by Cege Smith
Now unearthly howls filled the small space and then there was a more unnerving silence on the other side of the door.
“They’re changing into their natural state,” Jake said. “They are stronger that way. My guess is one of them is headed downstairs so it can trap you between floors.”
“So I’m screwed,” Ellie said.
“No, I told you. I know a place you can hide.”
Jake grabbed her hand, and although Ellie wanted to pry it away, she needed help. Any hope was better than none at all. He pulled her away from the door and then stepped to the other side of the door. He quickly examined the wall and then pushed. A small opening appeared right next to the door.
“Where does that go?”
“Somewhere that isn’t this staircase,” Jake said. He pulled her forward and moments later Ellie was ensconced in darkness. He slid the door shut just as Ellie heard the door next to it explode. Then a growling filled the space. It sounded as if it was right there with her.
The only thing that kept her quiet was Jake’s firm hold in the darkness. He pulled her further into the pitch-blackness and away from the growling. Ellie thought for sure the demons would be able to sense her fear and come through the secret door, but moments later she heard nothing but silence.
Ellie stumbled ahead letting Jake guide her. The darkness around her pressed against her and made it difficult for her to breath. Finally, they emerged into a small space that seemed to have enough natural light that Ellie could see something of the room around her. It didn’t take her long to recognize it, even in the long gloomy shadows.
“We’re in the closet, in the master bedroom,” she said.
“They won’t look in here, at least not at first. They’ll think that somehow you escaped through the door down on the first floor. But then they’ll start to look, and they’ll take apart every piece of drywall, every ceiling, every floorboard of this house until they find you.”
“Great. It’s a giant game of hide and seek. They’ll love it,” Ellie said. Although she tried to be sarcastic, it was difficult to keep the tremor out of her voice “Now what?”
“Now’s the part where you come up with the actual grand plan and get all of us out of here,” Jake said. “Including me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
David fell back in his chair and stared at Alain. He felt better seeing an equal expression of shock on Lillian’s face. At least he wasn’t the only one who had been thrown for a curveball.
“Alain, you’ve never mentioned your…relationship…with Ellie before,” Lillian said. “This is quite a surprise.”
“Why would I have told you, especially given your own interest in her?” Alain said with a small chuckle. “I had been content to let things play out where my granddaughter is concerned, although I have tried to insert some influence here and there to ensure that when the time came, she would choose to align herself with Hell.”
“That’s why you didn’t interfere when Mikel pulled her into the Afterlife,” David said.
“Intriguing topic. Mikel,” Alain said, pushing his chair back from the desk. He moved over to a side table and opened a small wooden box, pulling out a fat cigar. “Would you like one?” he offered to David.
David shook his head. His mind was trying to fit all of the pieces together. He wondered if Veronica knew about this man’s connection to Ellie. Then he wondered if he had been set-up again. “I don’t smoke.”
“Shame. I enjoy celebrating with a good cigar. It is one of the few finer things I have found offered on the Other Side,” Alain said. He busied himself snipping off the end and then seemed to take forever lighting it.
Then Alain walked around their chairs, and both David and Lillian were forced to shift to watch him. “My granddaughter seems to have an innate ability for attracting darkness into her life. I’d like to think that is a credit to my lineage within her. Her mother was the same way. I had hoped for a much different life for her. So tell me, David, how does Ellie feel about Mikel?”
The mention of Mikel’s name made David angry. “She hates him and everything he stands for. He used her and manipulated her to make her do things that she wouldn’t have done on her own. She sees him for what he is, a monster.”
“Quite a passionate response for one who is ready to pledge his allegiance to the same side that Mikel serves. Does that make you any less of a monster?” Alain asked with a raised eyebrow.
Talking about Ellie distracted David from what he was supposed to be doing, and Alain’s subtle reminder made his spine straighten. He saw that Lillian was also watching him closely. He was being tested.
“Ellie was able to see past his physical use of my face. She did spend time with him, and I think may have forged an uneasy bond with him,” David said stiffly.
“You may have heard that Mikel escaped from his cell,” Alain said, taking a slow puff of his cigar. “I have reason to believe that it was Ellie who helped him.”
Although David wanted to declare that such a thing was laughable, he remembered that Lucy had been able to bring Ellie to his cell. It wouldn’t be a stretch to think that their forays included a visit to Mikel.
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” David said. “I’ve been held in Purgatory until quite recently as you already know. Then I made my way here.”
“With the assistance of Dane, yes, I heard,” Alain said. His nonchalant demeanor felt more threatening to David than if the older man had been staring him down. “So if my sources are to be believed, and Ellie did indeed manage to spring Mikel loose, why do you think she did that?”
“I don’t know,” David said through gritted teeth. “I haven’t spoken to her, so there is no way I would know.”
“Is it possible the bloom has fallen off the tree?” Alain now turned his full attention to David. “Lillian said that you and Ellie were completely in love with each other. This development is…noteworthy.”
David realized that his actions in pushing Ellie away may have very well set off a chain reaction that led her right into Mikel’s open arms. He wanted to kick himself. But he couldn’t tell Alain and Lillian about Ellie’s visit. He had to do what he could to protect her, even if he didn’t agree with her decisions.
“I have no hold over Ellie. In fact, I told her that right before Braz took me to Purgatory. She is free to make her own choices.”
“How noble of you,” Alain said. “Well, I wish I had the ability to see such things as what is going on in my granddaughter’s head. Unfortunately, I do not. I was hoping that when news reached Ellie’s ears that you declared loyalty to Hell that she would more easily be swayed to our side. But if her interests now lie with Mikel, I am going to be forced to cut a deal with a traitor. Not something I’m in the business of doing.”
“So what do you want us to do?” Lillian asked. “I can take him to her, and we can find out once and for all how she feels.”
While David’s heart leapt at the idea of seeing Ellie, that wasn’t his main focus. He had other things that he needed to do, and those things involved the two people in the room with him.
“So I’m assuming you are the one responsible for Ellie’s parents’ death?” David asked. He let the words fall and then waited. The silence that followed was deafening.
Alain stopped his pacing and then slowly walked around so that he was standing in front of David. Being seated, David was at a distinct disadvantage. Alain loomed over him, and his eyes had turned to the color of fire. “You dare make such an accusation of me? Do you know who you are talking to, boy?”
Although David’s insides were quivering, he didn’t let it affect his voice. “Actually, I have no idea who I’m talking to other than an old man who prefers to wait in the shadows and have other people do his dirty work for him.”
The strike came as David expected, but he was still unprepared for the brute strength behind it as it upended his chair and sent him flying across the room. His body struck the hard wall next to the door, and h
e bounced off and fell hard to the floor. It had sucked all the breath out of his lungs, but he was amazed to realize that other than the shock of the impact, no other part of him appeared to be injured. That was good. He stood and slowly shook himself to release the particles of dust that had attached to him. He looked over his shoulder and saw that he could make out the faint outline of where his body struck the wall. Alain packed a punch.
Alain was across the room in a flash and David found him standing toe to toe with him. With just inches separating them, he could feel the heat rolling off the older man. Alain’s eyes were blood red and David felt slightly off kilter staring into them.
“What is it that you think you know?” Alain asked. Although his voice had gone soft, casual even, David knew that it wasn’t an actual question but a demand.
“I can’t imagine you would have been happy finding out your daughter was in love with someone from Heaven,” David said. “Then they escaped to the other side to be together; the ultimate betrayal.”
“Milla was special. She had a bright future here, even recruiting souls like Mikel’s for the legions of Hell. It was an unfortunate turn of events when she was blinded by that upstart,” Alain spewed. “What happened is unnatural. What they produced is nothing short of an abomination.”
“Yet an abomination that you want on your side,” David said. This time, expecting the strike, he ducked and pivoted out of the way. He heard Lillian’s cry and he moved again just as Alain’s fist jutted past the space where his jaw had just been. He put up his hands. “You’ve got it all wrong, Alain. I’m just trying to get a sense of who I’m going to be working for here. I’m not judging.”
Alain held his fist up, ready to strike. “I could use magic against you, you know. But I prefer the hands on approach.”
“You could use your magic to blow me to smithereens. I get it,” David said trying to sound conciliatory. So far Alain’s actions had confirmed every suspicion he had. Even if the man didn’t admit it out loud, he was the reason Ellie ended up an orphan. “Like I said, I think we got off on the wrong foot. You asked about Ellie. You have to admit that it isn’t all that strange that I would be curious about the influence you’ve had in her life, especially as you say you want to coerce her into the darkness.”
Alain slowly lowered his fist. He seemed to be considering. Then his face broke out in a wry grin. “You are clever. Lillian boasted more than once about that.”
David was relieved. Lillian sidled over to David and rested a hand on his arm. “Yes, Alain, my David has always been inquisitive. You have to forgive him for being impertinent. He’s been that way since childhood.”
“Now I understand your interest in Ellie,” David said. “If you would like me to help you in your efforts to win her over, I will be happy to help, especially if that would result in a benefit for me.”
Alain laughed. “Are we negotiating?”
Lillian clucked nervously. “David! You are being too forward.”
“Nonsense,” Alain said waving them both to sit down again. “I like a soul with spirit. You’ve raised him well, Lillian. It is because of his state that his inquisitiveness is not stifled.”
“My state?” David asked as he settled back into his chair. “You mean, the fact that I’m not supposed to exist.” They had taken a roundabout turn to get there, but David found they were finally settling on the key topic at hand. The fact that he was able to confirm Alain’s part in murdering Ellie’s parents was an unexpected nugget of information obtained.
“The sections of the Afterlife have been busy investigating your case,” Alain said. “We’ve exchanged information.”
“What kind of information?” David leaned forward.
“Each section reviewed its own individual roster of souls for the time period when you born. Regardless of this particular instance of re-incarnation, it was important to identify where your soul belonged before.”
“What?” David was shocked. He had never considered the possibility that his soul had existed before being born to Henry and Emma Decatur.
“It is an important clarification, isn’t it? You weren’t supposed to live as Henry Decatur, Jr. Your soul was supposed to return to the section it came from, but instead, it remained within you and you have gone on living and breathing to this day.”
David let Alain’s words sink in. He wondered why Veronica hadn’t told him this. He wasn’t a complete freak of nature. He didn’t exist within a vacuum. It led him to his next question, which he was almost afraid to ask, but had to know. “Where did I come from?”
“Your most recent incarnation in the Afterlife found your soul in Purgatory,” Alain said. “But while that question is of course the most obvious, you realize you are missing the most critical ones.”
“Which are?”
“Who were you before and who were you supposed to be next? What life or lives have you foregone because of this unfortunate incident that trapped you and made you a Lost Soul?” Alain’s voice was mesmerizing.
David’s head was full. He had been thrown for a complete loop. He wasn’t sure how to fit what he heard with what Veronica had already told him. He wasn’t sure who to believe or what version of the story was true.
“Do you know the answers to those questions?” David finally asked. He couldn’t even look in Lillian’s direction. She was almost wholly to blame for where he now found himself, and he was certain that the depth of his hatred for her would be apparent on his face.
“I do,” Alain said. “But by pledging your allegiance to Hell, all of that becomes irrelevant. You have a most envious path ahead of you, David. Your right to choose, completely outside of the Afterlife’s purview, is a distinct and heady advantage.”
Alain had no intention of telling him, David realized. It was yet another test of his loyalty, but now he agonized that by striking a bargain with Veronica, he had possibly forgone his true destiny.
“If I refuse?” David asked softly.
Alain sat back in his chair. His lips pursed. “If you refuse, you leave me no choice, but to finish what Mikel and Lillian started. You will die. Of course, by dying in this way, I cannot guarantee that your soul will go anywhere. It is possible that it will simply dissipate to the far reaches of the Afterlife where it can never be retrieved.”
“That’s really not a choice at all, is it?” David said.
Alain shrugged. “I’ve offered you the opportunity of several lifetimes, David. To me, if you truly want to go places and advance your potential, you are right, there really is only one choice.”
David had to hope that Veronica knew what she had done to him and the ultimate consequences. He had to think about Ellie too, and so in the end, he stood and extended his hand out over the desk to Alain.
“Guess I’m your man.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“What makes you think that I can find a way out of this mess?” Ellie asked Jake. She was on edge, expecting Christopher to throw open the door to the closet at any moment and find her and tear her apart. “From what Mikel said, those things are nearly indestructible.”
“They draw their power from the darkness, that is true,” Jake said. He paused, and Ellie could see that he was struggling to tell her what he needed to tell her. “Ellie, do you remember when I told you that I got mixed up in some stuff that was pretty bad when we were together?”
“Yes, how could I forget?” Ellie said. “It appears that incident set all of this other stuff in motion.”
Jake hung his head and sighed. “I didn’t know what they were at the time, the things that were playing with my head. But it was those demons you saw out there. I had somehow opened myself so that they were able to mess with my mind, even if they couldn’t physically manifest on the Other Side. But they work for someone else. The more they touched me, and my mind, the stronger the bridge they built between me and the one who controls them. That was their intention all along. When I got too close to you, they were able to exert enough inf
luence to ensure that I died. But when I crossed over, I found that I couldn’t pass on because I was tied to him.”
Ellie was horrified. “What does that mean?”
“It means that unless I find a way to break free, I’m going to keep changing into something that is dark and evil,” Jake said. “He’s breaking down every barrier I’ve put up and makes me do things that I don’t want to do. And every time I do it, every time I give in, I am more and more damned.”
Ellie understood what that felt like. “Mikel used a similar strategy on me when I arrived here,” she said. “He used my feelings for David to manipulate me into taking people’s psychic abilities for him. Each time it was easier, and I got better at it, but then I killed someone because I couldn’t control it. I can feel a hunger inside me for something that I can’t even explain.”
Jake nodded. “He was conditioning you for the darkness, Ellie. The more they extinguish the light inside you, the things that make you good, the more you empathize with that side.”
Ellie thought about her feelings for Mikel. What Jake was saying made perfect sense. There was nothing about Mikel that was right for her, but after his manipulative onslaught on her soul, she had softened toward him. The thought made her angry. But then she remembered the fact that her parents had come from opposite ends of the Afterlife. “My mother was from Hell.” Saying the words out loud was surreal. “My father was from Heaven. It’s possible that I wasn’t changing to be darker but that Mikel was able to manipulate the darkness that already existed there.”
“Think about it, Ellie. Isn’t that exactly what Hell would want you to believe?” Jake said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “They want you all to themselves. That’s why those demons out there haven’t killed you. Their master wants you.”
“Who is this Master you keep talking about?” Ellie asked. “The Devil?”
Jake shook his head. “It’s not the big boss man. But it’s someone nearly as bad, trust me.”
