Hellbound (Hellbound Trilogy Book 1)

by Tim Hawken

  seventeen

  The cold sand crinkled beneath my toes as we walked along the beach, Charlotte’s petite hand clasped in mine. Brilliant stars twinkled in the cloudless sky. I inhaled the warm night air.

  “This is so romantic, isn’t it?” Charlotte smiled next to me, giving my hand a light squeeze. “I can’t believe we’re in Greece, it’s just so wonderful, Michael.”

  I laughed at her enthusiasm. She was always so happy, so positive. I loved how it rubbed off onto me. I was glad to be alive for the first time ever. I looked forward to waking up in the morning because she was with me. Charlotte had been my savior, my guiding light since we’d met by chance on a plane from Thailand. We’d fallen for each other quickly; me with her kind heart and giving nature and her with my determination. She said I inspired her. I felt so wanted around her, so needed. She made me want to be a better person. I had given away the underground fights in Las Vegas and moved with her to San Francisco to become a personal trainer. I even ran some boxing classes at a gym near our apartment in North Beach and trained some homeless kids for free. It felt good to be giving something back, creating something instead of just tearing people down.

  Charlotte loved her job at the hospital, taking care of children. She worked long and hard hours. Often, she had heart-breaking stories of young children with leukemia or horrible burns, but somehow she always came home with a smile on her face. Charlotte had a knack for seeing the silver lining in any situation, which might have explained how she could love a man with my past.

  We came to the end of the beach and flopped down on the sand, looking up at the brilliant sky.

  “Isn’t it amazing?” I asked. “You know the sky in the northern hemisphere is different to the sky in the southern hemisphere? They have completely different stars and constellations.”

  “How does an ex-fighter know so much about the stars?” she asked, baffled. She was constantly amazed at my knowledge of pointless things.

  I shrugged. “I guess I read too many books,” I said.

  “No, I love it!” she said, hitting me on the arm playfully. “So, Mr. Know-it-All,” she teased. “Do you know anything about the stars up there, or are you just pretending to be smart?”

  “Well, actually,” I smiled, “I do know one story about one of the constellations up there, Lotte.” She giggled at my nickname for her.

  “Tell me,” she commanded, lying on her back, pulling me down next to her so we had our heads side by side. We peered up into the heavens.

  “Okay,” I said. “Do you see that group of stars straight up there?” I pointed and she looked along my finger.

  “I think so,” she squinted. “The one with the four bright ones all in a row?”

  “That’s the one,” I answered. “Well, that is one of the first constellations ever recognized in history. It’s called Andromeda, named after a beautiful princess who lived in ancient Greece. She was the daughter of the King Cepheus and his queen, Cassiopeia. In fact, Andromeda was so beautiful that her mother Cassiopeia would gloat to other people that she was even more stunning than the Nereids, nymph daughters of the sea god, Nereus.”

  Charlotte snuggled into me as I continued my story.

  “Now, unfortunately for the Queen, the Nereids overheard her bragging of Andromeda’s beauty and complained to Poseidon, the God of the Sea. They demanded that Cassiopeia be punished for her pride. Poseidon agreed, so he summoned a terrible sea monster called Cetus and commanded him to lay waste to the lands over which Andromeda’s parents ruled. He told Cetus to take the form of a monstrous whale and to kill people and cattle who dared go near the sea. Cetus did as he was told and set to his task of destruction, slaughtering many up and down the coast. King Cepheus had a duty to protect his people; they begged him to save them from the terror of Cetus. So, the King consulted an oracle who could communicate with the gods when men sought their advice. The oracle told Cepheus that there was only one way to stop the slaughter, to offer his daughter Andromeda as a sacrifice.”

  “No,” Charlotte gasped. “He didn’t do it, did he?”

  “He had no choice,” I said theatrically, enjoying the fact that she was so enrapt in the tale. “King Cepheus was bound to protect his subjects. He made the bitter choice to chain his precious daughter to the rocks, and then abandoned her to await the terrible Cetus. When the monster saw Andromeda chained up, he left his wrathful destruction of the coast and began swimming towards the ledge where she was trapped, so he could devour her.

  “Oh no!” Charlotte cried.

  “Suddenly,” I continued, “a distant figure appeared in the sky. It was Perseus, the courageous son of Zeus and Danae. He was returning from a quest where he had slain the dreaded Medusa. As Perseus passed over the coast, he looked down and saw Cetus swimming toward the chained maiden, Andromeda. He jumped down to the girl’s aid and was instantly overwhelmed by her beauty. ‘Why are you thus bound?’ he asked her, to which Andromeda explained Perseus the story of her boastful mother and the jealous Nereids. Perseus quickly found King Cepheus and told him that he could save his daughter from the monster Cetus, but in return he demanded Andromeda’s hand in marriage and a kingdom for them to rule together. The King immediately agreed, for he loved his daughter dearly. Perseus leapt down into the ocean and attacked the monster Cetus. With the first thrust of his mighty sword, Perseus found the soft piece of flesh between Cetus’ armored scales and stabbed him in the heart, killing him.

  Elated, King Cepheus and Cassiopeia led Perseus and Andromeda to their house, where a great feast and celebration took place. Andromeda and Perseus were married and lived a long and happy life together. Later when they died, they were rewarded by the gods and given their own place together in the sky. See just to the right of those stars. That’s Perseus in the sky; he watches over his wife in the heavens.”

  “That’s just beautiful,” Charlotte beamed.

  “And see that star over there?” I asked.

  “Which one?” she replied inquisitively, looking into the night sky.

  “This one,” I said, holding up the diamond ring I’d been keeping in my pocket the whole time we’d been on the beach. “This is your star, Lotte. Will you marry me?”

  Tears filled her eyes as she looked from the ring to me. I started to cry as well, despite trying to hold it back.

  “Of course I will, Michael,” she sobbed. “I love you so much.”

  I pushed the ring onto her finger and she threw her arms around my neck, pushing me back into the sand, showering me with kisses. I was the happiest man alive.

  eighteen

  I LAY ON THE CARPET in Satan’s building, holding on to the vision I’d just witnessed. I savored every moment, every detail of Charlotte and my proposal to her. I replayed it again and again in my mind, twirling the wedding ring on my finger.

  “I’m in heaven,” I said out loud.

  “Actually, you’re still in Hell for now,” The Devil boomed as the elevator doors opened and he strode into the room, “at least for a few more hours yet.” He smiled holding his arms open, like he was welcoming a dear friend.

  “I’m in love!” I said, laughing as I got up and walked towards him.

  “With Oba?” The devil asked.

  “Who?” I replied, puzzled.

  “I’m kidding!” he smiled. “This is The Devil you’re talking to, Michael. I know you’re in love with Charlotte, your wife.

  “You know?” I asked. “But why didn’t you tell me about any of this? Why go through all of the pain if you knew I would choose to go to Heaven without so much as a second thought? This whole day has been a waste of time.”

  “There you go again, Michael,” The Devil said with a tutting noise. “You second guess my methods. Remember this is a process. You needed to find out slowly who you were, somewhat equivalent to being drip-fed your life. Otherwise, it is too much to take in, too much to handle. Your joy at knowing Charlotte is partly defined by your suffering. You love her so much because of wha
t you’ve been through, and the fact that she accepts you despite what you feel about yourself deep down.

  “So, she really does love me?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Satan replied. “You just saw it with your own eyes.”

  I would never have believed it a few hours ago, but all of my suffering, all of my downfalls had been wiped away by meeting one person. I didn’t think I deserved it. Maybe I didn’t.

  “And I didn’t mess things up? I didn’t ruin it like everything else?”

  I was suddenly worried that maybe I’d done something to hurt her or change her mind about me.

  “You were happily married right up until the moment you died,” Satan said. He had just confirmed it! We were married, happily. I was ecstatic.

  “Is she okay without me there?” I asked, thinking now only of Charlotte.

  Satan turned around pointing to the sky, which started to boil and burn on the horizon once again.

  “Better to show you than to tell you,” he said. “It’s time to see how you died.”

  nineteen

  Screams. All I could hear were the screams of Charlotte. They were not defiant, but defeated wails of suffering. It was as if hope had been torn from her soul and ripped apart, then stuffed into her throat, gagging her. I couldn’t move. I must’ve been hit from behind as soon as we entered our apartment. I blinked the blood from my eyes. I was on the floor, sprawled out, legs twisted. My spine felt as if it had been shattered. Limp arms hung out in front of me, teasing me with how useless they were. I’d made a living fighting with those arms; they still looked strong, but they were dead.

  I looked to where I could hear Charlotte. My beautiful wife was hanging from the wall by two metal spikes, driven through each shoulder. She was bruised and beaten, now just sobbing. Red spit hung from her bottom lip, dribbling down past her feet to the ground. How she was still conscious I had no idea. Blood dripped from between her legs. She had been raped, her humanity stolen from her by some vile creature. What monster had done this to the woman I love?

  She stopped crying and looked up, right into my eyes, glassy with tears.

  “I love you,” she whispered, weakly.

  With that, a fist came out from the side of my vision and punched her in the face, crunching her fragile bones back into her brain with a sickening crack. She was dead.

  I didn’t even yell. I was silent. Bloody tears rolled from my eyes, the rage bubbling inside me.

  “You’ll pay for this,” I croaked.

  Laughter. Not from one person, but a few. I could see only him. The one who killed Lotte. He smiled at me with perfect shiny teeth and clear blue eyes. Blonde, wavy hair framed a handsome, adolescent face. He looked barely seventeen. His smooth chin had no trace of a man who needed to shave. His dimpled cheeks pinched into a grin.

  “Do you even realize how ridiculous that sounds?” he said in a nasal voice. “You can’t even move, let alone stand up and face me, you dirty fool.” He bent down and put his nose an inch from mine. “I raped her for God,” he sneered.

  I lurched forward and sunk my teeth into the tip of his pretty little nose, ripping through the flesh and tearing a chunk completely off. I spat it back into his shocked face as he fell backwards onto the floor, yelping in pain.

  “You taste like evil,” I rasped, his blood seeping from my mouth. “She never hurt a soul, you pig, you’re pathetic.”

  “You’re the one who is evil, you piece of scum!” he yelled, holding his nose as dark red blood oozed between his fingers, like muck from a sewer.

  “God has asked us to send you to Hell, Michael. Where you belong! He wants you to burn down there for your sins. You killed her by knowing her.”

  “You’re sick,” I panted, stunned at his words. “You’re insane. God? What are you talking about? You don’t make sense. You’re just a twisted psychopath who breaks into the houses of innocent people to torture them.”

  He sneered again, the blood staining his teeth crimson.

  “I make sense!” he boomed as he scrambled back to his feet. “I make perfect sense. You’re just too thick to see the truth.”

  He walked back to where Lotte’s limp body was hanging on the wall, and lifted her shattered face. He pressed his cheek against hers, their faces side by side looking at me. Her lifeless eyes stared through me, while his bored into my soul.

  “If you had never met this pretty little thing, she would still be alive.” He looked back at her in disgust and dropped her head so it flopped back down on her chest.

  “What are you talking about? You’re crazy,” I repeated, unable to comprehend what he was saying.

  He wiped the blood off his hands onto her blouse and turned back to face me.

  “No, I’m not.” He said. “I’m God’s messenger and God doesn’t want trash like you mixing with his more beautiful creations. Your tainted fate mixed with hers and it killed her. The Lord doesn’t want her in Heaven now that you’ve been with her, and he’s angry at you for ruining an innocent. You killed her by being so selfish that you had to have her in your life, even when you knew deep down that it would end in death.”

  I had been a fool, I thought. I’d dreamt of my violent death many nights for most of my life, right up until the point that I’d met her. Then the nightmares had stopped.

  “I thought she had saved me,” I whispered to myself.

  Charlotte’s murderer began to laugh again.

  “Ohhh, that’s sad,” he said in a mocking tone. “It was the other way around, Michael. You dragged her into sin. You’ve compromised her purity, twisted her perception of what is good and evil. How could she accept that you had hurt others if she wasn’t blinded by her love for you?”

  All I could do was stare my hatred at him. Bare, cold hatred. He looked in my eyes and actually took a step back. This was a murderer standing before me, plain and simple. He must have stalked us to know so much about our lives. How could this be happening to me? To us? I struggled to make sense of it. There was no reason for this.

  Charlotte’s killer looked over to his left and clicked his fingers. Someone handed him a white suit-jacket and said, “I kept it clean like you asked me to, Gideon.”

  So this despicable creature has a name, I thought. I will never forget it. Gideon.

  As he slid his jacket on, Gideon looked back at me.

  “The Brethren have done their job, Michael,” he said. “We are delivering you to Hell in the name of God the Elemental.”

  He formed the sign of the cross over his chest and took a pill from his pocket, shoving it in my mouth. He held it shut as the pill dissolved on my tongue.

  “You’ll be dead in a minute. Say hello to Satan for us.”

  I choked and coughed as he stood up and strode from the room, laughing. Other feet shuffled out behind him. The bitter taste of poison lingered on my tongue like a chemical burn.

  And there I lay, holding onto life like a half-drowned child clinging to the branches of a tree in the middle of a flooded river. The murky waters of eternity were ripping me from my pain into the dark unknown. As the light faded from my eyes I looked up at my love and had one last thought.

  ‘I will have revenge on this monster called Gideon and his followers. He’ll rot in Hell with me to torture him for the rest of existence.’ Then all went dark and the river of death washed over my broken body.

  part two:

  Revelation

  one

  MY EYES SNAPPED OPEN. I realized immediately that I was back in Hell. I felt no physical pain but I was in agony. All I’d ever cared about had been taken from me in the name of God, by a raving lunatic and some people who called themselves ‘The Brethren’. It made no sense. I was nobody, an orphan who had made a living from illegal kickboxing fights, saved from a life of anger and solitude by an extraordinary girl called Charlotte.

  Why would they kill me? Why would they kill her? Despite these questions, the searing reality remained: they had done it. Strangely, I became calm. I woul
d be able to take revenge on Gideon. I would be able to make him suffer as he made my Lotte suffer, and I would find out why he did it.

  “Charlotte!” I blurted, suddenly more aware. “Where is she?”

  Satan looked up sleepily from the corner of the room. He sat with his legged crossed on a padded chair, with a book in his lap.

  “You’re back,” he yawned.

  “Where’s Charlotte?” I repeated.

  “Not here,” he said.

  “I want to see her!” I shouted, lunging at Satan. I grabbed his windpipe trying to crush it with my bare hands as I tripped him down to the ground.

  “Oh stop,” he said wearily from beneath me, not even making a move to fight back. I squeezed harder, trying to inflict some of the pain I felt onto him.

  “You can’t go to see her any more than I can,” he continued in a steady voice. “She is trapped in limbo. She has no sins to forgive, so she is not in Hell. However, because of how she died, the violence of it, her soul lies in sorrow at the gates of Heaven. She will stay in limbo waiting for what happened to her to be made right again. She cannot go inside until the people who sinned against her lie in Hell themselves. They must accept their actions as evil and deliberate, or at least feel ‘The Guilt’ for having killed both of you. Only then will her soul be free.”

  My thoughts quickened. Her soul was in limbo, lost, waiting for me. I would do whatever it took to be with her again.

  “How can I see her?” I asked frantically, pushing ever harder on his throat with no effect.

  “There is a way,” Satan replied. “But right now all you want is vengeance, and you must remember that revenge is a sin. Think about how it works, Michael. Until you no longer want to commit sin, you’ll not be allowed near the hallowed gates or Charlotte. You will remain in Hell until your soul is clean.”