Cult of the Hexad (Afterlife saga Book 6)

by Stephanie Hudson

  “Run to us!” The giant shouted to me and I gave him a look of shock! Did he really think I was going to freely go to someone like him!

  “For fuck sake girl, you know me, now fucking RUN!” The utter disbelief on my face made him scream in anger but with the others getting closer I did at least listen to half of what he was telling me to do.

  “She’s going to bolt!” I heard one of them say and the big guy’s response was,

  “Of course she is! I knew she was fucking trouble! Get them on the phone!” He snapped, obviously being the one in charge.

  This was when I finally could make my move as the cops turned up obviously responding to the reported gunshots. I started running along with some other panicked travellers to the end of the parking lot but then veered off when I saw they had me surrounded. I turned around and saw the ones who had been checking the bus were closing in so I was trapped. Then out of nowhere a beeping horn sounded over and over like the person behind the wheel had the worst case of road rage. I saw a flash of yellow driving straight at us and three of the suits had to dive out of the way.

  “Is that…a school bus?” I said squinting as the small bus came at me and turned with perfect timing to skid to the side right in front of me. It was a 70’s VW bus customised in a way to make it look like an American school bus, complete with flashing lights above the windscreen. Painted flames along the side merged into letters that read…‘Too Cool for School’ with the words, ‘This Shit’s Real!’ in smaller lettering like smoke below.

  I jumped when the passenger’s side opened like the double doors being pulled on a real school bus. There it revealed a green haired girl putting on an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice and shouting from the driver’s seat …

  “Come with me if you want to live!”

  Chapter 16

  Palladio Haunting Afterlife

  “Hold onto your asses my lovers as I hightail it outta Dodge!” The strange girl said as she turned the wheel as if she was on a ship fighting a storm. The small VW bus skidded around and then as she pulled it full circle two wheels started to lift off the floor.

  “Pipper.” A man’s voice warned softly from behind us and I would have looked if I hadn’t been pinned to my seat with the force of the car turning.

  “My bad but no biggy big daddy, I totally got this!” She said righting the bus and thankfully banging all wheels down and back where they were meant to be. As this happened a song came on the stereo and she shouted in excitement,

  “Oh I love this song! Gotta love a bit of Motley Crue, eh Toots!” Then she turned it right up to blaring and started singing,

  “Smoking in the boy’s room, Smoking in the boy’s room, now teacher don’t you fill me up with your rule, ‘cause everybody knows that smoking ain’t allowed in school…oh yeah!” All the time she was driving around the parking lot trying to dodge cars and what I could only assume was trying to find the exit.

  “I think it’s that way.” I said in a stunned voice that only occurred when you had too many emotions to deal with all at once. Fear, surprise, confusion, panic…I think even a bit of silent hysterics were in there as well.

  “Ah, so it is. I see we have an A star student here enrolling in the School of Rockin’ Pip!”

  “Sweetheart, please focus.” The man behind us spoke again in that calm voice, one that told me he must have simply been used to this girl’s brand of crazy.

  “Sure, sure…jeez and they call wives for nagging.” She whispered to me even though I was pretty sure he could hear every word she said as the heavy sigh behind us was a dead giveaway. Finally, after her crazed bit of driving she found the exit saying,

  “Wow, they didn’t make that easy did they? What if I had been visually impaired, see, they just don’t think about these things…see what I did there.” She started laughing to herself and my eyes widened at the thought.

  “Who are you guys, if you don’t mind me asking?” My heart rate had finally slowed enough to ask.

  “We’re the Carvery!”

  “Cavalry Honey, you mean Cavalry.” The man corrected and she laughed again.

  “You know I always get those two mixed up…and in this case the last thing you need is a butchering right….am I right?” She repeated and I realised she was waiting for my answer.

  “Oh…yeah, you’re right.” I said feeling as though I had stepped into an alternative reality. Thankfully the driving continued at a less death defying rate and I felt my pulse calm with every mile put between me and that rest stop.

  “Hey are you okay...is she supposed to looked this pale?” The girl asked the man in the back seat.

  “I don’t think so.” I said honestly holding a hand to my forehead.

  “Oh shit a brick…you’re not gonna hurl are you, I just had this baby detailed and re-fringed.” I frowned wondering if I was now hearing things…did she say re-fringed?

  “Yep, that’s right…did it myself and all.” She said answering what I had obviously asked out loud without realising it. I looked sideways to see her nodding to the door panel and yep, there it was, bright pink ribbon with dangling fringe glued to the frame.

  “Smokin’, right?” I bit my lip to stop from laughing at the madness and turned to quite possibly the cutest person I had ever encountered to say honestly,

  “I think it’s perfect.” And then I must have hit my limit as the world of crazy went black and the last sound I heard was…

  “At least she didn’t hurl.”

  I opened my eyes to the world outside and it was burning.

  I looked out to a rolling valley that looked as though a piece of the sun had fallen and crashed into this part of the Earth. Thousands of trees became torches swaying in violent winds and what once looked like rivers became passageways for molten magma to travel.

  It was horrifying. It was petrifying…

  It was Hell on Earth.

  But most startling of all it was a view I had seen before and knew it was one I loved dearly. This place meant something to me although trying to find the reasons why was just as hard as trying to find the memory of when I first saw it. I felt the tears fall just as the beauty before me fell into the abyss of Hell, lost to a place that was taking a piece of my world that didn’t belong to fire and brimstone. And then the emotions hit new levels as I quickly realised why it affected me so deeply. Because it wasn’t just seeing the world we lived in come to an end, it was more about watching my home consumed by the flames.

  “NO, NO, NO!” I screamed closing my eyes once more against the sight of my world dying. Why had this happened? Was this the end that Ari spoke of? I was forced back to that damned painting in my room at the Colony and suddenly I knew I didn’t want to be that lone girl awaiting death.

  No! I wanted to live damn it! I could feel the anger building up inside at the injustice of it all. I was free, finally free and now this! It wasn’t going to happen and I don’t know how I was going to stop it I just knew that I had to try. It was silly really, thinking about how one girl lost in her own mind could ever have the power to stop something like this.

  But as silly as that seemed it was equally so in believing that I could. So with my fury bubbling to the surface and getting hotter the closer it came to erupting, I began to feel my body starting to change. I could feel the tingling in my fingertips and it was as though all my blood started to fuse with this new energy, this new power that coursed through me centred at my core...the core of my soul.

  It was like waiting for someone to shout go, as if my body needed the sign and when I felt it hit its crescendo I screamed. My body had dropped to bent knees and my arms covered my head in utter anguish. I panted into the cocoon of flesh and bone I had created around myself, holding myself as secure as I could until I felt my body start to calm.

  Only when I started to feel the cool wind did I raise my head and braved the sight I might have to endure.

  And there I found beauty.

  I found my home.

  My Sal
vation…I found my,

  “Persian Sun?” I said aloud and heard the sound of stone grating against stone behind me. I turned away from the sight of now perfect rolling mountains of green and faced an opened passageway in the immense stone wall. I frowned as I tried to get my brain to engage the situation and the only answer was that I was obviously dreaming. Although seeing the view all around me fall to damnation was more like a nightmare and felt like an arrow to the heart, with little reason behind such feelings. Or at least reasons that would make sense right now.

  I looked back at nature’s playground one last time and hoped to find answers in my memory bank as to why the sight invoked such emotion from me. But coming up empty wasn’t the most frustrating part, it was when I realised this wasn’t the first time I had seen it in flames that things became really confusing.

  I wanted to scream at myself and I think if hitting myself on the head would have helped then I would be black and blue right now. But I was merely left feeling like I was the enemy and I was clearly losing the battle with myself.

  So I took control of what little I had left, which seemed to be the decisions I made in this dream. Turning back to face the open door I took a step back to look up at the building I seemed to be stood against. It was a huge structure, like some sort of castle but looking up and across, I quickly found a bigger balcony than the one I was stood on. It was higher than me and I couldn’t understand why looking at it created a barrage of emotions. I was almost as though I had once stood there feeling shy, scared, hurt, confused, hatred, desire but strongest of all was the love that overruled any before it.

  “That’s…what the…?” I whispered asking myself when seeing the faded silhouette of a man carrying a woman and stepping off the wall that surrounded the balcony. I couldn’t make out the details of either of them but he looked very similar to my Demon. He started falling this way and then suddenly disappeared mid-air like a pair of ghosts that had never crossed over to the…

  “Afterlife.” I uttered the name and that’s when I knew what this place was. I reached out and touched the cold stone like it could communicate with me if only I let it. Well I didn’t hear anything back but it gave me the comfort I needed in walking into the dark passageway with my head held high and my fear firmly in check.

  The floor was slick and I held onto the wall to hold myself steady only to find it too was wet. I had no clue where this would take me but I could only hope it wasn’t into the belly of the beast that would consume me. I needed answers and that was my driving force in all of this. I had one single goal in mind and that was Ari. I needed to get her out of that place at all costs…even my own life.

  Thinking of Ari and seeing her in my mind’s eye seemed to guide me along the passageway enough that when I came to a door at the end I walked through it knowing where I was going. It was almost as if I was following her voice and I felt safer when walking into the main part of the house. I must have been in a secret passageway I thought when taking in my new surroundings. The slate tiled floor went well with the bare stone walls and my first thought of this being a castle was looking more and more probable. Even the paintings that were dotted here and there looked as if painted by the Masters of Art, no matter how grim most of the images were.

  “Well whoever lives here sure likes his battles.” I said aloud after walking past the fourth one of a bloody battle field. They also must have liked their mythology as Godly figures also fought their bloody wars against Hellish monsters.

  Thankfully I didn’t come across a single person as I wasn’t sure what would have happened if they had appeared. It was confusing enough being in this dream world and the longer I stayed the more lost I got holding on to that thought. It was like staring at a word long enough that it no longer made sense. Well that’s how I thought when being here. As if thinking about the real world long enough in this place and that became the one that no longer made sense to me.

  So it still begged the question that if I came across anyone else, would they be real or just as trapped in my own mind as I often felt?

  I cast these crazy and maddening thoughts from my mind and focused on the aura that Ari was giving out, like a beacon to the truth. I continued on as though I had a map in my hand and ignored the feeling that I knew this place as if I had walked these corridors daily.

  I even had to place a hand to the back of my neck as a mark I had there tingled and I scratched at it to get it to go away. I had never felt so embedded in a dream before and if I didn’t watch myself I could quite easily be led down the road of insanity. Hell, I felt like I was half way there already!

  “Is that…a piano?” I asked myself hearing a song being played in the distance.

  “Ari?” I said her name the closer I got to the sound, knowing that Ari loved playing the piano or at least she had done before…but wait, that’s not right. She never played at home…we didn’t even have a piano. Then why do I see her playing one?

  “Ari?!” I shouted before breaking out into a run. She was here, I knew she was! Could it be possible? Could we have crossed over our dreams and be sharing them right now? This thought made me run even faster and the rest of the house went past in a blur. I ran so fast it almost looked like the paintings stopped fighting to look at me shooting past and I could hear the rustling of the leaves in the painted trees. I could hear the whispers all around me like unseen souls hiding in the walls waiting for someone to free them. But I was not their girl…

  Not today.

  I came to a door and sucked in a sharp breath as it felt like two of me suddenly merged to open it. The strange feeling left me as soon as it was open and I was left gaping at the sight before me.

  “This place isn’t real!” I said wondering how my mind had conjured up such wild and exotic things. The massive golden dome looked like some ancient temple roof shining under the sunlight and for a moment I could believe I was in…

  “Persia…Persian Sun.” As soon as I said it the sun went behind a cloud as though someone had cut the lights and dulled the gold. I put my hands on the stone wall that ran all around the huge square that looked to be cut out of the building. Looking up and around at the arches I realised that they ran the full length of each of the four sides and when I heard the piano, I knew which way I needed to go.

  “I’m coming Ari, hold on…just hold on.” I said running the full length and skidding around an arched doorway at the end. I continued to follow the sound only praying on finding my sister when I got there. It was getting louder now and behind what I knew was the last set of doors I would find my answer.

  “Please…please God, let it be her.” I said laying my forehead to the wooden panel and letting my heart catch a beat. Then I opened the door and muttered a sigh…

  “Ari.” There she was. I wanted to run over to her and pull her into my arms telling her how sorry I was for leaving her. I wanted to cry into her shoulder like I had done so many times before. But most of all I wanted her to tell me it was going to be okay because we were now free.

  I stepped forward more than ready to do all of these things but a shadow watching her in the background stopped me. The room looked like it was inside a giant turret as it was a vast circular space and at its centre was a huge, round bed, very low to the floor. Stark white sheets covered the sleeping island complete with a wall of pillar church candles surrounding the space.

  A grand arched window stood from floor to ceiling directly behind the bed flooding the room with light. Soft floating white material hung down from elaborate wrought iron rods that were curled at the ends. The whole room looked like one you would have found in Heaven and I don’t know why but I automatically thought of Zeus atop of Mount Olympus.

  Grand marble pillars framed the room all around and it was behind one of these that the shadow stood hidden from Ari’s sight. She was sat, as I’d expected, at a grand piano. Only this one was made from what looked like etched glass, adorned with stunning delicate flowers and vines creeping up from the black gl
ass clawed feet.

  Ari started to play a different song and I stopped breathing at the sound. Where had I heard this song before?

  “I know you’re watching.” Ari said after a time of playing and for a moment I almost thought she was speaking to me. I don’t know why I remained hidden but it was as if I knew that I had to if I was going to make any sense of what was happening now. I needed to know who was in the shadows stalking her and who it was she now spoke too.

  “I know you do.” Said a soft male voice that held an underlying power to it.

  “You play it beautifully.” He said stepping away from the shadows after the song had finished and there was a stretched moment of silence between them. The closer he came the more of him I could see and shock quickly replaced my confusion. He was breath-taking! Actually he looked like an Archangel just stepped from behind the pearly gates.

  Tight golden curls were cut close to his head and startling crystal blue eyes were easy to see, even from where I remained hidden. But none of these features detracted from the masculine body of strength or the strong jawline that told me this was a man in charge of a great deal of power. He looked like someone very used to being in control and maintaining that control at all times. He didn’t need to be wearing a suit or a uniform to tell me of his ranking in life because even in the well-worn jeans and T-shirt he wore now I knew. As would everyone else around him.

  “In this place you hear it playing enough.” Ari said lowering her head in sorrow. The man released a deep sigh before looking to the window above what I assumed was his bed.

  “Yes and I am only left to hope that one day Palladio will no longer be heard amongst these walls.” He said still looking out to the view beyond the glass, one that not so long ago I saw consumed by the flames of Hell.

  “You think she will make it home?” Ari asked turning to face him and he looked back at her over his shoulder and said,

  “I think she is unstoppable.” Hearing this Ari allowed her tears to fall. The man watched as only one fell to the white marble floor before striding with purpose over to her. He took her face in both hands, tilted it up for his view and said,