But this time would be different. This time it had brought a plaything back with it. It felt the woman writhing in his grip. Apparently she was having another contraction. They were coming closer together now. That meant the baby would come soon, all young and new and innocent. Its terror would be extreme as it died, and its delivery and birth in hell would cause quite a stir. Its death would be even more interesting.
The demon flew easily through the inner portal and into the main chamber of hell itself. This was its home, of sorts, such as it was. A deep funnel leading to the bowels of an entirely different dimension.
It thought for a moment about the human scientists who tried to explain things. This place defied their physics in so many ways. It wished it’d brought one of them with it, just to hear how they’d explain this world. They’d probably try to bring in rotating black holes, quasars, and quarks to make sense of it all. But this was so very far beyond their comprehension as to be laughable. The mortals thought they knew how things worked and what the universe was like. But their science was so very, very far off the mark.
It passed through the gates to another entirely different world, a world like a chocolate layer cake leading endlessly downward. This world was populated by billions of people, more people than what currently lived on the earth. Only they weren’t people anymore. They were disembodied souls. Still alive-yet not alive. Dead, but not dead. And each one very much aware of its own misery. The demon Wrath could see each and every one of these souls. But the irony of it was that, although there were billions of them, they couldn’t see each other. They existed in the same place of existence, often flowing through one another. But each one was as unaware of the next as they endlessly searched for others that they would never, ever be able to find. It was a doomed, damned solitary existence that would last for eternity.
The demon passed through the portals and came to a soft landing on the barren plains inside. This was an endless world of black sand and volcanic rock that went on for as far as the eye could see, and stopped just on the edges of infinity. No single being could ever search every corner of this world, not even in eternity. But they were each doomed to try in the ill-conceived hope that they would find someone, anyone, they could be with. At first they would search for specific loved ones from their past. But soon enough they would search for anyone, just anyone that could fill the void that was endless separation from God and all that was good.
The demon gently eased Vickie onto a patch of soft, black sand. It didn’t want to hurt her or the unborn child-not yet. It untied her bonds. She wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
As she sat up, the trance she had been in seemed to wear off some, though shock and horror kept her from becoming completely alert and aware.
“Where am I?” she said. “Where have you taken me?”
The demon looked at her for a moment and almost felt sorry for her. But it had lost all emotions millennia ago when it had become so consumed by rage that it had actually become the sin of wrath, in the flesh, so to speak. It no longer knew or felt anything except the pleasure it derived from inflicting pain and suffering upon others.
The demon folded its wings onto its back and sat down next to her.
“I am afraid that you and your unborn daughter are in hell,” it said with a sneer.
The woman recoiled and moved back. “And who-or what-are you?”
The monster decided it was time to relax a bit and lose the demon persona. It pulled its wings back out and folded them around itself, covering itself completely, as if in a leathery shroud. It waited for a moment and allowed the transformation to take place. Then it unveiled itself to reveal a human form, a human male, naked and perfectly formed.
The woman was already so shocked that Wrath didn’t think anything could shock her more. She looked at it for several moments before speaking.
“You’re…human…,” she said.
“I am whatever I choose to be,” the demon corrected, now in a smooth and deep male voice. “Right now I choose to be human. At least in my form.”
The woman seemed to relax a bit. Then another contraction came and she lay back on the sand and breathed in short, powerful spurts. It watched as the shade of an old man walked completely through her solid form, calling for the shade of his dearly departed wife. The cursed soul was as unaware of the pregnant woman as she was of him, both completely oblivious to each other.
“The grave’s a fine, private place, and none I think, do there embrace,” the demon said.
The woman’s contraction ended and she looked at him for a long moment. “You quoted Andrew Marvell,” she said. “How do you know about poetry? Who are you? What are you and what do you want with me?”
She seemed more surprised by the fact that it knew this mortal poet than by the fact that she was now sitting in the middle of hell holding a conversation with a demon that was sin in the flesh.
The monster smiled. Yes, that human poet had been so close to the truth, at least for those who ended up here. His soul was down here somewhere, with the billions of others, searching for his own lost love.
“I know about a lot of things,” it said. “But mostly I know about suffering. And you and your daughter will know about suffering too before your time with me is done.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
1
“Well, let’s head downward,” Erik said. He had to almost shout to be heard. It was like talking into a vacuum. “There’s nowhere else to go.”
The Indian nodded.
They made their way down the rocky slope as quickly as they could. It was steep enough to be treacherous if they were not careful, but not steep enough to slow them down very much.
“This is going to be difficult when we come back up,” Erik said.
Dovecrest forced a laugh. “Somehow I doubt that we’ll be coming back this way again.”
Erik wished Pastor Mark was here right now. The preacher might be able to give him some insights into what he was seeing and experiencing. To him this was nothing but a vast wasteland, completely devoid of life, love, and hope. The pastor might understand all this better. But for now he had just one goal-to find his wife and son and get them out of this place and back home where they belonged.
The heat increased as they approached the portal. It was like the opening in the bottom of a funnel, with red, glowing embers all around it that lit up the entire world, or whatever it was, Erik thought. He wondered if they’d get burned going through the opening. It was large enough to drive a tank thorough, at least.
As they approached the opening the ground beneath them curved upward to form a tunnel, or sorts, which led through the opening.
“So these are the gates of hell,” Erik said.
“Abandon hope…,” Dovecrest said.
“If I didn’t have hope, I wouldn’t be here,” Erik replied.
Dovecrest nodded. “We must remember that whatever this place is, we are just visitors. If there is hell, there is also heaven. We are not of this place. We belong with the other. He has given us strength and power to come here and do what must be done. Then we return to our own place.”
With trepidation, they went through the opening and stepped into another vast wasteland, this one even larger than the first. An endless plain of black sand and volcanic outcroppings stretched out into the distance for as far as the eye could see. It was empty, completely empty. Erik couldn’t believe the vastness and the emptiness of this place. How would he ever find them, he thought. This went on forever. How could he even be sure they came this way, though this opening. For all he knew there could be hundreds more like it.
Dovecrest knelt down and examined the sand. Erik wondered what he was up to.
“Someone passed this way,” the Indian said. “It looks like the demon stopped here. See the marks. They’re deep into the sand. It may have landed here and then flew on.”
“Was this recent? Or is it a thousand years old?”
Dovecrest took his hand and placed it on the sand. “Feel,” he said. “It’s hot.”
“Right.”
Then he placed his hand over the mark he had indicated.
