And Ruin Followed Behind Her

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

We landed in a forest clearing, where I witnessed a sight that I had only seen once before: a massive portal, fifty feet high, circling atop a big hole in the ground. This was Romania’s mystery spot. It hovered ten feet off the ground and glowed the same deep red as the one I remembered.

In front of it stood Imogen, surrounded by a hundred shadow-like wraiths grabbing at the child she held in her arms. Blue light cracked through the darkness of the wraiths like sunlight peeking through the cracks of a house. Imogen batted them away, but they seemed to pay her no mind.

“No!” Imogen shouted. “You cannot have her. This soul is mine! It is my birthright!”

“Lay down some cover fire,” I shouted to Aziolith.

I leapt off his back and flew forward. The last time I was in front of a portal to Hell I was the most powerful I had ever been, and I felt the same power now. Time slowed down, just as it had the last time.

I could see Imogen’s every move in detail. Again and again, Aziolith burned a path through the wraiths and I jumped toward the banshee. Each time I charged, a hundred tortured arms clawed at my face, but I didn’t worry about them. They were inconsequential to my mission. All I cared about was Kimberly.

Several times I disappeared, then reappeared slightly closer to my target, until I finally arrived at Imogen’s side. I pried Kimberly free of the banshee’s long, bony fingers, though I couldn’t stop the monsters clawing at her. Finally, I managed to wrestle her into my arms.

“Come with me,” I said to Kimberly.

“No! No! She is mine!” Imogen shouted.

But she couldn’t stop me. I had Kimberly safe in my grasp and I jumped backward, away from the shadows, toward the searing dragon fire.

The banshee screamed with delight as the shadow wraiths ran away from her and toward us. “Yes. Yes! Attack them and take their souls! They are the ones you want!”

I looked at Aziolith. “We need to get out of here.”

I lifted Kimberly onto Aziolith’s back, but we were too late. The wraiths descended upon us as the canopy closed to prevent our escape. Vines shot out from every direction and weighed down Aziolith’s wings until he couldn’t lift off the ground. The entire forest went dark, except for my wings and the glow of the portal.

“You know not what lurks in the shadows, do you?” Imogen said. “Otherwise, you would have not been so foolish as to come here.”

“I came for the girl,” I replied, grunting as I fought back the shadow wraiths. They broke on me like waves. I stood firm between Kimberly and the wraiths, slashing at anything that came for her. “What did you do to her? Did you hurt her?”

“Of course not! She is a gift—a fresh soul, a pixie soul, unspoiled by time, to lead his army to victory on Earth!”

“Satan doesn’t want you back!” Aziolith shouted, fending off the shadow wraiths.

“You do not know! You cannot know!” Imogen rushed toward me and the girl. “The wraiths are hungry for souls, and yours will be a delicacy for them.”

The wraiths pulled me by the arms and pressed me against the ground until I couldn’t move. I felt as though I was inside the canopy again, about to be taken into the darkness. Meanwhile, Imogen floated through the wraiths, unhurt or untouched by them.

“Why don’t they go for you?” I asked.

“I have no soul. I am born of Hell, after the rise of the demons. We are not blessed with souls. The wraiths care not for me.”

Imogen picked up Kimberly while the wraiths kept their attention on me. “She will make a wonderful present.”

“What are you going to do to her?”

“I will do nothing. My love—he will decide what to do.”

Imogen flew higher into the sky as the shadow wraiths crashed through me. I felt the cold of each wraith as it passed through my body, stealing the warmth from me with each new attack. “Stop!”

“I really must thank you,” Imogen said, floating into the air. “I could never have survived their onslaught alone. You have a more seasoned soul than the child, so they hanker for you. They care only for you now, not this child. Wonderful. Enjoy having your soul ripped from your body and devoured before your very eyes.”

And with that, Imogen disappeared into Hell with Kimberly, leaving Aziolith and I to struggle against the might of the shadow wraiths.

“NO!” I shouted, but it was too late. I could feel myself disappearing. My strength had left me, and all that remained was death. What had I done? I had delivered Kimberly into Hell and gotten myself killed in the process. Was there a fate worse than this?

I was ready to fade into unconsciousness when a hideous screech echoed through the forest. The wraiths heard it too and let out an accursed moan before they left us alone and slithered into the forest.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to stick around to find out. Let’s go.” Aziolith shouted.

“I can’t go. I have to save Kimberly. There’s still time to bring her back.”

“That means venturing into Hell, and that’s crazy. You barely survived the last time.”

“Yes, but you can—”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’ve already been to Hell once and I don’t plan on going back again.”

“I can’t do it alone,” I said, pleading quietly.

“Then you can’t do it,” Aziolith replied.

Just then, a massive wolf crashed through a pair of twisted trees and snarled at us. Its fangs hung from either side of its jaw, oozing green bile onto the ground below it. Its black body, drenched in shadows and covered in flames, pressed itself into the ground, ready to pounce. It howled into the air as it sneered at us, its haunting, yellow eyes searing into us deeper and deeper with every second that passed.

“That does not look good,” Aziolith said.

“That looks like a monster too hideous for Hell.”

The beast charged at us and I rose into the air to dodge out of the way. Aziolith wasn’t so lucky, and locked horns with the beast, sliding across the forest floor with it. Aziolith’s fire breath didn’t hurt the beast in the slightest. Really, the dragon seemed to stoke its flames.

“Go!” Aziolith shouted. “I’ll hold it off and make sure nothing else comes out onto Earth.”

“He’ll kill you!”

“I can take care of myself!” Aziolith grunted, pushing the beast back with all his might. “Go! Bring the girl back and figure out how to close this blasted portal!”

He was right. I looked back at him one last time, then flew up into the air. Hell was the last place I wanted to be. Honestly, I just wanted to go home, but that wasn’t in the cards for me. I took a deep breath, one last breath of fresh air not full of sulfur—and flew into the blood red portal.

*

FALLING THROUGH THE portal into Hell wasn’t unlike pressing your hand through a bowl of jelly or falling through a lava lamp. The red goop clung to me as I fell and allowed me to move through slowly. Painfully slowly. I spun around to look where I was going. Hell rose below my feet until it filled my entire field of vision. With one final tug, I dropped through the goop and landed on a large boulder with a thump.

I stood up and cracked my back into place. All around me, demons shoveled damned souls into large pits. The ground was covered in lost souls, except for small pathways for the monsters to walk.

In every direction as far as the eye could see, human bodies were stacked from the lowest point of Hell until they touched the top of Hell’s cavern, creating a sprawling mountain range of moaning humans. The great skyline of a walled city loomed in the distance.

“Hey!” a nasal voice said from the path below me. “Did you really come here? Are you really here?” A tiny, impish head poked out from behind a mound of bodies. “Holy crap. You really are here!” It was Charlie and he was laughing at me. “I can’t believe you came here. I mean, I was watching the whole thing in the mirror back on Earth. Honestly, it’s better than cable.”

“Charlie! I’m gonna kill you!”

The demon workers on either side of me turned and the heat from their eyes bored into me for a moment. Then, they resumed their work, consumed with the heinous task of torturing human souls.

“Ah ah ah,” Charlie said, wagging his finger. “You can’t talk to me like that here.”

“Why not?”

“Cuz humans don’t talk here, sweetheart. Least not dead ones.” Charlie snapped his fingers and appeared in front of me. “If anybody finds out you’re here, and that you have a soul, oh man. You don’t even know what they’ll do to you. No, you gotta play it cool.”

I grabbed Charlie by his vest and pulled him toward me. “I’m in Hell, Charlie. The last thing I’m going to be while I’m here is cool. Now, where is Imogen?”

“I dunno,” Charlie replied, holding up the Mirror of Yilir. “This thing only works on the surface. I’ve been watching you, though. I just came down here just in time to see the epic conclusion.”

I snarled and let him go. “So, you’re useless, then?”

“I wouldn’t call me useless. I’m just not helpful in the traditional sense. I can take you to a place where you can find answers, though.”

I didn’t want his help, but I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. It’s not like I had a lot of friends in Hell. I only knew one person in Hell, my ancestor Akta, the great pixie who hunted monsters, and who knew where she was right now. Charlie, unfortunately, was my only choice.

“Fine. Lead the way.”

And with that, I was on my way to wherever the imp would take me, to save Kimberly, and get back to Earth.