Ashes - The Special Edition: The Tales of Tartarus

by A. L. Mengel

  Ashes

  THE SPECIAL EDITION

  COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER

  All characters and plot elements originally created by author A.L. Mengel and fully protected by Copyright 2002-2015.

  This work is on file with the Library of Congress 2009-2015 in the United States of America and is recognized as such. Any use or misuse of the plot elements, character similarities or use of text without the author’s permission in writing will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  Any similarity to any other work in any format, written or filmed, published or released; unpublished, unproduced or unreleased, is purely coincidental and unintentional.

  All characters are originally created by A.L. Mengel. Any similarities to any person, living or deceased, is also unintentional and purely coincidental. Any similarities to any other fictional character, from filmed, published or unpublished work is unintentional and purely coincidental.

  This is a work of fiction.

  A.L. Mengel holds all rights to this novel.

  Cover by Shoutlines Design, Seattle, WA, USA www.shoutlines.com

  www.facebook.com/shoutlinesdesign

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN-10: 0996326901

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9963269-0-2

  Parchman’s Press 2013, 2015.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  When A.L. Mengel arrived on the scene and published Ashes in 2013, he broke new ground in supernatural storytelling. Readers worldwide have embraced the story, pulling out different themes and elements based on their own individual backgrounds. Blending realism with fiction, he weaves Catholicism, theology, the paranormal and superstition in a tapestry of horrific storytelling.

  His protagonists are frequently angels and demons, and more often than not, are found on a journey – a search for purpose, for understanding, or a quest for survival.

  Whether or not a reader is religious or not, A.L. Mengel’s writing and characters invoke thought, take the reader on a philosophical journey, and present the oxymoron of dark and light.

  A.L. Mengel welcomes interaction with his readers at

  www.facebook.com/authoralmengel

  and his website at www.almengel.com

  Please also read his blog: www.eatlivewrite.blogspot.com

  A NOTE ON THE SPECIAL EDITION

  I have put together a special “Author’s Edition” of Ashes, which, ironically, will be the first edition that I will release of the novel. This will be the only “Author’s Edition” that I plan to make of this novel, at least in the foreseeable future. After this has been released, the novel will most likely be split into two volumes, but with some new material.

  Ashes was initially formatted double spaced, with 11 point Garamond font in a 6x9 book format. That proved to be far too long to publish for a reasonable amount of money. Still, I wanted to put this masterpiece out untouched; for I know, in the future, it will most likely be split and the plot re-worked. Of course, that will give you a reason to read Ashes once again - since there is a lot of new material that will make up each planned volume of this story when it is revised with New York publishers.

  So, please enjoy this special limited “Author’s Edition” of Ashes. This novel offers both volumes in a single book. Also, an added bonus of this edition of Ashes is an Author’s Notes page at the end of the book, which you may find interesting.

  Enjoy reading Ashes. It’s my personal masterpiece for you…and I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

  And as you read – keep turning the pages after the story ends. There’s a little Easter egg for you hidden back there.

  Always, A.L

  Suffer

  I hear you.

  I see you.

  Glistening your smile, looking at me through wispy white;

  I hear your call.

  Path, yours not chosen, spoken you have not.

  You close my eyes.

  My dream turns black. My night turns dusty.

  My vision – blurred.

  And then you show me.

  The dust settles.

  And there you lay.

  You turn your head and smile though fleeting quickly.

  You say to me, “I once danced.”

  - poem by A.L. Mengel

  Ashes

  SPECIAL EDITION

  A NOVEL BY A.L. MENGEL

  THE TALES OF TARTARUS

  For Ty – the one who dusted the manuscript off and inspired me to finish it.

  I also dedicate this special hardback edition of the novel to my Mother and my Father.

  These three people have had the biggest influence on my writing and my life, and all have provided amazing amounts of support. And with this new edition of my debut novel, I would not be where I am today without these three wonderful people in my life.

  FIRST PROLOGUE

  MANHATTAN AT NIGHT

  The hospital room was starting to feel like a coffin.

  Gasping for air, Darius made a feeble attempt to sit up in the bed. His bedclothes were soaked with a cold and clammy sweat, and even the faded yellow blanket - which hardly kept him warm - had a damp feeling to it. A voice cut into the quiet hum of the machines; a deep yet piercing voice that spoke with a commanding tone:

  Darius…

  His head snapped to attention when he heard his name whispered lightly. It spoke again, now more insistent.

  Darius…Darius!

  Again.

  He snapped the light on, which bathed the room in a faint glow. He scanned the pale green walls but saw no one. The chair in the far corner of the room cast a dark shadow on the floor, but nothing seemed amiss. He reached for the small white beeper, startling himself when the thick cord it was attached to knocked his plastic water pitcher over and sent it crashing to the floor

  We’ve got you, you miserable fuck!

  Darius fumbled with the beeper, and started smashing his palm on the giant blue button. Over and over he pressed it, wishing someone would come.

  Because of the voice.

  He breathed in and exhaled deeply, and closed his eyes. Concentrating on each breath he drew in and exhaled from his lungs, he sat and waited, listening to the silence.

  That voice he knew.

  Dariiiuuuuuuuuussssssssssss –

  His eyes snapped open.

  The veins bulged from his hands as he held the beeper tightly. He pressed the button again and again, and as he opened his eyes, he screamed.

  The shadow behind the chair elongated, feeling its way up the wall, grayish arms branching out – reaching towards the ceiling, casting an aura of darkness throughout the room. The indistinct arms crept across the ceiling, the veil falling over his bed like a dark sheet filtering out the light.

  Darius reached his arms up, covering his eyes with his forearms, pleading through tears. “I am no longer a sinner! I have my absolution! I have my absolution!”

  Spiny fingers were reaching for him as he cowered closer to the headboard, ducking under the blanket like a child as the arms stretched down above the bed.

  Too many times, Darius, you have you been on the path leading to us…so many years you have willed us to come…and now we are here to take you with us!

  Another shadow, the one cast behind the open door, felt its way around the dim yellowish light coming from the exterior hallway. It felt its way across the dusty checkerboard floor, slowly crept up the side of the bed, fingered itself under the blanket, all while the ominous shadow that was hovering above him lowered itself on him and straddled his chest.

  Darius attempted to sit up, pinned to the bed by an enormous weight, and struggled to b
reathe. “Help….me….” he gasped, craning his neck towards the hallway.

  The shadow above him started to come into focus.

  All your life we have watched you…we watched you as a boy, we watched you as a man, we watched you as the demon you became and the sick fuck you now are!

  The shadow that slithered up the sheets started to wrap itself around him – squeezing his chest in vice, tightening around his legs, and he suddenly gasped. It became even more increasingly difficult to breathe. His chest heaved as white foam started pouring from his mouth.

  He no longer could call for help; but he managed to turn his head to the right; he saw several blurry white figures enter the room. They seemed so out of focus that they resembled beams of light. But that did not deter the assault from the shadows.

  Come with us, the shadow above him commanded. We will rip you out of your reality! You must come!

  One of the shadow’s thorny digits lengthened – so long it touched the ceiling – and it drew it down on Darius like a whip. Darius cowered back, and grunted. He looked down at the sheets and saw blood seeping out of his chest.

  Another crack of the whip.

  Your father has forsaken you!

  Again.

  In my hands you will commend your spirit!

  Again, again and again the shadow whipped, as the glowing luminescent figures gathered around Darius’ bedside.

  “My God!” Darius called out. He sat up his bed, his dark hair mussed and dirty, his eyes wide as plates, sweat pouring down the sides of his sunken cheeks. His vision was blurred by blood and tears. “Have you forsaken me?! What have I become?!”

  One last strike and Darius fell back on the bed and the demons retreated back into the shadows. He opened his eyes and saw the white figures standing over him.

  He struggled to bring his vision into focus. One of the figures moved closer to him.

  “Darius?” it said. “Do you hear me?”

  He closed his eyes again and felt himself breathing. His throat felt like it was on fire. His head was pounding, like a ton of cinder blocks were resting on it.

  “Darius,” the voice said, this time more clearly. “Please speak if you can.”

  He opened his eyes again, and saw salt and pepper hair, combed over a wrinkled forehead, and then saw the tired face of a doctor. The white coat, the blue scrubs.

  “We almost lost you there,” the doctor said. “We were trying to revive you for the past ten minutes.” Darius scanned the room. No shadows. No demons. The lights were burning above him. A team of doctors and nurses were huddled around his bed.

  “The Dark Ones…” Darius mumbled. “It’s The Dark Ones…they are here again…The Dark Ones…get…me a priest…”

  And he closed his eyes again.

  PART ONE:

  THE TRANSFORMATION

  …death will come swiftly to all those who enter here…

  - Inscribed on the entrance to the Tomb of King Tut

  CHAPTER ONE

  Present Day.

  Antoine gathered his equipment - a shovel, brown tarp, pickaxe (in order to pry open the casket) and a flame oil lantern; carefully and quietly he entered the graveyard through a layer of swirling, early morning mist - the type of white cloudy mist that would leave a layer of dewdrops on the earth like a cool, wet blanket. The plot Antoine headed toward, located in the center of the graveyard, housed Darius’ casket, encased for two centuries now in layers of earth - sealed by six nails, and placed in a thick cement liner with a crest of a lion on the marble-topped cover.

  It was Antoine who put Darius here two centuries ago, and Darius has been in this graveyard ever since. In this cemetery and dead, yes – Darius was dead. But Darius had been dead before Antoine had ever put him there. And when the coffin was nailed shut, when the darkness enveloped satin interior, there was more of changing a state of existence.

  It was Darius who had heard the nails being pounded into the edges of the casket; he had felt the shaking as the coffin was picked up – most likely with ropes tied below the bottom, but he couldn’t know for sure – and lowered into the deep, dark grave. He had felt the sides of the coffin scraping the cold, hard earthen walls. The dirt fell onto the lid of the casket – each shovel of earth inundating the coffin further with a deep clump.

  Blackness.

  The sounds from above now seemed more distant. The coffin had been buried. Darius knew that. He even felt the weight of the dirt above him, as if the entire casket would fall on top of him in a cascade of splintering wood and falling sand. But it held. The coffin was holding fast against the pressures of the earth, and would prove to be his holding place for…how long?

  The stagnancy of the air inside the small confines grew more insistent, as the heat overtook the darkness and caused him to cough and choke on the thickness of the air that was so quickly fading. But Darius knew. He knew that no matter how fast the air would dissipate, no matter how faint the sounds of the earth above would be – no matter how dead he would be – he would be just that.

  Dead.

  But death is just a state of existence. And Darius knew - all too well - that his death had been many, many years ago – and not so recently in his foyer. His death had been much earlier when he was a very young man passing into his newfound immortality. Not at the hands of Antoine.

  As time passed, he became more aware of his surroundings, although all he saw was total darkness. He could feel the softness and smoothness of the satin liner, the pillow at the head of the casket - which grew hard and cold over time and dusty with mold.

  Above where he lay, Darius on occasion could hear the faint, muffled voices above the cold ground expressing words of condolence, the grating of a casket being lowered into a freshly dug grave, or the pitter patter of children’s feet; ceremonial instruments would play from time to time, signifying the passing of a loved one. All this, he experienced, lying in the cold darkness of the casket, as time passed by above.

  Time passed with an eternal slowness until Antoine returned.

  At one point, Darius knew the time had come. He continued to lie in the casket as he felt and heard snippets of the outside world over time, but there was one quiet day when he heard those familiar footsteps; the methodic, determined stomps coming closer and closer to his unmarked resting place. The footsteps stopped, just above. Darius could sense it. He knew who it was. No one knew of his grave except one soul. Only one.

  Antoine.

  *~*~*

  Topside, Antoine reached the grave.

  It was the only unmarked grave in the entire cemetery. Located under a tree, the plot was not originally used as the caretaker had been afraid that the roots of the massive tree would grow to a size so immense as to unearth a coffin. But that did not deter Antoine. It had been the perfect resting place for Darius.

  It had been Antoine who dug the grave, in the middle of the night, so many days ago. But even then, as he had been digging, Antoine knew that a day of resurrection would come. Even as Darius burned into ash, even as Antoine drove a dagger directly through his steadfast heart, he knew that the day would come that he would need to channel Darius once again and ask for his assistance...no, expect his assistance…and receive the help and guidance from the one who created him so long ago.

  And now, deep in the night, Antoine set down his tools. The tools were just as dull and rusted as they had been the night he buried Darius. He paused to the left of the grave, and looked to the sky. Night held steady.

  I have come for you, Darius. Yes, the day has finally come. The day has finally come when I need you, I need you by my side. But please, please don’t come to me with malice or ill-will for putting you here. I love you, Darius.

  The moon burned brightly and cast a blue glow on the headstones, illuminating them like tiny, square lights a dark, dank sea. Opening the brown cloth bag, Antoine grabbed the shovel, trying so desperately to pull the tools from the bag in silence. His head snapped towards the direction of the woods as the shov
el clanked against the other tools in the bag.

  But he rose to his feet and pointed the shovel towards the earth, shifting his weight and breaking the ground. He stopped for a moment as he tossed the first bit of dirt to the side.

  Darius…will you ever forgive me?

  And then he dug - he dug and dug, hoisting shovelfuls of earth, one after the next, to the right of the grave, next to the bag of tools. The digging continued for quite some time, as Antoine broke through roots and clay. Darius had been deeply buried.

  Bury them deep, Darius had once told him. If you are extinguishing an immortal, bury them deep.

  Antoine finally felt the scraping of the grave liner, the impenetrable cement beneath the thin layer of caked dirt and sand. A black snake slithered from the side of the earth, slinking across the grave liner and re-entered on the other side. Antoine stood above the grave for a moment and looked down at the liner, and then scanned the area around him. The sky began to show the faintest hints of light blue, signifying that he needed to hurry, hoist the casket out of the grave, and head to safety.

  The swirling mist was subsiding as the night was ever so gradually waning and giving to the very first peeks of the eastern sun, which slowly yet surely revealing itself way on the far horizon. Antoine had been digging for the better part of the night. He estimated that he had another hour or so of semi-darkness, and then the sunrise would occur. The sky was surely awakening.

  Antoine jumped down into the grave and stood on the liner. He just was able to see over the threshold of the earth, and reached out and grabbed the pickaxe. He swung it down into the hole and smacked it against the lock on the grave liner, with a loud clank! which reverberated against the quiet early morning silence. But the one assault had not been enough to break the seal of death. He had to break the silence and take another risk of possibly being discovered by a mortal, and again clank!