Threshold of Destiny (The Mysterium Secret Book 1)

by Linn Chapel

  Tressa eyed him unhappily. There was no way to force him to return without his cooperation. She’d have to bring him with her into the shadowed region.

  Holt’s gaze ran up and down her spiritual body as he joined her. With a puzzled look, he reached out and tried to touch one of her shoulders, but his fingers passed right through.

  Then he looked down at himself and tried to touch his own chest, but his hand sank through his black shirt. Perplexed, he said, “Our bodies have no substance! Are we mirages, then?”

  “No, this is all very real. Nothing here is made of matter, that’s all. The darkness over there is real, too.” She pointed to the still, shadowed region. “Holt, if you’re going to stay, you’ll need to protect yourself. Draw up some energy with your spiritual body and make a candle. Like this,” she said. Curling her hands around empty space, she concentrated.

  Before long, a thin white candle shimmered into being. As she sent energy upward through her candle, a flame spurted at the top and protective light spread outward into the mist.

  Holt brought up his hands and tried to do the same, but nothing happened. “It’s not as easy as you make it seem,” he said dryly.

  “It needs a lot of energy. Try to bring it up in a wave, all at once,” she told him.

  Holt tried again. This time a faint, white shape appeared between his palms. It solidified into a candle, and then a tiny spark appeared at the top. The spark disappeared, and then it winked into being again and grew into a flame. In the glow of its protective light, Holt gazed at his handiwork with a look of amazement.

  Tressa’s eyes darted to the shadowed region. “Ab hoste maligno defende me.” From evil spirits defend me. There was a tremor in her voice, and it made her words vibrate even more than usual in the strange, vaporous air.

  Holt needed no urging to follow her example. “Anima Christi,” he whispered. “I knew that prayer as a boy.” Making the sign of the cross, he repeated the petition.

  As the sound of their voices vibrated through the vapor, the darkened mist that had been so still suddenly stirred and drifted, curling around itself.

  Together they made their way in that direction, holding their candles aloft. Tressa kept a cautious eye on the mist that swirled about their legs, but nothing happened as they entered the shadows. Peering into the mist for any sign of Luke, they proceeded.

  “Look out, Holt! Near your ankles!” Tressa cried out. She leaned over and blew hard. Puffs of mist drifted away, revealing the danger.

  Holt’s lower legs were almost brushing against a mound of wild, tangled vines. Flowers rose above the dark leaves: black, velvety blossoms sparkling with crystalline dewdrops.

  “Don’t touch them,” she told him quickly.

  Holt stepped hurriedly away.

  As they moved onward, the mist dimmed even more. Holding forth her candle as she walked, Tressa kept careful watch. “The light from our candles is our only weapon. Light will weaken whatever demon is attacking Luke.”

  “Could it change its mind and attack us, instead?”

  “Yes. We’d have to trust our candles to hold it at bay.”

  “Tressa, you must make the passage back to the Earthly World if we’re attacked. I’ll stay here to help Luke.”

  Tressa sputtered, “That makes no sense, Holt. I’m more experienced, so I should stay. If we’re attacked, I’ll help you make a doorway so that you can return.”

  Tressa suddenly realized that their candles had been dimming as they argued. “Holt,” she cried, “we’re losing our light!”

  But before either of them could bring forth more energy, a coil of mist began to rise nearby. The coil writhed waist-high in a spiraling eddy and Tressa watched, horrified, as the tip of a black tentacle emerged from it. The tentacle grew longer and longer and reached for Holt’s legs.

  “No!” She placed herself quickly between Holt and the dark spirit, holding her candle high. “Begone, twisted one!” With a burst of inner energy, she was able to make her candle’s flame surge so brightly that even she was forced to wince. The tentacle of the demon retracted.

  Weak with relief, she turned to Holt. “That was an incisor, the kind of demon that can cause emotional wounds,” she told him. “Stand with your back to me, and hold your candle up high, so that your light shines out as far as possible.”

  Holt took up a stance behind her. “Tressa, there are more of them!” he called out in warning.

  Slinking, vaporous shadows were circling them, restlessly shifting as they drew closer. Tressa thought she could make out six of them – more demons than she had ever witnessed in one place before.

  “Try to be scornful,” she instructed Holt over her shoulder. “Don’t show any fear. That only adds to their power.”

  If she were overcome, Holt would make easy prey. But even if she could convince him to leave, there was no time to form a bright doorway for his passage.

  Fear was the worst emotion to feel, she reminded herself quickly, but she had already lost the biting edge of scorn she had thrown up earlier in defense. One of the black tendrils surged toward her and before she could swing her candle down, the vine was climbing up one of her legs like a wild, coiling snake.

  She felt a slash of knife-like pain above one of her knees, and then another agonizing pain sliced its way through the ribs of her spiritual body.

  Her candle flame went out and the tall white taper disappeared in an instant. Tressa doubled over in reaction, for the pain of the incisor’s attack was so much worse than she had expected. Gasping, she peered sideways at the other dark shapes that were circling closer and closer. There were so many of them, all incisors.

  “Tressa!” Holt shone his candle down on her. “You’re wounded!”

  She noticed for the first time, in a distant way, that pale, bluish fluid was dripping from the slashes in her spiritual body. Some kind of energy seemed to be draining from her, for she was feeling colder and weaker by the moment.

  The incisors were edging closer, each a flattened coil of smoky mist from which black, snaking tendrils grew outward, becoming longer and longer. Holt’s wavering candle would not be enough to hold the demons back, especially since his flame had been shrinking ever since he had noticed Tressa’s dripping blue wounds.

  Suddenly she spotted a movement in the distance. A figure was approaching them, striding quickly. Whoever was coming must be traveling with eyes open.

  But Tressa could discern no glow of light from a protective candle, and a jolt of alarm swept through her. Anyone who traveled without need of protection in such a dark and perilous region was suspect.

  Friend or foe?

  She warned, “Someone is coming!”

  Holt turned quickly as the stranger came into view, garbed in a dark red cloak. A bundle of rope had been slung over one broad shoulder, but no features could be seen within the depths of the hood.

  As the razor-sharp tendril of another incisor coiled near Tressa’s legs, the stranger swung the rope from his shoulder and snapped an end at the encroaching demon.

  Hissing, the incisor shrank back. The stranger snapped his rope again and the seeking black tendrils of all the other demons recoiled. With a burst of crackling hisses, the dark shapes undulated away.

  Wordlessly, the stranger shouldered the bundle of rope and gestured for Tressa and Holt to follow. Striding into the shadows, he paused briefly to urge them on with a wave of his arm.

  Tressa glanced over at Holt, unsure. She read the answer in his eyes: they’d take their chances and follow the stranger.

  Together they turned and hurried in the wake of the cloaked and hooded figure. Tressa struggled to keep pace with Holt, for her wounds throbbed painfully. She tried to conjure another protective candle and failed, but Holt’s candle provided enough guidance for both of them.

  Suddenly, the stranger came to a halt and the deep tones of his voice vibrated for the first time in the misty air. “What wickedness can this be?”

  Holt came to an abrupt
stop and held his candle up high so that its light spread into the mist ahead. As Tressa stood by his side, peering into the shadows, she realized that someone was there in the vapor ahead of them, floating horizontally above the blanket of fog that covered the unseen ground. She couldn’t make out any features, for the figure was veiled by a drifting curtain of mist.

  The stranger took a step forward and blew out a steady stream of breath. The thin veil of mist parted. With a gasp, Tressa realized that it was Luke who was lying so stiffly suspended in the air. His spiritual body was clothed with the likeness of the same jeans and faded Harvard t-shirt that he’d been wearing when she’d last seen him.

  If he had been lying within the blanket of mist, that would have caused her no concern, for that was the posture everyone’s spirit took during the deeper, dreamless phases of sleep. But Luke was floating well above the mist, and even more alarming than that, his eyes were open and staring straight upward. Dread flooded through Tressa, cold and chilling.

  Frantically she peered about for any sign of a diabolus, but she could see no hint of a demon in the shadowed mist. Her mind raced onward in sudden comprehension.

  No demon adversary could be seen because it was already inside of Luke’s spiritual body. He had been possessed by a diabolus.

  A tide of panic surged within Tressa. Any moment now, his spiritual body might be propelled away by the diabolus and hidden in some distant location, where it would be very difficult to find and rescue. And in the Earthly Realm, his physical body could be used to perpetrate any number of dark deeds and deceptions.

  Another and even worse shock of horror ran through Tressa when a puff of black vapor emerged from a crack near Luke’s waist. It spurted upward, like dark steam escaping from a vent. It was joined by a second stream of black vapor that seeped from the rims of his eyes, slowly at first, and then gushing forth.

  Shaken with terror, Tressa cried out, “The smoke is a diabolus!”

  The voice of the cloaked stranger rumbled. “But the foul spirit has not yet found a foothold.”

  All of the vapor that had poured forth from Luke’s hovering body gathered itself into a roiling cloud of black pinpoints that swirled in a mass just below Luke’s body. Then the cloud suddenly shifted so that it was circling above, bunching and swirling in restless coils.

  Tressa sobbed in misery. There was no chance that Luke could hold out against the determined efforts a powerful diabolus.

  A movement in the nearby darkness caught her eye. A shadow was slinking up to the edge of the small circle of brightness about Holt’s candle. Another shadow moved in closer.

  “Steady with your light,” ordered the stranger. He made a swift circuit about the area, flicking the end of his rope at the creeping shadows. As he strode along, a trail of fiery sparks remained in his wake. He passed behind Tressa and Holt and then came to a stop before he had reached his starting point, leaving a gap in the ring of sputtering sparks.

  A cold wind moaned and swirled about. In the frigid draft, Holt’s flame shuddered and almost went out.

  The deep voice of the stranger called out, “Quickly, shine forth more light, both of you!”

  Holt brightened and steadied his flame. Tressa struggled to conjure up another candle but her open wounds had drained so much of her energy that the effort was taxing beyond belief. Finally, with a burst of willpower, she succeeded in forming a white taper and topping it with a flame.

  Meanwhile the stranger had taken up a stance opposite the gap in the circle of sparks. Now he suddenly threw off his hood and a shower of white sparks cascaded from his head and shoulders like a shining waterfall. The sparkling points spread about his legs in a pool that swirled and foamed. Tressa stared for a moment at his shoulder-length auburn hair and beard. Although she had never seen him before, she felt as if she had.

  “More light!” he called out.

  Tressa drew up all the weak, fluttering remains of energy within her. The candle in her hands brightened.

  “John, you are capable of more!” called out the stranger.

  Holt’s head turned sharply at the sound of his name.

  “Two hundred years of suffering have borne more fruit than you know,” the stranger added briskly. “More light, John!”

  Tressa glanced at Holt. He was staring at the stranger, astonished. Then he closed his eyes in concentration, and in a few moments, the light shining forth from his candle brightened, doubling in intensity.

  Tressa’s eyes darted over to Luke’s body. It was still floating horizontally in the strange air. Above it, the diabolus seethed and twisted in tortured coils as light shone brightly upon its cloudy form.

  The restless wind grew stronger. As it buffeted her body, she narrowed her eyes into slits.

  High-pitched buzzing filled the air, and then something dark moved within the circle of sparks. As it passed by the spot where Tressa stood with Holt, she was stung by a sharp, malevolent gust.

  The stinging ended, and a sense of relief had just begun to sweep over her when the gust returned and surrounded her. Suddenly she was beset by an even greater attack of the sharp, stinging pains. She sealed her eyes and mouth at once, closing them tightly in self-defense.

  The intentions of the diabolus pressed upon her, close and suffocating. Against her will, dark streaks and violent colors filled her inner vision.

  It knows that I’m the weakest member of our group because of my open wounds. It knows that I’m part-Mysterium. It’s going to possess me.

  Her ability to read intentions was making her mind too open to the demon, too unprotected. She had to do something, quickly, or she’d be lost.

  She’d always entered a dreamscape whenever she had felt the need of safety ever since she was young child. Now she needed that kind of safety more than ever, but she knew that her dreamscapes were only light, whimsical creations. She’d had to assure Holt that her visions weren’t very important when he’d mentioned them recently.

  Are you certain? he had replied.

  Quickly she flung up colors in her thoughts to block out the demon’s streaking patterns. Deep green hedges with bluish shadows appeared all around her, tall and imposing. Behind their branches she could still make out the seething patterns of the diabolus, but the demon did not seem able to penetrate the space she had created.

  She suddenly recalled the liquid that trickled around the sanctuaries of the Unseen World and left frozen, iridescent deposits. The watery liquid was safe, in this world, and maybe powerful, too.

  She backed into the center of the space and added a small fountain to her dreamscape, then with a desperate rush of inner energy, she added water, too. Crystal-clear, it tricked down into a small pool at the base of the fountain.

  Taking up some of the shining water in her cupped hands, she ran to the perimeter where she altered some of the green foliage she had just made, thinning it. Quickly she threw the water between the branches of the hedge. The sound of shrill hissing grew louder for a brief instant, but then the volume sank and the streaking colors outside the hedge began to fade.

  The hissing grew fainter and fainter with every moment and then the cold wind disappeared.

  As Tressa allowed the colors of garden to dissolve, Holt cried out at her side, “You’re safe, Deo Gratias! Never was I more frightened than when I realized the demon had returned to attack you!”

  “I entered a dreamscape,” she explained, gazing up at him. His dark eyes were filled with a look of intense relief. “You were right, Holt. There’s more to my visions than I thought.”

  Tressa turned to quickly scan the interior of the circle made by the flaming sparks. The diabolus was nowhere to be seen. Her gaze went to the gap in the sparks through which the evil spirit must have fled into the mists.

  But Luke had not recovered, she realized to her dismay. His spiritual body was still floating in the air, stiff and unmoving.

  “What’s wrong with him?” she cried. As her fears soared, the energy she had called up to
create her candle suddenly plummeted. The white taper and its protective light disappeared.

  The stranger strode closer to the floating body. “How can this be?” he rumbled.

  Then a voice called out from a distance, “Here I am.”

  A figure stumbled forward through the mist. Startled, Tressa’s eyes ran over the faded blue jeans and the washed-out t-shirt with a Harvard logo.

  A snapping sound came from the center of the circle, drawing Tressa’s attention back to the floating body. Cracks were forming everywhere in it, and then bits of clothing, skin and hair dropped off like pieces of thin veneer. What remained was a gray, molded likeness of Luke, devoid of details and color.

  Loud cracks resounded through the air of the Unseen World as the stone-like figure itself exploded. The bits were flung upward by the blast and then they showered down into the blanket of mist and disappeared.

  “A marvel most rare!” cried their bearded helper. “But we must not abide here any longer. Make haste to follow me.” Bright sparks billowed about his legs as he led the way through the mist.

  Luke – for it had to be the real Luke – approached Tressa and Holt with a look of heartfelt thanksgiving on his face. Together they hurried after their helper, who was almost out of sight by now.

  Tressa’s joy at finding Luke safe and whole was marred by her wounds and her head swam as she strained to keep up with the others. With every movement her pain seemed to worsen. Would her slashes ever heal, or would she feel this way forever?

  Soon they had left the shadowed region behind. The stranger slowed to a more moderate pace and turned to Luke. “Tell us your tale, now.”

  As Luke walked along his gaze traveled from the bundle of rope slung over the stranger’s shoulder all the way down the length of the wine-red cloak to the fiery sparks that swirled about the stranger’s legs.

  Looking puzzled, Luke began his account. “It all started when a woman captured me in the other world. She’d brought along some altered vampires to murder me,” he said, and then he paused to ask the stranger, “Do you know about vampires?”