Chapter 29
Hunted
Jeremy took a seat in the corner of his room and swatted Ms. Fritz away with his hand. After she closed the door behind her, Jeremy examined the contents of the room. Its furnishings were simple―a single green chair, which he now sat in, occupied the corner of the room. His bed sat against the wall and it had thick orange curtains all around it, except the side closest to the door, which was held open by a carrot-shaped clasp. A small well occupied the other corner of the room, and Jeremy couldn't decide whether this was supposed to be a toilet, a bath, or a drinking fountain.
He sighed and held up the Dragon's Horn. So he had brought Leviathan's horn to Mantel. Leviathan may have been God's sport, but Mantel thought of the horn as a trophy. The angel Gabriel had said to Jeremy, "The beast thrives on pride and envy. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. Know your place, Apollyon." The words didn't sit well with Jeremy. Jeremy had challenged the sea dragon Leviathan out of necessity. His battle was interrupted by the angel Gabriel. It was Gabriel who threw the beast into the ocean. Was Leviathan the beast? Was Lucifer the beast? Jeremy was well aware that people considered him to be proud to a fault. But envious? Yes, thought Jeremy, there's my true sin. The truth was he didn't want to fight a sea dragon or Mantel or demons. He didn't want divine powers or a throne next to Lucifer. Was Apollyon supposed to lock away Lucifer? What about the creatures that Apollyon supposedly lords over―the scorpion-like amalgamations that torture people―was that his primary role, to torture people? Jeremy Chikalto, the thug of God, to be cast away after the dirty deed was done.... Or was it that Apollyon was Lucifer. Why was the passage so cryptic? Why couldn't Jeremy just sing and dance with Maren? Jeremy envied those without his burden. Humility was a lack of pride, yes, but humility also required obedience. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded.
Jeremy found himself nodding off when the door creaked open. It was Jasmine holding a tray of food.
"I've just brought you some food," she said, tiptoeing closer to him. "If it's not a good time, I'll leave. I hadn't expected you to sleep."
"Poisoned, I presume?" Jeremy turned away from the food.
"Oh no, see?" Jasmine began eating off the tray at random.
"Try that piece," said Jeremy, leaning forward and gesturing to a piece of broccoli.
Jasmine placed it in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed.
Jeremy smiled wryly.
"You must leave," whispered Jasmine suddenly, as she poked at the food.
"Oh?" Jeremy raised his eyebrows at her.
"Mantel plans to consume your soul. He thinks if he eats you, he will absorb your power and defeat the demons. Then he will wait for Judgment Day. He is no ally."
"Why are you telling me this?"
Jasmine cradled her belly and looked down. "I'm pregnant. I am to give birth so that he can eat an innocent baby. He believes it will make him stronger. Mantel's nothing but a power-hungry monster. Please, leave. Now."
Jeremy stood up, almost knocking the tray over. "You'll have to come with me."
"I'll die and so will the baby. I just want to feel the baby kicking inside me, that's all I can hope for―to feel this life." Jasmine gently patted her belly, and then slid a carrot into her mouth. "I'm fed well. The baby grows. Take your powers, whatever they be, and flee this place." Jasmine stood up and walked quickly out of the room. Jeremy called after her, but she was gone.
Jeremy ran his fingers through his hair. This wasn't it. This wasn't his fate; it couldn't be. Jeremy could feel the tears on his lashes. Jasmine's baby shouldn't have to exist perpetually in the sick amalgamation that was Mantel. He'd save her and the baby. He was a good person. Maren believed in him, and he felt so alive, just now, with empathy and love―how could he be bad? He wasn't Satan. And maybe that was it―maybe it came down to a choice in action. He would choose good. Jeremy slipped the Dragon's Horn into the Haze and let it float there. He didn't even bother to look around for demons; he knew they were there.
As Jeremy exited the Haze, the door swung open. Mantel hovered through, followed by Ms. Fritz, Bentley, and Drew. "I hope your conversation with Jasmine was fruitful." Mantel's head fell on its side as he massaged his throat. He snapped it back. The air began to swim. "What did she say?" He loomed closer, a strange expression on his strange face.
"That I should have a bite to eat." Jeremy zapped slightly and stood with his back up against the wall.
"Perhaps we should all have a bite to eat." The faces under Mantel's skin began to bubble to the surface, mouths opened wide, lips nearly bulging through the sickly flesh. Mantel flickered out of sight and then reappeared directly in front of Jeremy.
Jeremy pushed Mantel back with both hands and a hasty electric blast, and slipped into the Haze. In the familiar purple light, shadows swelled all around him, reaching out to him. The demons had swarmed his Dragon's Horn like rodents on a carcass, and were picking at it. When he turned away from them, the demons released the Horn and let it bob in space, and eyed Jeremy hungrily. Jeremy flew between two ghastly outstretched hands and entered a different shaft of light.
The atmosphere was lighter now, and he was in the Upper Haze. To his horror, shadows began to filter in, and the demons gathered around him. He fled again, passing by an elk. The elk, startled, opened its mouth, releasing the cord it was hauling, and a diseased body flew back into the crowd of demons. The elk cried out and charged the horde, provoking a dark laughter that echoed in the fog. The elk regained its ward and blinked into another plane, taking the soul with it. The demons were uninterested. They had one target alone.
Jeremy continued to travel upward into greater abstraction, but his hunters were relentless. Desperate, he finally ducked out of the Haze and landed by the oasis in the Maze, its waters eerily calm and undisturbed. Fedonis's shop lay just ahead of him. Jeremy pushed through a series of doors, until he barged into Fedonis's room. Fedonis leapt up from his chair, dropping his Rubik's cube.
"Fool child! You'll give me a heart attack, and that's no way to go when you're livin' next to a bunch of monsters!"
Jeremy ignored the old man, who was waggling his finger furiously, and set the ladder against the wall. He climbed up, and then leapt onto the platform. "Maren! Maren, are you here?" Jeremy raced down the corridor to her room. "Lyrna? Hey, Tina, get up!" He knocked on Tina's door and then beat on Maren's, both of which were locked.
"Yes?" said a groggy Maren from behind the door. "What is it? What time is it? Listen to me, as if time mattered down here―"
"Maren, open the door! We have to be ready!" Jeremy pounded on the door.
Maren flung the door open and she rubbed her eyes. "Ready for what?"
Tina emerged from her room, also rubbing her eyes. "Is everything okay?"
Lyrna padded out of Maren's room, hissing, her fur standing on end. There were strange whispers coming from the corners of the corridor. Jeremy grabbed at Lyrna's ear tuft and scooped her up.
"The demons are everywhere―we have to think of something. Mantel knows where we are. He tried to―"
"Wait!" yelled Maren, suddenly alert. "Where were you? What happened?"
Jeremy quickly relayed how he had snuck out in the middle of the night to talk to Mantel. He told them of Jasmine and her plight, the warning she issued, and the subsequent attack by Mantel. "And the Haze is full of demons. I don't know how safe we are in here. Mantel knows our location. The demons are coming through to find me, I know it!" Jeremy paced back and forth, cradling Lyrna in his arms. "I'm so sorry. I just want you to be safe. I don't know which is the more immediate threat. Normally you should pick the devil you know over the ones you don't, but there are exceptions. Mantel could come here at any minute."
Fedonis poked his head up over the ladder and squinted viciously at the party. "What's this now? Jazz men? Mantel? Demons? Out! All of you, shoo!" The old man lifted his cane up into the corridor and started to poke in their gen
eral direction.
There was a polite knock at the door to Fedonis's shop. Everyone went quiet. Jeremy's body started to buzz. Lyrna wriggled free from his arms and bared her teeth.
There was another knock.
"Fooey to this!" yelped the old man, and he jumped down from the ladder, grabbed some potions, and hobbled over to a large stone in the corner. He fumbled with it for a few seconds, pushing it around in a specific pattern. "Aha!" he said as it moved to the side, uncovering a small tunnel. He leapt inside, and the stone snapped back into place.
The door pushed open gently. Jeremy turned and looked at Maren, Tina, and Lyrna. There was no way out, except through the Haze. They were trapped, their backs to their sleeping quarters―no exits. Jeremy examined the place in his mind's eye from all angles. They'd have to take a chance and see if they could escape through the rock that Fedonis had exited through. He had no idea where it led to, or if it was even accessible to anyone other than Fedonis. "We have to try that stone!" Jeremy held out his hand to Maren and she grabbed it. He led her to the ladder and jumped down.
"Bonjour, Jeremy." Ms. Fritz stood in the doorway. Her voice had that same forced pleasantness that made him sick earlier. "What happened back there? You left so soon. We've made another portal for you, just behind me. Why don't you bring your friends?"
Jeremy spread his arms protectively, while Maren, Tina, and Lyrna climbed down the ladder and ran towards the stone.
"What's this? Where are you sneaking off to?" Ms. Fritz turned behind her and nodded to someone behind the door just out of view.
Maren worked hard to pry Fedonis's stone from the wall. Fedonis had made it look so effortless. Tina joined her. Jeremy backed up towards them, his arms still spread out. "Who's with you, Gorda?"
Ms. Fritz sneered as Bentley and Drew entered the room, weapons drawn.
“Of course,” said Jeremy.
Mantel appeared in a flash above the IIU, his long cloak brushing the tops of their heads. Mantel's jaw was unhinged and his mouth was wide open, strands of black smoke snaking out. The room wavered.
Maren desperately jiggled the stone, cursing Fedonis under her breath for his annoying puzzles. Tina scanned the potions on Fedonis's shelf. She tried to remember which ones he was bragging about a few hours ago. This one would tranquilize an angry dragon, Fedonis said in her mind. She grabbed the potion and held it tightly in her shaky fist.
Mantel was floating towards Jeremy, licking his lips. His shadow began to spread out against the wall. Tina lobbed a vial filled with a pink bubbling liquid right into Mantel's gaping mouth, and it shattered inside, releasing a foul smelling gas. Mantel gagged, his shadow retreated, and he tumbled to the floor.
Bentley and Drew ran to Mantel's side. The smell of the potion made their limbs convulse, but still they lifted their weapons and began firing at Tina.
In the few seconds it took them to steady their shots, Jeremy had summoned a shield of energy, and the blasts were absorbed harmlessly into the blue shield. Beads of sweat ran down Jeremy's forehead, his eyes closed; he couldn't hold them for long. “Maren, talk to me!” he yelled back to her.
"I think I've got it!" cried Maren, pushing the stone aside. She quickly crawled into the tunnel. Tina and Lyrna followed. Jeremy shot two orbs through the shield straight into Bentley and Drew's shins, and they collapsed in pain. Mantel was still twitching on the floor, but he was starting to regain his bearings.
Jeremy crawled in last and clicked the stone back in place. Ahead of them was thirty feet of a claustrophobic tunnel. They crawled through at a grueling pace, scraping their skin on the rock, but they could feel the blasts behind them. The walls of the tunnel shook and debris fell from the clay-rock ceiling in flakes.
"Almost there!" yelled Maren. Three feet separated her from the opening at the end of Fedonis's tunnel. Then there was a blast that dwarfed the previous ones, and the walls started to collapse. Maren fell on her belly and Tina's chin slammed on the floor of the tunnel. Jeremy, who was still in the rear, poured energy behind him and rocketed forward into the caravan ahead, pushing everyone out of the tunnel just before it collapsed in on itself. As they landed in a heap inside a cavern on the other side of the former tunnel, Mantel manifested in front of them.
Mantel rose high in the air. There was a whining sound all around him, as the fabric of the universe was being twisted by Mantel's rage. Mantel's body turned pitch black, but a blinding white penumbra was forming around him like a solar eclipse. The cavern began to fluctuate, and all perceptions were distorted. Bentley, Drew, and Ms. Fritz stumbled through a rift in the rubble.
A hushed voice echoed in every mind: "All may perish but Apollyon! I shall digest his essence while it still vibrates." Mantel unhinged his jaw again and the top portion of his head fell back, his eyes burning yellow. A large, noxious red tongue unfurled and Mantel began to emanate a deep, hollow sound like a great wind in a canyon. Jeremy was being drawn steadily into the vacuum. His tattered clothes began to unthread themselves. His skin flashed through in streaks―a blinding silver brought to the surface. He tried to use his powers, but found that everything he started fizzled; his essence was being consumed.
Maren and Tina looked on in horror. They found that they too were without strength; there was nothing to do. Lyrna began involuntarily flickering in and out of the Haze, so repelled was her spirit from Mantel. Then, all minds swam in a dream, a sea of images. All went black and a voice said:
When Cain and Abel were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother, and slew him. And the LORD said unto Cain, now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.
But to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of paradise. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna. To him that overcometh will I give power over the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron.
At the end of days there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon;
and the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Then the people took Jesus, and scourged him. And
the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and they put on him a purple robe, And said, Hail, King of the Jews! and they smote him with their hands. And they cried out, Away with him, crucify him.
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up His ghost.
To thee shall be his submission, and Cain may rule over all.
The blackness broke, and Maren cried out to Jeremy over the whine of the wind, "It's all out of order!"
"Fool." Mantel's voice had entered Maren's head, and she went into seizures. "She who has ears, let her hear. My Kingdom has come!"
Whispers began to gather in the dark, and shadows shifted. At the far end of the room, there was a long hallway that disappeared into the distance. A thick black smoke rolled forward. Red eyes flashed in the dark like electric roses. The walls were wavering like rising heat.
Mantel's slitted eyes rolled back in his head, and he choked as a lump traveled up through his neck, stretching the pink, oozing skin taut. A soul fragment, black as oil, screamed and exploded from the mouth, and shot into the corner of the room, where shadows had begun to grow and solidify into hooded figures. The room was rapidly filling with hundreds of demons, some reptilian, some insect-like, and others goat-headed, all chattering in a soft alien tongue. A demon screeched. Mantel heaved and broke his suction on Jeremy. "Retreat!" he gasped.
The first row of demons flew towards Drew. They tore him into pieces in seconds and consumed his body and spirit. A demon's belly expanded and burned a fiery red. Drew's hand hung limply from one demon's mouth and then burned to ash. The army glided forward.
Mantel's body fell to the floor and began to convulse. He cursed and struggled to subdue the Hell-bent souls within him. Another escaped through a slit in his chest. Mantel gave Jeremy one last look, hate boiling over in his eyes, and he vanished.
Ms. Fritz fled towards the rubble. "Master!" she screamed. "Save me!"
“Gorda, go,” said Bentley, and he charged into the mass of demons, drawing a large knife from his boot. The demons cackled, and one leapt onto his back, knocking him to the floor and sending the knife skittering across the stone. They descended on him and then shredded him as he screamed.
Ms. Fritz stumbled through the rubble, and her foot caught on a rock. She twisted it all the way around, and fell face first, breaking her nose. There were several demons closing in, laughing at the sport. “Mantel!” cried Ms. Fritz. Just as the demons reached her, a gray wisp of Mantel appeared, encasing his underling. She wavered and then vanished with him.
Jeremy, Maren, Tina, and Lyrna stood in the center of the cavern, backs pressed together.
"What do you want?!" yelled Jeremy, who felt his energy slowly returning. He ducked into the Haze to look for an escape route, but it was useless; they were surrounded in all planes. Jeremy returned to the Maze, took a deep breath, and enclosed Maren, Tina, and Lyrna in a globe of energy. The shield flickered like a dying light bulb.
A demon held out its hand as it approached the forcefield. Its hood fell back and a dull gray aura, vibrating like a million tiny insects, hummed around a goat's desiccated skull. Horns pierced through the gray, the tips sparkling like diamonds. The demon bowed its head, and said in a gravelly voice, "Magister Apollyon, serviamus tibi." Its spectral hand pierced the globe and touched Tina's shoulder.
Tina grabbed at her throat and made a hoarse gagging sound. Her eyes rolled back in her skull and her hair floated up from her shoulders. Tina's voice was high-pitched and warbled. She turned to Jeremy. "Master Apollyon, we will serve thee."
###
Be sure to check out these other books in
The Hazy Souls series!
Jeremy Chikalto and the Hazy Souls
(Book 1 of The Hazy Souls)
2011
Jeremy Chikalto and Leviathan Island
(Book 2 of The Hazy Souls)
2012
Jeremy Chikalto and the Demon Trace
(Book 3 of The Hazy Souls)
2013
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