by Erik Lynd
It made sense. The lairs in the bigger cities had more lines stretching out from them to connect to other dots around the world. Once he started looking at the whole picture, it began to look a lot like the maps in the back of airline magazines where the airline showed all their routes. He thought he might have a guess as to what the purpose of this room was, but he had no idea how to operate it.
"That's interesting," Hamlin said, He was staring above the door. "I didn't notice that before."
Christopher followed his gaze. There was a small stone above the door. The name 'Bronx" was carved into it. "It's so he could confirm where he was."
"Come again?" Hamlin asked.
Eris smiled. "Ah yes, it makes sense now. But how does it work?"
Christopher examined the cube on the pedestal. It looked as though it was made of one single piece of glass-polished metal. There were no breaks or seams.
"Somebody want to let me in on the secret?" Hamlin asked.
Christopher touched the cube gingerly. It was warm, as though heated by an internal power. The Hellpower inside of him surged forward, but not in the uncontrolled, wild way that almost caused him to kill Hamlin. It was as though it was reaching out to a kindred spirit. And when the two powers met, the room started vibrating gently, not like an earthquake, but like a large power waking up.
The cube moved and Christopher jerked his hand back. It moved first one way, then the next in a seemingly random pattern on the stone platform upon which it rested. Then, as the rumbling got louder, it stopped its random jerking movements and lifted into the air. From within the hovering cube, a light emerged as though the cube was really a crystalline structure with a bright light in the center.
The center of the stone frame, just a few feet from the cube, darkened. In moments it was too opaque to see through, and the area inside was filled by swirling shadows, similar to the door they had come through when they entered the lair.
"I think it’s a way to travel, but I am not sure how to operate it," Christopher said. Strangely, this display of power didn't make him nervous. Everything else he had experienced in the last few weeks had shaken him up—the power of the Book, the seed of Hell power inside of him, and of course the soul thirsty single mindedness of the Weapon. This was different, he had no doubt it was created with the power of Hell, just like everything else he had seen since opening the Book, but rather than fear, he felt fascination.
"What? You mean you step through that inky stuff and you end up somewhere else?" Hamlin asked.
"Yeah, maybe," Christopher said.
"It would make sense," Eris said. "As much as it might seem so at times, I doubt all escaped souls from Hell would take up New York as their residence. They must be all over the world, and I don't see him booking airline flights everywhere. That would take too much time."
"Besides, nowadays they wouldn't let him take the Weapon on board, even in its pocket knife form,” Christopher said. He suddenly felt a huge weight on his shoulders. It was enough for him to moan and lean against the wall with sudden weakness.
"What's wrong?" Hamlin asked.
"Nothing…I mean, everything. It just suddenly became clear to me. Like I said before, up to this point we have been thinking locally about this job. Now this...this thing just drove home how this is a global thing. I will have to hunt over the entire world. How can one guy do that? Especially a mistake like me?"
"Now hold on, kid. We don't even know if this really is a device to travel. And even if it is, we just have to hold it together and take it one step at a time."
"You're right. We don't know for sure what this thing is," Christopher said. "Time to find out."
He approached the cube and carefully touched it again with his hand. Again, it felt as though the power inside of him reached out to touch whatever power resided in the stone. Once the two powers met, the wall map flared to life. Or one area of it did, anyway. He felt no pain or danger, just the flow of power between himself and the cube. With building confidence, he placed his whole hand on top of it, as though holding it from the top.
The area on the map grew even brighter and tendrils of power drifted from the wall to the cube. Eris, who was closest to that area of the wall, examined it. She chuckled. "Makes sense. I think it’s Vegas. The last place you were thinking about."
"Well, I guess there’s only one way to find out. Although this wasn't exactly the way I thought my first trip would go," Christopher said.
"We can get you strippers and shots next time," Hamlin said. "Are you sure about this?"
"That's why we came, right? I mean, I don't know if this device will help me fight the werehound, but we did come to learn as much as we could about what I’m supposed to be doing. This seems like an important tool."
"I suppose," Hamlin said a little reluctantly.
Christopher let go of the cube. The faint flow of power lines continued to move from the wall to the cube. He walked towards the black doorway. With one quick look back at Hamlin, whose face was covered with a concerned scowl, and Eris, whose smile seemed a little more in awe than afraid, he stepped through the doorway.
As he entered the blackness, there was a great rushing sound like the roar of a river, but it wasn't through his ears that he heard it. It was as though the rumbling noise he had heard in the room was all around him, vibrating though his whole body. There was nothing around him, just darkness, and utterly complete blackness, not of night, but of emptiness. He also had a sense that the blackness stretched on forever, infinite darkness. For that brief second of nothingness, he was suddenly afraid. Afraid it would never end.
Then he was standing in a room similar to the one he had just left. The same carved walls, but the stone was slightly different. A similar cube floated above the pedestal in the center of the room. There were some differences besides the color of the stone. The pedestal, for example, was a little taller and narrower that the one in the Bronx. Speaking of which. He looked above the door.
"Well I'll be damned," Christopher said.
Above the exit door was a carved stone with the name Las Vegas on it. He was tempted to leave the room, have a look around at this lair and maybe of the city outside. But he had to get back quickly, they would be worried. Before returning he had one last test.
He grabbed hold of the floating cube. The tendrils of power that had been snaking towards what looked like New York on the map drifted quickly to a new location. For this test he had thought he should try something further away, out of the country. He decided on Paris.
He was not sure exactly what he should do, so he tried to picture things that made him think of Paris. He envisioned the Eiffel Tower and the glass pyramid outside the Louvre. The power lines connecting the cube to the wall slid quickly across the map. From where he stood, it looked like a carving of France.
He stepped through the black door once again. He had that same sensation of infinity and that roaring through his body and then he was standing in another cube room. This one was much older. The stone walls were more worn and cracked, but still functional as the tendrils of power reaching from the wall to the floating cube proved. A thick layer of dust covered the ground around the pedestal. It seems the Beast had not been here in a while to clean.
Above the door leading out was another carved stone, but this time it was in a script Christopher did not recognize. He thought it might be Latin. It might be Paris, but since he didn't read Latin it was impossible to tell. The only solution was to peek outside.
The door from this room was also different from the one in New York. For one thing, the whole room appeared older, including the door. This made sense, the city was much older. The door was also made from stone. There was no handle, just an old partially rusted metal lever in the wall next to it. It looked like it might still work, so it must have been a fairly modern replacement.
Only one way to find out.
He pulled the lever, and the door swung outward with a great grinding sound. It moved slowly, but sure
ly. Whatever mechanism controlled it seemed to have survived the ages. He looked through the door and realized a flaw in his plan.
It was pitch black, and he had no light. The room he was in was lit faintly by the power in the walls and cube. Enough to see his way about the room, but not strong enough to penetrate the darkness beyond the door.
Hoping to find a light switch, he stepped cautiously into the darkness. It smelled dusty and faintly of incense. He reached along the wall, blindly looking for a light switch and discovered the wall was covered with protrusions, like random rocks jutting out from the wall, some with smooth round surfaces. But no light switch.
Gradually, his eyesight adjusted, and the light from the cube room was enough for him to see faint shapes on the wall of the room. Then he had an idea.
Without touching the Weapon in his pocket, he drew on the power inside of him. He wrapped himself in the Hell power. In the past it had given him enhanced physical abilities, and this time was no different. Apparently, one of his gifts was the ability to see better in the dark. Suddenly, the room beyond became clear.
The walls were made of bones, human bones. From floor to ceiling skulls, femurs, humerus, and other indistinct anatomy parts covered the walls. The wall he had touched looking for a switch was covered with skulls as well. With a startled cry, he jumped back into the cube room and pulled the lever.
"What the fuck was that?" Christopher said out loud over the sound of the door closing. The Beast dude was way more fucked up than he had thought. Who keeps all those bones in their home or lair?
A creature born of Hell I guess, thought Christopher. Were those all dead Dark Souls? Or were they mortals? What was he doing with all those bodies? Why would he keep bodies like a mausoleum?
It slowly dawned on him. Not a mausoleum, catacombs. This lair was in Paris, specifically in the famous catacombs under the city.
He leaned against the wall in relief and was thankful nobody was there to see the Hunter of Lost Souls, Lord of Damnation, Bringer of Hell on Earth scream like a little girl when he saw a bunch of old bodies.
It was time to get back.
He placed his palm on the cube and opened a door back to New York.
They ran at him when he got back. Hamlin slapped him on the back, relief relaxing his face. "Jesus kid, we thought we'd lost you."
Eris had tears running down her cheeks. She held onto him for a noticeably long time.
"What's going on? I was only gone a few minutes." Christopher asked.
"A few moments after you went through, the room just suddenly went dead," Hamlin said. "The light, the sounds, everything. The cube fell back to the pedestal."
"We were worried you had died," Eris said.
"No, I was fine. But I did get to Vegas and then took a side trip to Paris," Christopher said.
"Paris?" Hamlin asked.
"Yeah, as a test."
"I've always wanted to go to Paris," Eris said. "How was it?"
"Dead. Literally. The Lair is in the catacombs under the city. I didn't really get a chance to look around."
"Ew," Eris said.
"I think it’s safe to assume that all the locations on the map are connected by this... whatever it is. And we can travel to all the points. But not all the points are as large as this. The one in the catacombs was just a cube room from what I could tell."
Hamlin nodded, but something about his posture was different, something was off. Then he realized Hamlin was exhausted. He looked over at Eris and could tell she was running on fumes herself.
"We need to figure out next steps," Hamlin started.
"Next step is for you guys to get some rest. I've had a couple of unfortunate naps, but you guys have been pushing it. You two need some sleep, and then we plan next steps. I think we learned a lot about my predecessor here and found a cool toy, but I'm not sure it helps us defeat the monster chasing me."
"Hell, with that thing you could run forever and he would never catch up to you," Hamlin said.
"No I can't. I really can't. It doesn't matter what I think anymore, I have no choice. Whether I am ready or not, it doesn't matter. The stakes are raised, my eyes are opened, and my world just got a whole lot bigger. I need to find a way to stop this thing. I need to master this power. From Hell or not, this power is all that is standing between humanity and Hell on earth."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Anabelle was pacing back and forth in her living room. She ignored the luxurious carpet gently cradling her delicate toes, any other day that would have been her favorite part of being in this room. The afternoon sun blazed into the room through the large floor-to-ceiling windows. On any other day she would have loved the sunlight warming her body. But today it just hurt her eyes.
Her normally perfect hair was escaping in loose strands from her ponytail. Her flawless skin shifted from smooth porcelain to cracked and bleeding cadaver gray, the occasional puss-leaking sore sprouting on her face. She let her glamour flicker on and off as she walked and thought, or tried to think. One moment she was the beautiful, powerful woman all men loved and desired, the next she was the twisted and deformed crone of her true self. If she hadn't been alone, she would have held her glamour in place with an iron hand. She would never allow another to see her true figure. But not today, not right now. Right now she was worried. No, that was too weak. She was terrified.
This was taking too long and becoming too messy.
Ammit was becoming too careless, too confident. It was spiraling out of her control. Ammit was killing, the bodies were piling up and it had only been two days. Already the media was all over it, local and national news reporting the mangled bodies mauled by a horrible, vicious animal that no expert could identify. Bear was loose! Tigers in New York! The news ran with anything they could find on it.
Golyat would have seen it by now. He would be calling. No, he would be coming for her any moment. She had broken the laws, she and her creation had exposed them. Part of her tried to dwell on what went wrong. Where had she lost control of the beast? She could almost hear Golyat telling her it was because she dabbled in things she did not understand.
That made her laugh, although it came out more like a hysterical giggle.
They all dabbled in things they did not understand.
She had to run. This was stupid. She had waited, hoping the Ammit would come back before doing more damage. She had thought he would come back for guidance. She needed to gain control again, she could make this right. She could rule the council. If all she did was hold it together.
But there was another reason she waited. She waited for him. The only man she had ever truly loved, truly desired. And it had taken her to Hell and back to know what real desire was. She knew it deep down, that was why she waited. She needed him right now. And like in all great fairy tales it happened.
"Why do you fret, love?" came a voice from the shadows. Shadows that should not exist in the middle of the afternoon, shadows that shouldn't exist in the bright open room in which she stood. Shadows that existed nonetheless.
She knew the voice, like honey over the top and the hottest of spice underneath. The owner of that voice was tall, powerful and more handsome than any man, mortal or otherwise, she had ever met. Simple words from him, just the tone was enough to make her fall apart. She pulled her glamour tight about her but also fell to the ground simply from relief. He had come to her. He would take her up in those strong arms, effortlessly holding her against his chest. It was there that she found her greatest happiness. She would gladly claw her way out of Hell a hundred times just to be held in this man's arms.
And he was there, lifting her and then crushing her against his chest in that good way that only a lover would understand.
"There, there love. What is the matter? Why do you shake so?" the man asked.
"Oh Jax, it’s all a mess. Our plan, it’s so messy," she said. A part of her hated how weak she was around this man. But mostly she didn't care, he loved her and would protect her. If she
couldn't trust him, then it was all over.
"Shhhh love, it will all be over soon," Jax said.
"No, no you don't understand," she pulled back and looked up at him. God he was handsome. Dark hair, darker than the shadows around him. Eyes so blue that they had to be carved out of sapphire. Strong jaw and chiseled face. He was perfect and she knew, from her own experience, that it was not glamour, this was his true face. "Ammit, the one you instructed me to create, has become a liability. He is running amok in the city, killing indiscriminately."
"Love, you must calm yourself," Jax crooned, and she did start to feel calmer. Jax was here now, he would tell her what to do.
"I... I was worried you wouldn't come back. That you had helped me start my plan in motion and... and deserted me."
"No, no love. Never. I would never leave you for long. That is why I returned, I had hoped to rejoin you at your moment of triumph. But I find you like this. How it pains me to see my love this way."
"I know. I know, but that beast you taught me how to make with the soul shaper. I thought I could control it, like I do every other man. But it is taking too long to find the Hunter."
"Is the Hunter this powerful then? I had thought to return and see you leading the Alliance. Has the boy grown with such strength?"
She laughed, again with more than a little hysteria, and wiped away tears. "No, that’s just it. He is weak, like a baby. We almost had him once, but we let him get away. After that he has evaded us with a combination of dumb luck and help from his mortal friends."
Jax stroked her head and instantly she was soothed. He kissed her on the head with lips both gentle and cold. That was him, warmth in his voice, but his body was always cold like stone. He even smelled like stone mingled with herbs. Most of their kind knew only ugliness and stink, their time in Hell either corrupting or purifying them, depending on whom you asked, beyond their mortal transgressions. With Jax, though, it was different. He knew beauty and he had shown it to her whenever possible. He was one of the ancients, she did not know when he had escaped Hell, but it was long before she had, long before any in the current Alliance had. Somehow he had evaded the Beast. He had more knowledge than all of them combined she thought.