Ashes - The Special Edition: The Tales of Tartarus

by A. L. Mengel

  And he could die.

  Permanently.

  And soon.

  Darius came to that realization, knowing that he would have to lie low for a while, until he could find a way to become immortal once again.

  In the world since the Metatron, much has changed. Asmodai sits at his throne in Hell, and Nesmaron is the ruler of Evil on Earth. Was there a place for Darius in that equation?

  Gathering his bags, he closed his eyes and pictured Antoine’s estate.

  It was not the palatial surroundings that it was when he first arrived to Miami. All of the furniture has been covered in dust cloths, the windows shuttered and doors closed and locked. The house looked like it would be empty for many years.

  But the deed would still read Antoine Nagevesh, and would remain that way, for as long as Darius could see to it.

  Walking out the door, Darius made a mental commitment to locate the Chalice and retransform. He had to. He had no choice. If not, it would be certain death. He wanted to raise Antoine himself, but could not. Nesmaron – no Roberto – must do it. And how would that happen?

  But perhaps…perhaps…perhaps I could do it. Perhaps I could raise you, old friend. I remember that day, the day I first saw you, under the full moon in Badulla, as if it were yesterday. And I remember that day, when I woke in a new body, when you raised me. And I remember the deal you made with Asmodai, and I know that it is why you are closed up inside this urn today.

  I am sorry, Antoine. I am sorry.

  As the hotel door shut behind him, he shuddered and thought of Antoine’s parlor one last time, picturing it empty with the dust cloths covering everything in a field of white.

  But it did not matter.

  *~*~*

  Darius decided to wait until evening to bury Antoine, although as newly mortal again he was starting to become more accustomed to being about during the day, seeing sunrises, sunsets, lying out by the water in the afternoon sun, and relishing all the mortal pleasures that immortals can no longer partake of.

  Although he could have easily buried him in the afternoon, the fading sunlight in the desolate location kept somewhat of a veil of secrecy.

  He laid down the same brown tarp bag on the grass that Antoine had used before to unearth him before. He felt the knees of his pants grow cool and then wet, as the grass was already saturated with nighttime dewdrops.

  This was the spot.

  Exactly where Darius had been buried.

  He reverently stood the urn next to the tarp of clanking tools, dug for the shovel, lined it up perpendicular to the ground, and forced it into the earth.

  Antoine’s grave.

  Antoine, the fierce leader and healer, the corrupt and the just, the merciless and the forgiving. Now, before him, sealed in an urn.

  As Darius continued to dig, the warmth of his tears started to wet his cheeks. No more arguments, no more tears, no more killing together. No more plays in Paris.

  I am burying you, my son. I am digging your grave for you. I am putting closure to all of this madness. I am calling on Asmodai to see that you are paying your dues for bringing me back into this world, the sacrifice that you made, the determination that you showed – in standing up to the demons.

  You tried.

  And now, it is my turn. It is my turn to dig, it is my turn to put the six nails in your coffin, it is my turn to let you rest while I fight – while I find a way, that I promise to you, I will find a way to make myself immortal again, to regain the power, and to raise you from these confines. The madness is over. Or is it? The madness, really, is just beginning.

  Evil reigns.

  The shovel clanked, hitting the grave liner in the dirt, sending bright sparks into the air as it touched the cement and iron.

  The coffin would be just underneath.

  The wind picked up slightly, causing Darius to raise his head, peering out of the grave, raising himself up from the edges of the grave liner that he was standing on.

  He looked over to the woods, the urn in the foreground.

  The leaves to the trees were rustling in the light winds.

  Somewhere in the distance, a tree branch snapped.

  Darius did not care what happened. At this point, all he wanted to do was bury Antoine, and go home and go to bed. If demons came and made an appearance, so be it. He was at the point of giving up.

  Antoine has paid his dues.

  He has fulfilled his end of the bargain and will wait in this casket until Roberto chooses to raise him.

  If that might ever happen.

  The wind picked up again slightly, causing a rustling in the woods, but Darius continued preparing the grave. He used the shovel to scrape the last of the caked dirt off of the liner, which caused a sharp grating sound, reverberating against the silent, still night air. He removed the lid to the liner, and hoisted it up topside with a thud.

  The coffin.

  There it was, sitting down below, in the darkness. One could barely make out the brass handles on one side, the lid was in pieces from when Antoine had torn it apart.

  But it would do.

  He would just fit the pieces of the lid together like a puzzle, and pound each nail in, as deep as they would go, to hold the lid in place and keep Antoine safe.

  Darius grabbed the plastic bag with the six nails, bringing it down into the grave with him. He looked down again at the coffin. The satin lining looked so comfortable. Antoine would rest well, as he did on that very satin.

  Darius stood on the side of the grave liner again to reach topside out of the grave, and grabbed the urn. Holding it close to his chest for a moment, he opened the lid slowly.

  There they were.

  Antoine’s ashes.

  All that was left of him.

  Ashes.

  A deep, dark, greyish dust.

  He took the urn, and turned it over so the ashes fell out onto the satin bedding. He spread them out, so that they lay along the entire length of the casket.

  Turning the urn back up, he drew it closer to his chest once again, and reached inside for the heart. This, truly, was Antoine. An over two hundred year old heart, still fleshy and beating, and would remain fleshy and beating for all of eternity.

  Antoine….

  He closed his eyes for a moment, holding the beating heart to the side of his face.

  Setting the heart reverently in the center of the casket, roughly where it would have been if Antoine’s entire body were lying in the casket, he reached in the bag for the six nails.

  The first nail in the coffin.

  Antoine, there you were. When we first spotted each other, before we met. I sat at my table, making it look to you like I was nursing a drink and listening to the owner chat, but all I really was thinking about was you.

  You had such an alluring look, such a way that you drew me to you. I chose you, you chose me. We chose each other.

  The hammering rapped loudly like steel against steel, in sharp contrast to the quiet as Darius finished with the first nail; he continued driving each nail deeper and deeper, getting one step closer to sealing Antoine’s coffin.

  Do you remember floating in the clouds? Do you remember the lust and the ecstasy that we felt together? Do you remember the first time that I woke you?

  Wake up, sleepyhead.

  Darius placed the second nail in the center side of the coffin.

  You were so kind when you raised me from the dead. You put me in that grave, yes, but you raised me from it. You raised me from where I stayed for years, waiting for you, my son, waiting for the day I would walk the earth again. And now I am here.

  A mortal again.

  What am I going to do? How can I raise you? How can I do this – without getting killed?

  So many things, Antoine, that I must consider now. Now, being very, very mortal. My fragility has returned. I need to find another way to raise you. I need to raise you and resurrect you before I die. You need to transform me back to immortality! I need the Chalice! Damn Claret!<
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  Darius put his head in his hands for a moment, pausing on the fourth nail. He cried softly, overwhelmed by the fact that he may very well die before Antoine is resurrected. And then he would be dead forever, unable to rise again until the Lord’s Judgment Day. He would certainly be damned to Hell for all of his dastardly deeds in his brief mortal life, and, most certainly, for his evildoings in his life since Tramos transformed him.

  Oh Antoine, why did you raise me? Why did you sell your soul to Asmodai? Why are you putting yourself through all of this torment and suffering at his will? And because of what you did, what you did not initially out of love but out of your own personal needs, the needs for a corporation of immortals that were going to rise up and make a place in society – all went in vain, and the visionary is now lying beneath me, being slowly sealed into this coffin.

  And your revelations to The Astral – that was to be the best venture yet! The Astral would have been key. I understand your purpose.

  We are not human, Antoine. Wait a minute – I am human, but you are not. I once wasn’t. I’m sorry my dear old friend, sometimes I start thinking like I am still an immortal. This is going to take some getting used to, that’s for sure.

  I am going to make a pledge to you, Antoine, as I hold this last nail in my hand, it’s the last nail in your coffin, the last nail that will seal you from society. The last nail until I can raise you. What I pledge to you, my friend, is to find a way. To find a way and bring you back to life, before I die.

  My time is short, dear child. I am already starting the aging process, the mortal process where humans die a little bit, day by day, until their bodies give up. A process I have been researching lately, with a new friend that I have made, Dora. She is like me, so she understands. I also have been seeing a lovely counselor named Claire.

  Still with all that, I promise you to find Nesmaron. I promise to you to be immortal once again, to be newly transformed again, before I die.

  Once I find Nesmaron, I will try to find a way to convince him to resurrect you, as it was written, he is your child. He must raise you.

  Darius stood and looked at the last nail for a moment .The last nail in the coffin, the last nail that would seal Antoine from life.

  He looked down at the casket, the pieces of the puzzle all placed together to form an adequate coffin lid, now held in place by five nails digging deep into the sides.

  “Goodbye, Antoine,” he said softly, looking down at his child’s resting place. “I will miss you, my friend.”

  He took the last nail, and drove it down into the side of the box, using the greatest force that he had used for any of the nails he pounded. The banging reverberated so loudly against the stillness of the night, the dirt on the sides of the grave crumbled down above him, sending a light cascade of dirt on top of the lid.

  He brushed it away, and reached up out of the grave again for the liner.

  He placed the liner on top of the casket, sealing Antoine away from life.

  Darius lifted himself out of the grave, dusting the dirt off of his jeans after he was on the grass again. Grabbing the shovel, he began to fill the grave back with dirt.

  Goodbye, my friend.

  “I will see you again one day, Antoine. You will not be in that grave forever, I promise you that. I will put an end to all of this mess.”

  The grave, once filled, made a small mound of freshly packed earth in the graveyard. Darius could not help from looking at the pile of dirt while he was gathering his equipment and placing it back in the brown tarp.

  Afterwards, he blew the grave a kiss as he exited the cemetery in the fading, fiery sun.

  I know you will, Darius, I know. But you can’t possibly know, can you? Being the mortal that you now are? You can’t possibly know or even fathom…

  That I am still alive.

  THE END

  The Story Continues In BOOK TWO: The Quest for Immortality

  In Memory of Author John Woodley, my uncle and an influential

  writer in my life.

  Visit www.almengel.com for updates on all of A.L. Mengel’s novels.

  Visit www.eatlivewrite.blogspot.com for more writing by A.L. Mengel.

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  …Turn the page for one more surprise…

  THE

  QUEST FOR IMMORTALITY

  I kill.

  Everyday. Perhaps not in the traditional sense. Every day, I stare at a lifeless body beneath me, lying on the ground in a hapless mess, sometimes covered in blood and other times already cold and rigid and in the beginning stages of rigor mortis. Sometimes the bodies I am standing over don’t even seem like human bodies anymore. Sometimes they are so mauled and mutilated and bloodied beyond recognition that I look down and see someone that looks like they could be someone familiar or perhaps someone that I do not know.

  But I feel like a killer. I brush the feelings of uncertainty off. I look at the body lying beneath where I stand, and a feeling of contentment passes over me. I reach into my right pocket and fumble with the pack of cigarettes and lighter; the sweet, intoxicating smell of the cigarette smoke wafts through the still, humid summer air as I exhale slowly, closing my eyes and concentrating on the hum of the cicadas.

  The body was found lying in a thick of trees at the side of Dixie. It was perhaps one of the worst messes I had come across in years. Totally drained and dried, like a grayish prune. There was a pool of blood beneath the corpse, but it had long since dried up by the time I had stood over the body.

  “Ned,” a voice called from behind me. I slowly turned to face a short, balding middle aged man holding a steaming cup of coffee in his right hand and a manila folder in his left. “Here is the case file.” He held it out to me, casting a square-ish shadow over the body in the bright afternoon sun.

  “How can you drink that on such a hot day like this?” I asked him, grabbing the folder from his hand. I fumbled with the clasp as he continued: “They found him a couple hours ago. The offices are destroyed – I have never seen such a fucking mess! The place looks like a bomb went off!”

  He examined the file and saw a photo. Antoine Nagevesh.

  Now why is his picture in here?” I asked myself out loud, thumbing through the papers and news clippings, searching for an answer. I didn’t find one. But I knew who that was. No one in Miami could not know who that was – he has always been such a glutton for the media and the spotlight. But, where has he been lately?

  My assistant Pat rolled up a gurney, guzzling a cola right out of the can. “This is a nasty one,” he commented, tossing the can in the woods. “Never seen one like this before!”

  “Let’s just get him back to town,” I said, bending over above the head, placing my hands beneath the shoulders, positioning myself to hoist the dead weight onto the gurney. Now, closer than ever, I was hit by the stench of the rotting flesh. I brought my hand up to my face pocket of dead air hit me in the face with full force, almost knocking me back off my feet.

  The body was dry and dusty, but heavy. Dead weight. So dry and so dead yet so heavy. Like his body was freshly gone but almost completely decomposed at the same time. Pat and I strained at the weight of the once overweight man despite his current dried out state and hoisted him on the gurney.

  We were both out of breath, and I took a white handkerchief out of my shirt pocket and mopped my sweaty brow.

  Yes, I feel like a killer. This is the type of scene that I am subjected to on a daily basis.

  The drive back to town took roughly thirty minutes. Pat and I did not speak the entire way. I just smoked a steady stream of Newports, one right after another, and Pat drank another two colas. We had to drive with the windows rolled all the way down so our hair was blowing back and forth in the wind to keep the stench from overpowering us.

  And this is the fun part. Box up the body, slide it in. Turn the bitch on! And then reduced to ashes. So many times I light a cigarette and exhale, closing my eyes and listening to the cracking of
the flames, the gas. Sometimes I have to interrupt it and reposition the body so the chest remains on the hottest part of the flame, but I have become numb to the half burned bodies of rotted flesh that was bubbling and boiling off of the bones in heat of the chamber.

  The cold, pale green tiles – with their crusty old dead mosquito carcasses and dried spots of rusty colored blood and bright florescent lights always remind me of where I am. I am not in the bowels of hell, I am here working – earning my living. And damn I’m good at it.

  Now available from Parchman’s Press on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other booksellers worldwide.

  THE BLOOD

  DECANTER

  A Novel

  A.L. MENGEL

  In the beginning there was a great war between the angels and the demons. It was a war that had waged and continued since before time had existed, and before man had walked the earth. But this war, this unholy and unearthly battle, this war during which beasts would draw flaming swords, and angels would chorus through the skies surrounded by legions of light and dive downwards to cast the demons away, was taking place through space and history and time, in a dimension that was very little known to those who did not live in it; this enduring battle would cause earthquakes and fires and explosions, but essentially was undetected by those whose perception did not create an awareness of the spiritual beings.

  But the war did, at a certain time in a certain city on the earth, make its presence known with humanity. For the war was not always just that of the beasts, or the angels.

  Others would join the battle.

  There had been a point when the humans would come. They would stand on the edge of the angry sea, standing pale, naked, and staring straight ahead, with expressionless, blank stares, as if stripped of their life force.

  And, in a sense they had been.