The Holy Dark

by Kyoko M

  The ferryman brought us up to the dock that led into the city and we hopped off. Belial tilted his head towards us, his voice a mere whisper. “Stay close. Do not engage them or they’ll use it as an excuse to tear you apart.”

  With that, he led us onto the streets of Dis. I kept my gaze on the sandstone road, but I could see all manner of creatures in my peripheral vision. Some were giants with multiple eyes and toothless gums. Some were hunched over goat-like creatures with pits for eyes and curved horns. Some were beautiful women with pale blue skin and hair made of water. Some were children with rosy cheeks and flowers for clothes. One kid in RayBans and overalls chewed a red apple as he watched us pass by. All of them reeked of sin and death.

  They whispered in excited voices as we headed for the capital, and soon we had a mob following behind us. Several offered Belial ridiculous amounts of gold to have Michael to themselves. One threatened to tear out my spine and wear it like a scarf. Another begged Belial to “give him the nigger girl,” which raised my hackles more than a little, but I suppressed the urge to yell insults back at him and kept my eyes down.

  An old, hunched over woman with green skin, two mouths, and three yellow eyes stepped in front of Belial, wringing her hands in supplication. “Surely the master does not need two archangels to play with. Sweet, handsome Belial, will you not bargain with us humble merchants?”

  He glared at her. “You dare block my path, hag? You dare intercept me on the way to fulfill my master’s orders?”

  “I mean no harm, archdemon. I only ask that you share the spoils.”

  “I did the work. I alone reap the benefits. Stand aside, or be torn asunder.”

  The argument captured my attention so thoroughly that I didn’t notice the mob behind us was creeping closer until something slimy touched my ankle. I reached for Michael’s hand to alert him, but then my legs were snatched out from under me.

  I screamed as something dragged me away. The force of the movement snapped the chain around my neck. I couldn’t stop whatever it was from pulling me into the darkness of a nearby alley.

  The last thing I saw was the mob engulfing Michael and his hand reaching for mine.

  I thrashed and struggled as a thick green tentacle dragged me down a narrow alley. It had latched on so tight that my toes went numb. There was no hope of getting it off without something sharp. The cobblestone on the ground scraped my back and hands, as I tried to find something to hold onto.

  The alleyway wasn’t like the ones in Albany with dumpsters and trash. Instead, it was littered with gold and gemstones, cast aside for whatever reason.

  The end of the alley was less than ten feet away. I spotted a diamond the size of my fist as I slid past and grabbed it, forcing myself upward. I stabbed the tentacle once, twice, thrice, until bluish-black blood squirted out. A howling scream tore through the air and the tentacle loosened enough that I could kick it off.

  I stood up on wobbly legs to run back towards the main street and help Michael, but the tentacle knocked me down again. I hit the floor on my belly, grimacing as pain lanced through my injured spine.

  The scrabbling sound of claws resounded behind me. I turned to see the same old woman who had stopped Belial standing there. The tentacle came from her mouth on the left, and one of her three eyes was glowing bright. All at once, I understood what she had probably done—created an illusion to distract Belial while she attacked.

  “Pretty. So pretty. You will fetch a fine price for me, pretty one.” The hag smirked, her clawed hands flexing in anticipation. Her tentacle flopped around near my feet, twitching as the blood continued to pour from the wounds I had inflicted. I’d hurt her, but clearly not enough to discourage her. “You’re a fighter, aren’t you? They like fighters. They’ll like you a lot, pretty one.”

  I swallowed hard, backpedaling on my hands and feet like a crab. “Who will?”

  “My buyers. Hell gets boring sometimes. They like having new souls to play with, and Seers are always delicious.”

  “Sorry, lady, but I’m not for sale.”

  Her mouth on the right gaped with a toothy grin. “Everyone has a price.”

  Her tentacle darted towards me again. I rolled to the side and it missed. I slammed the sharp end of the diamond into it again. She shrieked. I used the couple of seconds she was distracted and jumped to my feet.

  I kicked her in the face with all my might, sending her flying into the wall behind us. She hit hard, cracking the marble, and her tentacle smacked her in the nose. Nailed it.

  “Insolent bug!” she spat, shoving herself up. “I’ll sell you cheap now!”

  She hit my right shoulder with the end of the tentacle, smashing me into the wall. I cried out in pain, but managed to dodge as it tried to wrap around me again. In all our haste to prepare for Hell, I never asked if blood spells or incantations worked here. Time to find out.

  “In the name of the Father, I reject!” I shouted, holding out my hand as she attacked yet again. The tentacle slapped me in the solar plexus, hard enough to crack ribs, and I crumpled to the ground.

  She came closer, chuckling with fat drops of green slime edging out of her wrinkled lips. “The Father cannot hear you in Hell, my pretty. You are alone. Come willingly and I’ll sell you to the nicest buyer I know.”

  “Sorry,” I wheezed back, clutching my abdomen. “Not for sale, bitch.”

  I leapt at her with all my strength and plunged the diamond into her glowing eye. She screamed and hit the ground, rolling back and forth in agony. I didn’t wait to see if I’d killed her. I hobbled down the other end that I’d come from, ignoring the stinging pangs that clawed my chest when I moved.

  “Michael!” I called, scooping up a ruby the size of a tangerine along the way. “Michael! Can you hear me?”

  I stumbled and fell, moaning as the pain worsened. I couldn’t stop. I had to find my husband. I had to save him.

  Give up, the satiny voice of Hell said. You will never save him. He’s gone.

  “Shut up,” I growled, shoving myself onto my knees. I crawled towards the faint light at the end of the alley, one leg and arm at a time, slowly but surely getting closer. My eyelids fluttered as I saw a small shape walking towards me. The pain consumed me. I collapsed on the ground, my lover’s name on my lips as the darkness devoured me whole.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  JORDAN

  I awoke in a bed that was two sizes too small for my body. My feet hung over the edge—sore, caked with dried blood and filth. The grogginess running through my veins made it hard to open my eyes. I waited until my head cleared and then tried to focus on my surroundings.

  The first thing I saw was a poster of Barney the Dinosaur on the ceiling.

  Uh.

  Okay.

  I blinked a few times just to make sure I was seeing correctly, unable to keep from muttering, “I must’ve hit my head pretty hard when I fell.”

  “You did.”

  A chipper young voice spoke to my right. I tilted my head and caught sight of a blonde boy no more than seven years old standing there in a white t-shirt and blue jean overalls, crunching into a red apple. His eyes were hidden by RayBan sunglasses and he couldn’t have been four feet tall. The kid from the street.

  “Hi,” I said in a cautious tone.

  He smiled. Dimples showed in both of his round cheeks. “Hi. How ya feelin’, lady?”

  “Confused and sore,” I admitted, sitting up. The bed was a bright red race car, which explained why an average adult female couldn’t fit in it. The room had all the signs of belonging to a prepubescent boy—buckets spilling over with Legos and K’Nex, toy dinosaurs on the floor, model airplanes hanging from fish wire, and walls decorated with posters of children’s icons ranging from Optimus Prime to Donatello the Ninja Turtle. Although Barney threw me for a loop. No kid idolized that thing.

  My ribs stung a bit, but not nearly as much as they had when I was in the alley. The soul tether had lost quite a few threads, but it was still a
solid weight around me.

  I raked a hand through my hair, squinting at the kid. “Where am I?”

  “Safe,” he said through a mouthful of fruit.

  “How long have I been out?”

  “A while.”

  I resisted the urge to sigh. Children were not known for their accuracy, after all. “Who brought me here?”

  “I did.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is that right?”

  “Sure. I’m stronger than I look.” He wandered over to the impressive crane made out of an Erector Set and picked up a long piece of metal. Setting the apple aside, he then twisted it into a perfect bow and showed it to me. The blood drained out of my face. Oh, goody. Mighty Mouse on steroids. Like I didn’t have enough problems.

  “Cool, huh?” the kid asked.

  “Yeah. Cool. I don’t mean to be rude, but why did you save me? It might be dangerous for you. The other demons out there want my head on a plate.”

  The kid picked up the apple again and continued munching away. “I wanted to know why you’re here. You weren’t dragged in like Gabriel. You walked alongside Belial. We don’t see that a lot around here.”

  Again, my Spidey-sense went a-tingling. Something was deeply wrong here. I licked my dry lips and surreptitiously checked for an exit. The door was about eight feet away, but the kid was partially in the way. If he wanted me to stay, he could do it with no problem. I’d have to outsmart him.

  “I’m his prisoner.”

  “You don’t look like a prisoner.”

  I bristled. “How many prisoners have you seen?”

  “Lots, I guess. This is Hell.”

  “Point taken. Belial brought me here for his master so he can be returned to his former honor.”

  He cocked his head to the side. “Then what’s that gold rope around your waist?”

  Shit. He was smarter than I thought. “It’s a spell that went wrong.”

  “Mm-hmm.” He finished the apple and tossed it into a nearby trashcan overflowing with apple cores. Flies buzzed around in a flock as the new one hit the pile.

  “Wanna know what I think, lady?”

  “Sure.”

  He placed his hands on the bed, leaning in to peer into my face. It took considerable amounts of willpower not to back away. His breath smelled of apples and stale blood. I suppressed a shudder as the scent brushed my nose.

  “I think you’re planning something. Something big.”

  I cleared my throat. “What makes you say that?”

  “People aren’t as calm as you when they get here. They scream. They cry. They beg for mercy. They bargain. But not you. I saw you and that old hag. You fought her because you were scared. People in Hell don’t do that. After they figure out that they’re here forever, they give up and accept their fate. They bore me. You don’t. You’re different. You want to live. Why? What do you have to live for, lady?”

  I took a deep breath. “I…I need to find my husband. Thank you for helping me. May I please leave?”

  He didn’t move for almost half a minute. Then he dropped his hands. “Okay. But only after you play Candyland with me.”

  Relief spread through my tired body. “Sure.”

  I tossed back the covers and he brought the game down from on top of his table. He set up the pieces and let me choose one. It was the original Candyland, and I wasn’t surprised since he had a lot of out-of-date toys scattered around—Silly Putty, Etch-a-Sketch, Teddy Ruxpin (whom I always found to be terrifying, personally), Madballs, and an entire pantheon of action figures. He seemed firmly stuck in the 1980’s. I supposed every demon had a fixation with an aspect of human culture, like how Belial appeared to like Japanese culture while Mulciber favored European culture.

  “So,” I said after choosing a card. “Why a child? Can’t demon souls appear as anything they want in Hell? Y’know, grow and shrink and whatnot?”

  “Childhood is the most interesting stage in human life,” the kid answered in a far more mature tone. “It’s all about development. Building the foundation. Molding the clay. Children are blueprints. They are the beginning of everything great and terrible on the earth above.”

  “True. Childhood grooms us into who we’re going to be someday.”

  “Exactly,” he smiled, exposing those dimples again. “It’s much easier to corrupt people into monsters if you start early.”

  I swallowed and forced myself not to look at the bedroom door. Game first, escape later.

  “Right.”

  He didn’t say anything for a while as we continued playing, but then he picked up as if compelled to tell me more about himself. “That’s my job, you know. I coordinate things for other demons to help turn people into their natural rotten selves. It’s thankless work.”

  “I bet.”

  “Sometimes it doesn’t take much. A whisper here, and nudge there, and people show their true colors. It doesn’t always take a dead parent, despite what Disney may think.”

  I almost snorted. “Got that right.”

  “That’s why it was so easy to convince our boss that we should do that instead of going to war again. Moloch’s such a bonehead. He’ll never win, even if he gets a second chance. He only sees one road. One path. One solution. Life is more like Candyland. It winds back and forth. Sometimes you go forward. Sometimes you go backwards. But there’s always something at the end. There’s always a winner or a loser. It’s not about fate or destiny. It’s about luck. It’s about chance. Belial understands that. He plans for life’s little wrinkles. That’s why I like him.”

  “He is a dapper fellow. Well, look at that. You won.”

  “I did!” he cheered, clapping his hands together. “That was fun. We should do it again someday.”

  “Yeah.” I stood up, eyeing him as he did the same. “Now, uh, where am I?”

  “No sweat. You’re not far from Pandemonium. Take a right out of here and follow the street back to the main boulevard. You’ll be able to see the entrance from there.”

  “And I know I’m asking for a lot, but…do you have something I can defend myself with?”

  The kid rubbed his chin and then snapped his fingers. “Oh, I know!”

  He went over to the basket in the corner full of apples and rooted through them until he withdrew a tiny, brown, withered one. He slapped it in my palm. I stared.

  “Just throw this at anything that attacks you. Trust me, they’ll be sorry.”

  I tucked it in my pocket. “Thanks. I’d…better get going.”

  “Okay. Bye, lady!”

  I waved and headed for the door with pep in my step. Surprisingly, the door led straight out—no kitchen, den, foyer, or anything. I shut it and stepped away to see that the outside was designed like a gingerbread house. I shuddered one last time and hurried down the stone path towards the street.

  There was no one around at the moment, but I knew that wouldn’t last long. I thought about suppressing my spiritual energy, but it’d be pointless. The golden thread was a dead giveaway that I wasn’t a demon or a tortured soul. I needed to find Michael before someone found me and dragged me off to become a slave.

  Two raspy voices reached my ears, so I darted into a nearby bush just outside of the kid’s house, listening in.

  “—got to hurry or all the juicy parts will be over! It’s not every day that someone bags Michael the archangel!”

  “Shut your gob! We’ll get there when we get there, alright?”

  I peeked out to see a two-headed goblin thing being pulled down the street in a cart by a black horse the size of a young giraffe. The two heads argued so animatedly that they didn’t see me grab hold to a hanging bar beneath them. I flattened myself up against the bottom of the cart and held on as it rode through the streets, praying no one looked underneath.

  They rode down several roads until they reached beyond the city limits. Brown grass and then dead cornstalks scraped my back and shoulders. We were in a field somewhere.

  The horse snorted as it cam
e to a stop and flames shot out of its snout, nearly scaring me off the bottom of the cart. The goblin—still arguing—climbed off and disappeared into the cornfield.

  I waited until its voices were gone and then let go, sliding out from under the cart. The horse gave a start, but I stroked its mane until it calmed down.

  There was an old barn on the hill to my right, and the way the stalks wiggled meant that my ugly friend was heading in that direction. I stayed low and followed at a distance, waiting until it opened the huge, creaking red doors before coming out. I caught the distant roar of a crowd when the doors were open. No way I could fight them all, not without my powers and not without backup. Time for recon.

  Mildewy stacks of hay to feed the hellhorses were piled against one end of the barn. I found a pitchfork and untied one of the bales to use the rope. I hefted the makeshift grapple in my hand and threw it at the top of the barn as hard as I could. The metal prongs bit through the old wood and stuck. I tugged the rope twice for science and concluded that it would (probably) stay put. I scaled the wall as quickly as I could, just in case more demons were on their way.

  The upper level of the barn was small and stank to high heaven thanks to the feces of some unidentified pest. I breathed through my mouth and retrieved the pitchfork before ducking inside. It was only one floor above ground level—high enough that it would hurt to jump down, but not cripple me. I crouched on the landing above the rafters and peeked down into the crowd below. What I saw made my blood sizzle.

  Michael’s bare chest dripped with bloody scratches, as if someone had drawn their claws down the length of his abdomen. His muscular frame was stretched out in the typical symbolic fashion—hands outward, feet hanging crucifixion style. Nails had been driven through his wrists to hold him upright. His beautiful silver wings were still dirty from the blood-rain and drooped on either side of his back. A few links dangled from the manacle at his throat.

  The sizeable throng of demons stood about five feet away from him, all of them whistling and clucking like they were at a strip club. I counted twelve. A curvaceous woman with water for hair stood to his left, her purple lips stretched wide in a grin.