by Bo Reid
“Come on, Cerb, you have to keep up. How are you going to defend the gates to Hell if you can’t even jog through the woods?” I berate my pup as we attempt to jog along the very thin trail that loops around the Forbidden Forest.
Okay, so he’s not really a puppy; I’ve had him since I was born, but thirty-three human years — well Devil years — in hellhound years is still basically a puppy. He howls at me and then flops down on the trail, letting out a deep breath, or is it three deep breaths? One for each head? I honestly have no idea.
“Come on, dude, I am not carrying you back to the house this time,” I scold him and march over towards him knowing full well if he doesn’t move, I will carry him.
When I’m a few feet away, his heads perk up, his ears rising as if he is listening to something. He climbs to his feet and starts sniffing around. Letting out a chorus of deep barks just before taking off through the trees.
“Cerb!” I yell before chasing after him.
“Get back here right now!” I growl as I’m smacked in the face with a fucking tree branch.
When I break through the trees, I can’t believe what I see; a dark cottage in the middle of my Forbidden Forest, the Morass Coven. How the Hell did I not know this was here. I mean, I knew they had a house here, but I’ve never been able to actually find it.
“Bloody Hell,” I whisper as I look over the darkened land. “What did you find, buddy?” I ask Cerberus as I bend down and take turns petting each of his heads.
“I guess you found me after all,” I hear her melodic voice singing over the opening. Whipping my head back around to the house, I see her leaning against the doorframe of the cottage as a small black cat winds between her legs.
“Doesn't seem like you were making that much of an effort to hide,” I call back and watch her shrug her shoulder like she isn't breaking all the rules by being here.
She begins to walk over to me, and when she's within arms reach, I step forward, only to get smacked in the face with an electric barrier.
“What the fuck?” I seethe, lifting my hand to my nose to catch the blood dripping.
“Oops, did I not mention that?” she sings with a smile.
“A barrier within a bigger barrier… Clever,” I retort.
“A girl can never be too careful,” she quips.
Cerb barks next to me, and she bends down to his face, she reaches her hand out to barely graze the barrier and whispers something I can’t make out. Cerb jumps, and before I can pull him back from the shock, he is through the barrier and is licking Tanda’s face.
“What the fuck?” I grit.
“Oh, gosh, you are such a sweet boy. What a good boy,” she coos and pets him as he slobbers all over her, and I stand locked out of the barrier.
“That’s my dog,” I point out, and she ignores me.
“Would you like a treat?” she asks and conjures up three large femur bones for him.
“That's my dog!” I yell, gesturing towards him as he lays down on her grassy, front meadow with his bones.
“I like him much better than you,” she replies while pushing herself to stand up.
“Give him back,” I demand.
“He can come and go as he pleases; the barrier won't restrict his movements. So it looks like he doesn't want to go back just yet,” she says with a smirk pulling at her lips.
“Speaking of barriers…” I trail off, watching her face for any emotional ticks, but she’s excellent at hiding her cards.
“Yes?” she presses.
“Fix the main barrier so beings can leave,” I demand, crossing my arms over my chest.
She raises her hand and studies her nails. “No, I don’t think I will.”
“You have to,” I point out, “people have permits and potions to be able to leave, and no one can figure out what you did to prevent their travels. I can’t very well tell the people that some bitch locked everyone inside now, can I?”
“Sure you can, just make sure you add Head Bitch when you do,” she says very seriously. “Maybe hold a town hall meeting, let everyone know that I’ll open the barrier up as soon as you all sign the contract I gave you.”
“We’re not signing shit,” I grit between clenched teeth.
She shrugs her shoulders like she couldn't care less. “Well, then, I guess we’re all going to die right here. I suppose you could run back to the underworld just like daddy did when things get tough, though. Unless I do something like, oh, I don’t know, lock the gates of Hell.”
“I’m nothing like him,” I growl, feeling my hands heat up with flames.
“Remember the last time you tried that on me?” she asks, nodding towards my hands. “Maybe this time I get to try mine on you instead,” she growls, holding her hand out and letting a white and blue flame light up her hand; she extends her hand towards the barrier. I can feel the heat from this side. “That’s what I thought,” she remarks when I extinguish my own flame.
“Cerberus can come and go as he pleases,” she states before turning and walking back up to her house.
I attempt to get Cerb to come through the barrier, but the stubborn pup promptly ignores me. I look up and watch Tanda as she studies me, then she calls for Cerberus, and he jumps to his feet, snatching up his bones and trotting off towards her. She pets his three heads as he walks past her and into her home. She smirks at me before disappearing inside and closing the door behind her.
“Bitch even managed to take my fucking dog,” I growl to myself as I trek back through the thick woods.
Tanda
I chuckle softly to myself as I close the door to my house. Hex is hissing at Cerberus from the back of the couch as the pup pushes his three large heads towards her. He sniffs at her, and she slashes a paw towards one of his faces. Then he boops her with his big nose and pushes her right off the back of the couch.
I try to hide my laughter as Hex pops up and looks pissed. She leaps to the back of the couch and attempts to attack the large dog once more, but I grab her as she sails through the air and hug her to my chest.
“That’s enough, for now, Hex,” I scold her, and she scowls at me. Cerberus moves around the space as if he is inspecting the area until he flops down in front of the fireplace.
“Want a fire boy?” I ask, walking over towards him, and he huffs his agreement. I conjure a bright fireball — red and orange flames, not blue and white — and toss it into the open fireplace. The dog sighs with contentment as he rolls to his back and enjoys the light heat. Hex huffs in my arms, but I know she wouldn’t mind the fire either, so I conjure up a small cat bed and toss it near the fireplace, setting Hex down in it to rest.
I wander into the kitchen and rummage around the cabinets for some herbs to make tea. I pull out plenty of unlabeled canisters, opening them up and sticking my nose in them to smell and identify the herbs inside. I set aside the things I want to add into my tea, rose hips, lemon balm, hibiscus, green rooibos, apple bits, raspberry bits, and just a drop of my secret ingredient, a drop of Angel’s blood.
When my powers started to grow, it was no longer an option to just learn how to manage them because they weren’t my powers to begin with. They became too much, they started causing me to get sick, more so than just the constant pain of having too much power. I cannot be stripped of these powers because that would kill me like it did my coven. I have to bond with those who naturally have these abilities. I have to count on these men just to fucking survive, but I can’t tell them that. I can’t let them know how much my own life depends on them. If they knew what an upper hand they actually had on me? Well, let’s just say I don’t feel like betting my life on them being too concerned about my well being.
Good thing I was always good at bluffing.
But Deimos came up with a plan. Just a drop of pure Angel’s blood once a week or so would stabilize my powers enough to not kill me and prevent me from inadvertently hurting others. Funny story though, Angels don’t actually like to give dark witches their blood. Weird rig
ht?
So I took it.
Girls gotta do what she’s gotta do in order to survive to save the world, right? Right.
The problem is, I’ve used it for so long it doesn’t work like it used to, almost like building up a tolerance to a drug. You need more and more to get the same effect. The biggest issue, though? I don’t have any more. This small vial might last me another few weeks, but after that, if I don’t start forming bonds. Well, let’s just say I’m a dead girl walking.
I mix up my herbs, boil some water in a kettle, and pour the steaming liquid into my mug. Okay, it’s a tiny cauldron, basically a cup. Then I drip a small drop of Angel’s blood into the liquid and watch as its white light coats the herbs. When the light wears off, it’s safe to drink.
The herbs themselves are light and floral, it's an energetic mix, but the blood. The blood is like the worst possible drug. It coats my system in bright warm light. It pulls me into the sweet oblivion of happiness. It’s addictive, potent, and hard to come by.
It’s the fucking worst.
The high doesn’t last very long and thank Hell for that. If I had to suffer through false euphoria for much longer than ten minutes, I would march through the Forbidden Forest and swan dive into the Lost Soul Lake. I never understood why humans turned to drugs that gave them false feelings of happiness. Why not just make your own real happiness? Fight for what you want, change the things you want, don’t allow a white powder to give you false hope.
That’s the thing about drugs, for any creature, they never actually fix your life. They just convince you that it’s all good. I don’t need to drown myself in a fake life, I just need to do what I need to in order to get to a point where I can create my own version of happily ever after.
And my version doesn't include Angel's blood, the Devil, sirens, demons, dragons, vampires, or werewolves. At least once I'm done with them, it won't. I finish sipping my tea and continue to explore the old cabin. I push open a door on the other side of the kitchen and gasp when I see it’s a library. There are leather-bound books lining shelves that reach to the ceiling. I browse by the different volumes, most of them first editions, and they have probably been in my coven since they were printed.
I allow my body to levitate off the ground, slowly floating around to read the spines on the shelves when I stop at the very top row. Running my hand over the dusty leather and feeling a smile curve my face when I stop. My finger pressed to one small book. I pull it from the shelves and allow myself to float down to the floor.
When my feet are on the ground, I whisper an incantation to clean up the dust from the room and then plop down on a large, high-backed leather reading chair. I suck down the last of my tea, not willing to risk wasting the Angel’s blood. Then I flip open the book to the first page.
This journal belongs to: Azrail, The Angel of Death.
I feel tears fill my eyes, dripping down my cheek and splashing onto the page. I quickly wipe it away before it can ruin what is possibly one of the last pieces of my father. Then I wipe my face dry and take a deep breath, turning the page.
My Dark Daughter,
I gasp when I read the first line, he wrote this for me.
Dear My Dark Daughter,
If you’re reading this, it means our plan worked, and you have been kept safe for as long as possible. However, if you’re reading this, it means you have found your way back home, and we’re not here to greet you.
My hope for you is that what we prepared for does not come to fruition and that you will forever be safe. If this is the case, we hope that you make this cabin your home but that you never feel tied to the stones that mark our graves.
If that is not the case, we know down to our blackened souls that you will fight this war and that you will win. We never wanted you to be dragged into this, we tried everything we could think to do to save you and the others from this fate, but we failed. I know you will not.
We shall meet again in Hell one day, but I hope it is not for a very long time.
Azrail, The Angel of Death, Your Father
I close the book, bringing my knees to my chest as I hug the journal close to me and allow tears to soak into my pants. I finally have a piece of my father, and it’s the last piece I thought I would have. But it’s here, and he left it just for me, knowing I would find it.
I can’t bring myself to read the rest of the pages, maybe someday I will be strong enough to walk down that path, but today is not that day. Today I have things to prepare for, and I cannot have my heart melting before I’m ready.
“I’ll make you proud, Dad; I promise I will figure this out.”
Chapter Nine
Kalayavan
“Fucking bitch. Dog stealing witch. I fucking hate her!” I hear Javaraya yell as he stomps through the mansion and slams the front door.
“You good, boss?” I yell from the kitchen, not ready to stick my neck out and see what has his panties in a fucking twist.
“No!” he yells as he smashes through the kitchen. “Bitch stole my fucking dog!”
“What?” I ask, confused. “Someone stole your dog? Cerberus? He’s a fucking Hellhound, how did someone steal him?”
“She conjured up a bunch of femur bones!” Javaraya is still yelling, throwing his hands up in the air, and slamming things as he rummages around the fridge.
“Okay, back up, who stole Cerb?” I ask.
“Tanda! Who the fuck else!”
“Ahh, okay. Can you like, calm the fuck down and tell me what happened?” I ask, reaching my hand out to gently pry the steak knife from his hand.
“We were running on the trail; he took off through the trees. I followed him, and we came to this clearing in the middle of the Forbidden Forest with a big ass cabin dead center. She was there,” he growls.
“The Morass Coven house, Cerb found it?” I ask in disbelief, and he nods.
“She has a barrier around it; it shocked the fuck out of me when I tried to step over it. Like a worse shock than hitting the one around the town — shit fucking hurt,” he grumbles and swipes a hand under his nose, which I now see has dried blood around it.
“Then she did some witch shit and made it so Cerb could walk through the barrier without taking it down, like the town passes, I guess. He walked through, I couldn’t, she gave him bones and then said he could come and go as he pleased and walked away. Cerb wouldn’t come out; instead, the traitor walked his happy ass into her fucking house and she laughed while she closed the fucking door!” He slams his hands down on the counter.
“Okay, so you’re going to get mad, but it sounds like your dog left you, man, not that she stole him…”
“She did some kind of witchy spell, that’s the only reason he went with her. She’s just trying to fuck with me,” he growls.
“By taking your dog?” I ask.
“You don’t just take a man’s dog,” he huffs, seeming exasperated.
“Okay, fair point. Think we can ask for him back?”
“No, he can leave whenever he wants apparently, so she’s not going to force him to leave. She said she liked him better than me,” he grumbles, turning to lean against the counter and crosses his arms over his chest as he broods, and I try not to laugh.
“Most people like him more than you,” I can’t help but say, and he glares at me.
Not my fault it’s true, he’s a moody asshole most of the time.
“Did you ask her about the town barrier?” I press.
“She refuses to unlock it, said we should hold a town hall meeting or some bullshit and just let everyone know she’s running the show now,” he says, scrubbing a hand down his face.
“We can’t fucking tell people that; they’ll riot,” I say.
“I know. But we have to do something. We can’t say the barrier is malfunctioning, that would also cause a riot. We can’t tell everyone that something is coming to destroy everything, and our only hope is to bond with this new witch that came into town, and the first thing she did was
lock everyone inside.”
“We also can’t just do nothing. If the witches at the Crucible couldn’t unlock it, and no one can leave, that means we can’t call in another powerful witch to unlock it unless they can do that from the outside.”
“You think someone can unlock it from the outside?” he muses.
“I mean, it’s worth a shot, right?”
“I’ll make some calls.”
A loud commotion comes from outside, there’s yelling and screaming as we rush to the window and look as a crowd gathers in the streets.
“Fuck,” I huff.
We run outside, fully expecting a mob with flaming torches and pitchforks coming for us. Instead, the crowd is gathered around in a circle. We push our way to the center in an attempt to figure out what is going on, but what we see is nothing that we expected.
Tanda is on her knees in the middle of the street as she hovers over Galiden, one of the oldest and most prominent residents of Hells Hallow. Javaraya is about to step up to her, but I reach out, holding him back, and subtly indicate towards her hand. There is a bright purple light emanating from her hand as it hovers over Galiden’s chest, over his heart. Suddenly he takes a deep breath, his eyes popping open as he sits up. She pulls her hand back, resting her other hand on his back and helping to prop him up.
“Are you okay?” she asks softly, her sweet voice nothing like the malicious tone she had with us just hours ago.
“What happened?” Galiden asks her, reaching his hand out to grip hers.
“You had a heart attack,” she whispers softly.
“Did you… save me?” he asks, sounding confused. If I’m being honest, Galiden should have died thirty years ago, but he just refuses to let go. At this point, I’m convinced he is surviving on pure rage and disappointment alone.
She shrugs like it’s no big deal. “I just helped a little.” She stands, pulling Galiden to his feet as the town presses in closer to them.
“What is your name?” he asks her.
