Luke woke up to a blinding light. He thought he was going blind because when he opened his eyes all he saw was white. He shut his eyes tight and opened them again, but still nothing but white. He tried to move his fingers and toes. Everything seemed to be working. Luke stood up and looked around. Still nothing but blinding white. He started to walk.
As he walked he smelled something. It wasn't necessarily a bad smell, it reminded him of home. It smelled like a river. Finally he saw something in the distance. A thin line on the horizon. Luke started to run, faster than he's ever run in his life.
After what seemed like hours of running he finally reached the shore. He sat down and waited. He wasn't sure what for, but he knew that he was supposed to wait. He just watched the river, its murky water moving slowly but surely down stream. Its water gently lapping against the sandy shore. Then he saw something coming from up stream. It was a small boat, with one man pushing the boat along with a pole. Luke stood up as the mans boat pulled up onto shore.
He was beautiful. Luke had never thought another man was beautiful before, but this man was. He was wearing a white suit, and had shock white hair like everything else in this strange place. And his eyes were like pools, blueish gray and so deep it was like Luke could swim in them.
"Hello Luke McDonald."
"Hello."
"Why don't you come up here and have a seat."
Luke stretched out and took the man's pale hand and stepped onto the boat. He sat down and looked down the river, but he couldn't make anything out through the white. The man in white took his stick and pushed the boat away from shore. They drifted slowly down the river, the man pushing the boat with the stick every now and then.
"What's your name sir?"
"My name's Sebastian."
"Am I dead sir? Is this Heaven?"
"No Luke."
Luke looked down into the water. It was deep and blue, just like the man's eyes. But Luke thought he saw something down in the water. Something like ghosts. Then he started to think about where he had been before this.
"I was in that vampire nest. Wasn't I?"
"Yes Luke."
"I was going to kill them. All of them. Reverend Newlin said I'd be welcomed into Heaven by all the angels and have a place at the Lord's table."
"I'm sorry Luke."
"Sorry? Sorry for what sir?"
"Reverend Newlin lied to you Luke."
"I don't understand sir."
"You wouldn't. The Lord of Hosts is a difficult entity to understand, even for one such as me."
Luke and the man kept moving down river. And then Luke head singing. It was beautiful, unlike anything Luke had ever heard in his life. Luke needed to be closer to it. He felt that if he didn't his life wouldn't have any meaning. Then he saw it. Great golden gates that the most beautiful light poured out of. And behind it, white shores and green grass stretching over rolling hills before great snowy mountains. Luke needed to go. He stood and was about to jump from the small boat when the man put his pole up in front of Luke.
"Sit down Luke."
"But…I want to go sir."
"I know Luke. And I'm sorry I cant take you. Now sit."
Luke sat, and the boat continued down the river until the music died out. Luke didn't think about it again, he just watched the river. Watched the ghosts. Then he started to smell something. It wasn't the river this time. It was so much worse. It smelled like sulfur. And something else. Like something roasting. Like great piles of meat cooking on an open flame. Then he heard the screams. God awful wails of pain and horror and Luke became afraid. He wanted to jump from the boat again and he stood, but the man was there to reassure him.
"Sit Luke."
And Luke sat again, and the screams got louder and louder. And Luke became more and more frightened. Then Luke saw where he was going. The white sky turned red, and on the shore Luke saw a great staircase headed down a dark chasm. And etched in the stone above the staircase were the words Luke had read before in stories.
"Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here."
"I'm sorry Luke."
"No! No, no, no! I strapped that bomb to my chest. I blew those monster away! I killed those vampires! Take me back! Please sir! Please take me back!"
And as badly as Luke wanted to throw himself into the water and swim back to the beautiful place up the river, he found that he could do nothing but sit in the boat. And finally the man pulled up on the shore and set down his pole. He took Luke by his hand and led him to the staircase. Down, down, down they walked, and the smells and the screaming got worse. And when the reached the bottom Luke tried to scream. He wanted to shout and rip out his eyes. But he just kept walking. Through the twisted black gates, past the monstrous dog with rotting flesh hanging in his fangs. Walking straight into Hell.
And Sebastian stood and watched and when Luke McDonald disappeared in the smoke and brimstone he turned and walked back up the stairs. As he walked down the shores to his boat he was joined by another man, if you could call it that. He was a hulking figure easily standing seven feet tall, his rippling muscles partially covered by the cloth hanging about his waist and shoulders, his features covered by a fierce metal helmet.
"Why do you take such a comforting form Sebastian? Even for the damned?"
"Unlike you Reignier, I take no pleasure in terrifying the souls I ferry down the Styx."
"There is a war brewing Sebastian. Between the humans and vampires."
Sebastian sat on the shore and rubbed his temples, his eyes following the pale wraiths just beneath the surface of the River Styx.
"He wants us to get involved Sebastian."
"Of course he does Rainier. They are his children after all. When do we leave."
"Immediately. The little whelp you just delivered to the First of the Fallen tried to kill many. He wants us to heal them. Now."
The giant stepped onto Sebastian's boat and sat, Sebastian scooping up his pole was right behind him.
"How long Rainier? How long since Ferryman have been to the land of the living?"
"You should know Sebastian. You were so fond of the Greeks. What was it they called you? Charon?"
"Yes."
It had been thousands of years since he had been among the living. Sebastian had a feeling that the war that was about to erupt in the mortal world was going to spill into the land of the dead. And that the Unholy Triumvirate, the Lord of Hosts, and Death itself were going to be pulled into it.