Three tunnels. They reminded him of the catacombs of Paris. Not that he had ever been, but they reminded him of them nonetheless—that or an ant farm.
Three tunnels, three guesses. And one was as good as the next one, he thought. Go left. He scurried over the ceiling before dropping down and stepping into the unknown.
Scurrying through the granite tunnel, Raven soon felt his nerves curling up with anxiety. This one was much longer and more confining than the first, and it would be easy for them to box him in… whoever they were. Was it a trap? Had Blackwell set him up? Just thinking about it made Raven’s skin tingle and his eyes narrow in anger. Trap or not, he had to get moving. So he picked up his step and pressed forward, hoping that this stone labyrinth would not become his tomb.
The tunnel itself was long, winding, and narrow—no bigger than a closed-in walkway. Yet it curved and shifted every which way without revealing any exits or escape routes. Down, up, left, right, it seemed to go nowhere and everywhere at once while winding around itself. And outside of going forward or back, the long tunnel left him absent of any sense of direction or options. And that was worrisome. In such a narrow space, an ambush would be easy. Whether it was five or five hundred, it would be easy for him to get surrounded. And he was on foreign soil again, sort of. And his enemy would certainly be more familiar with the tunnels than he would.
Eventually the tunnel opened into another arena, same as the last one. In fact, they looked so much alike that Raven thought that it might have been the same one. I better start marking them, he decided. And leaping onto the ceiling as he did before, Raven took his talon and carved a #2 on the ceiling—high and near the center of it, hidden beneath the darkness and where only he would see it.
Pausing momentarily, he looked into the nooks. Bare, polished stone… and nothing else. And they were all empty. So many nooks without anyone present? Strange. In fact, Raven hadn’t seen anything living since he went underground.
Though he could not say for how long, he continued through the catacombs and arenas. As he passed through each one, he marked them.
Little good it did. He found himself circling through arena #3 four separate times until things started clicking. Mostly through trial and error, he finally started to remember the paths and understand the layout of the catacombs.
Progress was slow, but as he finished his third hour of exploring—from his estimate at least—and was just starting to carve a #7 into the polished stone ceiling of the seventh arena with his talon, he heard something. From the tunnel he just exited, he heard a low thump. Then he heard more thumps. He wasn’t alone.
Panicked, he looked around cavern #7, hoping to use one of the other tunnels to escape from. But as he looked around, he realized something else, there wasn’t any escape. The thumping he heard, it wasn’t only coming that one tunnel. It was also coming from the other five.
Raven senses lit up, and he cursed himself and realized that perhaps he did not understand the layout as much as he thought. The arenas and tunnels all looked alike—identically alike. As he scurried into the darkness that covered the ceiling, he tried to think of a plan. Nothing. “Damn it,” he mumbled.
Then, as he again looked around, he saw something else that he missed. At the end of the cavern was a stone staircase that led up to a large stone platform. And atop the stone platform, there sat a large stone throne. And atop that, there sat a very large god with a very large black-bladed glaive.
CH 27: Back to Good
The tip was blunted, and the blade was dull. But as it pressed against the flesh of her neck, it still hurt.
Her dress was torn, and her back was against a dumpster. Whimpering, the tears streamed down her face. Her scraped knees were striped red with blood, but she didn’t seem to feel any of the pain from them. Her attention and fear were focused on more concerning things, mainly the knife at her neck and the grinning man that was holding it there.
“Please,” she whimpered. “Please don’t. You already have my purse and all my money. I don’t have anything else.” Holding up her hands in surrender, she tried to shake her head. But the sharp metal at her neck gave her pause, and instead, only served to increase her wailing. “I won’t tell anybody. I swear it. I swear I won’t tell.” Crying and begging for her life, the woman found that her words were coming out contorted, high-pitched, and barely decipherable. Yet each time she repeated her pleas, she only found her words becoming even more twisted and sounding more like a whimpering dog than an actual human being.
In the end, her enunciation mattered little. The man holding the knife was smiling, and he seemed to be getting the gist of it all.
He laughed through his yellow jagged teeth, and so did the two men standing behind him. Despite the woman’s terror, the three men seemed to be enjoying themselves well enough.
On bended knee in front of her, the man with the knife pulled back his blade. “Really?” he said, feigning interest. “You promise? You promise you won’t tell?”
Nodding and crying, she swore it. “I swear. I swear it. I swear I won’t tell. Just let me go. Please, please—I swear it.”
“Hey guys,” he shouted over his shoulder, mindfully keeping an eye glued to the girl and his knife tightly held. “You hear that? She swears she won’t tell. You believe her? I don’t know if I believe it, but she says she swears she won’t tell no-one. I don’t know; maybe we should have her pinky promise.” Bringing his focus back to the crying woman, he could hear the men’s laughter behind him—the skinny one sounding like a squawking bird while the fat one made a crude, dumb joke about some-thing giving some-one a pinky some-where.
The joke was crude and unfunny, and even the man with the knife puckered up his face when he heard it. Still, it didn’t convince him to stop what they were doing or stop him from easing the knife back up to the girl’s neck. “No dice.”
Feeling the metal edge again nipping at her neck and the returning feeling of despair, the girl bit back her words and resumed her whimpering. Although, this time, all she could say was: “No, no, no,” as she shed tears of hopelessness.
“Shut up,” the man growled. “And quit crying. You, you… all you can do is cry and make promises. That’s all you girls ever have. Promises… and tears. But ain’t either one of ‘em is gonna help you now. And neither one can be split three ways.” Again, the two men behind him laughed.
She wailed, “Oh, God, no. No, please no. Please don’t.”
“God?” Again the man chuckled through his stained teeth. “You sit here crying, without any power to stop us or fight back. And all the while, we have the power… and the knife. And now, now you call for God? I’m not seeing your prayers being answered. In fact, as far as I can see… we are your god. We have the power.”
“But my blade is sharper,” a voice whispered into his ear.
Then the knife fell from the man’s hand and tumbled to the ground.
Then, the expression on the man’s face froze, and through his frozen mouth, a low gasping sound trickled out and over his frozen lips.
Then the rest of him followed. The man’s head fell forward and bounced off his thigh on its way down. Finally landing, like a poorly-packed snowball, it splattered on the ground and into a slush of gray and pink ice crystals.
The rest of him went somewhere else, flying through the air and across the alley. Stiff as a mannequin, his body hit the wall hard and splattered into another larger slushy mess.
The fat man standing behind the first man was next. Flung off his feet, he flew backwards through the alley. What happened to Bob? What the hell is happening to me? He wondered, still flailing and falling helplessly through the air. His questions and fear wouldn’t last long and would soon be replaced. Pain exploded through his body, as his back exploded into the protruding side of a dumpster. And after his head finished whipsawing back-and-forth, he fell to the ground.
Through his rattled vision, he watched for what would come next. And despite the mind-numbing pain of hav
ing his spinal cord snapped, he could still make out most of what was happening. A beam of silver light flashed across the alleyway before flashing even brighter—like a floodlight. The light became crisper and darted back-and-forth across the alley. Then shooting behind his friend, the skinny one, the light took him with it. Yanking the lanky man off the ground, the fat one could hear his friend moan, “Uhhhh,” before letting out a scream that echoed through the alleyway. “Ahhh!”
The screaming didn’t last long and would end soon enough, replaced by other sounds… splattering and slushing ones.
As the fat man himself had done earlier, his skinny friend flew through the air. Unlike him though, his friend didn’t end up slamming into the sharp edge of a dumpster. His friend got the wall instead. The skinny man flew through the air and slammed into the backside of a brick building. Then—with his skinny face leading the way—he flew back across the alley and into another brick wall, hitting it even harder than the one before. Splat, slush. And like an exploding snow cone, he splattered into chunks of colorful slush.
Above the pile, chunks of frostbit clothing and human-slush clung to the wall, splattered over the red bricks and between the pale mortar that knitted them together. At the foot of the wall, the colorful mound of slush looked more like a pile of dirty snow than anything that could ever have resembled a man. And it all seemed quite messy. That building, thought the fat man, it’s a Chinese restaurant… I think.
Then the fat man faded out of consciousness and only saw black.
Closer to the crying girl, a different man’s voice—polite and unnaturally calm–hung in the air. “Ma’am,” he said. “It would appear that you dropped your purse.”
Peeking through her shaking fingers, the woman finally opened her eyes and looked. And trying to not think about what just happened or the slushy human head that just splashed and splattered on her, she tried to pay attention. Her purse. Surprised and shocked at everything that just happened, her purse was the first thing she saw.
Her simple-but-classy, little black purse was dangling next to her, hanging from two fingers of an extended hand. Behind it, a man in a black suit was politely smiling down at her. Yet notably and rightfully still shocked, she still hadn’t moved.
“Ma’am,” he repeated, again trying to get her attention. “Ma’am, your purse.” Then he pushed it slightly closer to her.
What the hell just happened? The girl wasn’t completely sure, but finally, though still disoriented and hesitant, her hand crept forward, and she grabbed her purse. “Tha-thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, thank her.” Blackwell stepped aside to reveal a sparkling light, Mea in her silver armor. Behind her, her wings melted into a blanket of white light before taking the form of a swaying white cloak.
And the woman watched as Mea sheathed her sword—this time only needing the one. What the hell just happened? The woman still didn’t know. So she stayed where she was and stared at the warm glowing light.
Slack-jawed and dumbstruck, the woman watched as the brilliant light dimmed into the familiar orange glow of the alleyway and revealed a quite normal-looking young woman. Are you an angel? she thought.
Then the angel spoke. “What the hell’s wrong with you? Why were you walking, alone, down a dark alley in the middle of the night?” Still pumping with adrenaline from the fight, Mea stared daggers at the woman and waited for an answer. She received none. Instead she only saw a weeping, wounded woman curled up in the corner. She was the victim, Mea finally realized. And she realized that she was blaming her for what transpired. “I’m sorry.” Mea took a deep breath to settle her nerves and her words. “Are you okay?”
Shell-shocked, the woman was still a loss for words. Instead of thanking her, the woman slowly pushed herself off the ground and onto her feet. Slowly backing away from Mea and Blackwell, she finally muttered, “Thank you,” before turning around and limping away. And with that, the woman was reminded of her painfully scraped and sprained knee and slowed her pace.
“You’re welcome,” Mea yelled then turned to Blackwell.
“Well,” he said. “Aren’t you the good Sumerian.” He smiled at Mea before he began toeing at the slush on the ground. Melting quickly, the pink and gray slush was now a mix of brain, bloods, and shattered skull.
“Sumerian?” Mea crinkled her face. Sumerian? “It’s Samaritan.”
“Of course, that too.” Blackwell smiled again. “But in the end—” his words were interrupted, and a faint grunting sound drew his attention. The fat one. “Seems that there is still one left.”
The man grunted again with shallow breaths as he tried to scoot away on his hands, dragging his now-dead legs behind him. But too battered and too fat, he quickly gave up and stayed put. “Please,” begged the fat man. “Please don’t kill me. Show mercy. Please-please.”
Mea squatted down next to him. “Mercy? Did you have mercy for that woman?”
“Please, please… We were only going to rob her.” A lie.
“Rob her? And what else? When we showed up, it seemed like you were way past robbing.” Mea hesitated to ask, knowing that the answer would sicken her, but she still asked anyways. “What were you going to do to her?”
“Nah—nothing, we were just toying with her, scaring her.” Two more lies. “I was wrong. I know what we were doing was wrong, but I… we… I’ll never do it again. I promise” Another lie.
Mea’s eyes narrowed and she repeated her question. “What were you going to do to her?”
This time the man didn’t answer and only cried, his lips quivering with shame. He spoke no words, but his thoughts whispered his intentions. And all of them were disgusting, and the man’s thoughts seemed to be beaming directly into Mea’s head, and somehow she just knew. Painfully disgusting thoughts that they were, Mea’s stomach churned as she digested the dark truths of the man. No, not a man, a monster.
Closing her eyes, she shook her head—almost crying—from both disgust and rage. Then, as she opened them and her eyelids lifted, her hazel eyes were gone, replaced by thrashing white flames. Her voice began sounding as vicious as her eyes appeared. “You are a disgusting and vile human, a mortal. And you have drawn the ire of Heaven and the wrath of Hell alike.”
Still crying, fear bubbled up inside the fat man. And he would have very much liked to run away, but he still couldn’t feel his legs. In fact, he couldn’t feel anything below his half-exposed belly.
The words continued to rumble out of Mea’s mouth, coming from somewhere deep and dark inside her. The fat man looked as frightened as any one person could be. His face was covered in sweat and contorted into one smeared in confusion and cowardice. He looked up at Blackwell, hoping for some sort of help. He would not receive any, and when all he ended up seeing was a well-dressed man grinning at him, nodding at him, as the well-dressed man’s eyes lit up red with hellfire.
Mea continued, “You are a cruel man, if you can even be called a man. No, mortal. You are an animal. No. You a cruel corruption that has infected this world… the world of all man has to offer. A cruel joke of civility—but that is okay. Because I am crueler.”
She slammed her very average shoe down on the fat man’s stomach, shattering him into another, fatter, slushier, pile of dirty snowy.
Now it was finished. Mea’s rage dimmed, her eyes returned to normal. But realizing what she had just done, her mood dampened. I just killed three men, three monsters. “Oh god. Oh god. Oh god. What have I done?” Mea held up her hands, shocked at herself, what she had done. Her hands felt funny, so she looked at them. They were shaking uncontrollably. Then Mea stormed out of the alley
A step behind her, Blackwell made light of the matter. “I think you’re coming around to this whole ‘being a god’ thing. At least it looks like you got the vengeful part down alright.”
“They-they-they were going to...” Mea tried to rationalize the person, the god, she was—and that she was becoming. A killer. But her brutality and the lack of humanity in her
actions brewed anxiously inside her. And she resumed storming down the sidewalk. “They, they deserved it.”
“They did,” said Blackwell, following her down the sidewalk. “I never said they didn’t. In fact, that was probably the most righteous thing you could have possibly done. Three monsters masked as man are now dead, and an innocent girl was saved.”
“But I…” killed them.
“Hey.” Blackwell jogged after her and grabbed her shoulders. “What you did was the right thing to do. You know that, right?”
Mea could only look away in shame. “I killed them.”
“You saved a girl.”
“No, that’s not why I did it.” She looked into his eyes, white moons splashed with red—the color of blood. “I did it because I wanted to, because they deserved it. They were monsters. They deserved to die.”
“They were, and they did. Just because men look like mortals does not make them so. Not all monsters are men, but some men are monsters.”
“And some gods are monsters.”
Not sure if she was talking about herself, he nodded sympathetically. “And some look like men.” Blackwell gently squeezed and rubbed her shoulder. He hugged her and whispered into her ear, “They would have done it again. It was the only way.”
It helped a little. Mea looked again into his red-splashed eyes and ran her fingers through his hair. Her paramour, the devil on her shoulder and personal guardian.
“And now…” Blackwell smiled sadly then—being passively mercurial as always—added, “Now I must be going,” and pulled away from her.
“Wait,” Mea whimpered. Facing the back of his shimmering suit jacket, the words seemed to be dripping out of her mouth, like water from a cracked bathtub. “Stay with me, please, just for a little while.” As he faced her, Mea forced a smile. “And didn’t you promise me a sunrise in Paris?”
“I did and… I’ll stay.” Checking his wristwatch, he added, “But unfortunately, I can only stay for a short while. For that, I do apologize. But I have an appointment later tonight, an important one that I cannot miss. I’m supposed to visit an old friend.”
The Long Night of the Gods: Lilith Awakens (Forgotten Ones Book 2) Page 24