A Shade of Vampire 23

by Bella Forrest

  I felt like an astronaut exploring the ether as I ventured forward toward what seemed to be the brightest star. Because it was the brightest and the largest, I also assumed it to be the closest, though of course, I saw the flaws in that logic. Still, I didn’t see the harm in moving forward… as long as I didn’t lose sight of the tunnel.

  Ben

  I had no way of knowing how much time was passing as I drifted in the vacuum. My vision still focused on what I’d deemed to be the nearest star, I began speeding up, until I was hurtling forward with all the supernatural speed that I had. But the star did not seem to be getting any closer at all. I wondered how many days, months or maybe even years it would take to reach it.

  As the outline of the long, snaking tunnel had all but faded, I stopped. I couldn’t get too carried away in my curiosity over this strange world. Besides risking getting lost, this would in any case only turn out to be a detour, a waste of time. A way of taking my mind off the frustration that still filled me after my encounter with the oracle.

  I traced my route back to the portal and, on reaching the swirling tunnel walls, I paused before passing through it. I couldn’t help but gaze around this silent world one last time. Almost painfully silent. The type of silence that caused a person to go insane if they stayed in it for too long.

  I felt the urge to shatter it—or see if I could—before I turned my back on the vacuum, maybe never to return.

  “Hello!” I bellowed. I was shocked by how loud my voice sounded. I was so used to it being washed out beneath the noises of the living world, but now, it was as though I’d just hollered into a mega-blast system.

  I shouted again, even attempting to increase my volume this time and see how loud it could get. If I’d had ear drums, they would have hurt, I was sure.

  Now it’s time to stop procrastinating.

  Turning my back on the stars, I returned through the walls of the tunnel. As disconnected as I was from the world above, I felt a surge of relief as I arrived back on the snowy plateau and took in my surroundings—my comfortingly earthly surroundings.

  Before thinking about heading back to the supernatural realm in search of more answers, I needed a few moments to recover from that mind warp.

  Once I felt ready to pass through the tunnel again to the supernatural realm, I approached the portal and hovered over it. As I was about to dive through, my head panned downward. I froze, my eyes bulging.

  Staring up at me through the darkness of the abyss was a face. A man. But he was a man unlike any I had ever seen before. At first I thought he was another ghost, since he appeared to be drifting—the downward pull of the portal having no effect on him at all. But I soon discarded that assumption. His tall, slender body radiated a warm glow—a glow I had never witnessed coming from a ghost before—and his appearance was… breathtaking. A word I hadn’t thought I’d ever use to describe another man. He had straight copper-colored hair that flowed down his shoulders and reached down to his lower back. He wore a white silk sash around his waist, and another over his shoulder, as well as a silver belt holding two sheathed daggers. His eyes were a brilliant amber, his ears were slanted at the tips, and his face was so perfectly symmetrical he almost looked like a drawing.

  Then he spoke, in a deep, almost musical voice. “You were calling.”

  Calling. This creature is from the other side of the tunnel walls… “The other side”.

  My mind began spinning. Could the fable Nolan and Chantel recounted to me possibly be true after all? Are they and the other ghosts gone because, indeed, the light did come for them?

  Fear filled me—the same fear that the oracle had accused me of harboring—and all I wanted was to back away from this being.

  “Do not be afraid.” He spoke up again, his eyes calm and gentle, almost as though he’d read my thoughts. “I heard the wretched crying of your soul, and I have simply come to answer you.”

  He must have heard me shouting. I cursed myself for giving into the temptation to break the silence of that vacuum. Though to be fair, I never could have predicted this…

  “Uh…” I began, unable to shake how bizarre it felt to be talking to this spirit. “You’re mistaken. I wasn’t calling for help… I’m just on my way to the supernatural dimension.”

  My words hung awkwardly in the air as the spirit continued to survey me.

  I staggered back as he began drifting upward, out of the entrance. He cocked his head to one side, his sculpted brows knotting in a frown. “Why are you afraid?”

  I didn’t answer. I was beginning to feel more and more uncomfortable with this strange being’s presence with each moment that passed. My instinct was to hurtle away in the opposite direction, but I found myself rooted to the spot. I simply couldn’t just back away. Not yet. I needed to know who and what this was.

  “What are you?” I asked.

  “An agent of destiny, some call me.” He’d reached within feet of me now. His arm moved and his hand landed on my shoulder. To my shock, I could actually feel him. His touch… it was firm, on my shoulder. How is that possible? “While others call me… fate itself.”

  His grip on my shoulder tightened, then his other arm shot out and he gripped me by the upper arm.

  My face contorted in confusion. “What are you doing?”

  “Come with me,” he replied, even as he began to tug on me. “We wish to show you something.”

  Who’s we?

  He was pulling me toward the portal. I tried to struggle but, as I attempted to push him away, my hands passed through him like he was made of nothing but air.

  He looked back over his shoulder, and as I followed his gaze, I caught sight of another being just like the man holding me, drifting out of the entrance of the gate. Bizarrely, he was dragging behind him… a box. Though as he neared, it looked more like a coffin. A white coffin.

  “Get off me.” I struggled again to break free, however futilely. The being holding me hauled me toward his companion… and the coffin. His comrade lifted open the lid of the coffin before moving toward me. His hands wrapped around my ankles. The two of them carried me to the box and laid me inside as easily as one would set down an infant in a cradle. They let go of me once they’d positioned me at the base of the coffin, but before I could zoom out, they slammed the lid shut.

  I immediately tried to pass through the walls of the box, but I could not. There was a narrow, vertical window of glass that trailed down the length of the box’s lid. When I gazed through it, it was to see the snowy sky above. Then I caught a glimpse of hands clutching the sides of the box. They lifted it, and then with a lurch that flattened me against the base of the box, the view outside became nothing but a blur. The coffin shook violently from side to side.

  They were hurtling away with me… back through the tunnel walls?

  Ben

  I couldn’t see where they were taking me, but, to my surprise, it didn’t seem like they’d dragged me into the portal. Watching the coffin’s window was like looking through the window of a washing machine at maximum speed. I could barely even make out any distinct colors, let alone forms or objects. But it was light—lighter than it should have been if we were hurtling through the vacuum.

  It was a bumpy ride, and if I’d endured this as a human, I was sure that my skull would have cracked by now from the amount of times my head made contact with the coffin’s walls. This box was like the one Julie had trapped me in, resistant to subtle beings.

  Finally, the beings began to slow down. The view out of the glass became a little less mangled and I stopped being bashed about so much.

  As we slowed enough for the view to come fully into focus, I wondered if I’d finally lost my mind. Water surrounded the box. Rough, swirling water. It was moving around and around in a vortex, as though we’d entered the center of some kind of giant whirlpool.

  The coffin lurched again, dropping in what felt like a free fall. I was jolted away from the window and by the time I managed to press my face again
st the glass again, the coffin was still surrounded by water… only much calmer—and darker—water. It no longer swelled and surged, but instead was still and calm. The lid of the box faced what I assumed was skyward, and I could just about make out the rippling surface of the water and a few faint trickles of light—moonlight, I could only assume. It was far too pale for sunlight.

  The box continued sinking deeper into whatever reservoir of water I’d crashed into before there was an upward pull—the being hauling me back to the surface. Only now, as I gazed out, I could only see one spirit manning the coffin. The same copper-haired man who’d been the first to touch me. The other must have left at some point. It was impossible to guess when.

  The spirit’s body—emitting a soft halo of light in the murky water—temporarily obstructed my view. I felt him lifting the container higher, and then he positioned the box upright. When he moved aside and I was able to peer through the glass again, it was to see that he’d lifted me into a long, black gondola boat, two oars resting at its side. As I gazed around the boat, we were floating on some kind of vast lake, enclosed within an expansive cavern. The ceiling was so high, even straining my neck didn’t allow me to glimpse it. Boulders lined the edges of the lake, and the walls of the cave were rocky and uneven. The spirit planted himself in front of me on the boat and took up the two oars. Dipping them into the water, he began to row.

  Ahead of us, on the border of the dark lake, was what appeared to be a narrow entrance to a tunnel, on either side of which were two black columns, adorned with garlands of… heads? Shrunken heads. Shrunken, human heads. I didn’t have time to gape long. The spirit was fast in navigating us through the narrow passage of water between the pillars and soon we’d entered a winding tunnel of water. We wound around and around in the blackness till I almost felt dizzy. Then, turning a corner, the canal merged into a wider expanse of water again. We’d reached another large cavern—though this one was devoid of all traces of light. The only thing illuminating the enclosure was the aura of the spirit’s body as he rowed forward.

  “Where are we?” I yelled, even though I guessed that he could not hear me through the box. Whether or not that was the case, the spirit did not answer.

  A bank came into view. A small bank covered with black pebbles. The being continued floating the boat toward it, and as we reached the shore with a gentle bump, he turned around. I glimpsed his face, his fiery brows furrowed, jaw set in concentration as his arms wrapped around the box again. He lifted it and dragged it off the boat, onto the bank.

  Then the lid to the coffin clicked open. I didn’t waste a second in rushing out, but he caught up with me before I’d barely even traveled six feet. He gripped me hard by the shoulders from behind, and again, there was absolutely nothing that I could do to escape his grasp.

  I swore at the man.

  “Where are you taking me?” I growled.

  Wordlessly, he dragged me along the pebbly bank and stopped outside… a door. A door that I hadn’t noticed until now. Constructed of twisted metal, with a handle welded in the shape of a skull, it was fixed into the side of the rocky walls of the cavern. As I eyed its edges—particularly those closest to the handle—I wondered if it was just the dimness playing tricks on my eyes when I noticed the surface was stained with a reddish tinge.

  Raising one hand while still holding me tightly with the other, the spirit thunked his fist against the door in three resounding knocks.

  Silence engulfed us as we waited… for what, I couldn’t even imagine.

  My eyes shot toward the handle as it twisted. The metal joints of the towering door groaned. Filling the voluminous cavern with an eerie creaking, the door swung open to reveal… nothing. Just a dark, empty doorway, leading into what appeared to be a tunnel.

  “What’s going on?” I breathed.

  The spirit dragged me inside and shoved me up against a wall. His right forearm dug against my neck, holding me in place. His eyes—no longer as soft or calm as they’d been back near the portal—now glinted with intensity as he whispered, “This is where I leave you… Where you now belong.”

  “And where is this?” I hissed through gritted teeth, even as my hands wrapped uselessly around his offending arm.

  He answered with a single word:

  “Hell.”

  Ben

  I’d heard the spirit, and yet I hadn’t heard him. His answer passed through my ears, but I was unable to make even the slightest bit of sense of it.

  Hell?

  What?

  I didn’t get a chance to ask him for clarification. His forearm jerked away from me with wild speed, and the next thing I knew, he’d sped through the entrance and slammed it behind him.

  No.

  You’re not leaving me in this place.

  I zoomed after him, but I never got the chance to discover whether or not my form could pass through this door. Inches from it, I felt an abrupt and alarming sensation in my upper arms. It felt like somebody had grabbed hold of me again, and yet there was nobody in sight. And yet, as I struggled again to move forward and reach the door, the feeling of powerful hands holding me in place remained.

  As I whirled to look around again, this time I saw it. The outline of a creature standing right behind me. A towering, wraithlike creature. A creature that certainly belonged in hell. My gaze shot to my arms. Long, gnarled fingers with pointed black nails were wrapped around me, rooting me to the spot. They seemed to be turning more solid and less translucent with each passing second, until my head panned upward and I beheld the creature in its full, visible form: a nightmarish being with a skeletal body covered with skin so thin and translucent, it revealed the cold blue veins beneath. He had jagged, shark-like teeth and tufts of long black hair hung from the base of his otherwise bald skull.

  A physical form. And yet he was able to touch me.

  I was still staring as he began tugging me away from the door, down, down into the tunnel.

  For the first time, I found myself seriously considering that this was actually hell. But what have I done to deserve to be here? As the creature hauled me after him through the gloom, my mind felt like it had been blasted to pieces. I found myself thinking back on my life, on all that I’d done. I’d always thought that I’d led a decent life. Granted, I had murdered my fair share of people, but that hadn’t been by my will. I’d been under the influence of the Elder. But perhaps fate—if that glowing being really is an agent of fate—doesn’t consider the reasons for one’s actions. If a person touches fire, it burns regardless of how innocent one is. Perhaps Fate didn’t consider excuses and went only on actions. By that evaluation, I realized that I had lived a bad life. A very bad life.

  The end of the tunnel came into view, and as we reached it, we emerged in another cavern. Only this was different to the ones enclosing the lakes outside the door. Running down the center of it was an elevated path, on either side of which were pools. Large, circular basins of water that emitted an odd, pale blue light. This light was the only thing illuminating the chamber. I strained to get a closer look at them to glimpse the reason for their illumination, but I wasn’t close enough.

  We reached the other side of the chamber, where there was a narrow entrance to yet another passageway. This led into a second room, almost identical to the last, with glowing ponds on either side. We passed through several more of these rooms, and by this time I was no longer even bothering to struggle beneath the creature’s grip. After what felt like the seventh chamber—for I began to lose count—I began paying less attention to the phosphorescent ponds, and more to the rest of my surroundings. More gruesome garlands draped down from the ceiling, only these were not constructed only of shrunken heads. Whoever was responsible for the morbid decorations had thrown in a myriad of bones, tufts of hair, and what looked like dried flaps of skin.

  Whoever was responsible for the interior design of this place clearly had a one-track mind.

  My escort came to an abrupt stop as we reached the end of
perhaps the ninth chamber. He stopped in front of the last pond in the room. His hold around me tightening, he moved closer toward the water until we reached the edge of it. Without warning, he shot up into the air, dragging me with him. I barely even had a chance to look at the water before the creature gripped my head and thrust me beneath the surface. As I gazed around underwater, I realized what was causing the faint, bluish glow.

  The pond—all of these ponds… they were swarming with ghosts. So many ghosts surrounded me in this single reservoir, I couldn’t even begin to count them. Most were motionless at the bottom—some sitting upright, others lying down in whatever little space there was—while others swirled around in clusters aimlessly in the water.

  I immediately surged upward again, but the heinous being was still hovering over the surface. His large, clawed hands clamped around my head and he forced me back down into the pool.

  I continued my attempts to escape, but as he continued to push me back down—each time with more severity and impatience—I saw the futility in my attempt. He needed to leave before I could try again.

  My gaze tilted back to the ghosts beneath me and surrounding me. I needed to talk to somebody. I needed answers before I completely lost my mind.

  I scanned all the unfamiliar faces, wondering who to approach first, and then… I spotted two faces that were not so unfamiliar at all. Chantel and Nolan. The two of them were cowering in a corner, their faces drained and gaunt. Being at the base of the cramped pool, they didn’t seem to have noticed me yet.