by J D Franx
Having enough of her cryptic garbage, Kael took several steps to move closer to the woman. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“Use your magic, and you’ll have your answer. I cannot use magic, they will know.”
“Who will know?” he snapped, realizing for the first time since arriving in the afterlife that his anger was much closer to the surface.
“Demons, Kael! This isn’t Heaven! You have bought into this illusion with everything you have.”
“You’re insane,” Kael retorted.
“Stop. You know who I am, don’t you? I know you do.”
“You’re familiar, nothing more,” he said as the woman put her hand to her hood.
“You know me, Kael, you do. I heard you when you said a prayer for me and wished me an afterlife of peace.”
“Impossible...” he stammered. As the hood fell back he recognized her. “Jasala Vyshaan...”
“Yes. And if I’m here after what I did in my mortal life, then where are we?”
Kael’s thoughts came crashing together as the reality of who he was looking at settled in. “You’re the most evil DeathWizard who ever lived. You’re the boogeyman of Talohna!”
“Well, that is nice to know. And after all I sacrificed for mortal-kind.” She scoffed, but Kael could see the hurt in her eyes. “If so, what does all that mean?”
He shook his head as his mind whirled at the complications. Footsteps behind him made him glance over his shoulder.
“Kael?” Max called from between the wooden cottages. “You all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Kael turned back toward Jasala, but she was gone. It was as if she was never there.
“Yeah… maybe. Thinking about ghosts of the past, I guess.”
“Not worth thinking about anymore, buddy,” Max answered. “Come on. We have an afternoon of heavenly fishing ahead of us.”
“Yeah, on my way,” he said quietly as he stared at where he had last seen Jasala standing. No longer as naive as he used to be, he would never take anyone’s word at face value. It would only be a mistake. Unsure of what else to do, he shook his head clear of the situation and followed after Max.
HELL
8TH DIMENSION, YEAR 30
“You are sure you want to continue with this, mistress?” The large demon layered in scales paced nervously around the demon queen’s putrid cave.
“What is your concern, Taymahk?”
“I fear you take too many chances, Mistress Reetha. This creature is not typical of his kind. Should he break free of the illusion, we will not be able to control him. This is not the living world. If he realizes what he is capable of here... we will lose Kroa lives and we are already outnumbered in the eternal fight. Kael can decimate us here, possibly even destroy our Hell.”
The demon queen turned and snapped. Her vicious jaws missed tearing his face from his skull by a single inch. “Just worry about keeping the female away from him, and we’ll have nothing to worry about. The illusions will hold. He has no reason to be suspicious. and his soul is at peace. He wants this reality to exist with all he has. It tightens the grip the illusion has on him. Just... keep... her... under... control.”
The demon bowed. “The female is secure.” The demon queen glared, and her eyes bored into the demon commander. “At least, as secure as we can make her. Her strength of will is surprising, much closer to his than others of their race.” The demon queen hissed at him, her jaws dripping toxic venom. “Yes, Mistress. I will personally make sure she remains secure.”
“Yes, you will. We have made a deal with the Ri’Tek. They will take as many black power stones as we can provide. In return, the souls of those they kill will come here to us. Except for the woman, all the souls of the black ones have been depleted. They will take many millennia to recharge. Draining this DeathWizard’s soul is the only way to fill the energy stones the Ri’Tek use to power their magic.”
The demon commander persisted. “But surely keeping both here is a mistake, no? Rajazeye would gladly take the woman, and he will still pass the odd stone she produces to you, my queen. The threat will lessen for the few Kroa that are left.”
“Risking these two being here is a small price to pay to acquire more souls. The Ri’Tek conquest of Talohna will make the 8th Hell a true power once more. It will let us keep Garz’x at bay while we work to bring the Archdemon home.”
Taymahk bowed as Reetha’s form shifted. Her height vanished, and her several legs retreated into her body until a nude young woman stood in her place. Coils of red hair grew from her head, blazing in the cave’s fire light as it stopped halfway down her back.
“I will make sure the female remains in her nightmare and is allowed nowhere near him,” he said.
“Good,” Reetha replied. Her voice, her body, and her face were an exact match to that of the woman Ember. “I will return to the Dreamscape and keep a close eye on Kael.”
Still holding his bow, Taymahk backed away carefully before he turned and left the queen alone so she could ready herself for the transition back to the Dreamscape.
Kael struggled to stay awake while he leaned against a tree and watched the tip of his fishing rod. With his dreams still plagued by nightmares, sleep was not something he desired although he needed it. He sat up and yawned, attempting to banish the fugue of exhaustion assaulting him.
“You should have gotten up earlier.” Max pointed out. “Too late for good fishing already.”
Kael laughed at the asinine comment. They had never gone fishing early back home. “Maybe. I just figured the fishing would always be good in heaven.”
Max quickly glanced his way with a frown, but it immediately turned into a laugh. “Guess not. Or perhaps you’re just as much bad luck here as you were back home.” Max cackled, and Kael couldn’t help but join him.
“Perhaps,” Kael said, shrugging. “Think you’ve been here too long, you’re starting to speak native.”
“That is completely possible. But you’re still bad luck.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Kael chuckled.
Max got up, and he pulled his rod from its stand and brought his line in. “I’m gonna go for a run and then get ready for supper. You coming?”
“God, no,” Kael said, frowning. “Why the hell would I want to go for a run? Had enough of that when I was alive. Never bloody running again.”
“Yeah, of course. Sorry,” Max replied. “All right, bro. See you at supper. You sure it’s all right with Ember?”
“Her idea, so I’m pretty sure. Good thing I remembered her spices though.”
Max laughed and headed back toward town, disappearing among the trees a minute later. Kael sat back against his tree and relaxed. It took only seconds before his eyes drooped, and he nearly fell asleep, again.
Jerking awake, he shook his head and yawned. “Holy cow, why am I so tired all of a sudden?”
“Because of the nightmares.”
He recognized the voice to his right without even having to look. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“No,” Jasala said. “I don’t.”
“Well, you should. You’re wasting both our time.”
“I have nothing but time.” She laughed. “And I would much rather be here than the alternative.”
“What do you want from me?” Kael demanded.
“For you to wake up,” Jasala answered.
“I am awake. Tired, but awake.”
“Not awake as in sleeping, Kael. Awake as in this illusion around you. I understand you had a rough time before you died, and you want this,” she said, turning her finger to indicate all around them. “I know you want it more than anything, but it’s not real.”
“Close enough,” he replied
“The nightmares. You still have them?”
“Yeah.”
“Demons tearing you apart? Pain? Agony?”
“Yeah.”
“The demon who controls this hell drains our power by creating strong emotion, both good w
hen you are awake and bad while you sleep.”
“Oh... okay, then,” Kael muttered, getting up to pack his fishing gear. He could see Jasala’s frustration growing.
“You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed the subtle differences in your friend and your wife, Kael. Listen to me—”
“No. Stop bothering me. If this is hell, then they can have my power. I don’t care. I don’t want it. I’m happy here, and the nightmares are nothing compared to what I suffered in the real world. It’s a small price to pay to be with those I love.” He grabbed his fishing rod and tackle box and turned to leave.
“It won’t stay like this forever, Kael. Once the demon drains enough of your power, this,” she circled her hand to gesture around her, “will all end, and your real suffering will begin.”
He shook his head but refused to look back as she screamed at him.
“Kael! It won’t last.”
Sighing with relief when no further words came from her mouth, he tried to clear his mind of the strange conversation while he walked home. He refused to believe it was not real. Ember was everything he remembered, and Max was mostly his same old self. They had been through a lot so a little change was not surprising. As he arrived home, he forced the thoughts from his mind and focused on the night ahead with his family.
Opening the door to their small home, Kael grinned when he saw Max was already there.
“Fell back to sleep by the river again, didn’t you?” Max teased.
“Uh, yeah. Taking some time to catch up on sleep, I guess,” he replied.
Ember rushed out of the kitchen with her hand out and a frantic frown on her face. He tossed her the spices he was responsible for and winked as she blew him a kiss.
“You two relax on the front porch, and I’ll bring you some drinks,” she ordered. Her tone was playful as she nodded toward the front door.
“Yes, Mom,” Max replied, adding a mock bow. Kael smiled to himself at the familiar sign of affection the two had shared long before Talohna had taken over their lives. He frowned as he stepped onto the porch. The attempts to clear the crazy thoughts put into his head by Jasala seemed futile.
“You all right, brother?” Max asked, sitting on a wooden porch chair.
“Tired,” Kael answered. He sat across from his friend and sighed.
“Still not sleeping well?”
“No. These frigging nightmares. Lingering effects of real life, I guess. You told me you had similar problems when you came back from Iraq. How’d you get past it?”
“What do you mean?” Max asked, frowning.
“Your PTSD? How did you get through it? The shit you witnessed on the march to Baghdad... Christ, man, it was far worse than what I saw.”
Max shifted in his chair, and Kael recognized his friend was uneasy. It was a rare sight. “I don’t know,” he responded. “I guess you just deal as best you can as the horror fades.”
“Don’t have much choice,” Kael said softly. “No shrinks here to help.”
“Shrink?” Max snorted. “Nothing works to shrink the shit we’ve seen, brother.”
Kael stared as he processed the second asinine thing Max had said in less than a few hours.
“The memories will shrink, Kael,” Max offered. “Give it—”
“Time,” he interrupted, having heard it before all too often. “Yeah.” The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Something was off with his friend. They had shared memories since he had arrived in the afterlife so how could Max miss the slang meaning for a psychiatrist? He had no idea what was happening, but he needed to figure it out.
“You sure you’re all right?”
“Sorry, Max,” he said. “Just shit memories.”
His friend nodded. “You’ve never spoken about what happened before you died.”
“Not something worth reliving. What happened in Arkum Zul... the things I did...”
“You did what you had to.” Max pointed out.
“Like you did in Iraq?” he asked. Max nodded but said nothing. Kael jumped on the opening. “Like in Nafar?”
“Yeah, among others.”
“You always said Nafar was the worst.” Max stared at him hard, as if looking into his very soul. Kael recalled the memory forward in his mind of what Max had told him about how his unit had cleared the small Iraqi town.
A frown etched itself into his features. “It was. They hit us at night after hailing us as heroes.”
Kael’s skin crawled. It was exactly the memory in his mind, but with the purposeful distortions he added. Max had told him that attack happened in Baghdad, long after the fighting in Nafar. There was no possible way Max would forget the details to his time in Iraq. Kael swallowed his panic as he slowly watched his paradise begin to crumble.
“Who would’ve thought a night out at Tinker’s would have led to this?” he prompted.
“No doubt,” Max said and nodded to the front door of the house. “Did you get the chance to give her your ring?” Max’s clarity of the night’s events convinced Kael something was very off. It was as if the thing in front of him had the memories he and Max shared, but only had access to what Kael saw in his own mind.
“You’re good. Both of you,” Kael said, laughing. “I should have known.”
“Kael?” Max asked. “You all right?”
“Perhaps,” he said, putting a heavy emphasis on the Talohna vernacular.
The front door opened, and he spun to see Ember step onto the porch with a tray of drinks.
“Kael?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
His heart ached as the full weight of his predicament settled onto his shoulders. With no magic and no weapons, there was no way to fight whatever was happening to him.
“You’re both very good. Especially you,” he said, looking to Ember. He shook his head. “Had it been only you here, I never would’ve suspected anything. You even smell like her.”
Ember put her hand on his shoulder, gently and in a way only Ember could. Any strength and defiance he had left vanished. “Smells are easy, love,” she said. “Memories are the tricky part. We can only see the events that you’ve experienced yourself.”
“More lies and illusions. The real Ember and Max?”
Ember leaned closer. “I do not know, my dear, and I certainly do not care.”
“Of course not. Who are you?” he asked. “What do you want? Christ, why can you all just not leave me alone, or let me die?”
Ember crouched in front of him, and he stared into green eyes that quickly melted into the black of her pupils. “You probably know me as Reetha.”
Kael sighed. “The demon queen of suffering.”
“Yes,” she answered as her other features slowly changed. Though Ember’s red hair remained, her face grew thinner and her cheek bones rose. The demon’s mouth widened, her full lips shrunk, and Kael caught sight of a hint of sharp teeth behind her thinning lips. The sweater and jeans she wore quickly faded from sight, replaced by a tattered black dress that reeked of damp and rot. Though terrifyingly dangerous, the female demon also held a surreal beauty.
Kael gagged as he studied her closer. A putrid black aura swarmed the demon’s body and soul. “What do you want from me?” he repeated.
“Power,” she said, smiling. “What we all want.”
Pushing at his eyes with the heels of his hand, Kael grunted. “Then take it and send me to one of the heaven realms. I never wanted this power that everyone’s been fighting for, both when I was alive or now that I’m dead.”
“It doesn’t work that way,” Max offered. Kael shot him a dirty look, and the demon quickly took on his own natural appearance. There was no doubt in Kael’s mind—if the female Kroa demon was made for seduction, the male was bred for violence. Though he was the same size as Max, the demon was easily twice his weight with corded muscle making up every inch of its body. Horns, tusks, and fighting spurs covered his arms and legs.
“My commander is right,” Reetha said. “Your emotions give
us what we need. The stronger the better. This paradise doesn’t have to end, Kael. You can carry on with this ‘heaven’ if you want. I can even erase your memories of this day, and you can go on being happy with Ember.” Her tail slid from underneath her dress and slithered over her leg until it was between them. A small but sharp stinger topped the tail. “The poison in this barb will remove today from existence, and you can enjoy your death in paradise... just here in hell, instead.”
She grinned as a drop of black toxin fell from the stinger.
Kael struggled to see a way out. He was exhausted from the dreams, lack of sleep, and the scheming and lies. A scream from across the lake to his right caught his attention, but his captors did not seem to hear it. He ignored it and faced the demon queen.
“It won’t be real,” he said.
“You are dead, Kael,” Reetha purred. “This is the only reality you have left. Is it not better to accept your best possible option? You were happy for many years before today.”
“How long have I been here?”
“Forty-two years have passed since your arrival in the meadow.”
He shook his head and tears rolled down his cheeks. he had nothing left to fight with. No magic, no weapon, and no desire. “All right,” he whispered, surrendering.
Reetha’s tail quivered, ready to strike, but another scream erupted and ripped through Kael’s head.
“No, Kael!” He whirled and saw Jasala at the foot of the patio’s steps just as Reetha’s stinger plunged into his chest. The poison quickly spread through his body, and his hold on reality slipped. Colours and sounds swirled together as the lake, the town, and his home vanished. He found himself secured to a wall in a hot cave. Tentacles, webbing, and putrid red veins of filth coursed through and around his flesh. Reetha held him even tighter as her stinger pulsed, driving toxin into his body. The poison raced through his blood, and he struggled to stay conscious.
“Fight her, Kael.” Jasala’s voice rolled through his head like a freight train. Out of nowhere energy surged through his body, and his eyes snapped open to see her chained to the wall across from him. She was unconscious. Reetha’s commander stood guard as he held a jagged wrist spur to her throat.