Mystery: Suspense: Resheph Ignites: : A Private Investigator Mystery Crime Thriller: (horror, thriller, science fiction, mystery, police, murder, dark, ... (Marie Avalon Mystery Crime Series Book 4)

by Josh Law

It was more than that, though. They stood just staring at each other as the screams from Hell came echoing back through both their minds. The memory was alive now in the smoky air that had been the scene of their end.

  ~Death had taken them absent-mindedly. They were too preoccupied with the sudden searing heat that came rolling out of tunnels of deep black stone carved into the side of a mountain to pay any attention to their bodies. Nick looked to his right to find Alex wide-eyed and panting beside him. He’d looked up and flashed a falsely brave grin. It was obvious where they were headed.

  There was some kind of commotion at the mouth of the caves that Nick didn’t remember from his other times in the Underworld. Then again, he’d never dared come this close to Hell’s doors before. The vampire bats screamed and flew in cyclone shapes as fire chased them out of the mines. They were fleeing something. That and the fire never usually stretched out here to the cliffs. To the dark and twisted forest that led down to the Steps of Death.

  “What do you think all the fuss is about? Bad room service? It is Hell, after all?” Nick shrugged with a hot laugh. Alex pressed his fist into his chest.

  “I think the only way we’re gonna find out is if we go down there, brother.” He grimaced. He wouldn’t take a single step until Nick was ready to move. Nick had always been the one to lead them.

  With a deep breath that stung because he’d inhaled Nineveh’s ashes and Sodom’s salt all in the same breath, Nick took a step forward. Alex drew close to him, clutching the top of his arm to stay at his side. He jumped as hands shot up from the drought-powdered dust that surrounded the locust tree roots. Hands that took him by the heels.

  “Please! She can’t have her way! She can’t! Our torment will only be a thousand times again as ruthless!” A disembodied voice begged as the hands began to thrash. Nick swung his boot heels into them and pulled Alex back.

  “Go back to your boss, Fate! Tell him that this time I’m coming down. To see for myself whatever this crazy chick was talking about!” Nick rolled his eyes. Alex looked at him in amazement.

  “Wait, you know the hands? Like you and the hands have talked before? The hands have lips attached? What?” Alex’s hair was standing on end.

  “Ah, that’s just Fate. She burrows under the trees like a mole or something. She likes groping people’s feet. No worries, she’s never tried to goose me higher than my heels.” Nick turned to look at the tunnels again.

  “Well, what do you make of it? Should we risk Hell to know the truth of what’s going on back up on the Earth?”

  “If you think that somehow we can find a way to warn the others back there, then I’m game.” Alex shot an accusing look back at the mole-tunnel Fate had left behind.

  “Come on then, my brother. I guess the only way to do this is to get it over with.”

  They went to the searing doors and froze eyes wide. The last thing they’d expected in Hell was water! Granted it was filthy black water, but it flowed in little trickles down from the mouth of the caves.

  “Ice. It’s melting ice…” Nick leaned close and stuck his finger in it.

  “That’s not all it is!” Alex grabbed his arm and pointed. Little streams of gold bled free, rising to their ankles and melting around them like cuffs with pain that was indescribable. They couldn’t cry out or flinch because they were suddenly too cold and breathless.

  A voice spoke out of the darkness. They couldn’t understand it at first. Gritting their teeth, they crept closer.

  “Go back! Go back! There’s no coming out…She is here, who slew her own nation. She is here who is waiting for you to rescue her from Perdition…”

  “Excuse me, do I look like a fireman?” Nick spun in circles looking for the source of the voice.

  “Oh God!” Alex flinched. Nick turned.

  The path that led to Hell was woven with billions upon trillions of technicolored snakes that chewed each other like cows feeding off of grass. Their own poison hopped them up and made smoke ooze from their bodies. Their slithering was so hard that it vibrated the walls, making fissures in the cliff’s coal walls.

  “Knock, knock! Say what? Yeah, this is pest control. Whoever she is, she seems to have some vermin troubles. FYI, I charge extra for snakes!” Nick spat into the darkness. His saliva immediately evaporated. It was getting hotter, dryer, and infinitely darker down this way.

  The chamber they entered was one of pure gold floors. The walls and ceiling were trillions of hornets’ nests, swarming with bright yellow-black striped hornets that were each the size of housecats.

  There on a throne of crystalized honey sat a queen in ancient Mayan attire. They could tell by her decorum and expression that she was actually a queen of the Ancient World and not a poser like Guatavita.

  “Greetings, Master Jaguar and his armor bearer. Now, to go directly to business.

  My descendant has sent you to bring me up from Hell. She believes I can tell you the place of my burial so that she can use the Resheph poison to resurrect me from the Grave so that I can be a regent advisor of a revived Maya.” The Queen stood up from her throne. Her whole body was covered in festering stings.

  “Ohoh! Lady, you honestly think I’m going to go through with that?” Nick bowed over laughing. He looked back at Alex who shrugged.

  “Don’t look at me. Coming in here was your idea.”

  The Queen nodded.

  “Oh, you have mistaken me. I have no intention of heeding my descendant’s prayer. To pluck the condemned convicts sentenced to Hell from the fire is a crime punishable by one’s own sentence.

  I am the Red Queen of Ancient Maya. A destroyer of that World. Should I rise again, I would take the Earth back to this place along with me. Then your kin would see this fate unless otherwise they found the way to Paradise, which is only by the Christ’s Road.” Her deadly eyes fell on Nick and he swallowed.

  “So, wait. She’s reviving your empire, but you want to stop her?”

  “Maya had become corrupt. We deserved to end. It’s better that we do not rise again. I have reasons. Ones that we have no time to discuss. We must take great measure here if we are to stop my people from emerging out of Hell.

  Now, some of the prominent Unholy Dead she has already made off with to fulfill her dark ambitions. There are secrets here in the deep that she has no access to because she cannot communicate to me by face, only in prayers which I cannot return a direct answer to because of the broken communication waves in Hell.” The Red Queen paused, studying Nick.

  “You have truly become the Jaguar in the end, after all, young master. Only not to her purposes or even to mine. For the wild cat of the night has no other commander but himself.”

  “Couldn’t agree more sister. What’s your plan?” Nick looked at Alex who was anxiously swatting at the massive hornets with his open palms.

  “There is a physician alive at the island laboratory you destroyed. He will revive both of you soon. It’s why I made haste to come to Hell’s brink and deliver you my message.” She plucked a roll of parchment from her waist and crept closer to them both.

  “My descendant wishes to resurrect me thinking that I would gladly show her where the Doorway of Dimensions, sometimes called the Bermuda Triangle, is. She hoped to use that Doorway for commerce between the dimension of our Ancient Empire, the Modern World, and the dimension of ancient masters that lived in the Seven Heavens. If she does discover it, if she can use her science to repair it, then she will have a road that runs throughout Death and Life and all of the Spirit Kingdom besides. She could in that respect become the queen of all dimensions. The Queen of the Universe.” The Red Queen laughed as if this sounded utterly ridiculous in her own ears.

  “That’s pretty ambitious. You know I always wanted to be an engineer when I grew up. I guess I better start hitting the books, so I can rebuild the Planet after we get done with her.” Alex rubbed his nose.

  “I will place the metaphysical scientific knowledge of our Ancient World in you both. When you revive, wit
hin a few days you will begin to remember everything that we discussed here. Then you will know how to close and open the Doorway and only you will know it. For that reason, you will be the masters of it.” She opened the scroll then and beckoned them close.

  ~Returning to the present in mind, the two brothers studied each other.

  “When do you think we’ll remember that juicy bit of game changer?” Nick licked his lips, concerned there wouldn’t be time.

  “I guess when we need to?” Alex looked up. There was the whir of engines about their heads.

  The battle had begun.

  “Look out boys! The guests are here! Just in time for tea! Oh, you’ll have to ignore my English wits. I was taught to speak English and the modern dialect thereof by Dr. Swift and I fear I have inherited some of his peculiar phraseology!” Rameses came running across the beach, a tea pot in tow. A rocket launcher discharged near his feet knocking him through the air, causing him to land on the boys, and spill his tea.

  “Oh God, so it’s started right off hot and heavy, yeah?” Rameses sat up. The boys rolled over on their bellies, training machine guns to the skyline.

  “Welcome to the trenches, Pharaoh. You will find that our lives are like Disney World when it comes to a good time!” Nick gritted his teeth, readying himself as a plane tore through the tree-line.

  Chapter 9

  Renee had put Alex’s real mother out of mind soon after her second death as the images had been much too painful. Yet her memory came rushing back to her in this moment, as she recalled how resurrection had so altered her. Had the technique improved any? Or would the big bad guys of the past be jacked on steroids in this brave new world?

  It wasn’t long before they were swamped. Ten ships hemmed them in, cruising so close that their hulls pressed them out of the water and held the tiny Jaguar in the center like a brilliant golden egg in a nest of steel.

  Renee swung her rifle around as people came pouring onto the deck. She felt her hair stand on end when she realized they were wearing Nazi uniforms. Behind them came Adolf Hitler of all people.

  He smirked at her behind his trademark mustache. His eyes burned like Hell’s coals. She swallowed, remembering this guy was fond of blonde chicks. The thought that Adolf Hitler actually could be checking her out was not only the weirdest thing she could have ever contrived but also stomach-chilling.

  He said nothing. He didn’t have to. His presence was enough to set her spine to tingling. Yet some spark of courage swept over her, oceanic in its mighty wave. She tossed her rifle across the deck, letting it clatter. Reaching into her boot, she pulled out a bowie knife she’d sheathed at her ankle.

  “Guten tag! I mostly figure you don’t speak English. Maybe you do? Anyway, you like this knife? It was my daddy’s. Toughest SOB you ever laid eyes on. I only pull this baby out when stuff gets really real. I guess the day I meet you is the day that it’s time to brandish Virginia again.” She smirked. He nodded slowly and extended a hand to one of his resurrected generals.

  The man produced a cello case and opened it. Renee’s face twisted in confusion. Hitler popped his knuckles and extended a hand for a double-bladed battle-ax.

  “Ah, I see. You’ve always had this thing about superiority, haven’t you, Adolf?” Renee drew a breath. He gripped it in one hand and suddenly swung out at her.

  His face contorted violently. She jumped back, trying to maintain her balance, to think this out. What had his face just done? It was an inexplicable muscle contortion. Rapid, almost fast enough that she’d call herself crazy, but his face had also changed in color when it happened like it was literally putting off electricity. His eyes had rolled back on their whites and he’d thrashed just once like he was having an epileptic seizure.

  She figured it out quickly but it was still almost too late. The contortion was a sort of rapid electro-stimulus in his body making him at least 20 times stronger than the capacity of an average adult male. This strength had come with agility twice improved.

  She’d met her match. This was probably the way it ended for Renee Vierra. They say that life flashes before one’s eyes when they die. In her experience, it was a sudden rapid consciousness of the entire scene.

  Marilyn stood at the controls, fighting to keep it from tipping in the air while she managed to brandish a Beretta she’d had hidden at her waistline. She shot Julius Caesar point blank in the face. Renee noticed in horror that he repeated Hitler’s bizarre electric contortion. The rapid blurring of his thrashing body deflected the bullet to the left, sending it through the back of a centurion’s skull. Renee held her breath as she realized that each of the ancients had been revived with a portion of their individual regimes. She could only imagine what this meant.

  She spun on her heels, dodging the swing of Die Fuhrer’s ax. Spinning in such a motion, she noticed Bacardi shoving a grenade into Attila the Hun’s mouth and pulling the pin. She stepped back with an air of accomplishment, then blanched. The Scourge of God chuckled and began to choke the weapon down into his belly like a Boa constrictor. It detonated in his stomach, bulging his bones out, tearing his skin in many places. He also repeated the electric contortion and began to heal rapidly.

  Renee turned again, to see Dr. Clark wielding a syringe full of air. He jabbed it in Genghis Khan’s throat. Who chuckled and ripped it out. He titled his head to the side and suddenly his skin became highly translucent and his veins were all clearly visible. The air had been reacted rapidly with some burning orange chemical in his veins. It hadn’t caused an embolism, but a rush of something else. Something that worked like speed. With the shriek of a wrathful chimpanzee, Khan swung out his arms and his brass capped fingernails, sending electric current down his fingers, making a natural Taser with each of his fingertips. Renee couldn’t see the current, but she could feel it going through Clark even from here. The Doctor moaned as his hair began to wither and burn and his eyes rolled in his head.

  Then she saw Chance with the Prescott kids. They were surrounding none other than Vlad Tepe, the infamous Count of Dracula. To her shock, he had his hands raised to the sky. Blood streamed from his mouth and now she could see what had caused all the rumors of the count being a vampire. He was clearly suffering from a vicious, inexplicable autoimmune disease that made his body produce more enamel than his teeth had actually needed. His teeth thus had produced too much and it had built up like stalactites into fearsome fangs.

  She held her breath. This had to be the Apocalypse. It hadn’t been fire, ice, or the earth opening and swallowing them all. The Dead had been forced to rise and parade as puppet gladiators for the avarice and domination of one psychotic woman.

  Science had become the destroyer of their World. Unless the purity of the righteous champion, could somehow douse the fire all of Space and Time would be corrupted in the onslaught of misused innovation.

  Chapter 10:

  From where he was perched lashed to the mast with the burning tires slung over it and the sails catching fire, Cipriano could see that Tito clearly had a conspiracy that went far beyond the need to kidnap his old friend for ransom.

  “I suppose I read you wrong all the way around, ‘mano. Here I thought this was the prize of your fleet. Now you’re destroying it for smoke signals?” Cipriano grinned at Tito until the yellow-bellied Judas began to dance in place.

  “Ah, I can always get another yacht. You, amigo, are a pretty expensive commodity for an emerging lucrative market, yeah? With the inception of this amazing new resurrection drug, I can sell you dead or alive too. The fire is only to attract the customers that will be showing up on your right in a few minutes to deal with the kid.”

  Cipriano held his breath.

  “What do you mean ‘deal with the kid’? Nicolas is dead.” He shook his head. What more could they possibly want with Marilyn’s child?

  Cipriano’s heart was wrapped in concrete. Nothing got in and nothing came out anymore, without being viciously squashed by his machismo. The only person who’d managed t
o slide through those walls like a powerful spirit had been young Nicolas Avalon. It unnerved Cipriano greatly how much the boy reminded him of a white version of his slaughtered little brother. He’d come charging in like a fighting bull and proved his salt in a manner of minutes. Just like Anselmo would have done.

  He closed his eyes tight against the smoke rising about his jaws. This had been the first moment since the day he’d learned of the teenager’s death he’d allowed himself to even think his name. He had loved his little brother on a supernatural level. That vicious protective nature had been one of the things that had inspired others in the gang scene to follow after him. Cipriano had built his career off of a need to gather justice that couldn’t be gotten from the Law. Anselmo had paid the ultimate price for it. It had broken him and he’d gone astray.

  Nick had changed his mind and restored his faith in the way that he loved his own brother. It had opened the windows to Cipriano’s soul again. He began to feel love and emotion once more. He’d begun to love this boy like a son. Once he’d died before his eyes, he knew for certain that he did.

  Then there was his mother. Cipriano had amazed himself. He was diving out of the sky like an eagle shot through the head in love with Marilyn Avalon.

  “Oh, that’s right. You were unconscious for the news cast. Well, allow me to fill you in. Nicky’s alive and surprisingly so is Alex. There was a straggler mad scientist locked up in the Lab’s basement that managed to piece their corpses back together and fish them out of Hell again. When the Lady’s men saw it on the news, they came shooting out of every rat hole on the Planet. I’m waiting for a particular set of people the Lady used the serum to resurrect. You ever read in history about the East Indian Trade Company?” Tito’s face was red as he was laughing so hard. He had more to say that never left his lips. Two armies tore through the sky at once.

  Knowing that Nicolas was alive made Cipriano’s blood rush with sudden adrenaline. He’d lost the will to fight back against the seven men that had lashed him to the mast. It seemed like destiny, his final part to play. Now he didn’t feel so resigned to his fate. Now he felt like taking on the whole crew and then some.