Going Lucid, A YA Paranormal Page 10

  Lucifer wasn’t in the room.

  “My Lord. You have an appointment.”

  A loud rumbling echoed through the seemingly empty room, and it was then Malakha noticed that the reptilian beast was talking up towards the ceiling. Malakha followed his gaze and saw nothing but shadows. Thinking the rumble was disembodied like the wizard in the Wizard of Oz, Malakha started to take in the rest of the room.

  “Oh,” the voice rumbled, a sound that came from deep inside the belly.

  It was when Malakha was making her second scan across the ceiling that she saw part of the shadows move. So the voice wasn’t disembodied.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Malakha.”

  For a while there was silence and then another rumbling sound permeated the room.

  “Leave us to talk,” the voice said to the reptile.

  The reptile bowed and then left the room, closing the doors behind him. Malakha scanned the room again, this time searching for potential exits in case it took her too long to get back to Earth.

  “You are not one of my minions,” Lucifer said. His voice sounded like the voice that belonged to the thing that kept laughing in her world, but it was different. Not quite the same.

  “What gave it away?” Malakha asked, starting to get a little nervous now that she saw that the only way out the room was through the doors she came in from.

  “Your name… My minions don’t have those names.”

  “I’m from Heaven,” Malakha replied.

  Lucifer made the rumbling noise again and said, “Heaven?”

  He sounded angry. It made Malakha want to inch her way back towards the door, but she bet Lucifer moved like the harpies did too.

  “I need to ask you something, about things happening there. At my school,” Malakha added.

  Lucifer laughed a deep gruff laugh that told Malakha he was truly amused by what she said for some reason.

  “Your school? You think that I’d waste my time.”

  “It’s a Catholic school?” Malakha gave.

  Lucifer laughed again and added, “Is that supposed to make me care?”

  “I just want to know if you know what’s behind it. Two of the students are acting weird and I can hear one of your minions laughing,” Malakha added.

  Lucifer huffed. “I have my hands tied keeping the Vatican busy and using my suggestive power to control your world from this side of the divide. You think I would waste my time keeping up with the havoc my minions cause elsewhere on their own time? Good for them. It only helps my cause.”

  “It’s one school. Asking your minions to leave it and me alone won’t take away from you visions of dominion and grandeur,” Malakha said, forgetting who she was speaking to for a moment, at least until she noticed the shadows in the ceiling had stilled and suddenly there was Lucifer, standing in front of her.

  He looked nothing like she was taught the devil looked like. Then again she heard he was supposed to be tempting, and it was taking every amount of will power for Malakha to keep herself from gaping at him. Wow… Julius was nowhere near Lucifer’s league. And the fact that he was only wearing a robe that was only very loosely tied did nothing to persuade Malakha otherwise.

  “Well you’re certainly different,” he said and instead of the beastly rumbling, his voice was smooth, soothing, and persuasive.

  He took a step forward. Malakha took a step back.

  “How about you and I strike a deal.”

  This brought new meaning to making a deal with the devil…

  “I’ll see what I can do about your problem, but you have to do something for me,” Lucifer said.

  “And what’s that?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” he said, but his eyes said something else and Malakha pulled her cloak tighter around her, tilting the scythe upward some. “Why don’t you take off your cowl, and I’ll decide if I like what I see?”

  Was it just her or did Lucifer’s voice always sound so convincing, so suggestive, so tempting… Still she shook her head. Julius had warned her and though she didn’t know Julius that well, she trusted him a whole lot more than she trusted Lucifer. He just sounded way too good to be true. Nothing sounded that good.

  “I think I’ll just go. Obviously, you can’t help me,” Malakha said glaring at him, a warning to keep his distance. He wasn’t as intimidating when he looked like a man and not something slithering in the shadows.

  Lucifer laughed and said, “If you haven’t noticed, there’s only one way out and you don’t get out until I say you can.”

  “That’s what you think,” Malakha said, once again trying to find the background noise in the back of her head that was her awareness of her world. She found it and the timing couldn’t have been better, because just as she found it, Malakha found herself pinned down against her will for the second time that night.

  She concentrated on the background noise, all the while trying to keep Lucifer at bay. The scythe in her hand helped with that because when Lucifer realized she still had it, he tried to wrestle it out her grip.

  “I think something’s happening!”

  That was Sabrina’s voice.

  “It looks like… Like she’s fighting someone.”

  Malakha felt like she was drifting again and Hell again began to look surreal and mirage-like as she saw her world begin to appear on top. Then Hell was gone, and she was back in her world, in her physical body and in her bed.

  Chapter Ten

  Chaos

  Malakha popped up in bed, but that wasn’t what scared Malak and Sabrina. What scared her two friends were the scythe and cloak that fell on the floor next to her bed eliciting a surprised yelp from Sabrina and a cry of “What the hell?” from Malak.

  “What is that?” Sabrina asked looking at both the weapon and the cloak.

  Malakha took a moment to get her bearings straight before she looked over the side of the bed and saw the black cloak and scythe sitting on the floor.

  “The cloak! It came back with me. And the scythe did too!”

  “Who gave that to you?”

  Malakha swung her legs over the side of her bed and said, “No one. I took it from one of Lucifer’s minion.”

  “Lucifer?” Malak asked raising his eyebrows.

  “He’s the king of Hell.”

  “Like Satan.”

  Malakha tilted her head back and forth a little before replying, “Sort of.”

  “Wait a minute! What happened?” Sabrina asked.

  “I talked to Julius,” Malakha said as she picked up the cloak, “and he suggested I go talk to Lucifer if I wanted to find out what was going on. I had to steal this so I could first get to him and second so he wouldn’t be able to see who I was. As far as he knows, I could have been anyone.”

  “So what did you find out?”

  “Nothing except he’s got nothing to do with what’s happening here, and if any of his minions do, he doesn’t care. As far as he’s concerned, they’re allowed to have their fun,” Malakha replied as she removed the habit from over her uniform.

  “We still don’t know if this has anything to do with Hell,” Sabrina said sitting down. “As far as we know, this could all be a bunch of strange coincidences with no connection whatso—“

  “What’s that smell?” Malakha asked.

  “What smell?” Malak asked.

  Malakha threw down the habit and walked to the window, taking note of the orange glow of the darkening sky as she approached. That was weird. The sun had been setting when she first went under, and she could have sworn she was in Hell for at least a few hours. Malakha had never paid attention to how time ran in Hell in comparison to her own world, but she guessed it was safe to assume that time ran faster there… Only when Malakha was standing right in front of the window did she realize the orange glow had nothing to do with the sky. The sky was completely dark and a quick glance at her watch told Malakha that it was eleven o’clock, so time probably did run similar in Hell.

  She
opened the latch on the window to investigate the orange glow more, leaning the upper part of her body out the window. Malakha very nearly fell out the window in shock at what she was seeing. It looked like a bonfire or something and a few of the students, a mixture of boys and girls, were around it goofing off and throwing random things inside of it. The fire was getting bigger too and a little too close to the girl’s dorms for her liking.

  “Are they nuts?” Malakha asked, moving over so that Sabrina and Malak could see.

  “Hey!” Malak yelled trying to get their attention, but to no avail. They weren’t close enough and the students around the fire were laughing and talking too loud to be paying any attention.

  “What’s gotten into them?” Sabrina asked.

  Malakha grabbed her boots from the side of the bed and slipped them on her feet without even zipping them up.

  “I don’t know, but I would like not to die because a bunch of students were being stupid,” Malakha said as she started out the room. Sabrina and Malak followed.

  All three forgot that it was way past curfew and that there would be nuns monitoring the halls. So after they got down to the second floor, down the hall again, and began to round the corner to go down the stairs that led to the living area, they were unpleasantly surprised by running into a nun; Sister Mary to be exact; one of many “Sister Mary’s” in the school.

  “Damn it,” Malakha muttered tilting her head back as she held in a groan.

  “Where are you going young lady?” she asked and then noticed Malak trying to duck back around the corner. Looking scandalized, Sister Marry immediately added, “And what is he doing here?”

  “Relax. If I we were really up to something sinful, I would have found a much more discreet way to sneak him out than through the main hallway,” Malakha said and then said, “But listen, something’s happening outside!”

  “Back to bed! Both of you. And you!” Sister Mary said fixing Malak with a stern look. “Back to the boys’ dormitories. Father Lucas will be hearing about this.”

  “If you would just listen,” Malakha began starting to raise her voice, but it seemed Sister Mary wasn’t listening. Instead the nun was sniffing the air.

  Then the nun asked, “What is that smell?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” Malakha exclaimed while rolling her eyes. Adults! Honestly, they could all be so—

  Malakha’s train of thought was interrupted by the laughter, causing the exasperated look on her face to vanish as she began to frown.

  “Where is it coming from?” Sister Mary began to ask in reference to the smell. “The heater perhaps?”

  “That’s not the heater,” Malakha said breezing past the nun and making her way down the stairs and into the living area.

  She ignored the nun as she flew through the connecting hall and the foyer and out the front door to see the large bonfire. It had gotten bigger and closer to the entrance of the dorms.

  “Are you crazy?” Malakha asked after she was down the steps. She snatched one of the students toward her. It wasn’t a student she recognized. In fact, Malakha was beginning to doubt this was a student at all.

  The boy snatched his arm out of Malakha’s grip and proceeded to throw a glass bottle into the bonfire. It flared and pieces of flaming debris shot out of the fire.

  “You’ve got to put this out!” Malakha said, trying not to lose her temper at the way everyone part of the group was lounging around the fire as if it wasn’t getting bigger and threatening to get out control. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  Malakha went around to the side of the dorms, where she knew there to be a water hose with a powerful spray attachment that should at the very least contain the fire. When she came back with it, Sister Mary was already outside and sending Sabrina to find Father Lucas and possibly call 911. Malak was trying to gain the attention of the rest of the teenagers, whom Malakha was beginning to believe were drunk, maybe even high.

  Malakha turned on the sprayer and began to douse the fire. Seeing their bonfire begin to dissipate caused the teenager, whose arm she had grabbed earlier, to turn to her.

  “Stop it,” he said lunging for Malakha.

  Malakha moved out the way, but tripped over the hose in the process, causing her to fall backwards anyway and lose her grip on the sprayer. She scrambled to her feet again, trying to move out the way of the fire and grab the sprayer again, but the teenager grabbed part of the hose and tried to yank it out Malakha’s hand. This was one of the times that Malakha cursed her size. She was by no means a little girl, but she wasn’t like some of the girls at the school who were tall and thickly built like Malak’s sister. So because she was much smaller than the male teenager yanking on the hose, Malakha not only lost her grip on the hose, but on her footing as well causing her to stumble into him. They both crashed to the damp ground.

  He rolled them over so that he was on top of her and then sat up so that he was kneeling next to her with the sprayer in hand. As he brought it down to try to knock her out with it, Malakha bent one of her legs and kicked him in the chest. He fell back near the flames and part of his hair caught fire. Malakha stood, starting to pull the hose toward her so that she could use the sprayer. She had her hands fixed on the sprayer when the laughter, that she had begun to simply associate with the background noise, got louder.

  Then Malak shouted, “Malakha! Look!”

  The older teenager was pointing up, and Malakha thought it was something in the sky at first until she spotted someone on the roof. The person then stepped onto the ledge of the building. Then they swayed a little before gaining their balance.

  “What is she doing?” Malakha asked trying to ignore the laughter as it got louder.

  “I think she’s going to jump into the fire!” Malak yelled.

  “What?” Sister Mary said looking up in the direction Malak and Malakha were. “Is that a student?”

  “For you all’s sake, I hope not,” Malakha said imagining the lawsuits that would come as a result of a student committing suicide by jumping off the roof and into a bonfire.

  The laughter increased, and this time it was accompanied by a voice.

  “Ignoring me?” it asked her.

  “Are you doing this?” Malakha asked aloud causing both Malak and Sister Mary to look at her. She ignored their looks, hoping Malak would come up with something to tell Sister Mary. “Why?”

  By this time, more students were beginning to gather outside. Some were gasping at the potential disaster. Others took out their phones to film it.

  “It’s fun. You and me… We’re both the same.”

  Malakha growled. “I’m nothing like you. I may not believe in all this stupid religion stuff, but I don’t make mockery of it by hurting people like you.”

  “You sure about that?”

  Malakha paused, trying to figure out why the demon or whatever it was sounded so smug.

  “What do you mean?”

  He laughed. Then he said, “Have you ever asked your friend if your little rants hurt her?”

  “I’m not like you,” Malakha said, ignoring the nagging feeling that made her want to review her conversations with one of the only friends she had at school. “This is wrong. Stop it.”

  The voice didn’t answer only laughed again, making Malakha turn her attention back to the student who was egging the crowd below on.

  “Malakha,” Malak said coming to stand next to her, “do you know how to get up there?”

  “I may be a little rebellious every now and then, but I’m not reckless,” Malakha replied. Malak looked at her expectantly with an eyebrow raised. “Doesn’t mean I don’t have an idea…”

  Malakha ran back inside the girl’s dormitories with Malak racing behind her. She climbed up the stairs to the second floor and then rounded around the banister to climb to the third. Many girls had left their room doors open when they rushed outside to see what was going on, so Malakha chose a random one and went to the window. She threw the latch open
and then climbed out onto the thick ledge.

  “Get out here Malak. I’m going to need a boost,” Malakha said.

  “Should I at all be concerned that at some point you thought of a way to get on top of the roof?” Malak asked climbing out with her.

  Malakha ignored his comment and urged him to pick her up by the waist so that she could grab on to the edge of the roof. Then Malak put his hands under her feet to help her raise herself onto the roof. Malakha hoped Malak could get up here on his own because she doubted she had the strength to help pull him up. That also meant that if she tried to catch this eccentric student before she jumped into the bonfire, the bonfire that the monks and nuns below seemed to be having trouble trying to put out, she may only succeed in making them both fall into it.

  She made her was across the roof to where the student was balanced—Malakha used that term loosely—on the edge, soaking in the attention from below.

  “Get back here,” Malakha said while trying to keep her distance. If she tried to grab the other girl, she may fall or jump off before Malakha could reach her.

  “No! It’ll be fun!”

  “Do you want to die?” Malakha yelled as the laughter of the demon or whatever was causing this was joined by others.

  The girl didn’t answer, only turned around and spread her arms out.

  “Stop this,” Malakha shouted to the demons in Hell she knew to be causing this. “This isn’t funny!”

  They ignored her and Malakha ran up to the ledge to catch the girl just as she fell off the ledge. She caught the girl by one of her arms with both hands and struggled to pull her up. The fire had gotten higher and licked at the bottom of the girl’s feet, but she didn’t notice as she was more concerned with scratching Malakha’s hands and arms with her free hand.

  “I’m trying to save you,” Malakha yelled, trying not to call the girl the multitude of rude names running through her head as she looked at the sky, not sure where the divide was, but knowing the demons from hell could hear her as she said, “You bastard. Stop this.”

  Many things happened in succession. First, thunder began to boom in the sky and the laughing stopped as though the demons in Hell had stopped to pay attention to it. Second, the girl somehow managed to bite one of Malakha arms causing Malakha to let go of her. Then finally, the girl fell, but as she did so, rain began to pour heavily from the sky.