Going Lucid, A YA Paranormal Page 9

  The building seemed very familiar, and it was only as she was climbing down the rickety stairs, careful to avoid splinters in the wood, that she realized why. It seemed this old building, church or whatever, was like a rundown mirror image of her school. In fact, the last time she was in Hell, the neighborhood she had been in was an even more rundown version of the neighborhood Eliza’s boyfriend lived in. Malakha wondered if there was a rundown mirror image in Hell of every place that was on Earth or Heaven as Julius had called it.

  “You look a little lost honey.”

  Malakha turned around, stumbling off the last step of the staircase as she did so. At the top of the steps was a woman, older than her and very… voluptuous was the only way Malakha could describe it. It was hard not to notice the dark skinned woman’s curves with the short miniskirt and the tight bodice she was wearing. Was it even safe to have breasts that big?

  “Not really,” Malakha said. She should probably feel a little more comfortable around the woman than she did around Julius being that she was naked, but for some reason she wasn’t. For some reason, she really wished Julius was here instead, and Malakha wasn’t sure if that was because the woman made her feel really insecure about her own body or if it was the way the woman seemed to be leering at her. Julius didn’t look at her like that.

  “You sure?” the woman asked as she began to come down the stairs. She cocked her head to the left a little.

  The gesture was innocent enough, but it seemed so much more sinister to Malakha.

  “Perfectly,” Malakha said and when the woman was getting too close, began to take a few steps back.

  Malakha wasn’t exactly sure what happened next, only that one moment the woman was halfway down the steps and the next Malakha was being pressed against the wall with her hands forced on either side of her and one the woman’s legs lodged between her legs. Malakha tried to move out the way, trying to take advantage of the fact that she was smaller than the woman since it was a tactic that worked in the movies. Apparently, it didn’t quite work that easy in real life. She was effectively pinned.

  Malakha heard voices as she continued to struggle against the woman’s grip.

  “Nancy,” another female voice sang from amongst the voices. “Who is that?”

  “Just a lost little pet who stumbled into our abode,” the woman, Nancy, said.

  As she said this, she breathed buried her nose in Malakha’s neck and inhaled deeply. When she exhaled, she began to nuzzle her head in the crook of Malakha’s neck like a baby or even a cat.

  “Need some help!” another woman’s voice asked from amongst the excited giggles.

  “No. I can handle this one,” Nancy said and then she stuck out her tongue and licked Malakha from the bottom of her neck all the way to the back of her ear. Malakha shivered and tried to break free again. All she needed was one of her hands.

  “Always so selfish Nancy,” said another voice, disappointment evident in her tone.

  “You taste delicious,” Nancy said giggling.

  “Thank you,” Malakha said through gritted teeth as she tried to breathe, a feat made hard because the woman had the weight of her whole body pressed against her.

  The woman laughed and then pulled her head back a little so that she could look Malakha in the eye. Her red eyes shone with glee and when she grinned, she showed off sharp, yellow stained canines.

  “A fucking vampire,” Malakha muttered. “Perfect.”

  It was then she remembered the silver pocket knife in her hand. Sabrina suggested that she take it with her, just in case, and Malakha was glad she had. She flicked it open and then went lax in the Nancy’s arms, hoping that it would make the woman loosen her grip.

  She did, and Malakha used the opportunity to snatch her wrist out her arms and cut the woman across the cheek. Nancy jumped back, letting out a terrible screech. Then wings appeared on her back, and feathers grew on her arms while her nails elongated and turned into claws and her feet curled into talons, somehow managing to cause the woman’s black cowboy style boots with silver buckles to only slip off instead of ripping them to shreds.

  Malakha could only watch, mouth agape at the transformation, and she suddenly understood why people in movies simply stared in shock when a monster appeared and started to come for them. She couldn’t move, not sure whether she would have been better off if the woman had been a vampire. At least a vampire might be a little rational. Harpies, from what she knew of the legends, were not!

  The beast’s second screech snapped Malakha out of her reverie. This time it didn’t sound like the harpy was in pain or even angry. This sounded like a cry for help.

  “Well don’t just stand there! Run!”

  Malakha only processed that she had heard Julius’s voice after she had started running in the opposite direction of the harpy in search of an exit. If the layout of this building was anything like her school, then she already knew them all. All she had to do was get to them.

  “Malakha duck!”

  Malakha fell face first on the floor again and felt Julius jump over her. He collided into the harpy that had started to chase her. The harpy fell onto the ground while Julius fell neatly on his feet. Then he grabbed the harpy’s arm and spun around with her three times to gain momentum before letting her go. The harpy flew back down the hall and into two of her fellow harpies that had come to help her.

  Julius then reached down to grab Malakha’s hand.

  “Come on. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “I’m not arguing with that,” Malakha said, but then Julius pulled her towards a broken window. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting us out of here?”

  “I don’t know about you, but where I come from, humans don’t fly.”

  “I know they don’t,” Julius said and before Malakha could respond, he grabbed her around the waist and launched them out the second story window.

  Malakha barely had a chance to scream before they landed on the back of something soft, something that was flying them away from the building that was occupied by harpies.

  “Hold on,” Julius yelled over the wind and then added, “And don’t argue with me this time!”

  Malakha had no objections anyway and clutched Julius around his chest as he steered whatever it was they were riding on. They landed only a few minutes later, in the middle of a dead barren field that was far away from the harpies’ home.

  Julius then grabbed Malakha around her waist again and jumped off their ride. When Malakha turned around to see what it was, she realized that it was the zombie-like eagle that had attacked them the last time she was in Hell.

  Seeing her bewildered look, Julius said, “It only needed to be tamed.”

  “Sure,” Malakha said shivering a little and remembering her state of undress now that her life wasn’t in danger. “Give me your coat.”

  “Who are you to be making demands?”

  Malakha gave Julius a wry look, a little disturbed with herself at the fact that she was more comfortable around him naked than she had been with the female from before; probably because he wasn’t trying to eat her, even though he did seem to have a wandering eye.

  Julius sighed as he took off the coat and handed it to her.

  “Not like I could see anything. It’s too dark,” he said as she put the coat on. “Speaking of the fact that it’s dark, what are you doing here? Late at night no less? That’s even more dangerous than being out in the open during the day for people like you.”

  “Because I needed to talk to you and at night is the only time the nuns and the monks will leave me alone long enough on a weekday to be here for a while.”

  “For a while?”

  “Not like that. Just long enough to talk to you.”

  “Talk to me. For what?”

  Malakha shivered, still trying to knock off the cold some. Noticing that, Julius roughly said, “Come here.”

  Malakha stopped rubbing her arms, cautious of his outstretched arm.

>   “Why?” she asked taking a step back in case she needed to run away from him too, even though she was sure he would catch her anyway.

  “Do you want to freeze to death?”

  Malakha looked at him, understanding of what he was offering slowly dawning on her. Finally she said, “I guess not.”

  “Then come here.”

  Malakha slowly approached him and when she was in his reach, he grabbed her and led them both to where the large bird they had ridden on was resting. He sat them both against the beast’s tail feathers and then pulled Malakha into his arms to keep her warm.

  “Now tell me again why you came to talk to me.”

  Malakha sighed, trying to ignore how nice it was to have Julius’ arms around her.

  “Something weird is going on in my world, at my school.”

  “Weird how?” Julius asked.

  Malakha started at the beginning, with the laughter, followed by her first time in Hell after the rave, then the laughter that had been followed by Eliza attacking her, and then Michael having a seizure in the middle of the hall after hearing the same laughter accompanied with growls of anger. Julius was silent after she was done, and Malakha started to think that he had fallen asleep. She looked up to make sure and saw that he was only staring straight ahead.

  “So what do you think?” she asked.

  “I think you have a problem on your hands,” he replied.

  “I know that,” Malakha replied.

  “No. You don’t. This is just going to get worse.”

  “How?”

  “Because for a demon to control a person through the cracks in the divide is delicate business. Whoever is causing the trouble at your school is going about it sloppily, and I think it’s because it noticed you could hear it when he hadn’t made a conscious connection with you,” Julius explained.

  Malakha tucked her legs in closer to her body and asked, “What do you mean it’s going about haunting my school sloppily?”

  “It’s not haunting your school and when I say sloppily, I mean that…” Julius trailed off and then said, “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re not from Hell.”

  “Then I guess you’ll have to explain it to me,” Malakha said. “It’s not like I have anywhere else to be.”

  “People from hell can’t just start shouting through a crack to someone they’ve made a connection to in order to control them. Otherwise they fight it and stuff like what happened with that guy in the hall happens. They get hurt trying to resist the command because in your world stuff like that means the person is crazy or something right?” Julius asked.

  Malakha nodded against his chest.

  “Or people like that girl that attacked you want the voice to shut up so bad that they recklessly try to do what it says or try to silence the voice by destroying themselves.”

  That explained why Eliza tried to kill herself, Malakha thought.

  “It has to start out subtle and then as the victim gets used to it, they think it’s just their own voice in their head. They think they’re still in control when really, they’re acting on something else’s accord. For a relatively weak person, it could take only a few days. For someone with a very strong will though, it could take years, maybe never.”

  “So it’s definitely trying to get my attention?”

  “Maybe,” Julius said. “You won’t know for sure unless you find out what it is actually doing this through the divide.”

  “And how do I do that?” Malakha asked.

  Julius unwrapped his arms from around her, and Malakha tried to ignore how cold it was when he did. He stood up and then helped Malakha to her feet.

  “Ask Lucifer about it. He might be able to help.”

  Malakha blinked, the name sounding so familiar that she had to make sure Julius had said it and not something else.

  “Did you say Lucifer?”

  “Yeah.”

  “As in Satan?”

  Julius laughed. “Is that what the people in Heaven call him?”

  “Never mind,” Malakha said, shaking her head dismissively. “Who is he?”

  “Who do you think? He’s the king of Hell.”

  “The king?” Malakha asked.

  “Yeah. Don’t you people in Heaven have a king?”

  Malakha shrugged. “Some places do. Not everywhere.”

  Julius hummed as he began to climb back on the large zombie eagle. He reached down to help Malakha on.

  “You can get me to Lucifer so I can talk to him?”

  Julius hesitated a little before saying, “I can get you to where he is. Getting you to talk to him is a different story.”

  ******

  Julius was right. Getting her to Lucifer was one thing. Getting her to talk to him would be hard. It took them a few hours on Julius’ bird to get them to Lucifer’s castle; a large dark and bleak place that, while much more put together than anything else Malakha had seen in hell, was still cold, dilapidated and dull. If that wasn’t enough, the sounds coming out of the castle made up for it. Awful screeches, moans, and other unpleasant noises pierced the walls and beasts flew, scuttled, and walked in and out of the castle and into the dull city that surrounded it. In essence, Malakha and Julius stuck out like lambs amongst wolves.

  “How are we going to get in there?”

  Julius pointed out one of the many humanoid beasts walking in and out of the castle.

  “See what those things are wearing?”

  “Yeah,” Malakha said as she looked at the long flowing black cloaks the beasts were wearing. In their hands were long sharp scythes, all with long silver blades and not for the first time since visiting Hell did Malakha wonder if she was the only person with experiences in Hell. These beasts looked like the very image of the grim reaper that she had seen in books.

  “Those are given to them personally by Lucifer. It specifically marks them as one of his minions. If there’s any kind of havoc going on in Heaven, you best believe that they have everything to do with it on Lucifer’s behalf,” Julius explained.

  “What’s Lucifer got against Heaven?”

  “Your people kicked him out of Heaven. That’s what,” Julius muttered poking his head from behind the large rock near the castle. “Now all we have to do is wait for one of them to come this way.”

  Malakha clutched Julius’ coat a little tighter against her. “And then what?”

  “We take the cloak.”

  Malakha thought that sounded a little dangerous, but Julius seemed so nonchalant about the issue that she couldn’t help but be a little nonchalant herself… At least until they finally came face to face with a beast.

  Malakha narrowly avoided the claws and the scythe of the beast that Julius snuck up on to attack. But it was so focused on her, easy prey she guessed, that it forgot about Julius entirely until he kicked it in the back, causing it to fall forward and drop its scythe in the process.

  “Pick up the scythe,” Julius yelled.

  “You don’t have to tell me to do that,” Malakha said, already scrambling for the weapon as best she could while trying not to trip over Julius’ coat. She picked up the scythe just as the beast regained its footing. Without thinking, Malakha swung the scythe as hard as she could into the chest of the dog-like demon. It let out a terrible cry before dissipating into dust. The cloak fell to the ground.

  “See. That wasn’t too hard,” Julius said as he picked up the cloak.

  He was grinning at her, but Malakha didn’t find anything worth grinning at and so just panted, still holding the scythe in her hands. While she stood there, Julius brought the cloak to her and put it on her body. As he fastened the front, he gave her instructions on how to make it through the castle.

  “Whatever you do, keep this hood on!” Julius said as he pulled it over her head. “When you get to Lucifer, you can tell him you’re from Heaven if you want, but as long as this cowl is on, he won’t know who you are. Remember. This is Lucifer,
the king of Hell, you’re dealing with. Not me.”

  Malakha nodded, dropping the scythe so that she could put her arms through the wide sleeves of the cloak. Then she picked it back up.

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll find a way in later.”

  Malakha nodded and made her way towards the castle. The walk seemed longer than it had appeared to be from the rock they had been hiding behind. But finally she made her way across the bridge to the castle, trying to act natural even though there were beasts much bigger and stronger than her walking past.

  Malakha tried to think where the throne room would be if she had a castle and figured it wouldn’t kill her to just wander around until she figured out where she was going. At the worst, someone would figure out she wasn’t supposed to be there and she would just go back home.

  “Where are you going?”

  Malakha turned around, making sure she kept her head down so that the cowl completely hid her face. There was a large beast standing behind her, with a much bigger scythe than the one she had and even though his cowl was up, his dark red eyes were visible underneath. Malakha opened and closed her mouth, trying to come up with an excuse before deciding on the truth.

  “I’m going to see Lucifer,” she said.

  The large beast looked down on her and never had Malakha been so aware of how small she really was. The beast inhaled deeply and then exhaled, disturbing the air around them.

  Then it said, “Does he have an appointment with you?”

  “Yes,” Malakha said.

  “Then we will continue,” it rumbled and began to walk past her. It then gestured with a scaled hand to follow it.

  Malakha did so, hoping she had said the right thing. The reptilian beast didn’t say anything as it led her down the hall and then up a grand staircase. At the top of the steps were a set of large black double doors with large silver handles. Malakha wasn’t even sure that she had the strength to open the doors. Luckily, the large reptilian beast with dark red eyes opened them for her. He made his way in, and Malakha followed.