A Sister's Sacrifice, page 5
“I think it sounds like demons are simply pure evil. The feeling I had around Aamon was worse than anything I could imagine, and worse still.”
Ava touched my arm, and I had a fleeting thought of what it might feel like if she touched me with 500 arms all at once instead of one. “Evil is an incarnated creature’s invention. The very concept. There’s a reason for every soul’s development, Megan.”
“You have a totally different take on the afterlife than anyone I’ve met here.”
She dropped her hand and grinned. “You may be wrong for all I know, but you may be right.”
“Did you just quote Billy Joel lyrics to me?”
“Maybe.” She turned to the side and twirled her hair with a dainty finger.
“How in the world do you know Billy Joel lyrics?”
She said nothing, but tapped her head.
Oh yeah, I thought. “The living in two places. You’re alive on Earth all the time. But in all of eternity, because that’s the impression you gave me about your reincarnations and how long you’ve been around, why would you remember those particular Billy Joel lyrics?”
“I know a good song when I hear one. And I don’t forget anything.”
I held the key out to her. “You do it. You know you want to and have been dying to.”
She cheerfully grabbed the key and held it up high like she’d won a fabulous prize, then immediately plunged it into the silver lock. Turned it.
The lock’s hook top fell loose and Ava ripped the door open, taking a deep breath of the air from within. “Ah. I missed that smell.”
I stuck my head through the doorway. The walls, floor and ceiling of raw, grayish stone still glowed a soft blue, but there was no frost. A temperate breeze rushed into me, and I smelled incense. This side of hell had the unique scent of a head shop, and Ava ate it up. I wondered who she was in my lifetime.
“It’s a short walk to get to Bifrons, but the problem is that there are many distractions. It should take ten earthly minutes, but because you get lost in the things you see and think along the way, it can take eons.” She eyed me carefully.
I shook my head. “You feel it. I do. Time’s running out. I can’t get distracted. It’s like there’s an hourglass in my chest, and it’s down to a fourth of the sand grains. Know what I mean? You do, don’t you?”
She nodded, a short, quick motion, and said, “We must hurry, and there is something I could do so you don’t lose your way, but Bifrons would pick up on it immediately.”
“Let him,” I said. “He’s going to have to explain himself to me, and if he sees the future like Aamon said he does, then he knows I’m coming, anyway.”
“Oh no,” Ava said. “His divination is only for others. He cannot see for himself like Aamon. But he will know Ashley’s projected futures, factoring in free will and randomness, and thereby know you are coming. Yes. We can do this. We have time.”
I paused. Quietly, I asked, “What exactly are you going to do to me?”
“I’m going to close your third eye.”
I reached up to the center of my forehead. “I didn’t know it was open.”
She put three fingertips on my forehead. “It’s always open. That’s how you know what things unsaid and unexplained really are deep down. I’ll now close your third eye, and it will feel strange. But rest assured, you won’t get distracted by the wonders.”
She pressed against my head like stamping me.
For a moment or two, I didn’t know who I was. Or what I was. Or who the Asian woman standing in front of me looking pleased was, either.
I looked around, but didn’t notice much of interest. We stood inside a blue-lit rock tunnel with other paths leading off here and there. I heard sounds, but I didn’t recognize them, and didn’t really care much about them at all, anyway. The woman kept saying, “Follow, follow. Eyes ahead. It’ll be over soon.”
“What’s happening?” I asked her, but the words I actually said were gibberish, held no meaning.
Somehow she understood, and told me, “You are safe. All you have to do is follow me. Ignore everything around you and every thought, and follow.” She walked just in front of me, reaching back to hold my elbow. It was called an elbow, right? What was it for? To be honest, I didn’t care enough to think more deeply on the subject.
Then everything was a haze of lights and sounds, and I lost all sense of reality. Nothing held meaning. What was I? Was I real?
The woman turned, pushed three fingers into the flesh of my forehead, and everything came rushing back. Clarity, my own personal reality…meaning. Who Ava was. And I was Megan, here to get my angel sister out of hell and back where she belonged.
“What was that?” I asked, having to catch my breath for reasons unknown to me.
“I’m sorry for the unpleasant effects. This,” she pointed at a wooden door right in front of our noses, arched doorframe this time, “is the way into Bifrons’ study. It’s where he lives, and where he keeps Ashley.”
“Is this like with Aamon where you have to leave me to it because Bifrons has issues with you?”
She shook her head. “Oh no, Bifrons and I get along as well as can be expected, considering the circumstances of him being demon and my having reached nirvana. He’s interested in nirvana. Has studied it. He asks me about it often when I do see him.”
I sighed with relief. “This sounds nowhere near as horrible as the other side of hell. I mean, the third eye thing was, well, confusing is one word that comes to mind, but I’m already forgetting what it was like. And you even know him. That’s the best.” I reached for the doorknob. She put her hand on mine, stopping me.
“He is genius, but he isn’t wise. He will try to keep you, too, and have a heavenly being and angel in his study. This will appeal to him because your souls are intertwined. Soul mates, and we all have a select few. She is one of your strongest bonds of spirit. Beware, and I will help. He will do whatever tricks he can to collect you, imprison you.”
I nodded at her, and then opened the door.
8.
Bifrons’ study was not at all what I expected. I guess I thought it would be full of black, twisted statues and tortured rodents. Anyone who would kidnap Ashley would have to be putrid and his living quarters would reflect that.
Instead, I first noticed the windows on the far side of the rectangular room—they climbed high, maybe 30 feet up—and pure brilliant morning sunlight filtered through. Dust floated coaxingly in the beams of light illuminating the room. Bookshelves of mahogany reached as high as the windows, full of a wide array of books and mystical-looking knickknacks. A few heavy oak tables with detailed carved chairs around them filled some of the wooden floor space, and in front of the windows on the far end of the study was a giant desk made of clear crystal quartz. A matching chair, ornately carved with shapes of the sun, moon and planets rested behind it. With the sunlight shining through the desk set, I had the impression I’d walked into a brilliant magical wizard’s most private place to conjure his spells.
I stood, stunned, and couldn’t even think a coherent thought in the midst of all this stimulation, and then I looked up just to take my dry eyes off all the fabulous things I saw. Above, there was no ceiling. I saw space. Stars. The edges of the walls and windows just kind of faded like dreams into the depths of the universe I knew.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. “He’s not here. That’s interesting.”
I glanced at Ava, nervous. “But where’s Ashley? And what is this place? How is there sunshine? Did you see outer space up there?”
Ava cocked her head up. “Hm. Never noticed.” She pointed at the desk. “That thing’s what always gets my attention. I mean, isn’t it just too much?” She giggled.
It was warm, but a chill creeped over me. “What about Ashley?”
Ava looked around, deep in thought. “She’s usually in her cage next to the desk, but even the cage is gone.”
I gasped. “Cage! He put her in a cage?” I didn’t care if he was a demon. I was going to punch him in his gut for doing that.
“He made it comfortable, used his knowledge of stones, metals, and gems to fashion the cage so she would feel no discomfort.”
I dropped my face into my hands. My sweet Ashley. I couldn’t stand to think of her feeling anything other than joy and peace, like she had in heaven, especially as an angel. “How do we find her?”
“Well, Bifrons would have divined that at least I would be here, and if you take the ring off, he would have seen that too. But it isn’t like him to avoid the future or try to change it. Rather, he likes to see his predictions come perfectly true. Then he thinks he is wise and genius and talented.” She pursed her lips. “Unless…”
“What? Unless what?”
“Neither Ashley nor Bifrons are here. It makes sense to me, because he sees Ashley’s future and not his own, that whatever he knows of our visit is something that happens later. Maybe they took a walk.”
“A walk? Where in hell would they take a walk?”
“This side of hell has many interesting things to do and see. He kept her in the cage, of course, but he can levitate things. It’s how he moves the bodies.”
“Say again?”
She shook her head with a small smile, black hair falling across her high cheekbones. “Oh, he has some knowledge about how moving corpses from one grave to another does something. I can’t remember.”
“You said you never forget anything.”
“I did?”
I groaned. “Let’s stay here and wait, then.”
Her eyes widened. “Yes, that’s it. He saw me, or both of us, here when coming back from a journey. That’s why he’s not here.”
My head spun. “I’m not even going to ask.”
She eyed me carefully. “Bifrons is charming. Brilliant. Dark, though. Yet accepting. His path is long.”
“You’ve mentioned paths before. What does that mean?”
She stared up at stars twinkling above us, murmuring, “Have you ever been lost in the woods?”
I thought back. I’d had a friend in another neighborhood with woods and she slipped away from me one day as we played. I couldn’t remember much of the specifics, but it had been getting pretty dark and I had no idea what to do. “Yes. When I was about eight.”
She turned her gaze to me. “How did you feel when you realized you didn’t know where you were?”
I paused, remembering. “I was afraid, but then it’s like I saw a pattern in the brush. Something like a pattern. A trail. But it wasn’t a real trail. I followed it, got scratched up some, but made it to the neighborhood.”
“You found and took a path.” She grinned.
I sighed. Maybe if I’d been dead a little longer, Ava would make more sense to me. Then again, I wasn’t much for metaphors, and I suspected the only things Ava thought were in metaphors.
“I hate just standing here waiting,” I told her. “It’s that time thing. I feel I have to get out soon, but I don’t know how I know that, or how soon.”
“Well, we could always summon Bifrons.”
“Summon? What do you mean?”
“Demons adore being summoned. His seal is etched in the seat behind his crystal desk.”
“Seal. You mean like in the movies where teenagers call a demon?”
“Yeah! Like that!”
I slowly shook my head. “That sounds like a bad idea.”
“Oh, the movies wouldn’t be any fun, no, not scary at all if the demons came and played a game of chess with you. Come on.” She crossed the study and stood behind his desk, staring into the chair seat. “You’re not chicken, are you?”
I dragged my sore feet so she could hear my dismay at this, but she didn’t seem to care. Once at the chair, I looked into the seat and saw a symbol.
“Does it say anything?”
“Hm, it’s more like a prayer. Demons want to be prayed to. Don’t worry, though, I know how this works. You just kind of fade away over there by the herbs growing in the corner of the windows and watch. I’ll try to get him alone, then you can get Ashley.”
“But she’s locked up. In a cage!”
“We’ll figure it out. No worries, little soul.” She looked up at me and smiled.
“Why are you helping me?” I burst out, panic setting in. I liked having at least a plan as weak as charming men, like with Aamon.
She looked surprised. “You asked me to.” Smiled again, swishing her hands for me to move back. “Go on.”
I did as told, feeling sweat under my hair on my neck.
Ava traced delicate fingers over the pattern of the seal, and then, well, chanted. It sounded like she was performing an exorcism in Latin rather than trying to get a demon to come to her. Oddly, the sounds of her even tone and rhythmic language, like poetry, relaxed me. I felt more focused, in charge. Calm.
I don’t know how long she did this. I spaced out, daydreamed. Closed my eyes and leaned against the window, rubbing my ring of light.
Time passed, and I slipped my eyes open again. Barely, though. The study’s mystical objects everywhere seemed to shine, sparkle, shimmer. The seal Ava chanted over had lit up a deep violet, and the glow on her face made her look surreal. I wasn’t thinking about anything. I couldn’t focus now, but didn’t care. Nothing seemed to matter too awfully much.
I let my eyes slide around the room, intrigued. Enjoying what I saw. In the corner opposite me, opposite the door we came in, was shadow. I hadn’t noticed that before. I widened my sight, trying to peer into the dark corner. Everywhere else in the study had objects, trinkets, boxes, books. There was nothing at all in the corner, and I realized I couldn’t even see where the two walls met to form a corner. It was as if the space was a void of nothingness.
I saw teeth in the blackness. White, sharp, curling fangs winding open, too far open and up, into a wide and wicked grin.
I sucked in my breath, frozen, as eyes appeared above the unnaturally huge, haunting mouth. They were blood red, glowing, big as saucers. Goat’s eyes with sideways slits. It stared right at me, and then winked one red goat eye slowly, slowly.
I screamed like I was five.
Ava’s head snapped up, and she looked at the corner.
The thing there slinked out of the shadow. It was at least eight feet tall, covered in wine-red—or was it blood-stained?—sticky fur. Its torso was full of muscles, and two hairy arms reached out in front of it, with razor-sharp crab pitchers instead of hands. It clicked them together and it was an awful sound.
I heard another sound, scuttling and scraping as the rest of it came into the light. I now saw that its torso bent back, and it had a thorax covered in the same matted deep red fur. Nine centipede-like legs on each side carried it forward, and the creature never stopped grinning right…at…me!
I heard something like crystal hit the floor, but I couldn’t look down. I couldn’t help it. Terror took me and I wailed this time, holding out my hands, crying, “No, no, no!”
Ava jumped in front of me and grabbed my shoulders, shaking me. “Calm down, it’s alright!”
I hyperventilated, bent over gasping and shaking, my mind about to be lost from sanity forever. On the floor by my toe was Saint Jude’s ring. In my haze of terror, I remembered touching it when Ava was chanting. The trance. Something made me take it off without knowing and I had just dropped it.
Ava pulled me upright. “Look at me.” She frowned at my panic, then spun around to the monster that had come out of the darkness. “Bifrons! You knew it had to be me. Who else would summon you right from your own study?” She sounded like she chided a child. “Now, quit the act and be a man.”
I couldn’t stop sobbing even as the horrid creature disappeared into a cloud of blue smoke. As it cleared, a young man with long, blonde hair to his waist wearing black pants and t-shirt appeared.
“See?” Ava said, trying to calm me. “It’s him. He can look like that if he’s being a trickster.”
Trickster. He had been the absolutely most terrifying thing I could never unsee.
Ava guided me to the chair behind Bifrons’ desk and pushed me into it. I caught my breath, head down, still shaking.
And then I heard the sweetest sound since I’d died.
“Megan.”
I snapped my head to my left. Behind jewel-encrusted gold bars, wearing a pure white cotton robe, hands wrapped around the panes of her prison, was my dearest sister Ashley.
9.
I ran to her. We hugged hard and long, and I knew what eons were for the first time.
“I knew you would come,” she whispered.
I pulled back from her. She was thin, and her long, blonde hair frazzled at the ends, strays. Blue circles under her eyes, but the blue within them shined with tears of joy and something else…something haunted.
Fury filled me. I squeezed her arms, and then turned to him. “What have you done to her? Look at her!”
He looked down, a lock of hair falling over his face. “I need your help, Megan, and for what I’ve done I’m truly sorry.” His voice sounded soft, gentle, lilting.
Was this more demon trickery? “What are you talking about?”
He knelt before me, finally raising his eyes to mine. “I knew you’d come. That’s why I built the door. I didn’t want you to, because you would try to take her and succeed. But Aamon has betrayed me. Even worse, I have fed your sister the wonders of knowledge too quickly. Too much.” He reached a smooth hand to mine, took my fingertips in his, which felt uncomfortably warm. No sweat.
