Ashes - The Special Edition: The Tales of Tartarus

by A. L. Mengel

  The table was lined with very puffy and very comfortable looking tall-backed black leather chairs, and beyond the vast table there was giant windowpane that overlooked the main atrium to the nightclub.

  This was the room where all of the decisions were made.

  And Antoine and Darius spared no expense here. The table was always set with still and sparkling water, a choice of lemons or limes, legal pads, ball point pens (the kind that felt really heavy when you picked them up) and black blotters that had the insignia of the lion on the top center.

  The table was covered with reflective glass, had a phone built into the head chair, and with a video surveillance system in front of the head chair built into the table, with which the user could use a single plasma monitor (also built in to the table) and switch between 25 cameras throughout the venue.

  *~*~*

  Hernan Perez slowly opened his eyes.

  They felt gritty, like he had been sleeping for too long, and his head was pounding. He assumed that the pain was brought on by the scotch and sodas he had earlier.

  Coming to his senses gradually, he suddenly winced at the pain in his neck, instinctively drawing his hand up to the source, and let out a gasp when he touched the tender region.

  As any curious mortal would do, he opted to get up, look in the bathroom mirror and inspect the injury. But when he rose from the bed, he looked down. “What the fuck?”

  The sheets were red. Covered in blood. He raised his arms. He looked at his torso, lifted his legs.

  He checked himself thoroughly, giving his body a pat down. Other than the pain on his neck, there appeared to be no additional injuries. He decided that the blood either came from his neck where the pain was centralized, or someone else.

  Roberto!

  He ran down the hall to Roberto’s room, and tried the door. It opened with ease. For once, he didn’t lock the door. The bed was unmade and clothes were scattered about, but nothing seemed to be amiss. Roberto was already gone.

  Hernan brought his hand again up to his neck, remembering his pain. He backed out of Roberto’s room and turned down the hallway to the bathroom that was next to Roberto’s room. Entering and flicking on the light, he stared wide-eyed at the mirror, aghast. He could not seem to take his hand away from the wound.

  “What the fuck?!” he screamed, but no one heard him.

  CHAPTER FOURTY-TWO

  “Paula, I need you to come out of the bushes,” the figure extended his good arm. He stopped down to her level, and looked at her through the foliage. “Come with me.” He gestured with his hand.

  Paula’s foot was still in pain; it even throbbed a little. As she moved her head closer to the wall of leaves in front of her, she squinted and concentrated more on the figure in front of her. The man seemed oddly familiar.

  It was Anthony. She just knew it.

  She barely recognized him. But it was Anthony, her fellow researcher, kneeling before the brush. He was severely mangled and covered in blood, but she was sure that it was him.

  “Anthony!” she exclaimed. “What happened to you?”

  She began to crawl slowly out of the bushes, closer to him. She cleared the brush and struggled to get up to her feet. “How did you get here?” She scanned the area. She saw the mess on Andelusia once again, noticing the abandoned houses with the cracked masonry, the trash laded streets all before her, she sighed. “How did I get here?”

  “There is no time to explain,” Anthony replied. “We need to get you to a safe place. It may already be too late for me, but you can be saved.”

  “Where are we, Anthony?” Paula asked, balancing some of her weight on Anthony’s good shoulder. With some effort, he managed to keep her up, but it was difficult for him with only one arm. Paula noticed this, and removed her hand from his shoulder. Wincing at the pained that followed touching her tender foot to the ground, she began to follow Anthony, who was already making to leave.

  “The last thing I remember, I was in front of Antoine’s house,” Paula said. “And then, this.” As Paula looked down the street, she noticed a mist coming from the other side of the street, billowing from the other side, reaching towards them.

  “Look at that!” Paula said, pointing to the other side of the street.

  The houses on the other side of the street were becoming completely swallowed by the greenish mist. It was as if a giant cumulus cloud was moving slowly towards them, swallowing everything and devouring anything in its path.

  Anthony held onto Paula with his good arm, pulling her towards him. “That is why we need to go. I will explain when we get there!” He started to limp down the street. But he was outrunning Paula. She looked across the street again at the mist.

  The mist was dense.

  It was getting worse – and it was so thick that they could no longer see the houses on the other side of the street at all. It was just a cloud of swirling green vapor. Paula looked over as they were running and tried to make out anything – a roof, windows, or a treetop, but she could see nothing.

  “You don’t want to know what is in that mist, Paula.”

  It was creeping closer. The entire sidewalk on the other side was gone, and now a thin layer was reaching towards their feet. It swirled around them in thin, smoky fingers as they hobbled, closer to the end of the street.

  Paula did not know where Anthony was leading her. She was only following him and placing her life in his hands as he was the only familiar face in this strange world.

  “I know where we can go to get some rest and sort this all out,” he explained, looking behind his shoulder every few minutes to make sure she was still there and not collapsed in a mess on the sidewalk. “We will go to the Cathedral,” he continued, pointing through a thick of palm trees. Through the trees Paula could see the cross rising from top of the Steeple against the ashy night sky. A possible sanctuary.

  But the mist was quickly getting closer.

  And turning darker. Paula snapped her head towards the swirling cloud, now halfway across Andelusia. “What was that? I just heard something!”

  “Come on Paula! That mist is pure evil! You don’t know where you are right now! The mist is swallowing up the city!”

  Paula struggled to keep up. But as they struggled down the street together, Paula could not help but look back to see what they were trying to outrun. And when she looked, all she saw was a dark green cloud, growing in size, but what she heard was much different.

  Much more unsettling.

  Despite his injuries, Anthony’s athletic ability kept him considerably farther ahead than Paula.

  “Look at it, Paula,” he said as he pointed. For a moment, it seemed as if the mist stood still, facing them off. The swirling of the mist took on faces and figures, and began to proceed once again. Looking up and down the street, mist spanned the city. The entire northern half of the city was swallowed up.

  The only way to go was south.

  Towards the Cathedral.

  CHAPTER FOURTY-THREE

  Jonas darted through stone hallways filled with people scurrying about.

  It seemed like everyone was running around with something important to do. Jean Carlo followed, but struggled to keep Jonas in his sight as everyone was wearing the same colored white robes, and Jean Carlo noticed another thing when they were navigating the maze-like hallways: all the men had white hair like Jonas. The whole place and all of the people he was now surrounded with were perplexing to Jean Carlo.

  Maintaining a distance of about ten feet or so behind Jonas, Jean Carlo called forward over the buzz of activity in the hallway for Jonas to slow down. But Jonas did not.

  “Where are we going?” Jean Carlo finally shouted up to him. Jonas stopped and turned to face Jean Carlo. Soon, the two men were standing right next to each other in the middle of the hallway. People continued around them to various unknown destinations. “What is everyone running around for?”

  Jonas looked Jean Carlo straight in the eye. “There is going to be a
Great War. It will be unlike any other war you have ever seen in your mortal life.”

  Jean Carlo stopped for a moment. “What are you talking about?”

  “There is no time to explain right now,” Jonas said. “I will explain to you when we get topside.”

  “Topside? I thought you said that we shouldn’t go up there? Especially at night!”

  “There are stranded souls.”

  “Aren’t they up there anyway? You yourself said that this ‘dimension’ that I have found myself in is full of lost souls, demons…” Jean Carlo’s voice trailed off as his attention was diverted to several large muscular figures with grey skin that looked like armor that passed the two men were they stood talking in the busy hallway.

  “What are they?” he asked after the figures had passed.

  “They are the Metatron. They are going topside to fight the battle with Asmodai who is leading the demons.”

  “Metatron?”

  “Yes…” Jonas said, his voice trailing off as he turned around and began to follow the three Metatron. “Come on! Let’s go!”

  Jonas started running to keep up with the Metatron. Jean Carlo had no choice but to follow. Too many questions were unanswered, and after all of the warnings, he was somewhat uneasy about going topside.

  *~*~*

  The small room that the Metatron had entered seemed to look like a War Room, and everything was grey and blended together, except for the sea of papers on the grey conference table that took up almost the entire room. There was a giant screen at the far wall opposite of the door, and the expansive grey table was lined with equally grey chairs. In each chair, there was a large, grey muscular Metatron.

  The Metatron were a group of supernatural beings with a specific objective: to eliminate the demons of all levels, but they were powerless against the fury of Asmodai. Each of these beings had a purpose and a specific demon to target.

  Jean Carlo stopped at the door once he arrived to the War Room and watched Jonas slide past the Metatron, ducking behind chairs and sliding up to the front of the room. There was one standing up front, appearing like a General and Commander to the remaining group that waited patiently at the table. Jean Carlo observed Jonas speaking to the being at the front of the room, but no matter how much he strained, he could not hear what they were saying, despite the fact that the Metatron that were sitting around the table were silent and still.

  Jean Carlo returned, squeezing behind the chairs once again, and rejoined Jean Carlo.

  “All these,” he said pointing back to the table, “are Metatron. Their specific purpose is to annihilate the demons. Each one of them sitting around the table has a specific sin to target – and as you may know, there are seven Cardinal sins.”

  Jean Carlo nodded in agreement, but still did not understand what his own purpose was in this spiritual army.

  “Pride, Envy, Lust…” Jonas started, grabbing Jean Carlo’s hand, leading him to the opposite corner of the room where there happened to be two small folding chairs which the two men sat in promptly.

  “Let’s see…what else?” Jonas whispered to Jean Carlo as the General began talking in a language that the two men could not understand. “Ah yes…Sloth, Gluttony, Greed and Wrath. Each of these angels specifically combat each demon that is behind each sin. So, now you see their purpose. They meet in this very room each evening for a briefing before they go out topside and hunt.”

  “What is my purpose in all of this?”

  “Shh! I am getting to that, Uriel. Just listen!”

  There he did it again.

  The old man called him that name, and he didn’t understand where it came from, or what purpose that it had. But Jean Carlo was beginning to think that there was some deeper purpose for his presence here; Darius had killed him, but he did not die. He lay in his coffin waiting to rise, he waited for Darius to come back and open the lid and stare at his child that ran away, the child that ran away and now is in hiding underground.

  Where did Darius go?

  Oh I am here young one.

  You don’t think that I am here watching your every move? You don’t think that I don’t know where you are right now? You exist there because I allow you to exist there. You sit there and wait and listen and wonder when you are going to see me again. But you don’t decide that young one. Because you know what?

  I am around every corner.

  Especially here.

  You think you are at home? You think you are safe all snug in your bed with the covers pulled up tight? Nope sir! I am here and I am everywhere.

  I made you!

  And I will reclaim you, just wait and see. I watch and I wait. When you left the cemetery, I allowed you to go. Do you honestly think that I didn’t have the power to stop you, when you were walking down the street like an old, poor reflection of a mortal?

  And now I know exactly where you are. You are right below ground, right beneath the offices where Antoine loves to spend his time, hogging the spotlight like he always has.

  Antoine dug me up and maybe he shouldn’t have. He pulled my coffin out of the ground and shoved my heart into a rotted corpse and –

  “- Uriel? Are you listening to me?”

  Jean Carlo snapped to, and looked around the room. None of the Metatron were there anymore. The meeting must have concluded. The room was empty except for him and Jonas. There was still a sea of papers on the conference table, and all of the chairs were in a state of disarray as the occupants had apparently neglected to push the chairs back in when they left. It looked like they left in a hurry.

  “And where have you been?” Jonas asked.

  “What do you mean?” Jean Carlo asked, blinking his eyes and rubbing them as if he were asleep.

  “What I mean is that you were sitting next to me the entire time, but when I spoke to you several times, I looked over, and saw that your eyes were white. I mean totally white. Like you had no pupils! There was nothing there! I could tell that you had left.”

  Jean Carlo stopped for a moment to think about what Jonas had said. He had left this body? He touched his arm for a moment, and it felt normal. He didn’t feel any different than he did for as long as he could remember, and his memory was long. He remembered when his mother washed him as a young boy, he could still feel the soapy sponge gently rubbing on his forearm, and he remembered the warmth of the bath water.

  But this entire time he had been sitting right in the same, cold folding chair. He remembered that much. He didn’t see anything, and he didn’t remember anything about the briefing. All he remembered was Darius speaking to him.

  Jean Carlo shuddered.

  “You were gone, Uriel, you weren’t here. Your body was here next to mine, but I could tell, your spirit was somewhere else. Your eyes were white, they were glazed over, and you were speaking to yourself. But I didn’t stop you. There would have been no sense. I would not have been able to wake you.”

  “So what did I miss?”

  Jonas rose from his chair. “Come on,” he said. “I will have to fill you in along the way. I am not stupid. I know that Darius was speaking to you. I know he is the one who made you, and he is going to be coming for you. I will be honest with you, there will be no hiding from him. You must face him. That is the only way to be free from him, especially in this world. You must face him.”

  “And what if I don’t?”

  “Then you are destined to live down here for eternity and you will be in this realm forever. You won’t ever progress to the more enlightened state of being that we all strive for. You are dead, Jean Carlos. It is time to recognize your self here, it is time to embrace the genesis of Uriel. That’s who you are in this world. This world may seem to you like the world you once lived in, but once you go topside, you will see that it is quite different.”

  “Different? How?”

  Jonas seemed exasperated as he flung his arms in the air and slapped them on his thigh. “Haven’t you been listening to anything I have been telling you since
you arrived at dinner?!”

  Jean Carlo didn’t understand. He had been listening intently since he was served a slab of beef on a plate before him.

  “You may have been hearing what I was saying, but you certainly haven’t been listening. The streets above are being submerged in a dark green mist. This mist is pure evil. Asmodai is coming, and he is coming for more than just Antoine. You see, Antoine thinks that he is safe. He isn’t in this dimension. He found a way out. But he is wrong. Asmodai is after him, and Asmodai moves through different realms with ease. If he is called, Asmodai can cross over, and he can do it will until his target is destroyed. Antoine is his target. And as long as Antoine exists, Asmodai can cross over. Freely.”

  While Jonas had been speaking the two men had navigated the same hallways they had when coming to the War Room, but this time, the hallways were empty. They were brightly lit but deserted. There was not a soul, and when Jonas had been speaking, there was an echo.

  This time, Jean Carlo was listening. And he didn’t even notice the destination, because he was following so closely and listening so intently to what Jonas had been saying. Yes, this Antoine seemed to be responsible for this entire war. He called the worst demon that could have been summoned.

  Asmodai.

  Lost in his thoughts but managing to keep close behind Jonas and take in everything he was saying, Jean Carlo did not notice the grey, barren, starkly lit hallways. He did not notice the emptiness and the fact that, when just a little while previously the hallways had been crowded and busy they were now devoid of any presence but these two men; he didn’t notice that Jonas was undressing and shedding his clothes, and he certainly didn’t notice that they were now at the base of steps which looked like the same set of stairs that led above to the offices of The Astral; the same stairs that would led up to impending death and the terrible green mist that Jonas had said was overtaking the city and devouring it, letting the demons run free.