Constance pushed the door shut behind her and leaned against it for a moment, head bowed. She needed to collect herself before she could push forward. Her whole existence felt like an uphill struggle. She was in the Red Queen's race: Running full-speed, just to hold her ground. She had to steal precious seconds of rest where she could.

Eventually she pushed herself off the door and wandered toward the back stairs, wobbling on her high heels. Faint blue lights flickered on as she descended the stairs to the basement. The air was hazy, but she couldn't smell any smoke, just a faintly sweet scent. She could hear old-timey music playing and it brought a wan smile to her lips. She recognized the song: The Big Rock Candy Mountain. It sounded like it was playing on Tate's old toy record player.

"I told you I'd be back," she said and followed the sound into the shadowy recesses of the basement.

She found him sitting on the floor with his back to her, the record player beside him. Dust on the red record filled the music with static and every few seconds the song gave a soft hiccup as the needle reached a deep scratch in the disc.

"That old thing," she murmured, nostalgic again. "You used to listen to it for hours."

Tate sank into the oversized sweater. He didn't want to be reminded of all those hours by himself. His mother was drunk and/or passed out during a lot of that time, which left him alone with the monsters. "Did that psychic go away?"

Constance wrapped an arm around her middle. "She left, yes," she said, interjecting a subtle but deliberate correction to his phrasing. "Tate, baby. I need you to do something for me."

He looked over his shoulder at her then, attention caught by the way she spoke. When he saw the look on her face, he turned around fully. She extended a hand to him and, after a brief hesitation, he took it. He got to his feet and she led him back to where Dr. Montgomery's tools were.

"I need you to help me die," she told him as she fingered the various sharp surgical instruments. "And I need you to…to get rid of the body afterward this time. Cremation would be best but…well. Whatever works. I have to stop my sister from trying to do this to me again. Here. This should work."

She pressed a long scalpel into his hand. Tate stared at it then looked at her. Panic seized him.

"I can't," he said, trying to give the scalpel back. She wouldn't take it. "I can't."

"Yes, you can," she insisted, tears of frustration welling up. "You've killed before. You can do it again!"

She grabbed his wrist and tried to direct the scalpel in his hand toward her throat, but he dropped the knife with a sob.

"I can't, Mama!" Tate started to cry in earnest, confused and scared. "Don't make me!"

Constance sighed heavily and let go of his arm. "It's all right, sweetheart," she said wearily. On some level she was comforted by his refusal, inconvenient though it was. "I'll do it myself."

Tate sniffled and more unhappy tears dripped off his chin. His mother wasn't making any sense. He wasn't sure if it was his fault or not. He watched as she bent and retrieved the scalpel. She straightened and positioned the shiny blade in the center of her wrist. She was about to make a cut when a gentle, cool hand covered hers.

"There's a better way," Charles said right behind her.

She didn't resist when he took the surgical knife from her hand. It was a tremendous relief for her to let him take control of the moment. It was like the day she met him, there in the basement, while looking for her wayward daughter. All of her stress and anxiety melted away in a foggy haze. She barely felt the cold steel of the operating table when he helped her stretch out on it. Everything was going to be all right.

He fitted the nitrous mask over her face. "Breathe deeply and count backward from sixty."

She felt someone touch her hand and, glancing that way, she saw Tate. He was still crying and looking lost. Even if she had longer than sixty seconds, Constance knew she wouldn't be able to explain to him why everything was happening the way it was. As the world started to float and drift away, she told herself that she would make it up to him later, when she was a spirit again.

She had died in the house once before, under less ideal circumstances. She relaxed into her last moments like a spa treatment. She thought she knew what to expect in the transition from living to dead.

She was wrong.

…

As if in a dream, Constance felt herself falling. There was blackness all around and it was colder than ice. She fell and fell and then suddenly there was solid ground under her back. She hit hard but somehow managed not to be winded when she got to her feet.

To her horror, she was naked. She wasn't alone either.

"Constance!" Jeremiah exclaimed and threw a soft, dark robe around her shoulders. "I'm sorry. I couldn't move fast enough to catch you."

"J-Jeremiah?" the woman stammered in shock. She clutched the robe closed with one hand and reached for his face with the other, needing to touch him. "Is it really you?"

He let her pet his face and hair then he put an arm around her to gather her close. He took a quick look around the barren valley they were in. "It's me," he assured. "You're not supposed to be here."

"And you are?" she lashed out, regaining her composure. "Where the hell is 'here', anyway?"

"We're outside of the City of Dis," he said. "This isn't the best place for explanations. We need to get you someplace safe till we can get you out of here."

"City of where?" asked Constance. "Is that a new settlement?"

He surprised her by literally sweeping her off her feet. "It will be faster if I carry you," he explained belatedly. His way spared her dignity and saved them time that would have been lost fighting about it if he had asked.

"City of what?" she reiterated, not about to be put off. "You can explain while you walk."

"We're in the underworld," he said, unable to find a better way to put it. "The City of Dis is what's making the red glow in the sky."

She looked ahead and saw the black, starless sky faded to red just beyond the mountains that walled them in. "We're in hell?" She grabbed his neck and shoulders in a panic, briefly obscuring his view.

"No," he grunted, adjusting his hold on her so he could see again. "The underworld isn't a place of punishment. It's just a place. But it's not a place for you."

She loosened her grip but kept her arms around his shoulders. She wasn't averse to touching him; this was the Jeremiah she knew. "Are you aware that your body is up and walkin' around without you in the real world?"

He glanced at her, visibly disturbed. "I—Er. No." He frowned. "I'm not doing anything embarrassing, am I?"

Constance pursed her lips. "Nothing a survivalist wouldn't do."

"Comforting," he said, not very comforted.

"Where are we going?"

"I'm taking you to my master," said Jeremiah. "If anyone can and will send you back, it's him."

"Send me back?" she echoed. Everything was happening so fast she had no chance to process it properly. She still hadn't entirely wrapped her mind around the fact that she was in the underworld and Jeremiah was acting like himself. "I'm only goin' back if you come with me."

The man was tempted to set her down to talk, but he knew they couldn't afford to dawdle out in the open. There were too many rogue entities out in the wilds that would love to take a swipe at them.

"We'll see if that's possible," he compromised.

...

The settlement of New 'Salem had expanded quite a bit in the past few months. The fog that covered much of the world now wasn't a deterrent; just a new normal. There wasn't even an outer wall to the village anymore and the last perimeter wall that went up was flimsy; a cosmetic barrier at best. Shops and cafes sprang up but mostly there were cults. Lots and lots of micro-religions settled in the village, devoted to the worship of Satan, the grigori, and to Michael personally. If there were any who didn't support the Fallen, they didn't make themselves publicly known. Crucifixion in the public square awaited any who dared speak out against the Antichrist.

Public bloodletting practices were becoming more popular in the square: Ritual sacrifices and tributes from loyalists who wanted to show their willingness to offer their own blood to Michael. For some, it would be a dream come true to have the young leader feed directly from them and they ritualistically sliced themselves open in front of the First Church in hopes of getting his attention.

Michael was rarely at the church, though. After the coven took over the bunker in the Hills, he had been spending most of his time at the Bradford Hotel. But now, with Fiona not wanting her captives to sully her personal space in the Hills, the coven had returned to the old base. All the flip-flopping tempted Michael to hold his birthday celebration at the bunker but, with as many people as there were in New 'Salem, he bowed to Misty Day's counsel and opted to hold it at Ford Theatre instead. The outdoor venue was big enough for any size of crowd that wanted to attend and right next to the Hollywood Hills settlement. His entourage could retreat there following the public festivities.

Everything was set. His appointed delegates were finalizing the arrangements. He just needed Mother Constance found within the week, and that was starting to prey on him. So, he had turned to his studies as a distraction while he waited for his network to find her. Jeremiah wasn't much help in deciding what to read but the man's books at the hotel were still in order. From them, Michael selected something he hadn't looked at before.

Hiding in a book was something he had done many times while growing up. He understood the texts were history books, but they were also an escape for him. A jaunt into a mystical, mythical place of dreams and nightmares. This one, the Book of Giants, was an old Talmudic translation written on thin leather pages. The book itself was strange to hold: Being made of leather, it warmed as he held it. The pages became more pliable with heat and soon felt like he was holding a living thing. The illustrations in it looked more like tattoos than drawings.

The contents of the book were surprising to Michael. While he found several references he was acquainted with that tied in with what Father Jeremiah had drilled into him from a young age, there was a lot of information that he had never heard before. He learned things from the book that tied other stories he knew together in intricate and disturbing ways—in ways he felt affected him personally.

The book claimed that the children of the "Watchers" were angels sent to monitor and slowly deliver new knowledge to man. But there were many who found the human race attractive and they seduced and impregnated human woman. Their offspring were "Giants", gods among men who took extreme and violent advantage of their gifted status. The book gave lengthy and graphic descriptions of what the children of the fallen angels did to the human race. It said that the Giants enslaved, prostituted, and slaughtered mankind, which they considered a lesser race. It told of how a secret council of 200 Watchers and their children was formed, some of whom had prophetic dreams of the end of times brought about by their own wicked ways.

Michael was propped on the hotel bar, just over halfway through the unsettling book when one of the dual front doors opened, sending a dagger of light through the dark lobby. Michael blinked a few times but otherwise didn't move. He could sense the individual who came in. They weren't alive. He recognized her energy signature though he didn't know her name.

"You're from the Montgomery Mansion," he said. He put a cocktail napkin in the book to mark his place and then carefully closed the cover.

"My name is Lorraine Harvey," the woman said. "And I think there's something you should know."

Michael turned on the bar stool and brushed his hair back from his face. He hadn't bothered with a ponytail; his hair was long enough now that he could push it back over his shoulders if he didn't want to be bothered by it. He looked at the ghost woman and arched a brow, silently inviting her to continue.

His mannerisms threw her off and she wrung her hands, starting to lose her nerve. "It's Constance. She's back."

Both of his brows went up and he slid off the stool. "She's at the mansion?"

Lorraine took a step back. She considered herself a good Christian woman and she was already uneasy being this close to the son of Satan. When she had decided to make the trip, she thought she was tipping the scales. She thought the Antichrist would come for Constance, finally ridding the house of her and settling the personal injustice Lorraine had felt since discovering her husband was having an affair with the Langdon woman.

"She is. But...she's—she's not alive," Mrs. Harvey stammered.

"What?" Michael crossed the floor with long strides, sharp-toed leather boots registering no sound as he moved.

"She killed herself," Lorraine gushed, taking several hasty steps back. His sudden anger terrified her, and she regretted coming to the hotel. She had never been good with games of intrigue. "But her ghost. Her ghost is back. The doctor in the basement cut her up!"

Michael caught up to the ghost woman and reached for her. His misplaced fury coursed directly through him with the motion and into the frightened woman, setting her ablaze. She was gone before he could calm down enough to stop himself.

"Fuck!" he swore. He shoved a nearby planter over in frustration at his loss of control. Dirt spread across the floor in a dark trail. "FUCK!"

Michael stalked toward the exit, tense with rage. The double doors splintered outward before he reached them. The frailty of the physical world bothered him. He knew couldn't drive the new car in his condition and had no patience for walking the whole way to the mansion. He had a gut full of anger he wanted to unload immediately. So, he did what the spirits did: He took a step forward and came out in the front foyer of Murder House. It made him a little queasy when the world solidified again but he ignored it.

"Mother Constance!" he bellowed into the depths of the house. His voice reverberated, shaking the chandelier.

"I'm right here," she said off to his left, from the kitchen. "There's no need to shout."

He turned on her, clamping down on the fire he felt welling up again. As mad as he was, he didn't want to incinerate her like he had the Harvey woman. "You're not allowed to kill yourself!"

She could feel the heat radiating from her grandson; the infernal power actually lit up his eyes, an eerie effect she had to force herself to ignore. "I already did, sweetheart. But you don't need me for your ritual—"

"Yes, I do!" he exploded, and the chandelier shattered just as the hotel the doors had. It dusted his hair and black velvet coat with glittering crystal shards.

Constance flinched at the damage. "No, you don't," she insisted, calm despite the fact that she was talking to a living time bomb. She had to be; their future depended on her talking sense into him. "I've already done my part. Evangelina is carryin' your child. She's the one He wants."

It was like a bucket of ice water to his flames. Michael frowned at her, confused. "Wh—She..." He wrinkled his nose. "My child?"

Constance smiled and reached to put a hand on his cheek. The imminent crisis was averted.

"I saw Jeremiah when I died," she told him in a hushed tone. He drew closer to her and she cupped his other cheek as well, her gaze intense. "He's in the underworld, Michael. In a place called Dis. He took me to see the Dragon."

She released him and tipped her head so she could sweep her hair back from her forehead. There, just at her hairline above the temple was the same mark he'd been born with: A raised mark in the shape of the numbers '666'. It was the mark of the Beast.

Michael brows knit in confusion, but he knew that she was telling him the truth. He had a host of questions but decided most of them could wait. "Are you still coming to my birthday party?"

His question was so inherently innocent, so childlike in its simplicity after such a storm, she couldn't help a laugh even as tears burned her eyes.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

...

Author's Note:

This chapter was necessarily long. It just didn't divide neater than this.

So, Constance got to meet Michael's real daddy. I didn't include it here but may post it as a stand-alone later, possibly along with spirit-Jeremiah's experiences from when he first landed in the underworld.

Michael's birthday is next. It may take a bit longer than usual to post. I'm dealing with some RL business transfer stuff. Once things have smoothed out and I can edit my stuff, I'll post the next chapter. Hopefully this one will tide you over till then. Shouldn't be more than a couple of weeks tops.