Hellfire Saga

by Third Cousins

  “Will I need to wear handcuffs?” I asked him curiously.

  “I’m afraid this time you will,” he said, as he pulled them from the belt that he was wearing and walked around the table to me, so that he could place them around my wrists. I stood up to make his job easier.

  The drive to the home, or whatever it was the doctor ran, was long. I think I fell asleep somewhere along it, but I couldn’t really be sure because nothing seemed to be changing. The first police officer had decided to take the trip over with the doctor and me, but no one in the car was speaking.

  We pulled up in front of a large whitewashed house that looked more like something out of a celebrity magazine than an institution for maybe-crazy people who start fires.

  “Wow, this place is impressive,” the police officer said, as the car rolled to a stop by the front of some wooden steps that led into a porch.

  “Thanks,” the doctor said with a small nod. “We’ve spent a lot of money making sure that it’s equipped with everything one might need to treat the broken mind.”

  I waited for my door to be opened and then I stepped out into the cold, damp air. It didn’t take more than a few seconds to walk across the courtyard and up the steps, but it was enough time for the coldness to chill my bones and make me shiver.

  The doctor opened the door to the house and we all stepped inside. “This is as far as you can come, unfortunately,” the doctor said to the officer.

  The officer nodded and turned to me so that he could unfasten my handcuffs, and then he left without saying anything. I stood awkwardly next to the door. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I didn’t know what they had planned for me now that I was here.

  “I’d like to introduce you to your personal doctor,” the man said to me, when he saw I didn't seem inclined to move away from the door.

  I nodded and started to follow him as he walked quickly through the house. He stopped outside a door that had a name tag fastened to it. It said Doctor Gabriel. The man knocked on the door and then gave me a smile before he turned and walked away.

  I waited a little nervously for the door to be answered. I could hear footsteps approaching the door on the other side and I held my breath in anticipation.

  “Ah, Lucy,” said the man who opened the door. He was much younger than the doctor I’d spoken to previously. He looked, as though he was too young to have initials after his name. I examined his face as he stepped aside, so that I could walk into his office. He was handsome. It wasn’t in the same rugged way that Daniel was; it was cleaner, more classical.

  “So, you’re the man who’s going to decide whether I’m crazy or not?” I said, as I took a seat at his desk.

  “Well, I’m going to be the man who listens to anything that you might want to talk about,” he said with a chuckle that sounded deep and smooth.

  “What if I don’t have anything to talk about?” I asked him.

  “Then we’re going to be sitting in some long stretches of silence,” he said with an easy smile that didn’t seem affected at all by my attitude towards him. “Look, I’m not here to judge you. I’m just here to listen. I’ve had a look at your records and they say that you’ve been suffering from recurring nightmares? Perhaps you want to talk about them?”

  CHAPTER 8

  Daniel

  I shouldn’t have gone to the crossroads. I realized that after visitors went on calling at my door for the entire night. I hadn’t thought that news about Lucy would cause such a stir. I thought enough time had passed for the hurt and upset to settle, but I’d been wrong.

  I’d asked for them to look out for Lucy so that she wouldn’t come to any harm, but instead, I’d put her in the way of more danger than she had ever been in. What was worse was that she didn’t even know it. She had no clue what was happening around her. She had no idea that the creature that had been stalking her dreams was real. She had no idea that her brain was full of suppressed memories that could blow her apart if they came to light.

  Another knock on the door came and I walked over wearily to answer it. “Caleb?” I asked in surprise when I saw the heavily bearded man standing in front of me.

  “Daniel,” he said, as he walked into the room. “That is what you’re calling yourself now?”

  “It is,” I nodded quickly. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you, brother. I’m glad to see that you’re doing well.”

  “Daniel, I haven’t come here to catch up. You know that you and I should not be speaking at all. I run the risk of being expelled because of being here right now, but I felt as though you should be warned. Our brothers and sisters know what you did. They know about Lucy and they know what she is. They don’t think that she should be allowed to survive. They believe she is an abomination that must be wiped away.”

  “Brother,” I said with hesitation. “She does not know what she is. I expelled her without her memories. If our brothers find her then she won’t understand what’s happening. This is not her fault. This is all on me.”

  “That may be true, Daniel, but it is not you that is seen as the abomination,” Caleb said wearily.

  “How can you say that? I was expelled for that very reason,” I said, shocked by how quickly he had come to forget how I ended up in this situation. “All I wanted was to love. All I wanted was to feel what our father felt, what his creations down here felt. I don’t think that was too much to ask, but yet I was cast out. I was called an abomination and forced to live a life of solitude.”

  “But you didn’t live a life of solitude did you?” Caleb said, and his eyes were full of accusation. “Perhaps if you hadn’t been so determined to build an army, then our brothers and sisters might have been able to overlook Lucy. But we cannot run that risk again, Daniel. We cannot risk leaving her alive when we’ve seen the damage you have caused.”

  “I won’t let you hurt her,” I said fiercely, as I realized that Caleb had only come to give me the courtesy of warning and not because he was willing to talk about the situation.

  “You won’t have a choice. We already have her in one of our facilities. As far as I’m aware it’s Gabriel, who had taken her case.”

  “You’ve left Gabriel with her? Are you mad?” I asked and I could hear the desperation in my voice that was starting to sink into my stomach. “How could you leave him in charge of Lucy? Don’t you know what he’ll do to her?”

  “Yes,” Caleb said simply and without flinching. “He’ll do everything that he needs to, to get into her mind. He’s going to unlock the secrets that you’ve been hiding away from her and then he’s going to remove her from existence. Honestly, I don’t know why you’re that bothered. Didn’t you expel her because she didn’t love you?”

  I could feel my hands curling up into fists. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to let my rage burn through my body, until it took over and coursed out into actions, but I knew that it would do no good. “How long have you had her?” I asked, my mind racing.

  “We’ve had her a day now,” Caleb said with little thought. “I advise that you don’t go looking for her. It wouldn’t be in your interests.” He nodded a dismissal and then headed to the door.

  “You’re going to regret this,” I said, but he didn’t bother to even turn back around to look at me.

  He pulled open the door and disappeared into the night, leaving me with my troubling thoughts. I was too late. They already had Lucy. I had no idea where she was and I knew that I stood no real chance of finding out. I could feel my world starting to crumble around me. I could feel the sudden lack of control. I was helpless, and it was driving me crazy.

  I could feel myself getting frustrated. I could feel the anger surging around my body, as it tried to find an outlet. I could calm down if I could let that anger escape. There was nothing though. There was only the thought so of Lucy and what Gabriel would do to her once he’d secured the information he needed.

  Even through the anger, I knew that this was my fault. I’d expelled her from her home. I�
�d wiped her memories of who she really was. I’d created the very first demon with a soul and I should have known that it would have consequences down the line. She was seen as an abomination by both heaven and hell, but not to me. To me she was everything. To me she was the only person in existence who just might fall in love with me.

  Hellfire

  What She Feels Inside

  Paranormal Romance

  Book 2

  By: Stacia Ford & Third Cousins

  A SYNOPSIS...

  Lucy knows there is something wrong with the psychiatric home she’s been taken to. She’s noticed that she seems to be the only patient there. She’s noticed all of the empty rooms and the fact that every door to the outside world is locked. She’s also noticed how strangely her doctor is acting. It’s as if he’s pushing her for information—but information about what?

  Gabriel knows that all the answers are in Lucy’s head, but she’s refusing to find them for him. He’s trying to keep calm. He’s trying to give her time, so that she can discover her memories on her own. But when she starts to cause trouble he knows that there’s only one thing he can do. Will Lucy survive Gabriel’s desperate attempt to get the answers?

  INSPIRING WORDS

  “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”

  - William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well

  CHAPTER 1

  Lucy

  I’d been stuck in this place for over a week. I wasn’t even allowed out into the gardens. I think they thought that I was a flight risk or something. I’d been wandering through the house in between my sessions with Gabriel, but I hadn’t seen any other patents yet. I hadn’t really thought about it much over the first few days, but now that my mind was growing more familiar with the territory it was becoming startlingly obvious that something wasn’t right.

  Not that I could get Gabriel to admit anything to me. Every time I asked him about the other patents he would just dismiss me with a song and dance about them being in other parts of the house. I mean, I knew the house was big. I’d been there a week and I still hadn’t looked in every room that I’d come across yet. But that wasn’t the reason why I hadn’t seen anybody else. I hadn’t seen anybody else because there was no one else here.

  I tried not to worry myself with the troubling thought, but even when I pushed it to the back of my mind I could still feel it pushing its way forward, so that it could stand in the center light in my mind again. I mean, as much as I knew with certainty that there weren't any other patents there, it wasn’t doing me any good thinking about it. My mind couldn’t even come up with a first idea as to why I’d be the only patient in such an impressive institution.

  I’d been having sessions with Gabriel every day. He said that he was trying to help me unlock my memories, but he hadn’t seemed to have had any luck so far. I could tell that he was getting frustrated with me. I could tell that his patience with me was wearing thin, but I wasn’t really bothered. There was something satisfying about walking out of his office without making any progress. There was something satisfying about proving to him that he couldn’t read my mind, as he had once thought he could.

  “So, what do you want to talk about today?” Gabriel asked me when I went into my eighth session with him.

  “I don’t know,” I said with a small shrug. “How about the fact that other than me, there isn’t another patient here?”

  Gabriel sighed and looked at me with eyes full of pity. “Lucy, I’ve told you before. The patients at this institution are not allowed to mix.”

  “You can tell me that a hundred times, but I won’t believe you,” I said. “I’ve been down every hallway in this place and I haven’t heard a peep out of anyone. In fact, other than you, I haven’t seen a single soul even just walking about.” I added, “It’s weird. This whole place is weird.”

  “Lucy, it sounds like you’re starting to suffer from paranoia,” Gabriel said gently. “I can give you some tablets to put your troubling thoughts to rest if you would like.”

  “I’m sure that’s something you’d like to do,” I said quickly, “but I think I’ll pass.”

  “Well, let me know if it gets any worse. I’m only here to help you.” He gave me a friendly smile that sent chills down my spine.

  I looked at him. I really looked at him. There was something that wasn’t right. It was like I could tell that what was underneath his surface was rotten to the core. “I want to speak to Daniel,” I said firmly. “If you’re here to help me, then find Daniel. I need to see him.”

  “Daniel?” Gabriel asked with a quickly fading look of shock on his face.

  “He went to my home with me. He was my friend. I want to see him,” I explained.

  “I’m sorry, Lucy, but I don’t remember ever seeing Daniel’s name on the list for your home.”

  “You haven’t even checked,” I said as my forehead fell into a heavy frown.

  “I don’t need to check, I can remember,” Gabriel said with a smile that my nails just wanted to claw off. “Now, shall we start with today’s session?”

  “You know I don’t believe you,” I said firmly. “I don’t believe that you’re trying to help and I don’t believe that you never saw Daniel’s name on the list. You’re lying. I don’t know why you’re lying, but you are. And when I find out, you’re going to regret it.”

  Gabriel looked amused by my outburst. “Was that a threat?” he asked me levelly.

  “Does it need to be?”. I wasn’t sure where the fire in my stomach was coming from, but it was fuelling my words as I spoke to him.

  “You should be careful about how you put things, Lucy. Otherwise people might get the wrong impression of you,” he said to me in a way that implied he knew so much more than I ever would.

  “When you’re lying to my face, I hardly think it matters what opinion you hold of me,” I said stubbornly, as a loud knock rang through the room.

  Gabriel looked over to the door in confusion and then back to me. “You stay here and I’ll be right back,” he said with his chair scraping against the floor as he pushed it back.

  He walked across the room and out of the door, closing it behind him. I looked around his office. He’d never left me alone in his office before. I felt an urge to snoop around to see whether I could find any evidence of the lies he was telling me, but at first glance there was nothing. He didn’t even have a picture of his family on his desk.

  Nothing about this place was right and I knew that, but I knew that proving it wasn’t going to be easy. And even if I could somehow prove it—then what? What could I do about it?

  CHAPTER 2

  Gabriel

  I was glad that someone had interrupted my session with Lucy because she’s starting to really get on my nerves. I’ve never known someone so full of herself. I’ve never known someone be so defiant. She had no idea who she is, but yet she already had the tongue of a demon. A tongue I’d like to cut off, so that I wouldn't have to listen to it again.

  I stepped out into the hallway, where Caleb was waiting. “Brother,” I said.

  He looked tired. “Brother,” he said with a small nod. “I’m sorry to disturb your session with Lucy, but I have some troubling news that I need to share with you.”

  “What is the news?”

  “I have been to see Daniel,” he said

  “You realize that you have just admitted to a crime?” I asked him.

  “I realize this,” he said with a grave nod. “I went to see our brother because I felt as though he had a right to know what was going on.”

  I shuddered over his use of the word brother. “He’s no brother of ours, Caleb. He was expelled from heaven. He is the father of demons. He is nothing to us,” I willed Caleb to understand the intensity of how I felt.

  “That does not make him any less our brother, though,” Caleb said gently. “He shares the same father. He once shared the same home. He may have chosen a different path, but that doesn’t take away from who he is.”


  “He gave up his right to call himself our brother the day he went against father,” I said. I heard the high pitch of my own voice as if it were a stranger's. Even talking about Daniel unsettled me.

  “He didn’t go against our father. He just wanted a right to choose. I think we have all felt the urge. I think we have all watched the humans as they walk their many paths with envy at some point in time,” Caleb said, as though he was trying to justify what Daniel had done.

  “I’ve never felt the urge to walk away from our father,” I said indignantly. “I’ve never felt the urge to walk a different path just because it might seem better. My father created me to follow his word and that is what I shall do. We are above the humans, Caleb. We are above those evolved apes that make bad choices and wind up being rejected from our father’s paradise. We are the lucky ones. We are the ones who know with all certainty that all our actions are right.”

  “That might be the case,” Caleb said after some thought, “But Daniel deserved to know that we have Lucy.”

  “You shouldn’t have told him anything,” I said quickly. “Now that he knows, he will come looking for her. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Is that really such a bad thing?”

  “Is it really such a bad thing that Daniel is trying to save the abomination?” I asked with a cruel tone of mockery.

  “He created her out of love, Gabriel. She was born out of his desire to feel wanted and needed. I don’t think that’s the recipe for an abomination.”

  “She’s a demon with a soul. That’s just wrong. You can try and dress it up any way that you please. You can try to justify it with reasons such as love, but that doesn’t take away from what she is. I mean, we don’t even know whose soul she has. Everything about her is wrong and the longer she stays here, the more it’ll show.”