Oh god, please don't hate me. I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing anymore. I remembers the spirit world was trippy AF but I don't remember specifically and I don't think it was ever really detailed as to how... how anything worked. Just here and there. So I try best to do what I can in dis chapter. I try.

Chapter 12: Vernon's Gate

It was hot. And sunny. And dirty. We were hiking up a dirt trail and there was a horde of slayers. I kid you not there had to be at least fifteen of them, and they flanked us, and walked in front and behind us. They weren't so strict with Tess and Lexi and Fletcher, but for Scar and I, they didn't want us wandering even an inch off the path.

Did I mention it was a four mile hike? It wasn't the worst kind of hike, not too many steep ledges, but it was still four miles, in dirt and the slayers flanking us were wielding water gun... filled with holy water. It sent a shiver up my spine just thinking about the potential agony there.

And at the same time they were walking us like prisoners... well we pretty much were prisoners... but at the same time they were doing that, they managed to keep it casual enough people could pass us without thinking twice about it.

It was suddenly making sense how people could traffic people without getting caught.

"I'm hot," Fletcher complained loudly. "Can we get like, a soda or something?"

"We're almost there," grisly said. "Just another five minutes."

"Are you going to be okay?" Tess whispered to me, falling in step with me.

"Yeah," I said. "Not like... you know, we're going to go and go in the one place that is supposed to be the worst place in existence or anything," I stated casually. Then sighed. "But yeah, I'll be okay. We've gone through worse."

Tess glanced over at where Scar was scowling horribly at her feet, looking like she might just electrocute the ground to death.

"Do you think she'll be okay?" Tess asked even quieter.

I couldn't help but look, and wonder the same thing. Scar was tough. She'd proven that, but hell was a place filled with demons and not all demons were exactly kind to half-breeds. Or anything really.

At least Artemis didn't have to go. The slayers must not have realized she was a Blessed as well.

It was very soon that the slayers suddenly stopped and then two set off ahead and behind the party to scout around, as if they'd done this a hundred times before. They returned thirty seconds later with an all clear sign and we were then swiftly herded into the thick of the trees. We kept going until we reached what was the literal top of the mountain and then we stopped.

"Clear it away," grisly said with a wide gesture with his hand at the various leaves and sticks that had compiled over years of natural decay.

As the other slayers loyally obeyed, I could see what they were uncovering. A circle of small stones carefully placed with an upside down star inside it. The most basic type of pentagram I'd seen. In the center was a circular slab of rock with a hollow in the center, which I could see had some dark brownish stains in it. I didn't even have to ask to know what it was. I started to feel sick to my stomach again. This as far from ideal as I could think of. I mean... hell? Yeah let's just go waltzing into hell like we're demons. Not like it wasn't really the best idea known to man or anything like that.

"Bastardo stupido," I breathed a sigh.

We were shoved forward once they finished clearing the way.

"Ignis," I heard Artemis's worried cry from where my friends were huddled at the edge of the circle.

I gave her a reassuring smile trying to keep her calm. She turned and hugged Fletcher's leg tightly. And unlike usual, Fletcher looked seriously concerned.

One of the slayers brought out a cage and I realized there was a chicken inside of it.

"You know, for hating demons and satan and all of that," I started, "you're making me start to think you're all satanists."

"Shut up," grisly snapped. The cage was brought to the center of the circle and set down next to us, while one of the slayers was donning a black robe.

"Mein Gott..." Scar muttered, rubbing her temples. "Sie sind alle dumm."

"What?" grisly asked.

"Nein, nein." She scoffed with a wave of her hand. "Just keep doing whatever the hell it is you're doing. I'm sure you know what you're doing."

Grisly's face was more than displeased. "What do you mean?"

"It's not like the reason you have blood..." she looked at the chicken and shook her head. "No it's okay, let's just send a chicken to hell. Well, the chicken's soul at least."

"And what would you suggest we do? This is the only way to open a satanic portal."

Scar shook her head. "It's not so black and white. This portal isn't closed. Nein."

"Huh?" was the response.

As Scar explained that, I realized she was right. I could feel the other realm kind of spilling over into this one from beneath our feet. It made me look down and I was tempted to peak into the spirit world, but I didn't feel like focusing like that right now. I was tired, I really wanted to go home and eat some icecream... food. I really wanted some food right about now.

Scar rolled her eyes. "Just let me do it," she said and grabbed my arm, jerking me closer to the center. "I need some of your blood," she told me.

"What? You need my blood?" I asked.

"Yes," she snapped.

"I'm not going to be bound to satan or anything, am I?" I asked, half-jokingly, half-actually-concerned.

"No, it's just how it works. Verstehst du?"

"Wha?" I asked.

She shook her head again, "just do it." She took her own and hand bit into it, deeper than I felt was necessary. Blood dripped down to her fingertips and she flicked the drops off onto the stone at our feet.

I gritted my teeth before drawing my katana an inch or so out of its sheath and drawing a finger along it, drawing my own blood and mimicking her to get the blood on the stone.

"Sind Sie bereit?" she asked.

"English, please?" I rolled my eyes.

"Are you ready?" she asked pissily.

I shrugged. "Ready as ever."

"Good," she said and put her hand up, electricity suddenly coming from her fingertips and striking that center stone.

For a long moment, I doubted anything was going to happen ,then saw our blood darken to black and then levitate before vaporizing. And then, looking down at our feet, there was suddenly no ground. Just a gaping black hole, and we fell. It was so fast I didn't have a chance to cry out in shock. And as quickly as we were falling, I landed on the side of my face, feeling like I'd gone on some tilt-a-whirl a dozen times.

I slowly pushed myself off the ground, finding it covered in chunks of what looked like black volcanic glass.

"Ugh," I grumbled and got onto my knees, trying to stop my spinning head.

Scar was already standing up and grinned down at me. "First time using one of those human made portals?" she guessed.

"Where the hell? Wait- no. This is hell, isn't it?" I asked.

"Eh. Pretty much. But we gotta move, the hounds will find us if we wait here too long," she said and took my arm to pull me to my feet.

I wobbled a little, unsteady. "God what kind of portal was that? I'v never felt this crappy after entering another realm... wait, no I have. But never this dizzy."

"That's a human-made portal for you. They weave all over the damn place and spit you out in random orientations. I remember this one time, I landed right on my head. It was rather unpleasant." She rubbed the back of her neck, as if remembering.

"...you're very relaxed here," I commented.

She waved me off and started walking, looking around, a frown forming on her face. "Look's like we're on the wrong side..." she said and looked up to study the sky, which was a nice dark blue, like the one in the physical world and had all the stars to go along with it. Then she snapped her fingers. "I know." And with that she put a hand to her mouth and let out a long, very loud whistle.

"Uhm," I started nervously, "What did you just call?" I asked.

"Dracula," she told me.

It took a moment for that to register. "Wait, the vampire dude?" I asked.

"No. Not a vampire. Do you not kow what Dracula means in Romanian?" she asked.

"Does it look like I study romanian in my spare time?" I asked.

She looked me up and down. "Guess not. Uhm... der Drachen..." she took a long moment, as if calculating something in her mind before finally translating to English. "The Dragon."

"D-dragon?" I asked, feeling my eyes go wide at the thought.

"Ja," she nodded her head and grinned. "You know... you meet people in hell. And sometimes they just so happen to be mythical beasts."

"Like... an actual dragon?" I asked.

"Yes," she said impatiently and watched the skies. "We may as well start walking. He's a ways away."

"Wait," I said, taking a couple fast steps to fall in line with her. "There are dragons in hell?" I asked.

"Yes. Where do you think they came from? Dragons come from hell, and usually they'd be sent to guard hordes of treasure for a demon or something, such the greedy dragon stereotype, but they're from hell and while there are very few that exist on the overworld, they do still exist, just down here."

She continued to walk despite my confusion.

"Do you even know where to go?" I asked and looked around. There was nothing. I mean nothing for as far as I could see, which wasn''t far. There was some kind of black sooty substance that drifted like fog in the air, and the smell was exactly the smell of hell, which made sense.

"No. but we can't stay in one spot or else the hounds will find us," she told me.

"The hounds?"

She rubbed her temples briefly. "The hell-hounds, Ignis. Jeez. You ought to pick up a book on the creatures that live in hell. They roam the entirety of this place, looking for people like us. People who shouldn't be here."

"Wait so if the hounds look for people who aren't supposed to be here... what does your father actually do?"

"He keeps the portals open on this side, the same way I'm supposed to keep them open on the other side. At the same time, he has to make sure nothing that isn't supposed to leave hell gets out."

"But I thought there were hundred of portals," I protested. "How can one guy take care of all of them?"

"It's not just him. He's just the big guy. Way up top... of the gatekeepers." She stopped and listened suddenly, trying to identify something. "Scheisse," she cursed.

"What?" I asked. Then I felt it. The presences.

Scar looked around and cursed again as there was absolutely nothing but the pumice under our feet for what looked like miles.

I had no idea what kind of thing was coming at us, but Scar didn't seem fond of them.

But she also didn't seem to be afraid. Just very, very displeased.

It was thirty seconds later that two silhouettes appeared in the smog and I could tell they were flying creatures., stirring the fog into weird tendrils of the sooty substnce with every flap of their wings. And they could fly pretty damn fast. As they got closer, I could make out more of their features and recognized them.

"Harpies?" I asked.

"Oh, so you know what a harpy is but don't what the hell a hell-hound is?" Scar snapped.

"Hey, don't get so angry. Dio mio." I brushed dust off my jacket, trying to fill the unpleasant silence.

The harpies circled over us for a long moment, looking down at us suspiciously.

"Ugh, They're so ugly," I said, feeling more uncomfortable at that moment than I had in a long time. Just because of their ugliness. Somehow, someway, a woman's head and torso, chest included, had been grafted into that of a big-ass bird. And not the pretty kind. The kind that was a cross between a vulture and an albatross. Just a big-ass ugly bird thing.

I didn't have much time to recompose myself before they landed in front of us, standing a couple feet taller than me.

"παύση," one commanded.

Scar and I stopped. It may have been in Greek but the intent was pretty clear.

The other flexed it's wings, hunching them very vulture-like and eyed us like we were slabs of meet. "τι είσαι?" It asked.

"English," Scar stated calmly.

The harpies exchanged a look between the two of them then looked back at us. God. Those eyes were so... creepy. And the fact they weren't wearing anything just made it ery hard to look at them.

"You don't speak Greek?" the left one asked in a very heavy Greek accent.

"No," Scar told it.

The harpies looked at each other again, one leaning over to say to the other. "Must be some of dem half-breed things."

"Like, totally," the other responded.

Scar rolled her eyes. "Yes. We're half breeds. And I see now we're in the Greek parts. How far is the Styx from here?" she asked.

"The Styx?" the first one that had spoken asked. Then burst out laughing, prompting another eye-roll from Scar. "Th-the- ha hah ha ha. The Styx... you want the river Styx," the harpy took a deep breath. "Look, gurl, you dunno where you are right now."

"I'm aware," Scar said impatiently. She folded her arms, clearly just wanting answers. "That's why I'm asking."

The harpy looked around for a long moment. "Well, alrigh' I tells ya. If you go twenty-three kilometers that way, you'll reach the river Phlegethon. You'll have to follow it upstream until you reach the Acheron, and then you have to be ferried to the River Styx. If you don' mind my asking, though, who are you?"

"I'm Scarlet, Daughter of Gotugo."

"I see. That explains a lot and this must be the Son of Wrath?" the harpy turned her beedy eye to look at me.

"Yes," I said. I still didn't like that title. "Call me Ignis." I gave her a respectful nod, though I was still repulsed by pretty much everything about her. Right down to that obnoxious personality.

Then there was a third presence that entered my perception, making me glance up and beyond the harpies.

"Yes," Scar said quietly. "That's our ride," she told me. Then she spoke up. "Well, it was a displeasure to talk with you, but we've gotta get going. Business to attend to, you know."

The harpy seemed stricken for a moment, then nodded. "Right, right," she waved a wing as if understanding and not feeling insulted then her and her friend took off in the air, stirring up more vapors.

Scar let out another long low whistle to the dragon, who immediately altered course in our direction.

There wasn't much time for me to observe the dragon in flight, for one second it was up in the sky and the next it had landed, scattering hundreds of the pumice stones in every direction. I covered my face as several came straight for me.

"Fuck," I cursed as one still managed to hit me in the face. Luckily they weren't that heavy, being pumice and all.

When I looked up, Scar had the dragon's neck in her arms. I wasn't entirely certain what to do.

The dragon was big, like bigger than a Clydesdale horse and those things are pretty damn big.

My expectations were jumbled though. Instead of having a pretty, solid scale color, it was a mottled dark red to black color. And it's irises were a dark brown, otherwise having normal reptilian eyes. It had two horns that curved downward along it's long neck. It had wings, bigger than anything I'd ever seen before, probably being at least ten feet on either side of the creature.

"Ich habe dich auch vermisst," Scar was telling it. It let out a low, growly purring noise and nuzzled against her.

"Okay," I muttered to myself. "Harpies... dragons... hell hounds... what else is new?"

Scar looked up, hearing my voice. "This is Dracula," she told me. "He's a European dragon."

"I... see that," I said, slightly in awe at the mythical beast in front of me.

"He doesn't understand English, but he knows German so he'll be listening to me." She stroked his muzzle, getting him to close his eyes like it was the most wonderful thing he'd ever felt.

"Right," I said.

Scar released the dragon's head and went up to his torso , running a hand along his flank. "Sie sind gesund," she sighed. then glanced up at me. "Er ist Ignis," she told Dracula,, who swiveled his head to look at me, sniffing curiously.

He growled again, though not in an overly hostile way.

"Ja. Er ist sein Sohn." She ran her hand along the flank again.

The dragon purred, moving around to nuzzle her again. It almost sounded like a question, like the purrs and growls were actually words and phrases that Scar could understand and translate.

"Wir brauchen mein Schwert zu finden. Die Genesis der Apokalypse. Mein Vater hat es." She pushed the head away and climbed onto the dragons back before holding a hand out for me. "We have to go and unless you want to walk twenty-three kilometers and then get ferried across the river of pain, I'd suggest you get your ass up here."

The reluctance instantly washed away at the mention of walking twenty-three miles, though there was still something rather nerve racking about climbing onto a creature known for destruction, chaos, and greed. She helped me up, as the dragon hide was slick and bulky, difficult to climb onto. And being up on top, I didn't find myself very comfortable anyways.

"Okay," she sighed, relieved like. "Lass uns gehen." She said with a mushing gesture.

Dracula glanced up at her briefly before leaping off the ground and took off for the skies of hell.