As Ms. Johansen calmed herself and turned her focus back to Victoria, she gave us a greater clue as to whom she may be. She brought herself closer to Victoria, until they were nearly nose-to-nose, to impart some friendly advice.
“Be careful the studies you prioritize. You wouldn't want to end up with studies that are of only short term benefit to your future.” Despite the choice of words and the tone they were spoken in, was neither ominous, nor were they threatening or in any other troubling tone. She was sincere, but seemingly acknowledging Vic was capable of making her own choices between a normal mortal life or, well, a not-so-normal mortal life. The sentence acknowledged Vic had these options while also being ambiguous enough to seem like just good advice from an elder, and she was incredibly pleasant about it as well.
Though I do not believe this was again God himself, we do believe Ms. Johansen to be an agent of Heaven, which brings me to consider the possibility that God has shared with his agents that the Book of the Damned is no longer within the realm of Hell. If Heaven knows this then what of Hell, do they also know? The rules have changed indeed.
Victoria and I have a great deal of discussion to make this last weekend before school begins. No matter what her intentions in regard to further use of the book, she may have no choice but to continue her part in the legacy.
Journal entry XXIII
For the sake of always being able to return and to make sure that all details have been accounted for, so all possibilities conceivable may be explored, we are recounting any conversations between Vic and I which pertain to the book, Hell, Heaven, demons, angels, or anything else of relevance which gives us clues to what the future may hold with extra concerted effort from now on. It’s not an under-used ability of ours to hold in vivid detail those things we commit to memory, nor is it a task of difficulty since there are so many souls contained within the book, though only one person may be speaking, hundreds are hearing her words, emotions and tones of voice, while also chiseling all other details to memory as well. This allows us to recall any memory obtained by the book in every explicit detail that memory had when it was created. I’m betting we could easily rival the computers Tom’s company oversees the production of. Perhaps we can use this to our advantage, since after so many centuries of servitude to the vilest souls who inhabit Hell, we all feel the breaking of Judas’s legacy itself may be possible, and this despite God’s decree of it. Though we’re not sure if it will be for the better or for worse, change of any kind would be welcome because it would show nothing remains the same forever, even the word of God. We just don’t believe it is any coincidence so much change has come about already.
Though Victoria had plans for being out with some of her new friends on this eve, I convinced her to stay in due to matters of extreme importance needing to be discussed. She was gruff with me at first but when I told her not only was her life at risk but also the lives of others, she reluctantly agreed to my request.
“There is much we need to discuss before the beginning of school, young one. I believe you understand we may have acted too quickly when we collected the souls of Johnny and his friends, yes?”
Her demeanor was suddenly silent and solemn.
“Yes ...”
“I also believe since then you have been doing no more than tolerating my presence, and though you have read the contents of my pages, and have even put to use a single command, you would rather all this just goes away, yes?”
Now her eyes began to fill with tears. None of us were happy to cause this reaction within her, but this conversation is of great importance to her future as well as the future of the book.
“I do wish it would all go away. It's not anything against you, and I realize it was my decision to do what we did after Lusa, but beyond that, I don’t know why you’re here or what all this is supposed to mean or if it’s supposed to mean anything at all, but I want it gone. I want a life like the rest of my friends have. Not this.”
“Believe me, Victoria, that is the life we would prefer you to have. Despite where we come from, and the existence we have had, we have grown very fond of you and the many little joys you have brought to us.”
“Joy? How?”
“That is not important right now. What is important is that you have a great choice to make before we continue this conversation.”
“What choice?”
“It has always been within your prerogative to simply refuse to use this book. It doesn’t mean we’d be able to leave you, but with the range we’re able to stray away we could at least stay out of your sight for the rest of your mortal life. We don’t know what would happen after that, but for the time you live you can be as rid of us as we can provide for you. If you choose to release me from service to you in this way, we believe it possible that once you do pass away from your mortal coil, the Book of the Damned could fall to the possession of a another mortal, or even go back to Hell where a new demon will be chosen. But we know we can’t choose. We may be stuck with your soul after your bodies is done with it. We just don’t know. If we are presented to another mortal we don’t know if that person will be a good person, or one who is full of the capacity to do wrong against others, and therefore be a sinner with the knowledge of the devil at their command. With the abilities I have found myself capable of, the abilities I’m sure I have yet to discover, and the abilities the next one I serve would possess because of these pages, there’s no telling the damage that could befall mortal kind.”
“You could also fall into the hands of a Buddhist monk, Azeeza.” Despite the tears in her eyes it was good to see she could still make a little light of this. I couldn’t help but laugh out loud for a moment.
“Your words are too true, young one. But I’m sure that despite your lack of years in this life you do understand that within any man or woman lies the possibility of betraying one’s self or others despite knowing it is wrong to do so, do you not?”
She only nodded and bowed her head in answer to my question. I reached out and placed my hand just inside her mind. It brought us a great deal of grief to find she believed she had sinned against herself and the other children when she collected their souls.
“Young one, Victoria, please don’t torture yourself for what you’ve done. You are as innocent in this as they were. Because you simply did not understand, and I did not know to tell you, you are innocent.”
“But, I have their souls. They signed a piece of paper in their own blood and I signed it in mine, and now they belong to me …”
“No matter what, they signed of their own free wills. They were tempted and they gave in and it is that simple no matter what else you’re thinking.”
“So what happens to their souls if I destroy the contract? Are they free? Do they get to go to Heaven? What happens, Azeeza?”
“I’ll be completely honest with you, young one, I don’t know. This is why I have to ask you to make this decision.”
“So, what happens if I don’t refuse you? What happens if I decide to keep you? Am I going to Hell for what I’ve done?”
“I am not entirely sure how to answer that, I’m afraid. What I believe is that Heaven may know the Book of the Damned is no longer within the realm of Hell. I can only speculate that Hell, Malus more specifically, may suspect the same thing. What this may possibly come down to is if you release me I could conceivably come to the service of one with the right mindset to tip the scales in the direction of Heaven or Hell. If you choose to keep me in service to you …” I actually shuttered to finish this sentence, “you could be hunted for the remainder of your life with the prize of the hunt being your soul.”
“Why, though? Why would my soul do them any good? I mean, if I’m dead and my soul passes on won’t that also release you?”
“Possibly; I may belong to you until you complete your role in the legacy. It may be that I wouldn’t leave you until you took the throne of Hell itself and claimed it as your own. At least until the next one to possess the book overthrow
s you. The only bright side to that, if you want to call it the bright side, is if you leave this coil before anyone finds a way to claim your soul, and, you take the throne of Hell, you will have taken me from the mortal realm and put me back where I belong. You will have taken me back to Hell where the mortal realm can’t lay claim on me.”
“Well, how did you end up here in the first place?”
I say can't as if it didn't already happen, and she caught onto it way too fast. I explained what happened with the last demon I was to be in service to.
“Well then, obviously you can end up back here again.”
Smart ass. She is so young and there is so much happening to her at the same time. Not only is she coping with the inconvenient changes of becoming a woman, but she also has on her shoulders a decision no mortal in the history of the human race has ever faced.
“Victoria, there are no prophesies foretelling of these events. No wise man once depicted the scenario you are now part of. In every life there are those things which must happen and those things which happen simply by chance. Your destiny is chosen according to how you react to these events while not knowing which was inevitable and which was avoidable. These are the choices you’ve been dealt.”
I decided to stop there for the evening and allow her some time to think; a day to be exact. Tomorrow is the last day before the new school year and I feel I have no choice but to pressure her to make a decision on this quickly.
If any boy ever pressures her like that we'll tie his testicles around his ankles and hang him upside down from a hook!
I ended the conversation on something a bit lighter which I’ve been wondering about for quite a long time: How did she know what my name was the first time she called on me? Prior to that first time, all the contact we had with her was never personal enough so as to give up such information, as much as it was just educational. We never shared our personal details, such as our names, with Victoria as we exercised her mind. Vic was unsure and said it was simply in her mind to call out that name, and she had actually wanted to for a long time, but she was afraid she might just be saying foolish things into the air.
We left the answer at that for now.
Journal entry XXIV
Sunday. It’s been a very long day of conversation between Victoria and me. To begin with she has made the decision to keep me in service to her, or at least close by. We are all a bit gladdened and saddened simultaneously by this as none of us knows what may lie before her in life. Yet, we all still cling to the feeling that because the previous rules have obviously changed for the Book of the Damned, perhaps there’s a good chance more changes are to come. Changes which will aid Victoria rather than hinder or harm her. We hope, but we're attempting to plan for the worst as much as hoping for the best. For today the topic was the rules of existence, which I’m already quite familiar with, and the things she’ll need to know to avoid letting her soul go prematurely, whether it be by illness, age or the trickery of another entity. After making herself a peanut-butter & jelly sandwich with a side of BBQ-flavored potato chips and a glass of milk, we dug further into the particulars while also keeping a sharp ear out for Vic’s parents returning from shopping.
“I’m not sure if I should be asking in a particular order or if there is an order to begin with. Where should we start, Azeeza?”
“Well, what is something you’ve been curious about? Start with something small and we can build up to the bigger things as we go. Fair?”
“Yes. Thank you. Then I suppose my first question has to do with when you took me through the tour of Hell and your existence; your past. I noticed some of the demons seemed to have fits or seizures of some sort from time to time. What was that all about?”
“I know what you’re speaking of. ALL of the demons experience what you’re asking about. But that is far and wide from starting with a small topic. If you're positive you want to start there then come closer and I will show you in more detail and tell you as you witness what transpires. But don't say I didn't warn you!”
She pulled her chair closer to me with a snarky little grin, and as I sipped a bit more of her father’s brandy I placed my hand into her consciousness and we remembered a particular instance within her mind.
Maybe we shouldn't be drinking and driving? Moving on …
In his mortal life he had become quite infamous as one of the world’s most notorious butchers. A number of women in the old gas-lit England mix of tar-paved and brick streets unwittingly became his prey. He was first driven by an Ebony Demon’s illicit suggestions of consorting with backstreet whores and harlots of the Whitechapel district despite the results his actions of ill repute could bring upon his well to-do family.
In his numerous lusty encounters he contracted an infection of the mind and body, upon the onset of which the Ebony Demon was able to push him well passed what his conscience had allowed him to do up to that time. The thoughts of never being able to marry or have children to carry on the family name were all the Ebony Demon needed to convince this man to exact his revenge on the types of women — those lowly, beastly and unclean harlots of the night — as per the demon’s whispers. These blackened thoughts permeated his mind and had him thoroughly convinced of who put him in this predicament. Despite the screams of his conscience he took to brazenly slaughtering a number of prostitutes, and was able to make off with no one ever knowing concretely who he was; save his being the last face those women laid eyes upon as their blood was chased from their veins.
Eventually the disease consumed him and he died a death horrific and painful with an Ebony Demon firmly attached to him until the horrible end. The demon walked this man’s soul into Hell personally. The coffer of his conscience was always intact and the Ebony Demon was able to claim the prize of one more very darkened soul to add to the ranks of Hell.
When the souls of the living move on to Hell they are made flesh again by their own memories and sense of mortal self; as mentioned to you before it's what we refer to as fleshen. They're taken into one of two positions of servitude: The first, and most common, is a position in the landscape of Hell. Victoria already knew well what that meant so I did not bother myself with recounting the details.
The other position is one of servitude within the ranks, and that is where this particular gentleman went. All because of the passionate deftness with which he carried out such atrocities upon so many women; so many more than the five known. Our subject was in service to the very Ebony Demon who broke his conscience and claimed his soul for Hell. He served for what I would guess to be about ten years when a major upheaval took place and the legacy once again put a new ruler on the thrown. It was then I came into the service of the damned soul we're speaking of.
It should be mentioned here that suffering while in service to another demon isn't entirely different from those sewn into Hell’s physical mass, but that is supplemented by having strips of flesh of varying widths being peeled from the tops and soles of the feet, and the backs and palms of the hands, all the way up to scalps, but it's not detached and not completely enough to be a thorough skinning. Though we never had anything to liken it to while in Hell, here in the mortal realm the closest comparison we've seen are dreadlocks; macabre dreadlocks dangling from their scalps and to varying lengths. The tips of these narrow strips fell anywhere from their waists to just past their feet. Many flip them back and use a pair of the strips tied together to create a fleshy ponytail of sorts.
There's a muck, a smegma to be more accurate, which develops between the souls of the landscape where they're sewn together, as well as in the folds of their flesh. That smegma is rubbed into the open wounds of the strips of flesh to retard the strips of meat and open body-length wounds from healing back into place.
These servants also do not escape their thorn bushes. While the thorn bushes still sprout from their tender genitals, because these fleshen souls are allowed to be upright the thorn bushes also sprout in upward fashion becoming somewhat encased in the bellie
s of their respective owners. Their red-tinted souls collect and partially coagulate within their respective thorny confines and inflict the mental and emotional sufferings just as with those suffering beneath their feet, though in intervals rather than continuously.
Obviously this is all brutally painful, and a fleshen soul suffering one-hundred out of ten on a pain scale doesn't do the demon they're in service to much good. Fortunately Ebony Demons are very adept in the manipulation of the fleshen souls, and as such they are able to manipulate how much of the pain from these ongoing tortures is inflicted at any given intensity. It's not entirely unlike turning a knob to adjust the volume on a radio. As with any demon no soul in Hell is able to completely escape the pains of their damnations, but at their lowest pain level, as dictated by their masters, these souls-turned junior demons have their pain levels dropped low enough to function so they can perform the tasks dictated to them. This is how the masters, not all of which are Ebonies, reward and punish those who serve them.
Though our subject’s rise ended up being a bit slow he did eventually rise into a rank close to the Ebony Demon who brought him to Hell. The first chance he had he rallied a small band of souls he had taken possession of and captured the Ebony Demon. They took the demon to a nearby Carrier Thorn where they tossed him onto the massive quills and the demon was processed into the landscape of Hell, though not for long, long enough just the same. At that point he rallied all the Ebony Demon’s former servants and took the lead position among them, and then overtook the throne with the same lack of mercy he paid to his earthly victims.
Legacy of Judas - Book One Page 12
