by Mark Taylor
As her fire flew harmlessly by, the leader recovered his wits and laid a punch hard into Excalibur’s gut. She fell back. Dropped from the sky.
Excalibur reached her senses as she hit the ground. A small moment of realization as she landed on the dank, grey, grass. She gathered her thoughts for a second – no more – and looked up to the four of them. She lay on the grass. They floated above her. Their pallid skin stark against their black clothing. All in this colorless environment.
“What?” she screamed. “What do you want?”
The leader’s frown – his anger – contorted to a smile and then to a laugh. His head rolled back as uncontrollable noise escaped him. “You know nothing,” he said. He looked around those circling her in the air. “Kill her.”
Excalibur leaped to her feet in a half jump, half fly motion. She brought the fire in her hands, and threw a shot into the smug son of a bitch that had threatened her. He cried in fear, and then pain. He fell from the sky as Excalibur launched herself up, through, and twirling above the remaining vampyr.
“Do you know who I am?” she bellowed as she turned and looked back down to them.
“Of course, my baby.”
Gone were the attacking vampyr. Now stood on the wet ground was a solitary woman. Older than Excalibur. Wiser. She exuded warmth at the witch hovering high in the air. Her grey hair damp in the rain.
“What are you doing up there?”
Excalibur breathed. Short. Hard. The muscles in her chest strained. “Mom?”
“Yes, my baby.”
Excalibur dropped slowly towards her mother’s standing position. “What are you doing here? Did he force you here? Did you make a deal? Where’s Sebastian?”
“It’s okay, Cali. I’m happy here. It’s not so bad. It’s not like Hell. It’s…well…warm here. Your father can’t be here. He works for Him now. But I don’t blame him.”
“Why are you here?” Excalibur pressed for an answer as she rested on the grass next to her mother.
“I did things the powers that be thought wrong. I was a witch.”
“That doesn’t make you wrong. Who told you that?” She faced her mother full on and laid her hands on the older woman’s shoulders. “Who?”
“No one, my dear.” She knelt on the ground, curling her legs under her. “Sit with me.”
Excalibur glanced around the landscape. The vampyr gone. No mongers. She dropped slowly to her knees in front of her mother. “I couldn’t save you.”
“You had no need to. I was – ”
“I had every reason and every right to help you.”
Her mother reached forward and rested her hand on Excalibur’s knee. “I was evil, my Cali, and there was only one thing that you could have done. You could have served him instead of me. But I wouldn’t have wanted that for you. Neither would your father. We didn’t want you to sacrifice yourself for us. That wasn’t what we wanted for you.”
“You never gave me the choice.”
“No.” She shook her head. “You were too weak.”
“No. I am stronger than both of you. I could have made a difference.”
“It is best you are who you are now. Be you.”
“So I disappoint?” Excalibur shuffled on the grass. She moved from being close to her mother.
“I didn’t want you to fail. And you would have. He was so strong, and I was always afraid of how weak you were.”
“I could have made a difference,” she said again. But this time she didn’t look up to her mother’s eyes. She no longer had fight in her voice.
“No, my baby.” Excalibur’s mother placed her hands on Excalibur’s face. “You never have been strong enough. You couldn’t have stopped The Devil from turning your father against me. You couldn’t have stopped him from killing me.”
“You’re right. I failed. I failed both you and father.” Excalibur wept. “How could you ever forgive me?”
“I said I forgave your father. I could never forgive you. You were such a disappointment. I mean, I will be within purgatory forever because of you.”
“What?” Excalibur wiped her tears away with her arm. “But…no. You said…”
“Does it matter now? Now I’m dead? Now I’ve to spend the whole of eternity in here? It’s your fault. It always has been and always will be.”
Excalibur’s weeps became cries and the tears raged down her face. “I know…I’ve always known.” And the gray started to envelop her. She pushed her hands flat into the grass as she wept. The cold harsh of the nothing started to creep into her flesh as her mother knelt beside her.
“Such a waste of life,” she whispered.
Excalibur’s eyes started to hang heavy. “So tired.” Yet she felt a pang of warmth from behind her. A light. She felt it on her shoulders. “Who’s there?” She started to turn but everything ached. She was so tired.
“Wake up.” Lady shook Excalibur hard by the shoulders.
Mary was on the grass in front of her, snapping her fingers in front of her half closed eyes. “Come on,” she said, teeth gritted.
Slowly, Excalibur opened her eyes. Startled, she looked around.
“Maybe next time you’ll listen,” Mary said, standing, and putting one hand under Excalibur’s arm. Lady took the other and they helped her to her feet.
“What happened? Where’s…” Her voice trailed off.
“You got two hundred meters from us and then dropped out of the air like a rock. You tell us.” Mary raised her eyebrows.
“There were vampyr. Many of them. And…” Again she stopped.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Mary quietly. “Whatever it was, it was a trick. A dream. A nightmare. It wasn’t real.”
“No,” she agreed. “Now I understand why we should stay together. Not to protect our bodies – but to keep us sane.”
Lady nodded. “You okay to continue?”
Excalibur nodded. “I am. But I fear for Dina. When I saw this place before she was fighting mongers. I saw them too. Were they real? Did He show them to me? Was I in Dina’s lost mind?”
“Only one way to find out.” Mary strode in the direction Excalibur had been flying. “Come on. Quick, quick. Everyone remember where the door is.”
V
Excalibur floated gently above Lady and Mary as they crossed the hills. “See anything?” Mary asked.
“Nada.” Excalibur dropped to the ground next to them. “I don’t know what we’re looking for.”
“She has to be here somewhere.” Lady twisted around. “What about there?” She pointed to the tree line in the distance.
“Can’t hurt,” Mary said. “It feels like we’ve been here for hours.”
“Days even.” Excalibur returned to the air as they moved forward once again. “What if the things I saw….”
“What?” Mary asked.
“Well…what if this place, it’s like, maybe it’s alive. It knew to screw with me. What if it’s still doing it?”
“No, Sis. You’re here with us.”
“No. I mean all of us. What if it’s screwing with us?” She landed in front of them. “Maybe it doesn’t need Him to be here. Maybe it’s, I don’t know, sentient.”
“You think Purgatory is sentient?” Mary squinted at her.
“No,” Lady said. “Maybe she’s right. He can’t know we are here, can he? He’d be all over us. And if Purgatory is playing with people all the time, it can’t need his attention, surely?”
“Go on,” Mary said slowly.
“So it knows we’re here, and what we want. And it’s hiding it from us.”
“You’re starting to sound like a mad woman.”
“It knew to bring my mother.”
Mary raised an eyebrow. “Okay. I’m on board. How do we get it to stop hiding her from us?”
Excalibur turned away from them. “It’s like we are only on the outskirts of it. We need to let it take us. We need to go in.”
Mary and Lady looked at each other blankly.
�
��It can take us when we part. Invade our minds. That’s what we need to let it do, as a family.”
“How?” Lady asked.
Excalibur turned back to them, holding out her hands to be taken. The three of them held onto each other walking slowly toward the trees.
“Empty your mind,” Excalibur said. “Don’t think about her – or each other. Let go. Be afraid. Let the fear in. Let it take you.” As her words became quieter, Lady, whose hand she still had, faded slowly from her vision. She squeezed her hand and Lady returned, and with her, Mary holding her other hand. The air became colder and the skies grayed as they passed into whatever Purgatory deemed suitable for them.
Rain fell hard as they hit the tree line. Cold winds sheeted across them. Under the cover of the branches above they huddled close. “This is lovely,” Mary said.
“I know, right?” Excalibur shivered. She glanced around constantly, unsure of what to expect from this place.
“So we’re here. Now what?” Mary smiled weakly.
“We find Dina. Shouldn’t be that hard. Then we leave.”
“All well and good,” Mary said, “but exactly how do we leave?”
“I haven’t gotten that far. But four is better than three right? Wait here.” Excalibur launched herself through the trees into the skies.
“I wish she wouldn’t do that.” Mary snorted.
Lady’s eyes dropped from where Excalibur had disappeared to Mary. “We’ll be fine. Dina will know what to do.”
“If we can find her,” Mary muttered.
Excalibur dropped back through the trees and landed. “Two things,” she said. “Firstly, there is smoke rising through the foliage about twenty clicks that way.” She pointed deeper into the forestry.
“Twenty clicks? You made that up.” Mary snapped.
“And secondly?” Lady asked.
“There are several mongers circling directly above us, and I have no idea if they are real or not.”
“Probably not, but best to be sure.” Lady nodded. “Let’s stay on ground level.”
Excalibur nodded. “Let’s.”
Mary shook her head. “It’s like being the middle child.” She stormed past Excalibur in the direction she had pointed.
***
The three of them moved as quietly as they could through the undergrowth. Excalibur was the least prepared – thigh length boots and all – but was managing to keep a healthy pace with Mary and Lady.
“So how far is twenty clicks?” Mary asked when they stopped to draw breath.
“About this far.” Excalibur held up her hand in front of her face, thumb and forefinger parted indicating distance. “But it’s all in the perspective.”
Mary sighed and shook her head.
“Not far now.” Excalibur started off again taking the lead.
“And the mongers will have seen the smoke I assume?”
“Nope. I couldn’t see it. I could smell it.”
“What if it’s a trap?”
Excalibur stopped, hunched next to a tree. “It’s not.” She pointed toward the dim light, barely visible in the distance. A small fire burned within a few carefully leaned together broken off branches. Next to it a prone figure lay on the soil.
As they got closer, Excalibur could see the drips of rainwater drop from the branches above, fizzling on the embers below. She could see the prone figure was Dina. She never broke into a run, nor called out, for fear of startling Lady, or indeed Dina herself, unsure of the mental state she might be in. She kept moving forward, her arm raised behind her to keep the other two from rushing past.
“It’s Dina,” Lady muttered quietly.
“Slowly,” Excalibur warned her, before she burst into a run. “Wait.”
As they got close to the fire, Lady and Mary stopped, pensively waiting, as Excalibur rounded the flames and crouched close to Dina. She put out her hand and touched her with the lightest of touches.
Dina’s head snapped up, and she started to get to her feet – in a blur.
“Wait,” Excalibur whispered. “It’s me,” she said. “It’s us.” She gestured back to the others.
“It’s me, Lady.”
“Remember me? Mary.”
Dina paused. Excalibur could see how haggard she looked by the small light from the fire. So tired. Dried blood hid some of her face. Mud hid most other things. “You’re not real. Not again.” She stood, pulled her hands apart, balls of electricity arcing between them.
“No.” Excalibur stood with her, hands outstretched. “It’s us. We’re here. We came to Purgatory to find you. To rescue you.”
“That’s not possible.” The electricity throbbed in her palms, growing in intensity.
“It is, you know it is. My father helped us. We did it together.”
“Your father?”
“Sebastian. Remember? He’s under the influence of the Devil now.”
“You bit him?” She frowned at the recollection.
“I did.” Excalibur smiled. “How do you know?”
“He told me of course, you silly girl. Very proud he was.” The electricity balls dissipated. “And I suppose you need my help fixing that, too?”
Excalibur let out a sigh of relief. “Of course I do,” she said gently. “But we need to get out of here first.”
“And you don’t have a plan for that either?” She looked from Excalibur to Lady. “Why do you let her be in charge?”
Lady laughed. She dashed over to Dina and threw her arms around her. “I’m so glad to see you.” Her voice broke a little. “I thought we’d lost you.”
“Never, not me.” She gently moved Lady away from her and nodded recognition to Mary. “Good to see you’re still on board.”
“Well,” Mary said. “Pretty much all of this is my fault.”
“True.” Excalibur nodded.
“No bickering, girls. Come on. Let’s work out how we get out of this one.”
***
The flames on the embers died down just before the light broke through the trees. “It’s the same every…day.” Dina frowned. “The nights are dark, but the days are only just a little brighter. How long have I been here?”
Excalibur sat next to her, her hand on Dina’s knee. “On the outside? A couple of weeks.”
“It truly has been longer for me.” Dina looked at Mary and Lady, both sleeping, curled on the floor. “Now it is lighter, it is time to leave.”
“Are you feeling yourself?”
Dina smiled at Excalibur. “Just about. It is like that in here. It takes your mind from you eventually.”
Excalibur nodded. “We’ve missed you.”
“I’m here now.”
Excalibur sidled closer and rested her head on Dina’s shoulder. “How are we to leave?”
“It should be easier for the four of us. We will trip through the ethereal.”
“But, Mary,” Excalibur whispered. “She cannot commune well although Lady has taught her as best she can.”
“That is a shame, but she slipped into it without trying when we brought back the returners. We will do the same this time. But with that power at work, the Devil will surely know of our presence. Tell me how you got here – how do we return?”
“A door – in Purgatory – but on the other side of it, before we could find you. Before it had our minds. That leads to Hell. From there, Texas.”
“The gateway to Hell is in Texas?”
Excalibur nodded.
Dina shrugged. “Well.”
Mary jerked awake. “Where are we?” she questioned, slurred.
“Calm down. We’re getting ready,” Excalibur answered.
The four of them collected themselves and their thoughts, in near silence until they were ready to leave the temporary encampment Dina had constructed. “So sorry to see the homestead go,” she said with a grin.
“Now what?” Mary asked. “Kick ass?”
Dina raised an eyebrow. “How you have grown. No. We save fighting for later. For now we mus
t leave as quietly as we can. We will return to the doorway that Excalibur has told me of, but we will do it here – deep in Purgatory. When we are at the door we will free our minds using the powers we have – but beware – the Devil will surely know what is afoot as we do. Then we must flee Hell. To the real world. Re-group.”
“Lick our wounds, you mean,” Excalibur interrupted.
“If you will, then yes. We need to fix the problem at hand.”
Lady nodded. “We’re right with you, Boss.” She sloppily saluted Dina.
“You girls,” Dina whispered.
They left in the direction of the door. The gray light of Purgatory was even grayer below the trees, as if they walked in night. Excalibur led with Dina next to her, telling her in whispers of the events that had led them to finding her.
“So your father really did help?” Dina asked.
“Yes. Although I forgive him nothing.”
“He is still your father.”
“Do you have thoughts on how we can defeat the Devil?” Excalibur asked.
“Don’t change the subject. But no, not yet.”
They reached the edge of the tree line. Excalibur crouched and looked into the sky. “Mongers,” she whispered.
“We are many,” said Dina.
“We are.” Lady came up to the side of them, followed by Mary.
“And what have you two been discussing back there?”
“Boys,” they said in unison. Mary laughed quietly.
“There is no expectation for us to be quiet in here. How far is it?”
“Not far,” said Excalibur.
“Come on then.” Dina walked out of the cover of the trees and her hands lit up with electricity.
“Oop.” Excalibur lit her hands up too, rising into the air.
Lady and Mary followed. Mary lit her hands with balls of fire. Once out of the shadows the mongers saw them in an instant, bellowing screeches and hurling themselves from the sky towards them.
Excalibur was the first to respond, rising higher in the air to greet the oncomers, but Dina had different ideas. She flung two balls of electricity through the air towards the mongers, passing Excalibur’s side and crashing into the first two.
