Chapter 4: Beginning of Hell

"Are you serious?" Caitlin asked the next morning.

"Yes! I am," Ashley replied.

Ashley was telling her friends about what happened the night before. They were getting ready to go across the street. "So now we have to find out who or what did this," Ashley explained. "That's where you come in Melissa."

"Ok. Whatever," Melissa replied, not really sounding interested, even if it did deal with a girl being killed.

They reached the house and went up to the officer in the front of the house. "You can't go in," the officer said.

"We need to do something quick," Gloria answered.

"We cannot let anybody in. Go home, young ladies," the officer said. "Besides, you are not part of the police."

Melissa was already ticked off. She woke up very early and couldn't go back to sleep, hence the reason she was cranky. "Look, we just need to figure out something," she said. "We need to figure out who the killer was, ok!"

"We have the FBI and CSI to do that," the officer said.

Then suddenly a tall man appeared. "Let them in officer," he said. "They might be able to solve this. I don't care if they're police or not. I'm sorry about this, girls. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Allen and I was the husband of Samantha, the one who was murdered. If you can help us solve this case, please do."

The officer sighed and let them in. They went to the room and asked everyone to leave it for a sec. Once it was empty, Melissa put down her large book of monsters, which contained every monster known on Earth, and knelt beside the pair of footprints Ashley had mentioned. She saw something by them, covered in a white blanket but stained with blood. "What's that?" she asked.

"I don't think you want to know," Ashley said.

"Just let me see the damn thing," Melissa snapped. "If I am to figure out which monster killed this girl, then I need to see the goddamn evidence."

"Ok, ok," Ashley surrendered.

Ashley decided to do what she said. She nor the others wanted to get her angry. They always tried to stay out of her way when angry. And in return, she would try to stay out of their way when any of them were angry. Ashley lifted the blanket. "Holy—" Melissa said.

"No cussing, Mel," Jessica interrupted grimly.

Melissa sighed. Her friends were trying to get her out of the habit of cussing. She turned her attention back to the footprints. She looked at the footprints very carefully. "Oh crap! It can't be!" she yelled.

She opened her book and instantly went to the H's. She took one last look at the footprints before returning to whatever she was looking for. "You guys, I have very bad news," she announced.

"What is it?" Jessica asked.

"The monster that killed this woman was…" she responded, "a hellhound."

Melissa drove everyone to her house quickly. She refused to answer any questions about the monster called a hellhound. Not until they reached her house. After finally reaching her house and after nearly being killed and very close to getting in trouble by the TPD (Tranquility Police Department), they went to her room. "Now, can you tell us what the hell a hellhound is?" Ashley demanded.

"I expected you to know," Melissa replied with her back turned on everyone else. She was taking out her book and opening it again.

"Hey you're the monster expert," Ashley said.

"Yeah but it's not that hard to figure out. Caitlin could figure out what the hell a hellhound is," Melissa continued. "It's just a dog-like monster from Hell, hence the reason they're called hellhounds. Duh…They're servants to the Lord of Hell, known in our time as the Devil. 10,000 years ago, a dog was born, but it was…different. It was more blackish gray. It had a long tail, its hair looked like long snake tails, its eyes were lime green, its black claws were curved like a hook, and on its back, or more like down its spine, it had real living scales that overlapped each other. It was more reptile rather than mammal for it had no fur. It wasn't like anything that existed. It was left to survive on its own. Then another monster was born exactly the same. They both had young and they started to overrun the world. They killed everything in their path.

"They mostly burned everything. On their neck, they also had 'hair' like the long snake tail-like 'hair' they had. Anyway, those 'scale hairs' on the neck were the colors of fire: red, orange, and yellow. So everything it touched burst into flames. Then something stopped them. They were water monsters called serpentine mystics. A serpentine mystic is a sapphire serpent with a head of a snake rather than a head of a dragon. They had shiny sapphire scales with light purplish blue stripes. They had yellow eyes and snake fangs, but they were not venomous. They had powerful muscles and real membrane wings (wings like the ones of bats and dragons). They had blue swords that signified their water powers and they had shields with a picture of a snake coiled up in a circle. There was one serpentine mystic who was sent from the heavens and she was the leader of the mystics. And her name was Jessica. She got an army of serpentine mystics and went against the hellhounds. There were thousands of hellhounds by the time Jessica was ready. That's when the ancient war of the serpentine mystic and the hellhounds began. The war was known as War of Water and Fire.

"The war continued for 5 years. Finally, when the war ended, Jessica banished the remaining hellhounds to Hell. They were condemned to Hell for an eternity. While they were trapped, they became extremely loyal to the Devil. Then He gave them firepower, but more powerful than before. After thousands of years of exile, they've been released by someone. If someone doesn't stop them, then—then we'll die and Earth will be overrun once again."

Everyone was speechless. Then Jessica broke the silence. "So…you mean I'm named after an important monster?" she asked.

"Not only important, but also legendary," Melissa replied. "You should be honored. You see, the legendary Jessica was spells master just like you, hence the reason why those serpents were called serpentine mystics."

"I am honored," Jessica said.

"But exactly who would release them and how?" Gloria asked.

"It says here," Melissa continued, looking at her book, "that only people with evil in their heart and spirit have the power to release them by saying this spell…ligkr uno Devl polrg mi sestren uno loulseltrs te flessacre es gotro tris uno gitder flimas itu hotier, which means 'With the Devil's power, I release the hellhounds to kill all good with the fiery flames of Hell.' So whoever did it somehow found out about this spell or already knew it."

"Well, what can we do?" Ashley asked. "They could have eggs by now."

"I know where they used to lay eggs when they used to live. They are most likely using that spot now," Melissa said.

"Where is it?" Caitlin asked.

"Well, it's in…Oregon," Melissa answered.

"Say what!" Gloria roared.

"Where in Oregon?" Ashley shouted.

"It's in Coos Bay," Melissa replied. "It's in an underwater cave. One of us will have to go underwater."

"Why only one of us?" Jessica asked.

"It's not going to take an army to destroy some frickin' eggs," Melissa said, "even if it's a lot."

"How the hell are we supposed to get over there? Say 'abrakadabra?'" Ashley said. "We're not rich, ya know."

'C'mon guys use your brains and think for a sec," Gloria said. "We don't need technology to get somewhere. We can just fly there."

"How long will it take?" Caitlin asked.

"I'm not sure," Melissa replied. "But we'll leave tomorrow morning."

"Are you guys ready?" Caitlin asked.

Ashley and the others nodded. Melissa, Gloria, and Ashley changed into their monster forms. Then Caitlin and Jessica climbed onto Melissa's back. "Hey Mel, before we go, why do Gloria and I have to transform when we can just ride you?" Ashley asked.

"I've already been through this," Melissa explained. "You two will be in front of me and warn me of anything heading our way. So we'll be prepared rather than unprepared if I were to do it alone. Got it?"

"Yeah," Ashley said.

Ashley, Gloria, and Melissa spread their wings and took off. They all flew to Coos Bay as fast as they could, but not fast enough to lose energy at an extremely fast rate. Yesterday afternoon, someone else got killed and the same footprints were found. They were ready to face their very first real threat. But now they needed to think of a plan before their attack.