The Purgatory Saga #1: People of the Fire

by Michelle Dalson

  I stared with awe. The shadow hadn’t done anything.

  Dewey gasped and hopped from behind the trash can, making his way bravely up to the shadow. I wanted to call out his name, but I was too scared to say or do anything. I rose from my hiding spot and watched as Dewey approached the side of the shadow. He was trying to peer at his face with a curious expression.

  “Hey….thanks, man,” remarked Dewey.

  The shadow turned his head to face Dewey and for a moment. The SoulBird stiffened. The shadow turned to look over his shoulder and face me. I also stiffened. The shadow’s dark face had nothing I could see. I could read nothing on him or make out a single feature of what his expression could be. The shadowy man was absolutely dark from head to toe.

  I looked down and closed my eyes. I was too scared and intimidated by this strange spirit.

  Then I opened my eyes to face him again. The shadow was gone. In his place, a glimmering object was shining next to Dewey. It was my rosary.

  I hurried up to it and picked up the rosary. I saw that it was fixed and put together again. But I noticed something different about the cross. There was no man nailed to it. I widened my eyes. The cross looked good as new, just like the rest of the rosary. It didn’t even look like someone had tried to carve off the figure from the cross, but it was gone. It was as if nothing had ever been carved there.

  I felt a breeze ruffle through me, and for the first time in the land of Bhad, I felt chilly.

  Dewey looked up at me with the same surprise. “Zach……maybe that’s not your rosary.”

  “No, this is my rosary,” I knew it was mine. I just did. “But….look at the the cross…..” I looked down at Dewey with concern. “That shadow! He must of done something. Did you see his face, or am I the only one who’s blind and seeing darkness?”

  “No! I didn’t see anything but darkness on that man!” Said Dewey. “It was as if a shadow had escaped the reflection of a man, and came to life!”

  I looked at the rosary on my hand and felt ominous.

  “Well, at least you got the rosary back,” said Dewey, still looking troubled. “We better get outta here before any other weird things happen. Maybe we’re just hallucinating in this darkness.”

  I walked along with Dewey, following the SoulBird since he had gotten a real bird’s eye view of this city before, and he claimed he knew the way out of this alley.

  I was staring at the cross the whole time, keeping my head down to face it as if it it was a compass. What had happened? Did the shadow do something to my rosary?

  “Hiya!” A scream suddenly came out of nowhere, and to my right, a spirit collided with me. The spirit whacked me on the head.

  “Ow!” I yelled and fell to the ground. I glared up at the anonymous spirit.

  “Yah!” The spirit yelled out again, and from the sound of it, I noticed that it was a girl. I could see the thin, lithe form of her shadow.

  She whacked at me with a sword, but this time, I rolled out of the way. The spirit struck the ground with incredible strength, and tore the street with the sword. Then she pulled it out of the ground to face me. I couldn’t see her face in the shadows, but as she stepped forward into a streetlight, she revealed her identity.

  My angry expression turned into a surprised gaze as I recognized the girl. It was the same red-headed spirit I bumped into when I was following my uncle to the Gehenna Volcano! This was that same girl who was carrying the wounded earth type SoulBird that I nearly killed. I could see her clearly now. She was fiercely glaring at me with green, piercing eyes behind her sharp, hot-pink glasses. Her hair was bright red and tied back into a ponytail that hung down her. She wore a light pink shirt and tight green leggings. Her feet were bare like all the spirits in Purgatory, and only her ferocious glare and strong grip on her sword made her look like a real warrior.

  “Wait a minute,” I spoke and sat up to my knees. I met the girl’s angry gaze with a look of mischief. “It’s you again.” I looked around for Dewey, but there was no sign of him anywhere.

  The girl said nothing but hissed and charged at me, raising her sword in the air. I immediately crawled to the right as her sword struck the ground where I had been standing.

  The girl was rapidly whacking her sword at me, and I had to be quick like a ninja to avoid all her blows. I had to admit that this girl was very skilled. She was probably around nineteen years old.

  “Hey! Hey! Wait! Will you stop for a second?” I yelled as I ducked and jumped over her quick strikes. “You know, I bet you still have that wounded SoulBird that you were carrying last time I saw you.”

  Suddenly the girl stopped waving her sword everywhere. She stuck her sword into the ground and stomped up to me. She pushed my shoulders and pinned me against a wall.

  “Do I know you from somewhere?!” Hissed the girl in a fierce tone. Her angry eyes looked directly into mine, and her sharp glasses flashed.

  I grunted, feeling like a steamroller was on top of me. The girl was pushing me extremely hard against the wall, and I felt like her hands would flatten my shoulders. The girl had skinny arms and her hands were thin, but her grip against my shoulders felt like a dragon was pushing its hands against me. I felt greatly humiliated and I glared at the girl.

  “Well—” I started to speak but the girl yelled and interrupted me.

  “AHHH! Of course I know you! You idiot!” The girl let me go so that I fell to my knees, panting. She took her sword and whacked my back with the side.

  “Owww!” I growled, grabbing my back and shooting up to my feet to glare at her. At least she hadn’t sliced me.

  “I sure hope you’re hurt!” The girl threw her sword to the ground at her right again. “You’re that blasted Medium that hurt my poor SoulBird before! You deserve all the pain you can get for what you’ve done!”

  I flinched and waited for the girl to smack me hard in the face, but she did nothing.

  “Huh!” She crossed her arms and glared at me with unblinking eyes. “Lucky for you that there are other dangers I need to worry about. I can’t waste my time dealing with a sick foul spirit like you.”

  I looked around slowly. “The city’s not under attack anymore,” I muttered, noticing how quiet it had been. I no longer saw flying snakes or dragons in the air, though the smell of smoke still remained.

  “Of course it’s not, idiot!” Yelled the girl. “If you weren’t snooping around in the alley, you’d be attending your Higher One‘s meeting right now!”

  Who did this girl think she was?! I huffed. “Yeah, well, I’m sorry that some of the Higher One’s hell creatures and pets tried to kill me.”

  The girl snatched her sword and pointed it right at my nose. “Just get outta my sight, before I slay you!”

  I raised an eyebrow and snatched the sword from her hand.

  “HEY!” Her face blazed with a red color that almost matched her hair.

  “You’re not making me do anything,” I said sassily. I rushed away, taking her sword with me.

  “GIVE ME MY SWORD!” Her loud scream pierced through the entire alley. “I swear! I’m gonna slay you! Give it back!”

  I rolled my eyes and ran on. But when I looked behind me, she was gone.

  Before I could even look around and expect her to jump out of nowhere, something swung in the air and snatched the sword out of my hand. I cursed loudly, and saw that the girl had swung by on a rope from the building in front of me. She had her sword in her hand. She gave me a grimacing smile.

  “Nice try, but I can see you’re just an amateur fighter,” She leapt down from the building and landed on her feet.

  I was amazed, but I put on a look of disgust to hide it. She got up and faced me with a narrowed gaze, studying me through those sharpening glasses.

  “You don’t know who you’re messing with, Zachariah Ezekreth,” she said sourly.

  I held my expression. So she knew my name. How surprising. Everyone in the stage probably knew my name.

  “When you hurt anoth
er spirit’s SoulBird, you’ll suffer harshly, especially if that SoulBird belonged to a spirit from another land.”

  I crossed my arms. “Haha,” I remarked dryly. “What are you? A spirit from the land of Guhd?” I spoke with sarcasm.

  The girl flinched and shook her head. “I’m from Primal, you dunce! Sheesh! Don’t they teach you how to read spirits?”

  “I dunno, all you girls look the same to me,” I said.

  “Argh!” The girl stomped up to me and stood there with me nose to nose. She was 5’10, the same height as I was. And she smelled of strawberries and nectar. That was enough to let me know that she was not from the lands of Bhad. “You’re a fool to think that you can get away with what you’ve done. I came to Bhad to follow my SoulBird because of a strange vision she had about that stage. I came as a spy, and what you’ve done to her interrupted us. Because of your foolish attack, she had to be restored to health, which took several days! I swear! She’s all better now, and she’s taken me down here to Earth, where I we can observe the Higher One’s activity down here. But now that we found you, we’re totally gonna make you pay.”

  I glared at her and my headband caught on fire.

  Giving a scream, the girl jumped back in surprise. She glared up at the fire on my head. “What do you think you are doing?! Are you one of the creatures from Hell?!” She held up her sword.

  I chuckled and smirked at her as the flames danced on my head. “Maybe.”

  Suddenly, I heard happy tweets and I turned to my right to see that Dewey was playfully chasing another earth type SoulBird.

  The earth type SoulBird was angelic, though this one had a brighter color of green on its feathers. It had white bandages covering both of its legs and the back half of its body.

  “Gracinda!” Yelled the redheaded girl. She dropped her sword and ran up to both of the birds. They were both tweeting and happily chasing after each other. Dewey seemed to be having the time of his life.

  “Gracinda!” The girl snapped harshly at the bird. “Come over here right now! Don’t you realize?! That’s Zach’s SoulBird!”

  The female SoulBird turned and looked over at her angry soul mate. “Jenna? Come on, now! You haven’t met Dewey yet!” The SoulBird spoke with warmth in her voice. “He’s so sweet! You should have heard what he said about how I look in these bandages.”

  Dewey snickered and hopped to her side. “Those bandages make her legs look totally sexy!”

  The female SoulBird laughed and gave Dewey a playful whack with her tiny wing.

  The redheaded girl, Jenna, did not look humored. She crossed her arms and glared sternly at both of them. “Grace! I said the same thing about you too! And I’ve said it hundreds of times!”

  I snickered. “I bet it didn’t sound so nice when it came from you.”

  “Shut up, you ass!” Snapped Jenna. “Grace, you’re coming with me. Let’s get outta here.”

  I watched her reach out her hand for her SoulBird. Grace looked troubled, but she obediently hopped on Jenna’s forearm.

  I winced. “Leaving so soon?”

  Jenna huffed and narrowed her eyes at me. “None of your business! Grace and I secretly come from Primal, and what we are doing is none of your business.”

  Dewey tilted his head. “What? But Grace told me you were looking for Zach.”

  “What?” I winced. This crazy girl was looking for me?

  “Grace!” Jenna scolded.

  Her SoulBird looked at her with a raised expression. “Well, he is the SoulBird of Zach, and you were looking for the boy anyway….”

  “You were looking for me?” I gave the girl a sideways smile.

  “No!” Jenna was scowling, but I could tell she didn’t know what to say.

  “Zach?” A new voice came from above.

  Jenna and I looked up and saw that it was Enoch. The man didn’t look angelic anymore, and he wore the headdress around his head once again, with the dirty white robe. He was clinging to the side of the wall. He let go and landed at Jenna’s side.

  I frowned and rolled my eyes. “Oh great. Lemme guess! Is this girl your secret agent?”

  “No, idiot!” Yelled Jenna, glaring at me fiercely. “Enoch is just a very, very close friend of my father. He knew the whole plan Lucien was up to, and he kept in contact with me through our SoulBirds. Therefore, I was able to hear about what was going on in Bhad, and that someone has been traced with one of the Three golden eggs. You apparently turned out to be that spirit, so Grace and I came to Bhad fetch the egg you were hiding.”

  “Oh….” I nodded, realizing now. I looked at Dewey and snickered, remembering those earth type SoulBirds dancing around the golden egg under my bed that one night. “Apparently, your SoulBird had turned up unexpectedly at me and I struck it with my crowbar.”

  Jenna stomped her foot. “Don’t bring it up! How dare you--”

  “Now, Jenna,” Enoch laid a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. “You came here to meet the boy and reason with him, not curse about his mistakes.”

  “Psh, yeah,” I muttered, giving her a mischievous look.

  “Ugh!” She gave me a disgusted look and hugged her SoulBird. “I just can’t stand it when spirits can be so cruel. If you wanna hit anything with a crowbar, it should only be those filthy devil creatures from Hell!”

  “Well, I’ve explained to the boy what he needs to know about the Higher One, but he doesn’t know every important matter yet.” Said Enoch.

  Suddenly, there was a low rumble in the distance, and Enoch looked up at the dark smoky sky. “Lucien’s meeting is just about to be over. You and I better show up. We must see at least show up, for he will be expecting us.”

  Jenna rolled her eyes and gave the Enoch a hardening gaze. “You want me to just wait here in hiding then?”

  “No, you and Gracinda have been hiding too long,” said Enoch. “I’m sure you both are exhausted.”

  “Oh yes,” sighed Gracinda, Jenna’s SoulBird. She smiled at Dewey. “We were looking for some fun.”

  “Well, you guys can come along with us and listen to the meeting, but keep to the back of the crowds,” Enoch and his SoulBird were already moving forward. “We must not waste any time.”

  So Jenna and I followed. Dewey and Grace playfully chased after each other. I found it annoying that the two birds were running around our heels, noisily tweeting after each other. I was muttering with annoyance. But Jenna kept her head held high kept a stern, straight face, even though I could tell from her angry gaze that she was probably more annoyed than I was.

  When we finally found the crowd of spirits, I realized how firm his palace looked compared to the rest of the place.

  The city of Zellux was destroyed, though not as bad as I thought it would be. It wasn’t as bad as Jerusalem. But some buildings were on fire, and some of the bridges looked broken. The sky looked dark and smoky.

  The Higher One stood at the front of his palace where a balcony jutted out at the center so that everyone in the crowd could see him. He had guards on both his sides, and even from a distance, I could see how angry he looked.

  “The armies have been assembled to go up into Purgatory’s upper lands now,” his voice was stern as he continued to speak to the crowd. “We will drag as many spirits as we can gather down here, so that we can all form our own alliances for the underworld below.”

  The crowd murmured uneasily and both Grace and Dewey exchanged concerned gazes.

  And with that, Lucien turned from his crowd and disappeared into his palace.

  The rest of the spirits murmured among one another and then scattered.

  Grace hopped on Jenna’s shoulder and looked nervous. “What should we do now?”

  Enoch looked at the girl and the SoulBird. “Wait for me by the academy where St. Gretchen is staying. This is terrible. Lucien is accessing his way into the upper stages now.”

  “I’ll get information about our Higher One back in Primal,” Jenna retorted. “He must know about this ridicul
ous plan.”

  Enoch and nodded and watched as Jenna and her SoulBird walked away. Grace turned to meet Dewey’s gaze and gave a wave with her tiny wing before they disappeared in the crowds.

  Dewey tweeted and waved back, even though she was out of sight. I rolled my eyes and turned to Enoch.

  “There’s a lot I need to ask you about,” I said.

  “Yes, I can see that,” said Enoch, who was leading me and Dewey up to the palace. “We will have to discuss this later, in secret.”

  Chapter Thirteen-

  The next day, I managed to get a word from Enoch that Lucien’s armies were sent to the upper lands with a flock of devil SoulBirds. The devilish SoulBirds had captured the angelic ones that still existed near the border of the territory of Bhad.

  If Lucien was going to take control over all the stages, up to that point, I could picture this world becoming like another Earth. Satan was unleashed and was already taking control over the sinners that were left behind on Earth, and Lucien was here to bring the world of Purgatory under Satan’s power as well.

  I had to get out of this place.

  But apparently, I was enjoying the comfort of the palace. Lucien the Higher spoiled me by letting me have access to all kinds of comfortable and exotic rooms. He let me relax in the finest halls of his palace. I could even play with Dewey in the exotic garden he had in the back of the palace. I almost forgot about the reason why I was here in the palace.

  Lucien also told me stories about my father and my mother, and how they used to raise me. My mother abused me, while my father spoiled me rotten. I must have turned out to be a very sloppy child. I learned so much more about my life on Earth, and apparently, it was no different than my afterlife. Lucien told me I was still the naughtiest child in Jerusalem. Luckily, the charisma of this palace was enough to keep me calm so that I wouldn’t have to goad over the horrible life I learned that I had lived.

  Luckily, Dewey, Enoch, and Saint Grenada would remind me about Lucien’s plot and he was trying to pull me into. If it weren’t for them, I would have been totally brainwashed by now.