“Whoa….” I stared with awe.
Mira turned to face me with a grimace. “Neat, huh? I bet the higher we go, the colder this tree will get. And you know what, I like it here! The lands of Bhad have burnt me for way too long. It’s time for me to freeze up a little.”
“Same here,” I said as I looked around. I touched the walls with a back of my hand. It felt like slippery ice.
Suddenly, I heard a murmur. “Zach…I have arrived at the top,” it was Prima Dona’s voice and I flinched with shock. I dropped my rosary to the ground. I turned to Mira, who was gazing at me with concern.
“D-did you hear that?” I stuttered.
Mira blinked and shook her head. “I can hear blood running through the tree, if that’s what you mean.”
But I heard Prima Dona’s voice echo in my head once more. “Zach! It’s me….I’m awaiting you at the top. Do not visit me in your dreams any more—you will not find me in Primeval. I will be awaiting you at the top. And do not try to meet me at the top of the tree by yourself. I would like to meet your little spirit friends as well, especially if you would like this extraordinary power granted to you.” A chilly blow ran across my face. “I will let the power of ice captivate this tree, so that you’ll know that I am here. Half this tree will be covered with snow for the very first time, and only you alone will know where it’s come from. Do not tell anyone about my arrival….”
Suddenly, I felt Mira’s hand grab my shoulder. She threw me against a soft pile of snow. I lied on my back and stared up with confusion as Mira crouched over me. She was gazing into my eyes with a narrowed gaze. “You look so cute when you’re scared,” she muttered. “What’s bothering you? Are you hearing something that I’m not?”
“N-no….I’m just…surprised to see this place. They’ve got snow in here—I’ve never seen snow before.”
“Oh yeah,” said Mira. “Me neither. They’ve got snow in the higher lands, especially in Purah and Guhd.”
We gazed up at each other. I was feeling energized and relieved in this cold. If her skin was much whiter, Mira would have looked like a younger version of Prima Dona.
She huffed and glared at me. “Tell me—do you really like me or not?” She started to sit up. I sat up and faced her.
I chuckled and shook my head at her. “Mira, I think you’re freakin’ hot. Don’t worry about it.”
She blinked and looked at me longingly. “Really?”
I nodded and gave a devious smile. “That was one of the reasons why I followed you when you escaped the Gehenna Volcano.”
Mira looked at me and waited for me to say more.
I sighed and gave her a look. “What? I’m not lying. I mean what I say. I’ve never spoken this way to a girl before.”
Mira twitched a smile on her face for a moment, and then leaned forward to kiss me on my lips. Instantly, I felt a rush of exhilaration that I had never felt before.
Mira and I rolled off the snow and our lips pressed together the entire time. We were doing a lot of moving around, but the entire time, I was too lost and dazed to even notice what was happening to me.
Suddenly, there was a flash from rosary in my pocket. There was a small crack over the branch.
Instantly, I opened my eyes and struggled from Mira’s grip. I yelled in a muffled tone and tried to push her off of me, but she was attacking me like a hell creature.
At last, I released my kiss from her and felt rage pulse through me. “MIRA STOP!” I yelled with such envy that Mira gasped and paused.
I pushed her off my chest and shot up to my feet, panting. What had I just done? Why was I feeling so bad about it? I turned to glare down at Mira, who was looking up at me with confusion in her dark eyes.
“You!” I pointed at her, glaring with hatred. “Stay away from me! How dare you attack me like that! I’ll never even touch your hand again!”
Mira immediately seethed and said nothing.
Suddenly, the curtains behind me opened and Shiigo jumped in. The SoulBird was squawking angrily. She spotted Mira and angrily pecked at her with her beak. Mira screamed with rage and gave her bird an angry kick. Shiigo rolled over and hit the wall.
I turned to leave, and I didn’t look back. “I’m never speaking to you again.”
Then I slipped out the rosary from my pocket, and I tossed it over my shoulder.
Chapter Twenty-Three-
The tree grew colder as we climbed higher. At some points, it even started to snow and freeze up. I could only imagine how cold it was on the outside. The days passed by when we forgot why we were even climbing. The spirits of the tree were giving us strange looks, though they themselves were starting to look dazed and captured with the sudden snowy and chilly atmosphere. They were too captured by the cold to even investigate what was causing it.
I kept quiet about Prima Dona.
The days passed. Pretty soon, we forgot why we were even inside the tree, and at one point, Jenna and I were approached by a group of tree spirits and were invited to a dance in one of the rooms of the east branches. We got so involved with the fun that the tree spirits offered us, since we had forgotten about our goal.
All through the journey, I was unable to think clearly. I was like a robot, hypnotized under a spell. Only the piercing voice of Prima Dona echoed in my head. “Hurry Zach……I am waiting.”
And then the day came when the tree became so cold that it wasn’t refreshing anymore. We were freezing to the soul. Even the SoulBirds were like witless pets.
One night, I sat on a cold stone in one of the rooms and totally zoned out. My mind was blank, but I wasn’t asleep. I was shivering violently. I heard nothing in my head the entire time except for the constant voice of Prima Dona. Everyone else was laid down in front of me, looking passed out in the room.
As for the SoulBirds, none of their bodies glowed, nor did their halos shine. This bitter cold was literally freezing our souls, and the light was going out in their spirits.
Something buzzed at the right of the room where the exit was. Something was glowing. I narrowed my eyes. The room suddenly seemed to shake, and I stood up, feeling hyped about the sudden movement. I followed that glowing light.
The light was a halo of a SoulBird, but it wasn’t Dewey, Pete, or Grace.
The SoulBird I followed was still angelic and glowing, and I was transfixed by its light. It was a water type. It was Truman. But I could not recognize this creature whatsoever, for my brain was frozen.
Truman was looking around curiously, pecking his bill at the icy floor. He seemed to smell something.
But then Truman came to a dead end, and he gave out a quack. He faced me and then flapped his wings, facing something at my right side.
Instinct told me to look down at my right and see what it was. Absentmindedly turning to my right and facing down, I saw Dewey standing there. His eyes were wide and unblinking as he stared toward Truman with a blank gaze.
Truman was quacking and beating his wings, and the SoulBird flapped around Dewey’s body, expecting the SoulBird to react. But Dewey stood still as a statue.
Then I noticed something else about Truman that was making him glow. He was wearing something around his neck—a rosary. The cross was giving off that bright glow, and I could perfectly see the carved body upon the cross in the light. I started to widen my eyes, feeling something warm up in my chest.
Dewey was suddenly twitching and shivering. With a quick tweet, the little SoulBird pecked at Truman’s neck. Dewey managed to grab the cross in his long beak, but Truman tried to pull back.
Then Truman thrashed and flapped around in the air until he finally shook the entire necklace off his neck.
Dewey stood there, a few feet in front of me, gripping the cross in his beak. The light seemed to be surrounding him now, but before he became as bright as Truman, the water type SoulBird slid on the ice, bashing his head against Dewey and knocking the earth type SoulBird on his side. Dewey dropped the necklace.
The rosary slid o
ver to me, and stopped right at my frozen feet.
I gazed down at it and let its light surround me. I heard Prima Dona’s voice in my head, a little more muffled than before.
“Zach…!” Her voice was suddenly sharp and full of fear. “Look a….ay….loo….way…” She was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t quite hear her.
My spirit was starting to thaw out. Prima Dona’s voice was becoming fainter and fainter in my head until I could barely hear a sound. But pretty soon, I did start to hear sounds in my head. I was starting to hear my own thoughts and started to understand myself think. My spirit was suddenly warmed and I bent down to pick up the rosary. I held it in my right hand and stared down at it. The cross was glowing and clearing my frozen vision in my eyes. I could feel again. The light from this cross was warming me, and I could feel evil in the coldness that still surrounded me. I felt like I was dreaming in Primeval again.
And it hit me. At the thought of Prima Dona’s world, I was suddenly remembering my dream. Prima Dona had arrived at the top of this Evergrown Tree, and had cast her freezing spell upon the tree like she promised. I realized that this extreme coldness wasn’t just any type of cold. It had the same power as in Primeval, and it had the same ability to freeze up any soul that was confined to it.
But this wasn’t Primeval. This was Purgatory. The snow would take time before its effect would literally freeze us up. Its power would be most effective at the top, where Prima Dona awaited us.
I gasped and clutched the rosary in my hands. I looked to where Dewey was still laying on the ground. His dim light that had started to come back was now growing dimmer and dimmer, since I had taken the rosary from him.
“Dewey….” I was able to hear my dry, quaint voice. Suddenly the branch shook. Truman quacked and bounced around Dewey’s unconscious body.
“Truman!” I couldn’t feel more relieved to see the bird, for it had been this SoulBird that had brought my rosary to me. But how could he have caught up so quickly? The last place I had left this rosary was in the first cold room I had been in with Miranda…
I bent down to shoo Truman away so I can lay the cross upon Dewey and help my poor SoulBird. But as I kneeled by his side with Truman squawking behind me, I heard a rasping female voice.
“Oh, you bitter fool, Zachy,” the voice was like a haughty snarl. I felt the room stiffen at the sound of that familiar voice. I could hear it loudly and clearly.
I looked around and saw a reddish light at the right corner of the branch. A long-legged earth type SoulBird stepped forward, and I recognized Shiigo. She was glaring at me devilishly with her red glow around her body.
I gasped and felt stiffened again, but I narrowed my eyes and held the SoulBird’s gaze.
“Shiigo,” I muttered, lowering the rosary from Dewey’s body. “What are you doing here? I thought I told Mira—”
“Oh, to Hell with what you tell Mira!” Snapped Shiigo roughly, lowering her head and giving an angry flap of her tiny wings. “She won’t listen to you. She’ll never listen to anyone. She’s been on your trail, watching you guys slowly turn to ice spirits from this spell. But now that it’s gotten worse to this point, she’s decided it would be necessary to help you.” Shiigo raised her eyebrows. “She’s still crazy about you, you know. And she’s spoken with the Shadow Man as well.”
“The Shadow Man?” I winced.
“Yes, she has spoken to me,” said a low voice behind. I flinched and whipped around to face the shadowy spirit.
“Argh! You scared me again,” I snapped.
“Zach, it was I who convinced Mira into helping you,” said the Shadow Man. “You had left the rosary in the room with her, and I convinced her to return it to you. So we followed you and she gave the rosary to Truman.”
I winced. “Well, what about you? Why wasn’t your spirit frozen up like the rest of us?”
The Shadow Man said nothing.
There was a low chuckle from Shiigo.
I flinched. “And what about Mira? She’s got no cross with her, so she’s…..”
Shiigo nodded slowly, flashing her narrowed eyes. “She’s confined herself to the ice like the rest of you have been.”
“No!” I stomped the ground and felt frustrated. “Why would she do that to herself?! Is she that crazy?”
Shiigo snickered. “You have no idea.”
“Well, where is she?! We’ve got to help her.”
“Hey! Don’t forget about the rest of your friends, devil boy,” Shiigo’s eyes glittered. “Jenna and Cain are also slowly freezing away.”
“Yes, I know, but so is Mira. Where is she?!”
Shiigo stared at me with an unchanging expression. “I ain’t telling you where she is. She doesn’t wanna see you. She said so herself—she wanted to let her spirit waste away in this tree and just go wherever her spirit would be destined to go. She was never scared of going to Hell anyways.”
“She won’t go to Hell. She’ll go to Prima Dona’s world!” I yelled, feeling frustration pulsing through me.
Without another word, a blast of light suddenly appeared over me and I was looking up at Saint Tyler, who was gazing down at me with a narrowed, but urgent look on his face.
“Saint Tyler!” I looked up at the spirit as he waved his hands, happy to see me.
Another spirit appeared next to him, and it was Saint Bernardo. He was coughing and spitting out purple spit all over the ice below him.
“Bernardo, what—”
“AHH!” Bernardo let out a loud yell and faced me. “Oyy! You there! I’ve been trying to get a hold of you, but egh! This darned atmosphere is so frozen that not even we angels can flow through here. What in the world has happened?”
Saint Tyler was pointing at me with a scolding look in his eyes.
I sighed and turned to Bernardo to explain everything about Prima Dona.
Bernardo was flabbergasted. “What?! Aha! She isn’t so powerful here, though. Her spell sure didn’t have any effect on us angels!”
The Shadow Man turned to me. “Zach, you must help the others right now before they get confined to this ice. We must hurry our way to the top, for it is only another few miles upward. We should get there at the crack of dawn.”
“We’re still heading up?” I looked at him.
“We must. It would take too long to climb all the way down again, and by that time, the entire tree would have been frozen.”
Dewey was shifting and pretty soon, the earth type was on his feet up. He looked around with confusion and flinched distractedly from Truman’s loud quacking.
As soon as Dewey saw Shiigo pecking around at the corners of the branch’s end, he flinched and panted.
I looked over where Shiigo was slowly walking toward the end of the room. There was a clear reflection on the ice ahead of us. Shiigo was poking around the bottom of the reflection, and then suddenly, there was a burst of flames on the icy wall. Shiigo slowly lifted her head up and glared at the fire reflecting at her.
Through the flames, another earth type SoulBird was glaring back at her, another devil one. But it was not her reflection, but it was the reflection of a familiar male SoulBird.
“Aracto,” rasped Shiigo, facing the earth type in the fire. “You go tell Lucien that Mira will never see him again, nor will she join the ranks of Heaven. She will be exempt from all worlds, from Earth, from Purgatory, from Heaven, from Hell.”
Aracto’s devil eyes gleamed and he lowered his head. His ugly voice was a low whisper. “Tell me one reason why Mira would let herself fall to some world other than Hell—where she has always belonged.”
Shiigo chuckled slyly. “You haven’t heard, have you? She’s going into her world. Apparently, your son has already conferred with her in the same world.”
Aracto’s devilish gaze rested on me.
I took a step back from Aracto’s scary gaze, and I accidently bumped into the Shadow Man behind me.
Suddenly Aracto flinched and gazed at the Shadow Man with horr
or.
Shiigo narrowed her eyes and looked at him. “What is it now, you fool?”
Aracto immediately ducked down and let out a squawk of terror. The flames around him were bursting.
“Zach! How dare you bring that spirit in here! Where did you— rowww!” Aracto’s scream faded away as he disappeared in the fire.
A new image appeared on the ice, and I nearly dropped dead. It was Lucien. He was glaring at me with his fingers clasped under his chin. His red eyes were cracked and bleeding.
“Hm-hm,” he was chuckling devilishly. “Hello Zach.”
Truman squawked and ran over to hide behind me and the Shadow Man.
I huffed and wore the rosary around my neck. I glared at my father. “Lucien, you’ll never drag me to Hell. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“It’s too late for that choice, my son,” said Lucien slyly. “In the afterlife, you end up where you deserve to end up, and you cannot change that.”
“Well, apparently, Prima Dona can,” I said wryly. “She’s going to assist me when I battle your stupid pet. She can send that Beast to her own world, where it will freeze forever.”
“Prima Dona?” Lucien spoke calmly and raised his eyes with concern. Then he smiled. “Ohh! Prima Dona! Haha, well….Prima Dona has her own ways,” he narrowed his eyes and the flames danced around him again. “Trust me, you’re not just going to escape her world, either.”
“What are you talking about?” I winced.
“Lucien,” the Shadow Man stepped forward. His voice was low, and he sounded angrier than I had ever heard him.
Lucien flinched at the sight of the Shadow Man, and then narrowed his eyes. “Geh….you again…” he growled.
I narrowed my own eyes. How did all these hell spirits know the Shadow Man?
The Shadow Man stood firmly on the ice. “Lucien, you have no power over these spirits. They’ve got the Lord on their side, and the power of the Holy Spirit.”
At those words, my rosary flashed.
“Gah!” Lucien suddenly raised his arms up and his red robe swayed behind him. His dark cape thrashed in the flames. The branch started to tremble, and I felt the ice crack. Lucien was trying to break through the reflection and catch the place on fire again, just like he had done back at the house of the Egbala nomads.
The Purgatory Saga #1: People of the Fire Page 27