“Is he an immortal too?”
He chewed up a mouthful of dates and swallowed. “Oh yes. You might run into him during your visit.”
We got off at the Irwin exit and headed into the country. We were well outside of Pittsburgh now, but not all the entrances to the underworlds could be within city limits so I wasn’t alarmed. The roads went from paved to gravel to dirt as we plunged further into the rural area.
I asked, “What was Plato’s original name again?” I knew this was never a proven fact, but Socrates should know this.
“I’m sorry, what did you ask?” He rubbed his temples and closed his eyes.
“I can’t remember Plato’s real name. Surely you know it.”
He closed his eyes. “I’m having great head pains right now. I think it’s from using that magic earlier to help you out.”
He didn’t know Aristocles? I pressed him. “When did Plato change his name?”
He ignored me, and I wanted to jump out of the vehicle because something didn’t smell right. It didn’t matter as the limousine rolled to a stop in the middle of a frosty forest that surrounded both sides of the road. My stomach churned, not in nervousness, but because I was sensing more magic.
I brought my magic to the surface and prepared for battle. I never thought I would say this, but I will kill Socrates first, then move on to the werewolf, and finally steal the car and get out of here. The chauffeur opened the door, and as I stepped out, a wave of dark magic hit me in the face.
I started to pull in the chill of the surrounding woods. I telepathically called out to the trees to lend me their wisdom of the area. I breathed deeply. In and out. In and out. I took the chill from inside my body and started forming an invisible ice ball.
A voice called out from the woods, “Don’t try it. You are thoroughly surrounded, wizard.”
Socrates slid out of the backseat. I told him, “You better get ready to use that magic again.”
As the philosopher stood up, his body transposed before my very eyes. I’d been had. I spoke through the lump in my throat, “Aka Manah. A demon that prevents people from fulfilling their moral obligations. I should have known as much.”
He had the body of a tall, physically fit man wearing an expensive pinstripe suit, but his head was the skull of a bull with long, twisting horns coming from his temples and extending high into the air. He couldn’t fit back into the limo in this state, that was for sure. The skull had bright yellow eyes with long black slits embedded into the cavities and a golden amulet in the middle of his forehead. I couldn’t tell what kept the item in place because it didn’t have anything attached to it.
He said, “Aka Manah. Very perceptive. I was having trouble keeping that act up at the end. Put away your magic. I can see your vines spilling out of you and slithering around on the ground. You are surrounded by my friends from the Red Cavern.”
From both sides of the street, hundreds of demons came out of the woods. I put my magic away. I knew they would kill me if I didn’t. At first, I thought this might be a plot by the vamps to kill me because they had found out I was harboring Carolyn, or worse, they had found out I had killed an elder.
Now, my mind jumped to a much more frightening possibility. My father was in cahoots with the Red Cavern. They knew about me, so they had to know that my father could be even more powerful. I probably led them right to him when I had visited him in prison. I knew I shouldn’t have visited that worthless piece of shit. He was about to have the last laugh apparently.
Aka Manah asked, “Aren’t you even going to ask what is going on?”
I had a rather good idea of what was about to happen and didn’t need the play-by-play. I thought about calling on my magic to kill a few of the demons before I died. “Okay. What is going on?” I asked listlessly.
“We are going to take you to the Red Cavern. You aren’t going to meet any Gods today. You’re going to meet some devils.”
18
I was basically plunging into the depths of hell. How bad could it be? Maybe I’ll bump into Dante. Hell, I’m friends with Socrates already, right?
The tricky demon shifter that once was Socrates pushed me into the woods as the rest of the demons followed. I felt like I was being led to the slaughter as my feet skipped across the frosty forest floor.
Aka Manah’s expensive Italian leather shoes trampled over the brush as he pushed me in the back to keep me moving. The darkness and magical power intensified as we trekked along a narrow path. I heard a waterfall in the distance, or maybe it was just a raging river, but I didn’t recall any rapids like that out this way.
I was being marched to my father so he could kill me with help from the demons. In turn, they would turn him into their slave to perform tasks on earth at their will. Win-win for them. Lose-lose for me. No other ideas made sense in my head.
We moved toward a steep hillside as Aka Manah kept poking me in the back and the sounds of the stomping demons filled the forest. I noticed a small clearing up ahead at the base of the hill. We emerged into the overcast day and my soles crunched the frozen blades of grass as I walked through the open field.
An enormous rock, almost twice my height, sat at the base of the wall. As I started to ascend the hill, Aka Manah grabbed my suit jacket and pulled me back. “We needn’t go any further.”
Aka Manah held out his arms and closed his eyes. The enormous stone rocked back and forth, building up momentum, before finally toppling over on its side and exposing a huge opening in the base of the mountain. A rush of dark magic rushed out of the opening and I didn’t need Aka Manah to poke me this time.
I entered the dark tunnel, not knowing where to go so I stretched out my arms and let my fingertips skim against the sides. Hot to the touch. The pathway narrowed and descended sharply. Sweat built up on my forehead as the temperature increased substantially.
In complete darkness, I could still see the portal ahead. This one had a red glow to it, making it different from most of the ones I had previously encountered. I slowed down as I neared the portal and turned around.
Aka Manah planted two dainty hands on my chest and heaved me into the transfer unit.
A tight, constrictive feeling surrounded my entire body, ratcheting up the pressure by the second. I started to lose sensation in my extremities as the grip tightened. As I was about to pass out from the pressure, a flash of white light erupted, nearly blinding me.
The vise grip relented, and my body felt wonderful. I flickered my eyelids, trying to adjust to my surroundings. Firelight danced, its shadows creeping up the walls of the stone room I found myself in. I turned to my left and almost rubbed my nose on Aka Manah’s biceps.
I checked out the rest of the dimly illuminated room. A stone slab shaped like a rectangular table sat in the middle of the room. Two gentlemen (probably not the right word choice) sat facing me on the other side of the table. The devils, Bruceras and Montidore stared at me.
Bruceras gestured toward a row of chairs on the opposite side of the table. “Please, sit.”
The devil appeared to have a big reptilian body even though he was seated and garbed in red robes. The dark creature’s long neck and face were burgundy. Black lesions covered his cheeks and he had thirteen little spikes coming from his bald head.
I sat down in one of the chairs and Aka Manah took the one on my left. I scanned the room, searching for my father, but didn’t find the bastard. This had all the makings of a set up.
Montidore said, “You can relax. We aren’t going to kill you.”
Relieved blood didn’t exactly course through my veins. I wasn’t starting a habit of trusting devils, or demons for that matter. The unrelenting heat caused me to loosen the tie and unbutton the top button of my dress shirt.
Bruceras bit at his claws and spat the remnants to his right. “Believe it or not, we are going to help you.”
I smelled a rat. “The Red Cavern wants to help me? That makes no sense whatsoever.”
Montidore leane
d forward over the table. He was much bigger than his fellow devil, especially in the upper body. The dark green demon had long white hair and a matching beard that hung to his chest. His deep yellow eyes were unnerving, to say the least. “Even if I were to tell you that we have a common enemy, rejected by the heavens and the hells?”
I said, “The Sendal Spirits.”
Montidore nodded in satisfaction. “Indeed. Commonalities connecting our virtues don’t oft exist. Do you know about your father?”
There it was. This was all a big set up. I craned my neck to see what area my father was coming from. Perked my ears up to hear his nasty voice.
I started to draw upon my magical reserve. “What about him?”
Bruceras scratched his face, and said, “He pledged his soul to the Sendals. He’s nothing more than flesh and bones. However, that flesh and bones carries an incredible amount of magic from within. Your father is getting stronger by the day. In less than a week, he will be virtually unstoppable.”
I commented, “That’s reassuring.”
Montidore grinned, “If you think we’re here to make you feel better, don’t flatter yourself. There’s a serious problem afoot, and we need you to get to the bottom of it.”
This day had taken some odd turns. “So you want to work with me to chase the Sendal Spirits out of Pittsburgh?”
Bruceras shook his head slowly. “No. We are going to tell you about the Spirits and let you take care of them.”
I said, “That doesn’t exactly sound fair, and by the way, you haven’t told me much at all.”
“We’ll send Socrates with the rest of the information as we find it out.” Montidore laughed, and everyone joined in except for me. “Fair or not, if you can resist going after your father, so be it. The Spirits are about to kill all the Japanese women in Pittsburgh. Guess that means nothing to you too. From where I am sitting, you have much more personal hatred for them than we do. And if you don’t, you damn well should.”
This meeting with the devils was shaping up to be as disappointing as the ones with Socrates. Only Montidore had an above average vocabulary. The demons and the Red Cavern were all hype. “How does a soul get rejected by hell?”
Bruceras revealed, “For not sharing the virtues we cherish. However, they seem to develop a certain ruthlessness after rejection. The void between the heavens and hells is vast and most spirits get trapped in liminality, stuck in-between. In this state, they wander around aimlessly until they dissolve into nothing. Mind you, that process takes hundreds of years, but they normally don’t cause any problems in this world.”
I shifted around in the heat and uncomfortable chair. “How can they get back to this world?”
Aka Manah finally joined the party. “They are beckoned back, pulled from the in-between and back to this world.”
Everything was falling into place now. “Like a Dybbuk Box?”
Bruceras answered, “Precisely. There are many other forms in different cultures as well. Mainly fools bring them into this world, not knowing what they are about to unleash. Single souls can’t even cause much destruction either. It’s when they combine multiple souls into Sendal Spirits that the mayhem begins.”
Montidore added, “Anyone from the Red Cavern caught calling on spirits from liminality is immediately put to death. We realize that the Sendals can become more powerful than all the devils combined. With that said, you understand that time is precious in this matter. They could easily build enough strength over the next week to take over Pittsburgh.”
It seemed like there had been a great miscalculation. “Then why would you leave it up to an inexperienced wizard such as myself?”
Montidore said, “Look, we aren’t here to blow smoke up your ass or in your face. We know you have friends and the capability of taking care of this. You will need help from your Gods and anyone who knows magic. If you try this alone, you will surely die.”
I informed them, “You may want to check the records. I’m not exactly Mr. Popularity around Pittsburgh and most of the people I know that practice magic, they never leave the Deep Burrow.”
“Maybe you should convince them to burrow their way out of there.” Bruceras chuckled.
Montidore turned to him. “Really, a pun? And not even a very good one.”
Bruceras sat up straight, staring at me. “Let’s get serious then. You’ve got a few days to figure this one out. See, the thing about the Sendals is that they come after the so-called good guys first. We can always go to another city. I’m not so sure that you can do the same.”
He was right. They would have to drag me away from Pittsburgh, kicking and screaming. Or kill me, and it appeared the Sendals didn’t have a problem with that. It didn’t surprise me that my father sold out to anyone that would help him get out of jail. My dad wasn’t ready to handle that kind of power. It’s precisely why he had been locked up.
Montidore said, “If there’s nothing else, we will have our Greek friend here take you back to your world.”
I wiped the sweat from my forehead. “I think that just about covers it. Why didn’t you just have the great philosopher tell me all of this? Why go through this big charade to get me down here?”
Montidore told me, “We thought you would question why the Greeks were so open to sharing this kind of information with you. Meeting with Gods adds validity to the whole thing.”
“Fair point, but not as much as I am questioning whether I should trust the Red Cavern. You guys aren’t exactly known for your honesty, no offense.”
Montidore stood up. He was over seven feet tall. “Honesty is overrated and you know it. You aren’t honest all the time. That emotional baggage from your terrible upbringing keeps bouncing off the walls of your mind. You hide it, bury it deep down, but you know it hurts so you lie about it and tell everyone that nothing is the matter. You even lie to yourself.”
I told him, “I’m just fine, thanks for the concern.”
Montidore wouldn’t let up. “See, there it is. And I am certainly not concerned. Do you share all the information with your partner, Gretchen?”
I stood up, and said, “All right, I get the point. That still doesn’t change the fact that you might be lying to me to set me up.”
Montidore followed me toward the door. “Set you up for what? If we wanted to kill you, don’t you think we would have done it back in Irwin? We don’t like to play around too much before our killing. After death is a different story altogether.”
True. Gruesome, but true. They could have easily killed me when all the demons appeared out of the woods. The devils were making too much sense right now and I didn’t like it.
Bruceras cracked his long neck, and said, “Merlino, best of luck, we are counting on you. Aka Manah, show this man back to his world.”
The demon escorted me back to my house and I stumbled out of the back of the limo and onto the sidewalk. I sat on the steps of my porch before going in, trying to understand what just happened. A fire burned inside my chest. I wanted to kill my father. Turning to anyone that could give him immense power didn’t surprise me in the slightest.
He’d always been a firm believer in shortcuts. It was his anger that raged inside me, scaring me that I was turning into that maniac. I tried to force the cloud out of my head and rationally analyze what had just happened.
The Red Cavern and I had a common enemy, and they were even willing to help me defeat the Sendal Spirits. Shocking. They realized the threat my father posed as much as me. Combining the special bloodline with the power of the Sendals, made for a lethal combination and needed to be stopped.
For my father to use remote magic, it meant he’d learned an immense amount in barely any time at all. I knew it wouldn’t last in the long run, but he could kill me before his star burnt out. There were several things I needed to do.
I wanted to see Jonathan to find out if we could re-trap the escaped spirits back into the Dybbuk Boxes. Then I needed to visit the Celtic Gods to see if they can help m
e out.
I jumped up, went inside and Reg, Alayna and Carolyn were sitting at my kitchen table.
I commented, “Reg, a turtleneck sweater? I’ve never seen you sport that bad boy before. What’s the occasion?”
Reg answered, “Laundry backed up is all. Ronald’s been busy lately so I gotta go deep into the reserve, you know. You saying it doesn’t look good?”
I put my hands up. “Easy, big fella. I’m not saying that at all. Just that we’ve been friends for a few years and I’ve never seen it. Damn stylish though. Especially back in the 90s.” I started cracking up.
Carolyn laughed in Reg’s tone again and kissed him on the cheek. I said, “I found out some amazing information today about my father and the uprisings.”
The excited listeners moved to the edge of the benches as I told the story about going to the Red Cavern.
“I don’t understand why you would take a meeting with the Greek Gods in the first place,” Alayna said.
I tried to explain, “I just figured Pittsburgh would be safer with the Greek and Celtic Gods working together.”
Alayna played with her braids. “They do work together. We’ve always shared information that would be beneficial to keeping the world safe. Always. Sometimes relations can become strained, but we’ve always kept an open line.”
Socrates had never told me that. “I did not know that. And it sounded like they had information about the Sendals. I was fooled by the pretty face.”
Carolyn said, “That spirit in your office was a weak one. It was probably less than one hundred souls combined. In the next few days, the Sendals will combine thousands of souls and maybe even more than that. They can go with making a dozen spirits strong beyond anyone’s belief, or they can make a thousand spirts that aren’t very strong and go with a numbers game.”
I said, “It appears that the stone men and my father are on their side as well, all ultimately controlled by the Sendals. I don’t know how many other human entities they have control of. And furthermore, I haven’t the slightest clue on how I am going to kill them.”
Graveyard Uprisings Page 12
