Part VIII: To Hell and Back
Angela plunged her hands into the soapy water, scrubbing at the dirty dishes. She checked the clock, 12:34. It was Saturday, so she worked in shifts—and hers wasn't until 3pm this particular Saturday. I am abnormally jumpy today, she thought to herself as she nearly leapt off the floor when a plastic cup clattered to the ground. She turned to see Duck mewing softly at her, pawing for attention, and she took one soapy hand and rubbed his head. He shied away from the water and perched above her on the shelf, glaring reproachfully. She laughed tensely, but couldn't deny that every noise was freaking her out.
A sudden wave of nausea hit her, and she put one hand to her forehead. As soon as it had come, it was gone, but she couldn't help wondering if it was something other than a regular sickness. Another wave of nausea and heat, this time, went rushing through her, and there was a clatter from the bedroom area. Cautiously, she clutched the amulet around her neck—the one John had given her those four or so months ago—with one hand, and turned slowly, one hand still immersed in the soapy dishwater.
Jade blinked at the door John and Chas had just run out of. Shrugging, and reminding herself to ask later, she rubbed Isis's neck absently. Curiously, she picked up Chas's discarded book, and plopped herself down on the couch. Isis curled up next to her, and she opened it to the first page. Witchcraft and the Occult. Interesting, she thought distractedly, and flipped forward a couple of pages, Useful Latin; Curses, spells, exorcisms. Rolling her eyes, she started to read, petting Isis. She recognized some of the phrases, though she was unsure of how useful they would be were one trying to curse someone, perform a spell, or an exorcism. Futue te et ipsum caballum…fuck you and the horse you rode in on? Unless they mean curse in the non-traditional way, I suppose…She continued to read, as Isis mewed softly.
Jade was halfway through learning to perform a spell against trespassers when Isis let out a yowl. Startled, she looked down at the cat, whose pupils had become slits in the masses of green. Jade looked around the room curiously, but there was nobody there, and was about to turn back to finishing the spell when she felt a wave of nausea and heat hit her. "Ugh," she mumbled, nearly doubling over from the sudden attack. She put one hand over her mouth and the other involuntarily reached toward her necklace, her long fingers wrapping around the pendant hanging from the thin silver chain.
Angela noted a slight shift in the planes as she turned. Time stopped. Black clouds of dust and smoke whipped past her. Inhuman screaming wailed in the distance. The shambles of her apartment lay around her. She was in Hell.
Jade felt a change in the atmosphere as she lifted her head—no, not a subtle shift, rather a whipping blast of dry, putrid air. The screaming, the tormented wailing from her dream permeated the rushing of the thrashing wind around her. She glanced around. Everything was the color of rust, and the air stank of flesh and nausea and fear and hopelessness. The barren remains of Los Angeles stared back at her, and she gulped. She was in her dream world. And she wasn't asleep.
"Rakshasa. What the hell?" John muttered to himself as Chas sped along the highway toward Grayson Avenue, "Those are only myth."
Chas kept his eyes on the road, "John, is anything ever just a myth?" He queried reasonably, "I mean, with all you've done, really…
John glared at him, "Do you know what the rakshasa are?"
Chas nodded, "Shape-shifters. Demons. African folktale." He noticed John raising one eyebrow, "What? I did a lot of reading."
John gave a 'too true' shrug, and continued, "Midnite tried to tell me the story once, said I might need it. Don't remember what he said, I'll have to go check…something about the triad…do you know anything about a triad?" Chas shook his head, no, "Figures," John went back to muttering to himself as Chas turned off the highway and onto a road of neatly trimmed lawns and prettily-hedged bushes. They passed 736…734…732…730…Chas mumbled the numbers as he drove, 724…722! He pulled up on the curb in front of a large new-age Victorian style house, brick and trimmed in slate blue, with rosebushes planted around it.
John didn't argue when Chas opened his door, and Chas started to get a giddy feeling of excitement, which was crossed with a slightly sick feeling as he remembered how his last escapade with exorcisms had ended. In the end, giddy won out, and Chas was practically leaping as he grabbed John's bag from the trunk and slung it over his shoulder. He rushed after John, who was already striding purposefully up the cobblestone path toward the large oak door.
As he reached it, John turned back to Chas momentarily, "One thing I should warn you about…the rakshasa are supposed to have a grotesque manner of…ridding themselves of their victims."
Chas looked confused, "What?"
Angela whipped around at the sound of telltale clicking. She didn't know how she had gotten here, although she grudgingly admitted that a part of her body had been suspended in water. In the weeks following the incident with Mammon, she'd had horrible nightmares of returning to Hell, but every time she'd awoken and checked, ensuring herself that she had in fact not been in Hell, and it had only been a dream. But she was very much awake now, unless something had happened so fast and knocked her unconscious that she was entirely unaware of it. This was possible, but not entirely likely. She gulped in the sulfuric air and started walking toward the city.
Slowly. She knew the soldier demons were more likely to stay at bay if she showed no fear.
Jade shut her eyes tightly. She wasn't asleep, and she somehow was. There was no way this was real, though the nausea that kept rolling over her in waves certainly felt real. This time, there was nobody around to save her. John and Chas were out, she couldn't count on them to awaken her from this horrible nightmare. So she did the only thing she could think of.
She screamed, as loud as she possibly could.
Angela was out of her apartment complex and close to where she thought John's place might be, considering Hell was a mirror of Earth. She was wracking her brain on ways to get out, but coming up short. She also had to continuously remind herself to walk slowly and steadily, and not glance back fearfully at the demons skittering around overturned cars and through the remains of buildings.
A scream, in the distance. Her heart clenched—and she softly told herself that Hell was full of screaming. But this was somehow different…it was human. That was it.
Angela started running.
The acidic smell of blood hung heavily in the air. John stepped over the threshold and Chas walked carefully in behind him. John held up a hand for Chas to stop, as he took in the scene warily.
A curiously pristine, upper to middle-class house of classic design, the only sign of a struggle being a smashed vase, the broken pieces scattered on the floor and a cross a table where a white princess phone lay askew, dangling off the table by its cord. John moved his head slowly, from side to side, taking in ever detail, and Chas held his hand over his nose—the smell of blood was slowly giving way to decay.
Watery red liquid splattered on the hardwood floor next to Chas, forming a beaded puddle that contrasted brightly against the varnished planks. John turned his slow gaze upward.
John answered Chas's earlier question now, "Crucifixion."
Angela was fast approaching the site of the scream, but the soldier demons were now chasing, and gaining. She looked up, and saw a girl, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, standing in the window of where John's apartment would be, were this Earth. The girl had long brown hair and her mouth was open. She was the source of the scream.
Angela looked up at her and their eyes met. The girl stopped screaming, briefly, but Angela could see tears running down her cheeks. The girl reached up and grabbed something around her neck, as silent tears continued to stream. Angela also reached up to her neck, where the amulet John had given her was hanging, please, she thought, protect me now. As her hand clasped around the cool metal, she felt a sudden tug and full connection to Jade—was the name of the girl, she realized, though she couldn't remember where she'd heard the name 'Jade' before. And in that instant, the planes shifted again, and she found herself collapsed on the kitchen floor.
A man, his eyes rolled in the back of his head and his face contorted with anguishing pain, was on the ceiling. He was dead, and Chas noted his ankles had been drawn together with a length of rope, and there were rusty nails spouting from his hands, his wrists, and his ankles. His torso, unsecured, loomed precariously above them, and John stepped quickly back upon noticing that the man was a mere six inches above his head. Next to the man, drawn on the pristine ceiling, was a symbol in blood. The Trinity symbol, without the circle, and a line drawn under the top point—to indicate the symbol was to be pointing down. John grabbed a pad of paper and pen from a small table beside the door and scribbled the symbol quickly, then looked at Chas, who looked about to be sick.
"Not in here," John hissed, and he pushed Chas out of the house. Chas gave him a slightly questioning look, and John sighed, "Whatever did this isn't here. The police will come. We need to go."
Chas nodded and slipped into the car, focusing on the road so he wouldn't have to think about the body.