The emotions sprung forth as the dam of stoicism she had clung to since that dreadful day in the Council of Magic gave way. Her tears fell freely and the necromancer, the Death Eater who consumed the flesh of others, was helpless. His gaze sunk to the floor of the hearse, not quite knowing what to do. She wept openly, her sobs coming in fierce waves. She lifted her feet up so her heels were on the edge of the leather cushion as she wrapped her knees in a tight hug and buried her face against her legs, concealing her tears.
“That is why we must do this,” Oxivius answered solemnly, as he placed his hand on her shoulder. He could feel the shudders of her sobs through her as the emotions pent up for so very long finally rushed out. She, Xlina Dar’Karrow, the Baku dream eater who had just a few short months ago charged the demon Ertigan head on with her blazing nightmare energy. She seemed so vulnerable now, in front of him. The tolls of the demons and their infernal games had inflicted on the girl were more than clear. Her long brown hair tied back in its usual ponytail. It hung about her shoulders and draped over the back of his hand as she lurched forward, rocking with her sobs. For the many times he had seen the woman’s fierceness, her warrior spirit, he always marveled at how human she was in moments such as these.
“I don’t know.” Her muffled voice came through a sniffle. “I don’t know if I can keep going.”
“You can,” Oxivius encouraged. “Come now when the Wraith of Morticae had me frozen in Heart’s Hearth... what was it you said?”
“I don’t know,” she answered again, her voice muffled with her face pressed against her knees.
“We aren’t done yet,” Oxivius said with a resounding boom. “We are not done yet, Xlina Dar’Karrow. Not while Amber is out there. Not while your friend burns in the pits!”
She stifled her tears with a sniffle and lifted her head from her knees, her black yoga pants damp from her tears. Her brown eyes were red and puffy, but they met his, and a flicker of hope crossed between them. Oxivius smiled. His pearly white teeth seemed to glow under the red hue of the infernal plane as he gave a slightly encouraging nod toward the passenger door. She took the cue, turning to the door and opening it. Rising slowly from the hearse and out into the infernal plane.
It was hot and dry, like standing too near to a furnace in the winter, sucking the very moisture from the air. The air itself seemed coarse as she inhaled the scant breeze thick with ash, and a foul, burnt taste lingered on her tongue. Oxivius exited from the hearse and looked across the vehicle, seeing her standing defiantly, her ponytail draped halfway down her back as her well-toned physique shifted. Her hands came to rest on her hips as she looked out across the wasteland before them and he felt satisfied that, for now at least, the alpha wolf he met so many months ago in Holders Park had returned. A whirlwind of tangled emotions simmered deep within the woman. The Baku standing before him was ready to hunt.
“How do we find her?” Xlina asked determinedly as she surveyed the near endless wasteland before them. In the distance, the rocky ground shot up into crag-like spires and mountains. The sky was a dull red, as if locked in a perpetual sunset. If it had not been for the ash and soot on the gentle breeze, it would have been beautiful.
“We shall need some help,” Oxivius replied, reaching back into the hearse, and producing the leather-bound tome he had been carrying around for months. He placed it on the hood of the hearse and began flipping through earmarked pages.
“Help? In hell?” Xlina said, looking around skeptically, “I don’t see that happening, Ox.”
“Technically,” Oxivius corrected, turning the page, and running his fingers across the paper, silently mouthing words as he continued, “We are not yet in Hell, so to speak.”
“I thought you said?”
“The infernal plane, yes,” Oxivius nodded, raising a hand to ask for a moment of silence before stopping to peer intently into the tome. “I’ll be damned...”
“Ox?” Xlina asked again, coming around the front of the black hearse to his side.
“Here somewhere,” Oxivius said, looking around the wasteland before returning his gaze to the page and scrunching his face, “I thought for sure we would arrive right in front of it.”
“Ox!” Xlina barked, snapping the necromancer’s focus up from the book.
“Yes, of course,” he smiled innocently. “One simply does not waltz into hell uninvited, love. We are in the infernal plane, at least the upper levels of it. Purgatory if you will.”
“Purgatory?” Xlina asked, her voice rising an octave.
“If you believe in such labels.” Oxivius shrugged once more, observing the red landscape before them.
“Amber is in purgatory?” Xlina asked, clearly confused by the enigmatic necromancer.
“No, do not be silly,” Oxivius turned to her more seriously in tone. “We are in purgatory. Amber is in hell, vis-a-vie. We are on our way to hell. Savvy?”
“Well, I see nothing but rocks,” Xlina simply shrugged, looking around helplessly. “What exactly was your plan?”
“Grillo,” Oxivius commented absently, studying the ground intently as if he were searching for a lost contact lens.
“A Grillo?”
“Indeed.” Oxivius nodded, crouching down to trace a hand over the smooth stone.
“Never heard of it,” Xlina answered flatly.
“Few have,” Oxivius replied nonchalantly, as he studied the weathered stones before him. He moved about and sighed in frustration before standing up and turning to Xlina once more.
“What?” she asked, peering at the ground and not seeing anything but rock and sand.
“I seem to have misplaced the road,” Oxivius answered, as if it were obvious.
“I don’t think we can just stop and ask for directions, Ox,” Xlina quipped impatiently.
“Indeed,” he agreed, returning to the hood of the hearse he resumed scanning the pages in his leather tome.
“Okay, what gives?” Xlina asked, her voice growing louder and more demanding. “You have been scouring that thing for months. At least since before the Rose attacked at the Hearth...”
“Ah, and you wish to know?” Oxivius answered, looking up from the tome. He casually flipped the leather-bound tome closed and spun it around on the hood. With a delicate push, he slid the tome to face her and pushed it delicately forward. She had seen the tome before, knew she could not read whatever language it was written in, and had even touched its soft leather binding back at the Hearth. Here in purgatory, however, it appeared much differently. As if the leather were... damp.
“What is it?” She reached out for the tome to touch the cover. The smooth leather seemed pliable under her touch as she ran her fingers over it. It no longer seemed like leather at all as she drew her hand back, looking at Oxivius with eyes wide.
“Pseudomonarchia Daedonum,” Oxivius stated, “Not the redacted version circulated by the hack demonologist Johann Weyer in the 16th century mind you, that is the original work orated to the occultist Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa by a demon lord and scribed on papyrus made from the bones of the children of Gomorrah.”
“That’s not leather,” Xlina gasped, withdrawing a step in horror.
“Bound in human flesh,” Oxivius finished grimly, “And inked in Agrippa’s own blood. This tome holds the keys to the sixty-nine noble demons that form hell’s hierarchy.”
“How did you? Why?”
“I made a deal with Valeria,” Oxivius answered firmly. “I thought if we couldn’t find a demonologist to remove your mark...”
“Then you would become one yourself?” Xlina gasped, taken aback.
“What choice did we have?” Oxivius shrugged.
“What was the deal?” Xlina demanded.
“It’s not important,” Oxivius answered, placing his hand over the cover and turning the book back to face him.
“What was it?” Xlina asked again, her voice dropping to a low growl.
“I agreed to help her,” Oxivius admitted with a deep exhale.<
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“Help her?” Xlina repeated, her voice remaining on the edge of threating.
“Help her,” Oxivius nodded again, “To get you to... acquiesce. Look, you were on a collision course with the Fae and the Burnished Rose, anyway.”
“You...” she stammered in response.
“I simply agreed to meet her,” Oxivius explained, “When she needed it at a time and place of her choosing.”
“When?” Xlina asked coldly.
“Now is not the time,” Oxivius replied, turning back to the flesh bound tome. “I did it for you.”
“I didn’t want that,” Xlina clarified. “I never would have asked that of you.”
“Precisely why I had to do it, love,” Oxivius explained, as if it were the most obvious conclusion. “You never would have. It simply is not in your nature, but tough choices need to be made.”
“So, you just met her,” Xlina stated slowly. “And just like that, she handed you... that?”
“Not exactly.” Oxivius shrugged. “I didn’t know when I made the deal that the meeting of her choosing would lead to our capture.”
“That’s how Puc and the Rose captured you!” Xlina exclaimed angrily as a sense of betrayal grew in her stomach, “Your capture then was her plan all along...”
“It spurred you into action against Puc,” Oxivius agreed with a nod of his head.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Xlina asked, her anger growing like a hot coal in her belly.
“I tried,” Oxivius countered, “But when I told the tale, she made you go narcoleptic, remember?”
She thought back on the events at Pandora’s the night Amber and she had rescued Oxivius from Puc. Valeria, mortally wounded by Oxivius, pleaded for her life. How angry he had been. He was ready to kill the demon, but Valeria had convinced them that dealing with her patron would be far worse and instead Oxivius had placed the succubus’ spirit in Xlina so the demon’s mortal coil could mend. During that time, Valeria had only needed to say the command and the demon mark under Xlina’s right breast would flare to life, rendering her helpless to resist Valeria’s urgings.
“You fulfilled your end of the deal,” Xlina stated soberly, trying to quell the anger in her belly.
“I did, and Valeria confirmed I kept the pact just this morning,” Oxivius continued with a nod, tapping the book. “This was the only answer I could find.”
“You risked your soul, risked gaining a mark of your own,” Xlina reasoned, looking at the enigmatic necromancer in wonder. “Why? What am I to you, Oxivius?”
“My dearest girl,” He answered, “You are the Alpha Wolf I met in Holder’s Park. The Hunter. The Baku. Most importantly, you are my friend. That, love, is a treasure indeed worth holding on to.”
“Seems like a lot of trouble for a friend,” Xlina concluded with half a grin. The anger welling inside faded as she stared at him. How could she be angry at such a selfless action?
“Well, if you can’t storm into hell with your friends,” Oxivius teased with a smile, “Then what good are they?”
“Fair enough.” Xlina chuckled, looking back at the fleshy tome. “So, what is a Grillo?”
“A Grillo is a creature of the Infernal Planes. Unlike demons, from what I can tell, it is native to the Infernal Realm,” Oxivius replied, opening the tome once more.
“Okay, we need to unpack what you just said,” Xlina answered, shaking her head as she digested the information. “Demons are not native to the Infernal Planes?”
“No,” Oxivius replied, not bothering to look up from the tome. “They came much later from what I can tell, but that is not the issue at hand. Grillo should be around here.”
“Okay, what does this Grillo look like,” Xlina relented, looking around the barren landscape in dismay.
“Not the foggiest,” Oxivius admitted sheepishly. “It barely mentioned Grillo except in passing, however I believe it is the key to traversing from purgatory to hell.”
“What makes you think that?” Xlina looked back at the hearse, her eyes distant.
“The road to hell,” Oxivius explained. “The path is mentioned several times. Enough so that I considered it might be a physical road, but more likely it is metaphorical.”
“Okay, so there should be a road to hell here,” Xlina sighed. Their quest had barely begun and already they were lost in purgatory. It certainly did not bode well for their odds of finding and rescuing Amber.
“Indeed,” Oxivius answered, once more flipping through the pages of the tome. “But finding said road is proving harder than I thought.”
“You were expecting what?” Xlina quipped, “A giant sign like on the Turnpike, next exit Hell, two miles?”
“Not exactly,” Oxivius answered, “But the tome says the road is marked...”
“Never trust a demon, Ox,” Xlina retorted, “Especially one egotistical enough to dictate a book.”
“I am sure that was not the intent with Agrippa,” Oxivius answered sternly.
“Yeah, I’m sure the demon had nothing but good intentions, Ox. The road to hell is paved with them,” Xlina rebuffed with a scoff.
“Saint Bernard of Clairvaux,” Oxivius chimed with a smile, “Brilliant love.”
“Who now?” Xlina’s voice raised quizzically. “What does the dog have to do with this?”
“Saint Bernard,” Oxivius clarified, “Was a person... is the person who they attribute that tidbit of language to. In the year 1128, Bernard attended the Council of Troyes, at which he traced the outlines of the Rule of the Knights Templar.”
“Why do you even know this?” Xlina quipped, “Are you like the Otherworld Jeopardy champion or something?”
“The Knights Templar, also known as the Order of Solomon’s Temple, as in King Solomon, as in the Key of Solomon,” Oxivius explained, connecting imaginary dots in the air with his finger.
“You lost me, Ox,” Xlina replied with a cold shake of her head.
“The link,” Oxivius exclaimed excitedly, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It just so happens to originate from the patron of the Order Of Solomon’s Temple, the same Solomon referenced in the Key of Solomon which preceded this tome, the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum.”
“Oh, boy?” Xlina shrugged, “And so...”
“Good intentions.” Oxivius threw his arms wide as if it were the answer.
“Good intentions,” Xlina repeated warily.
“Indeed.” Oxivius nodded. “State your good intentions aloud. Declare them.”
“Declare my intentions?” Xlina asked skeptically.
“Listen to me, it is all linked.” Oxivius extended a finger and drew an imaginary line through the air, connecting the dots once more. “It is not just an adage carried down through your vernacular, it is an instruction. Too important not to be passed down from generation to generation, they wove it into your expressions.”
“It’s the key.” Xlina’s voice lifted, her eyes wide as the dots connected.
“The key,” Oxivius exclaimed in agreement, spreading his arms wide with a bounding laugh.
“I am going to save my friend Amber,” Xlina stated firmly, as if pleading her case to purgatory itself. They stood for a moment in silence, exchanging hopeful stares. Oxivius glanced around and shrugged.
“Not enough?” He asked.
“I will liberate my friend from Ertigan,” Xlina repeated more forcefully than before. “She’ll not spend eternity in his clutches because of my mistake.”
A tremor in the ground shook them from their feet as rock and stone up heaved before them, sending debris cascading in all directions. Oxivius coughed on the exhumed dust in the air as the ground settled. Xlina rolled to her side to get her feet under her, but froze in shock to see a tunnel in the ground before them leading down into the darkness. At the mouth of the tunnel a wooden post stood erect, sprouting from the ground in a strange angle: it boasted a small placard that read Paradox.
“Impressive.” Oxivius chuckled, rising to his feet, and m
eticulously slapping the dust from his clothing. He adjusted his shirt and vest, pulling a red kerchief from a pocket and wiping down his sunglasses.
“Looks like your Templars were right,” Xlina smiled, rising to her feet. “Perhaps we should find some of them. They might know the secret to removing the mark.”
“Not a simple task, love,” Oxivius replied factually. “They disbanded the Knights Templar in the thirteen hundreds.”
“Is that so?” Xlina mused, looking at the signpost now jutting out of the stone. “What for?”
“The usual for the time.” Oxivius shrugged. “At dawn on Friday the Thirteen, they were served with a warrant stating Dieu n’est pas’ content, nous avons des ennemis de la foi dans le Royaume.”
“Sounds bad?” Xlina shrugged.
“God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom,” Oxivius translated sourly, “they made claims that during Templar admissions ceremonies, recruits were forced to spit on the Cross, deny Christ, and engage in indecent kissing; brethren were also accused of worshipping idols, and the order was even said to have encouraged homosexual practices.”
“Indecent kissing?” Xlina quipped, “Those bastards.”
“Indeed,” Oxivius chuckled, “It was highly political and resulted in many of the Templars being burned at the stake in Paris. Why did you think Friday the Thirteenth is bad luck?”
“That actually sounds terrible,” Xlina replied, letting their levity fade at the seriousness of it.
“Not the first and certainly not the last time those in power of a religious order would use such power to burn those they disagree with at the stake, my dear girl,” he replied.
“You make it sound like,” Xlina answered, “You were there.”
“Come now,” Oxivius smiled, “The Grillo awaits.”
Chapter Two
The Paradox
THE TUNNEL, DESPITE its outward appearance as a gaping maw of darkness in the middle of the barren wasteland that was purgatory, remained well cobbled with steps of worked stone that descended into a spiral of darkness. As the red hued light of purgatory faded behind them, Xlina struggled to allow her eyes to adjust to the darkness. With a guiding hand running on the smooth and worked stone wall, she carefully worked to find each step in the darkness.
Dirge of the Dead Page 2
