Hell, p.37
Hell, page 37
The palest, most beautiful woman she’d ever seen. Hair as red as smoldering winter fire, emerald green eyes so bright that their touch overwhelmed her to the point that she ceased dancing, coming to stand dumbfounded in the center of the stage. The mysterious woman wore a disconcerting half-smile that Tat recognized from somewhere...
“Look while you can, fools! Before you stands one who will destroy world!” It was Yurgis. All heads turned toward him, including hers. When she turned back, trying to locate the Red Woman again, she’d vanished, nowhere to be seen.
Yurgis mounted the stage, wrestling the microphone from a confused and irate Rheinhardt before pushing him to the ground, ceasing his protests with a well placed boot in the stomach.
“Don’t be deceived, she may look innocent, beautiful, but she is Antichrist! Come to visit death and destruction upon all!”
What was Yurgis doing?
Her first instinct was to run, but before she could translate instinct into action she found herself seized, as if by invisible hands, and bodily hoisted into the air. She cried out as her arms were forced outward in a crucifixion pose, mirroring the cross she bore about her neck. People began rising from their seats. Either in fear, beginning to retreat, or in inquisitive wonder, looking on in shocked astonishment at the spectacle taking place. Over the rising commotion of the crowd, she could hear Tiphareth screaming something she couldn’t understand.
In a jarring wave of dissociation, her corporeal form opened to the Universe, every nerve singing with frightening bursts of Auric. More than she’d ever experienced, like Yurgis was channeling it into her, forcing it upon her. It was like being torn apart, the agony of burning alive obliterating any lingering rationality as the runes on her skin came alive, squirming and crawling over the length of her naked body. Even through the incapacitating aura of energy rendering conscious thought all but impossible, Yurgis’ plan became clear to her. He meant to awaken the full extent of her power here...
And she would kill all of these people.
It was mounting much faster than anticipated. Already the breaking point was bearing down upon her, how much more could she take? Mere seconds away from becoming the most feared monster the world had ever known. Electric lights began to flicker, one by one exploding in their sockets. The main spotlight shattered, bursting into flames as vast arcs of energy flowed out of Sahasrara…
A pistol shot rang out over the din of the crowd, striking Yurgis in the chest, inciting panic among the audience as they flooded toward the exits. With her last act of autonomous will, Tat looked to the balcony where Geburrah was wrestling with Tiphareth over a smoking gun, but it was far too late, these people were all doomed...
Three huge explosions shook the building, fire and flying debris engulfing the fleeing crowd with unimaginable violence. She barely had time to think, That didn’t come from me, before she was thrown to the ground and the great domed roof began to collapse. Yurgis, clutching his bloody wound, staggered and fell from the stage where he was first crushed by the massive crystal chandelier, then buried under mountains of debris along with a great many others...
Fire inundated the building as hysterical people bent on self-preservation trampled one another in their haste to escape the collapsing auditorium. Masonry that had stood for three hundred years crumbled under the stress, gravity transforming the simple stone into deadly ammunition. Death and destruction rained down indiscriminately.
Even now, her first thought was of Tiphareth and the others. Quickly scanning the balcony, she caught no sign of them. Her frantic search was concluded seconds later when the sagging outer wall buckled the ancient timbers of the balcony, splintering the supports as hundreds of tons of wood and masonry plummeted all around her.
There was nothing she could do for her friends, it was every woman for themselves now. She gathered her wits and fled the stage, intent on making her way to the back door. The backstage hallway had become an inferno, acrid smoke filling her lungs. Retreat wasn’t an option, as rubble now blocked any escape route away from the fire. Having no other choice, she plunged headlong into hell itself.
Falling to her hands and knees, she crawled, desperately attempting to get away from the fire, Yurgis, everything. The smoke was too thick, she was coughing so hard she couldn’t tell where she was going. She collapsed, struggling to breathe, fire blistering her skin. This was it, after all this time her beloved death was at her side, reaching for her...
As if to refute this long cherished union, a wet, black hood was drawn over her head. Strong arms lifting her up, slinging her across broad shoulders...
It’s Jack, he’s come for me.
Throughout the ensuing flight her nude body was licked by innumerable tongues of encroaching flame. It was difficult not to struggle as the heat became unbearable, completely helpless and vulnerable. If she lived through this, she was going to be in such pain that she’ll wish she hadn’t.
With a last titanic heave, Jack kicked open the door and she felt the relatively icy caress of cool air, they were outside. She only prayed that Tiphareth and the others had fared as well. The thought that they might be dead terrified her.
Even though they had to be safely out of harm’s way by now, he didn’t set her down. Instead, he broke into a run, carrying her away. Though this confused her, if there was one person she trusted implicitly, it was Jack. He must be taking her to an agreed upon safehouse to meet up with the others. He might’ve even brought some heroin…
Then, it sank in for the first time.
Yurgis is dead...
The thought didn’t seem real to her. In one instant, the entire world changed forever. She realized then that for one brief moment, she’d been in the presence of true Justice, and it cared even less for human suffering than an uncaring, absentee god. Such a pathetic end to his monstrous, vain efforts to attain immortality; such a fitting end for a thief.
For about half a kilometer she was roughly carried into the pastoral countryside, up hill and down dale. She knew something was wrong when she was deposited on a soft seat, presumably a carriage. She began to scream and resist and the hood was taken from her head.
“Be calm, little one. All will be well.”
It wasn’t Jack...
“Of course, it’s you.” She said, no longer surprised at anything.
The Dark Man.
The enigmatic figure who’d dogged her across half the world, rescuing her from certain death twice now, threw her cassock over her, then shut and locked the carriage door, leaving her in complete darkness...
Then the horses burst into motion.
Musician, Author, Artist. A. A. Ron is a renaissance man in every sense of the word. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, he calls Seattle his home, where he creates psychedelic art, experimental rock music and of course literary works. When not in the act of creation, he is eating burritos and working far too much.
A. A. Ron, Hell
