taking more of Dot’s soul.”
“Too late, I am sorry, my la
dy.”
“Bastard. It knew what it was doing.” I turned in a circle and yelled to the gray nothingness. “Why am I not good enough?”
I slouched forward in defeat. “I thought being Death’s Angel was super cool. I’m boss in the Halls of Judgement. Poltergeists can’t mess with me. And I help souls on their final journey. But it’s nothing, really. There is so much more out there that is better than me. Most of the time I’m starting to feel useless. A good friend of mine nearly died recently, and all I could do was wait by her side ready to usher her over.”
Akako wafted closer and took my hand. “Ah, my lady, do not feel so sad.” He patted the back of my hand. “It will not always be like this.”
“The only thing that will change is if I choose to die proper. And I’m not ready for that.”
“No, you must not give in. Great things are to come.”
I pulled my hand from his. “Can you elaborate?”
“I have heard the rumors enough to believe.” He flew up to my face and hovered. This close, I got to appreciate how really ugly he was. Was this the result of gruesome acts in life, or was he equally ugly as a human being?
“There were three, but now there is one. The last, which is the best.” He bowed.
“And?”
“There was you and two others, your sisters, but not by birth. But there could only be one that was destined to inherit the prophecy. It was never clear who of the three it would be. One died by her own doing. By choosing you to be his angel, Death crowned you the victor.”
“The three of us were fighting?”
“The three were inseparable until they heard of the prophecy and then greed for immorality became the backbone of their friendship.”
“Trinity, Agnes and me. What I want to know is which one of me is the victor?”
He snickered. “I believe that was Death’s joke, or maybe his purpose. For you and Bounty are now one. No one will ever know who the true victor was.”
“What is the prophecy?”
“It’s more gossip I would say.”
“You’re dodging my question.”
He shook his head. “Nope.” Then he took my hand. “Come we must find our way out of here.”
I resisted him, forcing him backward. “Tell me, Akako.”
“I cannot, for the magic surrounding the truth will seal my lips together forever. I’m lucky to have gotten this far in my explanation.”
“How much of the supernatural world know about this?”
“Any who cares to listen to the ramblings of an old man.”
I slapped my forehead.
“My lady, why do you beat yourself?”
“That’s why Death took both our memories; so I wouldn’t know.”
“Yes, he has masterminded everything.”
“That would only make sense if it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“Now you talk in riddles, my lady.”
“There is no guarantee the prophecy will come to be, unless the person involved makes it happen, and they can only do that if they know about it. And by taking both Bounty and Agnes’ memories, Death is making sure I will never know.”
“You are smart, and Death is smart.”
“The Devil.”
“He is smart too.”
“No, I mean he has Trinity. I have to see him; demand he let me speak to her.”
“One does not demand anything from the Devil.”
“I do.”
“Be that as it may, my lady, you must exit the graveyard of the soul snatcher first.”
“You say that as if it is hard.”
“It is not an easy task. It is built on the voracious appetite of those whom are within the soul snatcher’s keeping. It is like a room of mirrors, only instead of seeing yourself, you see your own insatiable cravings.”
I spun around in circles seeing nothing but gray. “Perhaps I’m immune.”
Akako sighed. He was staring off into the nothingness with the look of a love sick boy on his ugly little face.
“Akako?” I wrenched him around to stare at me. He craned his head up to look in my eyes. Upon seeing me, he flew up and wrapped his arms around my neck and leered in with puckered lips. “Ah, my love, my love, we are finally together.”
I got my arms up between us and pushed his body away. Luckily he was only little or it would’ve been a hard task. “Akako, stop. Snap out of this.”
“My flower. Eiko, my eternal light. We will be forever united.”
He struggled against my hold, lips puckering up again. With nothing left for me to do, I slapped him across the face, a pathetic slap because he was too close for me to put some force behind it.
“Do not fight me, my petal. This is our destiny.”
“I’m not your Eiko. Akako, this is the soul snatcher’s doing, remember.” As he became more desperate and struggled harder to get his lips on mine, I yelled into his face. “We’re in the soul snatcher’s graveyard. You’re having a hallucination.”
“My love you must not resist me.”
I tried to slap him again, but he grabbed my wrist with surprising strength.
“Is there another. Is that why you fight against me?”
Bloody hell. “Listen to me, Akako.”
“You do not deny this?” His voice boomed on the word deny.
“Let’s slow this down.”
He wrenched himself free of my hold and hovered in front of me. His face wasn’t human, but I could pick the look of rage.
“I will have my way. You are mine, Eiko. I will make sure of that. My will is absolute. And if I cannot have you, no one will.”
Great; a supernatural going psycho.
15
As you would expect in a medieval castle, I found a flaming torch, which hung in elaborate metal brackets. A good thing too, because I faced a stairwell, winding down into darkness. Every instinct in my gut said do not go down, so I placed a foot on the first step and began my descent; I was here to make amends and destroy the demons in my head, not hide like a coward.
The stairs were long and steep. Heading to hell cropped into my mind, although I should be feeling a little hot about now. I touched the stone wall to use as a guide, but recoiled my hand upon feeling a wet sticky substance. With my hand held up to the flame, I was relieved to see the color a muddy brown and not red, as in blood red.
Okay, no hands on walls.
For some strange reason⸺although perhaps not so strange because Bounty regularly came into my head⸺I thought of Bounty. She was likely at Hot Swirls serving a double scoop of ice cream to a kid with saucer eyes. What would she think of where I found myself now? What would she think of me if she knew the truth? Thank god she was safe on the other side of the divide. The void was not the place for her.
I continued my descent, following the taps of my shoes on the damp stone, the sound rhythmic and soothing. I focused on my movement, the noise, and not on my wild thoughts, which conjured terrible scenarios. The beast in my visions loomed large in most of them. Thanks to Claude I was likely to be haunted by the furless creature until the day I faced it. Stupid, because I was convinced there were worst things in my new world to contend with.
While mulling over that truth I reached the end of my descent and found myself in a corridor, no more welcoming than the place I first landed when I crossed into the void. A constant drip of moisture from the walls became the beat that started me walking. The choice of direction was easy; I wasn’t about to retreat the way I’d come.
The flickering flame danced shapes across the jutting rock face and along the ceiling. I craned my neck to look up at the deep gouges disappearing into spaces obscured from the flame light, the perfect place for dangerous creatures to hide. No sooner was the thought out, my mind flicked through my limited repertoire of evil creatures, stored from fairy tales and horror stories I read as a child. Blood sucking bats was the worst my mind could come up with on short notice, which was laughable considering the supernatural had no lim
its.
Now the idea was there, I couldn’t stop flicking a look to the ceiling just in case something dropped out of the upside down crevices. This was not the smooth tube of an old lava flow or a man-made tunnel cut with machinery. This place looked made from violence.
My nerves heaved a sigh when the dancing light caught on a door up ahead. The tunnel was starting to do my head in. Closer up and the light revealed twisted metal that snaked in an elaborate design across the metal paneling of the door. In contrast to the corridor I’d just traveled, the door appeared to be created with care, a door intended to make a statement about what was inside.
Before I tried the huge hanging handle, I assessed what I saw. Judging by the door, I would expect to find nothing less than a person of power on the other side. Not a comforting thought.
I contemplated if stepping inside was a good idea, when a loud clunk echoed down the tunnel and the door inched open. I was expected. The idea sent a chill of adrenaline firing through my muscles. Escape effectively scrubbed, I stepped over the threshold and into a vast chamber.
I walked on polished stone, which resonated the smart smack of my shoes around the chamber in stereo. The light from hundreds of candles rained down from vast chandeliers. My eyes searched further to the ceiling, but instead I saw a constellation of stars, as if I hadn’t just walked down into the bowels of the earth.
Lining the walls were giant stone effigies, whose faces appeared twisted in pain. I looked to the front of the chamber, sickened by the images of torture. At first there was not a lot to see, but like a grand unveiling when the audience was ready, the darkness became light and in its place a large throne made of skulls. Sitting upon the skulls was Dominic.
He gave a single clap and snarled a smile. “Congratulations. You made it to your grave.”
His voice, face and body were that of a sixteen-year-old boy. He remained as he had died in outward appearance only. His character had done a radical change. But then I never knew Dominic, so couldn’t tell if these dark words were something he often used to speak of me behind my back when he’d been alive.
“Me being here is your doing?”