The Depths of Darkness

by Laurie Bowler

  “So summoning items isn’t a particularly strong spell then?”

  “No,” I shook my head. “It’s a weak spell but commonly used. Witches use it all the time when they can’t be bothered to wait for something. We do try and mingle into the mortal world as best we can without magic and live normal lives, just like you vampires do,.

  “I see,” he mused chuckling softly and he leant towards me and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “Are you ready for us to move inside?”

  “Yes,” I said glancing in the direction of the Cerberus. Their snoring was loud and rumbled across the hollow space separating us from them. “Can you hurry?”

  Pleased with my comment and my hurriedness to enter, he gently but firmly kicked the door, and repeated the action until I heard the catch of the lock inside begin to give way under the weight being pounded against.

  “Well done,” I said, “you didn’t split the door like last time.”

  “I have my uses,” he remarked back to me.

  He entered first, his eyes firmly fixed on the dark corridor ahead of us. There were no other rooms leading off this way, it was the only way in and would be the only way out to escape should anything go wrong inside.

  “I don’t hear anything inside at all,” he muttered. “It's like there’s no one inside.”

  “She’s still in there,” I replied. “I would have felt the vibrations if she used any portals to leave.”

  “Why is it so damned dark everywhere?”

  “When a witch turns bad,” I hesitated, “the darkness reaches out around her, and prepares itself to take her soul into the depths of hell. The fires of the evil she has emanated will eventually catch up with her and devour her until it has her completely.”

  Luke stopped and turned to me, a soft smile played around his lips as he searched me with his piercing eyes.

  “How much exactly did you study?”

  “Matace was a great teacher and had me studying every day. Why?” I asked baffled.

  “Because,” he said reaching out to stroke my cheek. “You’ve just said something that sounded like it was out of the most historical book belonging to the realm word for word. And that shows you have a fantastic intake of the details you’ve read. I’m impressed.”

  My heart fluttered inside my chest, and I willed it away gradually pulling myself out of his spell. It was as if he sensed my iron steely approach, firmly being pushed back into place; he backed away and continued walking down the corridor. The door at the other end was unlocked and there was no one around at this section of the house. The layout was simple inside the house, with only a few corridors that would cause us any problems should Lilly have any guardians of any kind waiting inside trying to guard her and her life.

  “This way,” I hissed when Luke turned in the opposite direction. “I know the layout.”

  For once I led, and walked stealthily and as quietly as I could around the house, aware that every room we passed was empty.

  Luke listened constantly and held me back by my upper arm whenever he heard so much as a scuffle in the darknes. My eyes grew accustomed to the darkness and my feet remembered where all the furniture was located; it was highly doubtful that Lilly would have had a chance to move any of it.

  “Do you think we should head to where she is?” I asked him.

  “Do you have any other ideas?” he hissed into my ear. “Do you want to check out the furniture of the rooms to see if there’s anything you want to steal?”

  “How do you know about that?”

  He was referring to my earlier thoughts of the thieves that I’d met and the way they’d shown me their trades.

  “I read your mind,” he shrugged easily. “I’m glad you didn’t join any of them. It means your soul has remained clean and unprovoked by any evil.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “But what good has that done for me?”

  “More than you know.”

  He grabbed my arm and pulled me away and we headed off towards the area where he’d seen Lilly go earlier. Inside the larger room where she’d entered and to our astonishment there was nothing; the room was empty.

  “Where did she go?” he asked amazed and he turned around the room in small confused circles.

  “I have an idea.”

  He watched me and stepped back when he saw my hands reach out and the magic begin to make my hands illuminate in the darkness. I was about to use the weakest spell that I could remember, just so I didn’t arouse Lilly’s suspicions of magic being used so close to her own location. The parallel vortex left my hands and searched the room; it was looking for another dimension of any hidden rooms that were swamped by magic to prevent their location from being found.

  “What’s that?” he asked beside me watching it nervously.

  “It's the parallel dimension,” I answered, watching it with my trained eyes and guiding it gently whenever it seemed to whiz around confused. “It’s searching for anything dimensional to this world or anything that’s hidden and devoured with magic so that we can’t see it with the naked eye,”

  “Is it a powerful spell?”

  “No,” I chuckled softly. “It’s a weak one so I don’t rouse her suspicions unless of course,” I added, “she’s looking for anything unusual, which means basically we’re screwed and she’ll find us instantly but so far we’re safe.”

  The parallel vortex hunter stopped and returned to me; uncertain with its findings it pulled me to the spot where it had felt something unusual. My own trained hands felt the powerful spell surrounding the far end of the room. The cover of the spell hadn’t protected it adequately enough from the weakest of spells that I’d used, which both surprised and worried me. It was a case of either Lilly becoming lapse in her magical ways or she was testing to see if anyone could find her and was lying in wait on the other side. There was only one way to find out and see what was happening. I used the parallel vortex to go through the spell and it gradually began to dissolve into nothing but air. I heard Luke gasp behind me.

  “Where has it gone?”

  “I’ve sent it ahead to take a look for us,” I replied, waiting with a small amount of patience until it reappeared. “It will return with news and pictures of anything that’s behind the hidden spell.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Do you think she’s tricking us?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “It's unusual for a witch to leave the back doors open to the weakest of spells, so I’m not taking any chances at all.”

  The hunter whirled back into view, spun around excitedly and then landed inside my hands. I closed my eyes and fell deep inside the hidden world behind the spell. I saw the rooms, the disarray that lay around on the floor and surfaces. And finally, Lilly working methodically on something with her back to me, her hands moved rapidly on the item on the table. Nothing appeared normal around her and still the darkness continued to creep into her soul without her being aware of it.

  “Thank you,” I murmured and released the parallel vortex to return to its home, with the job done and our adventure secured to the other side of the room.

  “How do we get in?”

  “This way.”

  I took him by the hand and led him to the corner of the room where we disappeared from view, and we entered the inside of the hidden rooms that had been located. The scary darkness refused to leave, and the feeling of anxiety washed over me and all around me.

  “Where is she? Luke whispered.

  “Sh!” I hushed him as quietly as I could so not to arouse Lilly, and whatever she was up to so it could be revealed shortly and also so we’d be able to have a good view of what she was doing and be able to sustain the balance if need be.

  We hunkered down behind a few boxes that smelt of dead flesh amongst other things, most of which I couldn’t define. It was the sort of stench that instantly made me gag and I had to cover my mouth and nose so I didn’t make a noise. Luke dropped his arm around my shoulders, and signaled with his finge
r against his lips to keep as quiet as I could. I nodded in acknowledgement to his request. I watched as Lilly concentrated; her concentration was so deep that she didn’t notice the unusual mixture of witch and vampire in the air around her. It was a mingled smell that would have alerted any witch who was on the ball that they were not alone.

  “I see,” I heard her mutter. “I haven’t done it right.” She slammed her fists down on the metal table, causing the object to fall off the sides.

  To my astonishment a much formed and real human hand dropped from underneath the table covering, and lay swinging with blood dripping to the floor in huge quantities. The pool of blood quickly engulfed her feet but she paid no attention to anything around her. Her attention was deeply captivated by the work she was blatantly trying to produce. She shuffled her feet, and moved slightly to her left giving us a clear image of the table and the thing she was working on. I gasped almost inaudibly. Lilly turned sharply at the sound and squinted around the room, her shrewd eyes casting nervous glances around her. Anger flared in the depths of her eyes and I no longer recognised my friend. As a leader of the realm she was now overcome by the greed that had begun to freeze her heart over a period of time. To an extent, where she was now, she was lost to everyone inside the realm, and the only way to free her from the evilness was for her imminent death.

  The image itself on the table, was a grotesque view of a half formed creature cross human. The humanised head had hair. The hands were formed to be that of a human but the rest was a mismatch of unrecognisable creatures bundled together and then strewn out into something hideous.

  “I see,” she spoke to herself in a quieter tone than I’d ever heard her use before. “I’ve done it wrong again. The damn instructions are all wrong.”

  She screwed a piece of paper into her fist and sent it flying across the room, her temper raising to a high multitude, which was born from the frustrations over something that she couldn’t accomplish. We waited until she opened a portal and stepped through it, vanishing from view and safely harbouring her ideas and whatever plan she hoped to develop.

  “Quickly,” I gasped and yanked Luke by the hand, propelling him forwards while I opened another separate portal to mirror Lilly’s, “We have to step through it now.”

  “What is this room?” he asked. I saw the horror in his eyes when he looked around. I stopped in mid action, my hands still outstretched while I tried to hold the opening of the portal that would take us to the location where Lilly had gone too. Surveying, however briefly with the few seconds I had, the atrocities inside the room. Many bodies of shocking descriptions were strewn around, their lifeless eye staring back at me, pleading with me to help them solve the secrets that Lilly was harbouring. The revulsion I felt was nothing compared to how Luke felt. He shrunk away and bumped into me, sending me sideways with a force unknown to humans.

  “Ouch!” I mumbled rubbing my bruised leg. “What’s wrong?”

  Confused, I sat up and grabbed the portal before it could completely close and lose the information I’d obtained. He grabbed me and turned me around so I couldn’t see, blocking my view.

  “Don’t look,” he ordered. “Let's go after her.”

  Although he smiled, there was something extraordinary about the chill I felt that began to travel down my spine. His smile was by far fake and it seeped the message ‘you really don’t want to see what I’ve just seen’. If I’d had more time I’d have pushed past him to take a look myself, but the heavy vibrations of the portal gradually dissipating and loosing the information was weighing heavily on the energy I was forcing into to it to maintain its life span.

  “Come on,” I replied smiling bravely in return.

  Together we crossed the lines of the parallel universes into the land I’d always dreaded; it was the one where the realm expedited the evil demons and anything else that reined its evil heart and antics and threatened both the realm and the human race.

  “I hate this place,” I shivered, peeking through the portal. “I can’t believe she came here.”

  Luke asked, “Is this what I think it is?”

  I nodded and stepped into the bright but misty air.

  “It is indeed,” I responded. “It's awful and vile. The ones sent here have committed horrible crimes and this is their punishment, to live a life of exile amongst each other, never to return to earth.”

  “It's well chosen,” he said looking around him. “Why is the air so misty?”

  I wondered the same. The picture books inside the realm had done some justice in the way they’d presented the exiled world as a rather sunny and refreshing place. It wasn’t; the realm’s intentions to make the lives of the evil ones a hopeless task and neither would they have committed them to a place without any sunshine.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I think it might be a spell.”

  He nudged me with his elbow, grinning stupidly. “Well,” he said when I turned to face him in response, my eyebrows raised, “check then.”

  I reached out in front of me, my hands poised as I felt for the familiar vibrations of magic in the air. The force I felt was powerful and beyond my recognition which sent me hurtling backwards against a tree and slammed me back to the ground. The spell had been locked down against other witches. There was no way to trace the origins, and no way would I be able to counter curse the world.

  “Patty,” he yelled storming across the space between us and grabbing me gently. “Are you alright?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded, “Wow! That was a strong current I felt just now. It’s impossible to trace the spell without endangering myself and you, so I’m not going to bother. Can you put up with the mist just for now?” I added, hoping he’d say yes.

  He laughed and helped me to sit up. I rested my body against his.

  “Of course,” he smiled still shaking with laughter. “I’ll do anything so long as we don’t have to stay here long. This place gives me the creeps.”

  “Now,” I said unable to contain my sarcasm, “are you sure it’s this world and not the fact you’ve just noticed how much of a vampire you really are that’s giving you the creeps?”

  He became a statue, looking down at me with the strangest of expressions that I couldn’t fathom. As much as I was trying to dislocate my feelings for him, it seemed they were becoming more and more complex with the amount of time that I spent with him. It was confusing and thrilling but something I was deeply aware that was forbidden; it would never work, we both knew that.

  “Luke,” I licked my suddenly dry lips and watched him nervously, “we should go.”

  I stood hurriedly, rubbing at the dust and dirt. It was a futile gesture considering the other muck I’d collected that stuck to my clothes. I looked more like a demon living desolate on the streets of earth rather than the witch I was supposed to represent.

  “Come on,” he agreed and helped me to walk.

  When he felt my resistance to his touch without a word he released me and walked alongside me, “Do you think she’s meeting someone?”

  “I have no idea,” I answered. “I know one thing for certain though,” I said. “Her soul has already been darkened considerably and it’s not something I can magic away either. She’s basically doomed and her heart is already too far gone into the pits of hell for anyone to try and save her now.”

  “I see,” he said thoughtfully. “Where did she go?”

  “This way,” Luke wasn’t able to see the remainder of her floating portal that had followed silently behind her the way that I could. “The portal has followed her; most likely she ordered it too and it can’t vanish itself like ours just did.”

  My witch trained eyes, just like Matace had taught me a little while ago, followed the misty whirling mess her portal had left behind while it trailed behind her awaiting further orders. Lilly was becoming lapse in her approach to magic and I was becoming stronger every time I used a simple spell. It was uncanny for me to think that I was bettering my skills compared to the ones I knew
Lilly had.

  “Are we nearly there?” he complained softly behind me, his eyes switching all around us to the overgrown area.

  The world had been created specifically to adhere to all requirements of the demons banished. The realm had delved into great detail to make sure none of them suffered during their exiled state, and it wasn’t our way to force anyone to suffer despite their awful crimes. The realm had listened to all of the recommendations from every party of demons, and provided adequate living conditions.

  The overgrown areas around us, consisted of thorn bushes and trees; the ones where the slithering demons of hell could easily hide themselves. Their bodies were in tune with the nature around them, similar to those of a chameleon where they could shape-shift to hide themselves from predators.

  “What is someone from the realm doing here?” a voice rumbled across and stopped us both still in our tracks.

  Its location was unknown. The voice seemed to bellow from every orifice around us, filling the gaps and bringing along with it almost a gentled tone, if it hadn’t been for the severity of the world we’d stepped into.

  “Who are you?”

  Luke had hunkered down in the usual vampire’s stance, readying himself for a battle against an unknown force.

  “You don’t have any need to fight me,” the voice said. “I will not harm you.”

  The owner to the voice appeared in front of us; the bright light shone and swiveled around uncontrollably, and then rested itself in mid air developing into a man.

  “I’m Ahmed,” he introduced himself. “And you must be,” he cocked his head thoughtfully, “Patty.”

  I gasped with shock at the sound of my own name and the realisation that this creature knew my name, how could it be so? The only Ahmed I’d ever heard of had been banished for demonic intrusions into chosen mortal lives. He turned them into murderers and caused them to commit other unintelligible crimes they’d been punished for under the mortal laws.