Ashes - The Special Edition: The Tales of Tartarus

by A. L. Mengel

  Darius was another story.

  After placing him in the ground so many years before, after burning him and leaving only his heart and ashes, would there still be malice and ill-will? Antoine peered through the doorway at the closed silver casket.

  Darius was inside.

  In a new, healed human form.

  But he wouldn’t be human. He would still be Darius, still be immortal, and still be a killer. Dare he open the lid now?

  He thought it be best not to.

  He turned around, he quietly closed the door, carefully like a father who had just checked on his sleeping son, and slowly walked down the hallway to the foyer. He slipped through the front door - out quietly and undetected, and when he closed the front door to the chateau behind him, it didn’t even make a sound.

  “But you didn’t leave undetected, Antoine, you didn’t.”

  Antoine snapped out of his daze. He could see Darius more clearly now, and it seemed as though the mist had lifted a little. As he scanned the area, he saw the earthen black walls, the stone floor with the puddles of water, and Darius, bent over in front of him at eye level.

  “You most certainly didn’t,” Darius added.

  Antoine started to get up, but Darius stopped him.

  “You are not going anywhere,” he said, as Antoine fell back onto the floor uncontrollably from a simple wave of Darius’ hand.

  Antoine looked back up at Darius with a perplexed look on his face.

  “You don’t think I have been holding you here just so I would let you go did you?”

  Darius stood and laughed. “You are showing me, Antoine, that you still have much to learn. I command this mist!” He rose up to his feet, a sinister scowl on his face. “Look and see here!” he pointed over to his right.

  The mist swirled back in, heavy and thick like a muscular arm, grabbing Antoine and hoisting him off the floor. Antoine was paralyzed to move, no matter how hard he struggled and tried to break free.

  “No!” Antoine screamed. “The mist commands you!”

  *~*~*

  Paula was now alone. She ran her hands along the walls of the earthen stairway below the cathedral, her eyes shifting to the red eyes that still stared through the dark, swirling mist above.

  She felt it.

  In the intense blackness, she had fallen down the stairs. But she could not find Anthony. It’s like he vanished into thin air. And up above, at the top of the stairs, it was waiting for her. She did not know who it was or what it wanted – but she was not about to find out.

  “Anthony!” she cried out. She looked around in the darkness, seeing nothing. She lay on the stairs where she fell, face down, she reached her hands in front of her to feel her way down the remainder of the stairs.

  The steps were made of earth – it felt cool and rough, like moss. Some spots were soft. She felt the light stringy feel of weeds growing up in the moss cracks as well. Feeling further down, running her hands down the steps, she slithered down, remaining on her torso, until she came to a large flat area – earthen and mossy as well; it appeared to be a landing of some sort.

  “There will be no returning!” Asmodai yelled down to Paula. “The door will close for eternity!”

  Paula looked up in the direction of Asmodai’s booming, grating voice. She could see the silhouette of the demon for the mist was starting glow an eerie luminescent green. It was now a pale, brighter green.

  “What are you?!” Paula screamed.

  But the door slammed.

  It was a thunderous sound, shaking the hallway; bits of dirt from the walls fell to the steps, and she closed her eyes. Once the door closed, there was laughter.

  There was someone – or something – below…laughing. A high pitched wail, further down the stairs.

  And she had no choice but to go further down, for the door to above was now closed.

  CHAPTER FOURTY-SIX

  Paula was trapped.

  She weighed the two options in her mind: she could run up the stairs, most likely tripping and falling flat on her face in the darkness, bang on the door as loud as she could, and scream until she lost her voice to unhearing ears.

  But that wasn’t necessarily the best option. Was the beast still out there? Had she imagined the whole thing?

  Or, she could venture further down into the unknown, closer to the source of the demonic laughter. When the beast closed the door, a thunderous bolt rang into the blackness, like that of a massive security bar being drawn over a door. She doubted that wasting her almost spent energy banging on the door would be very fruitful.

  In the temporary but welcomed calm, her focus returned to the pain in her ankle. Forgotten for a bit while she was consumed with the beast and escaping the mist, the pain returned, but it was not throbbing as it was before.

  She ran her hands across the landing, searching for the candle. She was still unable to find it. Deciding to press on and find Anthony, she struggled to her feet.

  She steadied herself against the wall in front of her also comprised of moss and dirt. She ran her hands along the wall, and stuck her foot out in front of her, feeling with her feet for the first step. Once she was comfortable that she had found it, she began her descent.

  Very carefully and cautiously she ventured below, step by step, never taking her hands off the wall. About four or five steps down, she began to feel stone. Running her hands higher, she felt the stones curve around, like they were surrounding a window. A window in the shape of a traditional gravestone – flat on the bottom and rounded on top.

  Paula stopped in front of the mysterious window. It definitely had the rounded top, squared off bottom, and was lined with large, rough stones. Bringing her hands to the center, expecting to feel glass, she felt only air. And the air was hot.

  The heat blew out of the opening with such a force it knocked Paula back on the opposite wall, but she remained on her feet. Bright, hot flames were roared out of the window.

  A monstrous demon appeared in the window, standing in the flames and appeared instantly and was only a few feet in front of her! The face had a long snout and razor sharp teeth, dripping saliva to the floor in acrid smoke.

  The demon cursed and thrashed, crashed up against the wall so hard that it shook and sent the moss and dirt falling to the steps below. Paula could not understand what dialect was being spoken, but it felt to her like a command. This demon was angry, and this demon wanted her.

  Now able to see thanks to the raging flames, she turned to exit. She was going to do her best to break down that door. Or at least die trying.

  But when she turned, all she saw was a wall.

  A stone wall of moss and dirt. She distinctly remembered a landing being there just minutes ago.

  She had no choice but to go down.

  The wall shook where the demon heaved his weight against it, and it looked like it was about to give way and crash down at any moment.

  She broke into a run down the stairs.

  They led further and further down, deep into the earth, until the steps finally ended in a dark hallway.

  She heard a crash above, like giant stones falling down steps.

  Paula looked up the stairs.

  She heard the stones falling out of the wall with each thunderous shake. She heard the mountains of dirt cascade to down the steps like a breach in safety.

  The demon was out.

  The steps and the walls shook methodically, for the booming footsteps of the demon were getting ever closer.

  She turned her head back to the hallway, away from the steps.

  At the end of the hallway was a dark steel door. It seemed to be the only thing in this odd place that was not made of the earth. She did not know what lie behind the door, but she had no choice but to attempt to go through it. Returning from where she came was no longer an option. She would have to face the raging muscular demon beast racing for her. She knew her time was limited as the thunderous, booming footsteps started getting louder and the monster descended
the steps.

  There was a door handle was in the center of the strange steel door, a giant round disc in the center of the door that looked like it belonged on a deep sea submarine rather than in a dank hallway under a church.

  She hurried towards the door and wrapped her arms around the disc.

  “Fuck!” she said, struggling to turn it, hoping that it would give and open the door. “Open! Fucking door!”

  But it was too late.

  She felt a hot, brawny arm reach around her shoulders, as piercing nails dug into her arm.

  She cried out.

  She was yanked away from the door so fast that she blacked out momentarily, and came to just a minute later, with the demons arms wrapped around her in a perverted embrace – breathing it’s humid, noxious breath directly into her face.

  “I have been waiting for her,” he spoke, eyes glaring. The man-beast in front of her looked similar to Asmodai – powerful, roping muscles pulled tightly under taught greenish brown skin, covered in lesions and sores; wings on the back that looked drawn together; but slightly smaller in stature and not quite so big and imposing as Asmodai. The face was that of a dog or wolf – the face of a beast with razor sharp teeth - the body like that of a man but very muscular, tall and large. She looked down, and noticed that his green brown skin was exposed – there was no sheet of armor or covering like that of Asmodai. All this beast was wearing was a small loincloth – a brown, primitive type material like what would be worn by cavemen.

  She struggled to get free, only making the demon hold her tighter in his fierce grip.

  “No!” she cried, throwing her head back, attempting to squirm out of his grip like a caught fish.

  But she was no match.

  Holding her still with one powerful arm, as the veins protruded and pumped beneath the greenish brown skin. Throwing her to the floor, the demon held her and pinned her to the ground. She felt as if she were being split in two. She screamed. It was a pain like no other, she felt as if she were ripping into shreds.

  She passed out briefly.

  The demon took advantage of her brief intoxication to lower her to the ground on her back. His grip never loosened, his nails remained dug into her, deep and profound. She awoke to the demon on top of her, face to face.

  She screamed and tried to thrash beneath him but couldn’t budge under the weight of his massive, muscular body, being held in place by his powerful hands and roping muscular arms. His wings opened and expanded and crashed into the walls, and the hallway began to change around them.

  The mossy, dirt caked walls around them crumbled. The room filled with the green mist, surrounding them, swirling above them as if on cue, as if celebrating. The hallway caved away and opened to a large, vast underground chamber. The walls became stone, the floor turned to marble. Torches appeared on the walls, igniting in flames and casting an orange hued glow against the green mist, building around them.

  She raised her arms up off the ground and wrapped them around the demon’s massive back and pulled the beast closer to her. The wings, now open and free, flapped through the room and carried them upwards into the mist, displacing it around them, and they landed again in the center of the room.

  PART FOUR

  NESMARON’S EGG AND THE CASKET FULL OF ASHES

  The casket.

  So soft.

  Supple.

  Comfortable.

  I’m in you. I feel you.

  But you won’t feel me.

  CHAPTER FOURTY-SEVEN

  Jonas Mayer hardly remembered the night he died.

  He didn’t remember being whisked away in a racing ambulance, or the bright lights above as he was being wheeled down the halls of the South Shore ER as he barely clung to life, and he certainly didn’t remember when he first left his body and had a conversation with his killer, right in the hallway outside the trauma room that his body was crashing in.

  Jonas remembered getting up off the examination table, still wearing the clothes he was wearing earlier, a yellow short sleeved button down shirt and dirty, faded jeans – now splattered in bright red blood. He could recall the cold linoleum floor on his bare feet, thanks to the loss of his sandals, as he hoisted himself off the table as the doctors were still frantically trying to revive him.

  But what stood most clearly out in his mind, the memory that he knew that as long as he existed that he would never forget – was the face of his killer, standing in the hallway in his dark blue glasses and long black hair and coat, his dark skin and mysterious looks – gazing in on the activity in Trauma-4 as if waiting.

  Waiting for Jonas to rise from his body.

  And the strange thing, Jonas thought as he was staring at his killer through the glass, was that no one noticed his killer, and no one noticed him. There he was, standing over his mauled and bloody body – and there was his killer, facing each other in the midst of chaos and bedlam.

  But no one seemed to notice them.

  And then his killer walked casually through the doors, right up to the side of the table. He looked down at the body, and then up at Jonas.

  “You are most certainly better looking in this form,” he said, gesturing his hand over to the standing Jonas, with a small smile. “I really must speak to you. I have to make you understand why I have called you here.”

  Jonas had a look of despair on his face, looking for a moment like an abandoned puppy. “You killed me!” he cried, tears starting to well up in his eyes. “I had a life!”

  The killer put his hands up, quieting Jonas. “Wait, wait. Don’t jump to conclusions. I have not killed you. Please do not misunderstand that. But I need you to come with me. Somewhere quiet that we can talk. Even though no one here can see us or hear us, we need some peace and quiet so you can focus on what I am about to tell you. Come with me.”

  The killer took his hand, and grabbed Jonas’ hand over the table just as the doctors had given up, drawing a white sheet over his body. Jonas couldn’t help but stare at his body for a moment, standing at the end of the table, looking down and staring in disbelief.

  “Come on,” the killer insisted. “You will have plenty of opportunities later to re-enter your body.”

  And that is all that Jonas had remembered, no matter how hard he tried. After he had left Trauma-4, his mind drew a blank.

  As he stood at the top of the stairs leading to The Astral’s offices, fumbling with the lock, he turned back to Uriel who had been patiently waiting on the stairs just a few steps below. He stopped with the lock for a moment. “You know, Uriel, I honestly cannot remember much before I came here.”

  “To where?”

  Jonas began to fumble with the rusted lock again, which a key that looked equally rusted. The door was located at the top of the steps, in the ceiling, making it look like the steps disappeared – and they did, at least they would until Jonas would get the lock open.

  “Here…this dimension. I try and I try, yet all I can remember is the few short minutes after I died. After that, I draw a blank. I don’t even know who my killer was.”

  “I see. I am the same way…I barely remember much.”

  “But he wanted to tell me something. He seemed very insistent on it. I intend to find out his purpose for killing me. He was saying that he selected me…that he called me. There!” The lock finally gave, and crumbled in Jonas’ hand, a dry and rusted version of its former self.

  The door opened, and the green mist spilled through like steam and smoke, billowing through the door. Uriel looked up expectantly with wide eyes. “What is that?” he asked.

  But Jonas did not answer.

  He simply waved his hand to come, moved forward, and was swallowed up by the mist.

  Uriel stood at the top steps for a moment, not exactly eager to jump into this mist at a moment’s notice. He peered his head as close to the mist as possible. “Jonas?” he called, being as quiet as possible and desperately trying to hear his footsteps. But looking ahead, all he saw was swirling dark green, and he
ard nothing. It was eerily silent.

  “Are you there?” he called again.

  He felt he needed to follow Jonas into the mist. He felt that a job needed to be done, and that he was the one to take care of it – at least that is what Jonas had been explaining to him since he knocked on his quarters door earlier that evening. He looked down the stairs. About ten steps below, there was a small landing lit by a small light bulb that hung from the ceiling. It cast a yellowish glow on the small, dusty walls and stairs.

  He considered running back down, away from the cold mist, back down into the catacombs. But where would he go? Back to his quarters?

  His mind has been bombarded since he got here with information, names, places and expectations – he wondered if he would even remember which door was his.

  And what would Jonas think of him if he retreated in fear? What would the punishment be?

  And so he started to climb the few remaining steps, and looked once again up above him at the mist, and the mist seemed to call him – to beckon him.

  Enter me.

  He stopped at the last step.

  This was it. There was nothing else to tell, it was now or never. And then thoughts raced through is mind. Thoughts of the past, thoughts of death.

  And then he was lying again. On his back. And it was dark. Too dark to see.

  But he was awake. He knew that much. It felt like he was moving; it felt like he was being lifted. But he was lying down, in a bed. But it wasn’t a bed.

  Enter me!

  He was not lying in a bed.

  But it was pitch black dark, and cold. And constricted. He could not move far beyond where he was lying. On either side of him, there was a wall of some sort. But it was a soft wall. Covered in some sort of sheet, or it might have been a pillow. But when he rubbed his elbows against it, it was soft yet firm at the same time. And the pillow was firm and cold too, but it wasn’t big and overstuffed like his pillow that was on his bed at home – it was just large enough to rest his head upon and not much larger. And it was much firmer.