There was a roaring sound and a burst of heat and pressure over her head as they set the explosive off. She jumped to her feet and ran for them. She got to the first two men before they had fully noticed her and were still only just beginning to react. The closest of them was holding a knife. She performed a snap kick to the knee and as he reacted to that jerked his arm back and down shattering the elbow and taking the knife from him in one sweeping move. As he fell she cut his throat with the knife, hard and deep so as to be certain he was dead. The second man was swinging at her, also holding a knife. But to her heightened senses and reflexes and rapidly accelerating fury he was moving just so slowly. She avoided him easily, stepped in behind him and in one savage thrust stabbed him in the heart from behind – killing him also.
But the third man had moved into the cockpit and had already fired several shots. Michiko assumed he had just executed the crew. His back was turned to her but as she moved towards him he turned and fired. There was a sharp burning pain as one bullet went into her shoulder spinning her to the left. But pain could be ignored. She moved in on him, screaming – eyes blazing. She managed to push the gun slightly to the side as she fell forward onto him – jamming her knee into his groin as she landed on him. She knocked him unconscious with a blow to the temple. But he had managed to fire several more random shots as he fell.
Michiko took a moment to kill him; stabbing him in the throat with the knife she still had, before getting to her feet, calming her thoughts and making an attempt to assess the situation. She was hurt badly and bleeding but that was not the worst of it. The three flight crew were all dead. A lot of the instrumentation seemed damaged – smoke was coming from some of it. Warning lights seemed to be flashing all over the place. The aircraft itself was starting to roll to the right. She was now completely calm. She even smiled. At least the bullets hadn’t torn holes in the fuselage and she wasn’t getting sucked out into the freezing near vacuum outside. Or was that just a myth? She didn’t know. She jumped for the pilot’s seat and tried to take control of the centre stick. The roll was starting to feel excessive and dangerous. But she couldn’t move the joystick and the aircraft continued its slow inevitable sliding roll to the right. She thought to herself
“Oh no, this can’t happen now.” She continued to fight for control. The aircraft continued to roll. Then past a certain point it lost all stability and began to tumble. Michiko was thrown wildly about the cabin as the aircraft simply fell out of the sky, tumbling madly all the way down before smashing into the ocean at five hundred miles per hour. There were no survivors. Michiko was calm the whole time, ignoring her pain, eyes wide open, looking around, waiting to die. This was a warrior’s death. Her father would be proud of her.
***************
The next thing she knew she was standing on a vast plain – still in the same clothes. But there was no blood on her and she was no longer wounded. Not too far away she could see a high wall – possibly enclosing some kind of city. She was puzzled. Where could she be? Then she knew, of course, this was the after life. She had died in the crash. How could she not have. All doubt was gone when she saw a large demon striding towards her. It was Asmodeous, but she wouldn’t know his name until much later. He was huge and fierce and clearly hostile.
She dropped into a combat stance and prepared herself. Now this really was the fight of her life against an impossible enemy. The battle on the aircraft had merely been a warm up. She said a silent prayer to the divine Goddess Amaterasu and waited. Asmodeous closed in on her with an impatient snarl. He swatted her on the side of her head with his open palm knocking her unconscious. He had moved superhumanly fast. She could not have even begun to react quickly enough. When she regained consciousness she found that the demon was dragging her by her feet across the plains towards the city walls. She tried to twist and turn but her feet and hands were bound. Asmodeous looked down at her and smiled – this one had spirit. He would enjoy breaking her. Everyone broke. It just took time – and that was something he had in abundance.
***************
From the far eastern edge of the Plains of Desolation the Divine Goddess Amaterasu watched on with rapidly growing anguish. She cried out
“Oh no, my daughter, my darling daughter, this is not what I meant for you. Oh no! Oh no! “ The Gods Suijin and Tenjiin tried to console her but she pushed them away and began screaming out in anger and rage. She watched helplessly as Asmodeus dragged Michiko away. She knew he was taking her to his brothel. From an impossible distance she cried out to him, with all the fury of a Goddess
“I swear, before time ends I will bring down upon you more pain and more suffering than ever before even imagined by God or Man.” She continued to watch, unable to turn away, screaming out endlessly.
Chapter 7 – Sunday Morning in Hades
Jarrod and Cassandra were both relieved to make it back into the relative safety of the apartment. It had been an incredible day - the day they died and went to Hell, saw for the first time the vastly evil Pit of Despair and were feted by hordes of demons in the Great Hall, or at least Jarrod was. It was overwhelming and they were both exhausted. It seemed like years since they’d last slept. Cassandra sat down on the couch and sighed. She motioned to Jarrod inviting him to join her. He sat down beside her, a little awkwardly. She leant against him and put her arm on his shoulder, looking at him rather sadly.
"What on earth are we going to do now? It's totally crazy out there." Jarrod enjoyed the feeling of her body pressing against him, forgetting for just a moment where they were. Why couldn’t they just lie here forever, quietly intimate, disconnected from the insanity outside. He put his arm around her for the first time, holding her. He looked back at her.
"Nothing! I think it's all coming to an end - and we're part of it." Cassandra was listening carefully despite her exhaustion. She nodded
"It feels like that." Jarrod tried to collect his thoughts - but he was so tired.
"We'll figure it out. There must be something we can do." Cassandra stretched up towards him and kissed him lightly on the lips. He returned the kiss. They lay there together holding each other and eventually they fell asleep. Jarrod's last conscious thought was
"Well, no one gets forever but maybe just a day."
They woke up some time later. It must have been at least several hours, possibly longer. Some light was coming in from somewhere so it must be daytime again – or whatever passed for day down here. Jarrod lay there quietly, unwilling to move. It occurred to him that it must be Sunday Morning, still very early. No clocks though – no alarms. They didn’t need them here. Cassandra stretched and got up onto her feet. She walked around the apartment looking for food. She found a large jug on a bench. It was filled with some kind of thick dark liquid, still warm - coffee? There were also several thick loaves of bread. She had no idea how it all got there. She grabbed some mugs, put everything onto a large tray and then took it back with her into the other room. Jarrod had finally sat up. She placed the tray onto a small table and called out
"Breakast!" Jarrod moved over to the table and sat down with her. He was also hungry. Without saying anything more they both started eating and then washed it down with mugs of whatever it was. Jarrod looked at her with a pained and surprised expression, pointing to the jug on the table, then vaguely around the room
"You know how absurd this all is?" Cassandra looked back at him, replying
"Utterly!" After breakfast Cassandra stood up. She went to a chest of drawers on the other side of the room and grabbed her old clothes – the ones she had been wearing before. Jarrod hadn’t noticed until then that she was still wearing the long red gown. Her hair was messed up and the gown was creased and yet standing there in it she was even more beautiful than before. Radiant! He stopped himself from staring. Cassandra said
“I have to change. This dress is too awkward.” Jarrod jumped to his feet
“Oh I see, all right. I’ll just go into the other room.” Cassandra smiled
“No, it’s OK, I will.” She left quickly. She was pleased by his politeness. The little things – they added up. She went into the other room and came back in the jeans and blouse she had been wearing before. She folded the gown as best she could and then placed it onto the chest of drawers. Then she walked back towards Jarrod. He sighed. She was just so amazingly beautiful!
He had moved back to the couch. She sat down next to him, slightly apart. Jarrod was still trying to figure it all out - he faced Cassandra. He was puzzled by something. He asked her bluntly
"We both know why I'm here. But why are you here? That crap Abaddon was pushing about you have to be a Christian. That has to be rubbish. Demons lie. But what did you do? Did you kill someone, trade arms or drugs, or maybe even run a bank?” Cassandra laughed
"No. None of those! I taught visual arts to autistic children. I did some paintings too." Jarrod stared back at her, incredulous
"So what are you doing here?" Cassandra smiled darkly
"Well, I really, really enjoy sex? If I have a few drinks I'm a fun girl to be around." This time Jarrod laughed
"Hmm, thanks. good to know. I’ll remember that. But surely that's not it." Cassandra sighed
"No. Probably my second job, I was a dominatrix in Sydney. I worked at the House of Pain - on the North Shore." Jarrod was shocked
"What!" It occurred to him that this is what Abaddon had been referring to in the foyer to the Great Hall. At least that now made sense. Cassandra raised her eyebrows
"Is this moral disapproval?" Jarrod replied quickly
"No, of course not. I'm just surprised. You don’t seem the type." Cassandra challenged him
"And What type would that be?" Jarrod was floundering, he managed to say
"Well clearly I have no idea what I'm talking about." But he was having some trouble reconciling this new information with his image of Cassandra. He could not imagine this beautiful young woman clad in black leather, being hard and dominant. He couldn’t imagine her being harsh to anyone - though she did obviously have a tough side to her. He didn't mean to and regretted it instantly but couldn’t help himself - he blurted out
"What did you do exactly?" Cassandra was amused
"You want details?" Jarrod shook his head
"Ah, no, I didn't mean ..." Cassandra felt like teasing him a bit
"All the usual – whips and chains, canes, floggers - my specialty though was the strap-on." Jarrod didn’t know what that was, he asked carefully
"What is ...?" Cassandra was still stringing him along, enjoying it
"That's when the girl takes the initiative and boys learn to be girls." Jarrod suddenly got it
"Oh!" Cassandra laughed
"Not as knowledgeable and broad minded as you thought you were?" Jarrod replied
"It would appear not." He was still puzzled though
"What about the clientele? Who are they?" Cassandra looked at him steadily
"You'd be surprised - people from all walks of life. Most of them are just jaded kinksters looking for a hit. A few of them though - really nasty little assholes." Jarrod could see some current of underlying anger there and didn’t want to push it. Cassandra looked at him calmly
"Strange world isn’t it?" Jarrod looked back
"Strange doesn't begin to cover it! We're in Hell, you are, or were in a former life, a whip wielding, leather clad dominatrix and I'm supposed to be fucking Beelzebub - for God’s sake!" Cassandra quietly pointed out
“Not exactly for God’s sake!” Jarrod replied
“No, I guess not.”
They sat together on the couch for some time. Cassandra eventually broke the silence. She asked him
“Can I ask you a personal question?” Jarrod replied
“Of course, anything.” He thought it would be hard to beat ‘Why are you in Hell?’ And given that they were, there didn’t seem to be much point in holding anything back. Cassandra spoke slowly
“You live alone now, or you did, that’s obvious. But what about past girl friends? Who were they? Were you ever married?”This was not normally something Jarrod liked to talk about but the situation was very far from normal. Cassandra looked at him, openly and honestly, clearly interested and concerned. He found that he wanted to tell her everything.
“I was engaged once, ten years ago, to Beth - Elizabeth Collins. We met when we were students.” Cassandra was fascinated
“How did you meet exactly?” Jarrod smiled
“That was amusing. I was sitting in on some psychology lectures. It wasn’t my main interest I just wanted some background. It was a very large lecture hall and even with several hundred students attending there was always plenty of space. I was sitting by myself as always. A very attractive young woman came up and sat beside me, in the very next seat. Now I was almost pathologically shy back then, and inexperienced to say the least. Obviously her actions were outside the bounds of prevailing social convention. You don’t just sit next to a complete stranger in an uncrowded auditorium with plenty of available seats elsewhere. It was clearly an invitation to me to at least say hello. But I didn’t. I didn’t know what to say or what to do. I ignored her for the whole lecture and at the end she got up and left.” Cassandra laughed
“Yes clearly, you were a bit of an idiot.” Jarrod could only agree with her
“Well its obvious now, but then, I just, well, I just didn’t know what to say. I certainly wanted to say something. Anyway we ran into each other a couple of times after that. She ignored me completely. I tried to say hello a few times, eventually she relented. I explained to her that my actions were a result of shyness and incompetence and in no way intended as any kind of personal rebuke. We started going out, we moved in together and six months later we were engaged.” Cassandra smiled
“That’s nice.” Jarrod seemed less than fully enthusiastic
“Yes I suppose.” Cassandra then asked him the obvious question
“So what happened? You say you were engaged but you didn’t say married.” Jarrod looked pensive
“I don’t know what would have happened. But I know what did happen. She was killed – kicked to death in a park by some unknown assailant, who was never caught. I was arrested and charged with murder – for a few hours at least.” Cassandra put her hand on his arm, reassuring him
“That must have been awful.” Jarrod shrugged
“I got over it, she didn’t.” He paused, surprised by a sudden thought. “Oh my God she could be here!” He thought about it. “She was a nice person but that doesn’t seem to matter.” He really didn’t want to follow through on the implications of this. If she was in heaven, fine – but if she was down here her options were very limited and none of them good. Cassandra meanwhile had found something lacking in his description of Beth, she asked him bluntly
“Did you love her?” Jarrod replied slowly, thinking carefully
“At the time I thought I did, but now thinking back, no, not really. I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone.” He wanted to add ‘until now’ but didn’t. He continued “I loved her body, I loved having sex with her, I loved being with someone but I can’t honestly say I loved her or even really knew her that well. Terrible, isn’t it?” Cassandra smiled sadly, her experience with this was not inconsiderable
“It’s honest. I like that about you. I can see it easily. You are completely honest, one hundred percent genuine. It’s very rare. Most people are fakes through and through, just players, full of shit from their toes to their eyeballs.” Jarrod nodded
“That’s for sure.” He may not have loved Beth but he was already head over heels in love with Cassandra. He would do anything for her. They’d been sitting here talking for some time – he hoped that they would keep talking, all day and all night. He wanted to tell her everything and to hear from her everything there was to know about her. Cassandra could easily see the depth of his feelings for her. He was quite surprising, so different. She was starting to feel the same way. She moved in closer
, pushing herself against him, she kissed him. Jarrod wasn’t expecting this. He was delighted. He responded. They kissed again. They were starting to take off each others clothes, at first slowly and with great care, but then with rapidly escalating passion, when suddenly there was the sound of a massive explosion from somewhere in the sky overhead.
The explosion was followed by several more equally loud. They couldn’t ignore it - as much as they wanted to. For Jarrod it matched the pattern he was used to – he would have been surprised if something hadn’t interrupted. They jumped up, adjusting their clothes and raced outside. Chaos and confusion all around! There were demons running about everywhere in all directions, hundreds of them - carrying spears and battle axes and yelling at each other fiercely. In the sky above some kind of battle was taking place. Demons and some other beings were flying about, madly firing at each other. Bursts of light streaked out from one to the other and occasionally the target would burst into flames and plummet to the ground. Jarrod tried to make out the others – the attackers? They looked almost human only bigger. Abaddon raced out of the building. He saw Jarrod and Cassandra standing there looking up. He barked an order and instantly they were surrounded by a dozen demons, guarding them. Abaddon approached Jarrod.
The Department of Hate - A Love Story Page 6
