Mother of Darkwaters: Book one of the Vessel series (81 page)

   Jennifer sighs – a small spark of hope is seeded within in her mind.

   “The S.V.C. would like to thank all of you for coming today!”, Rebecca yells loud enough for the student body to hear her. She turns and claps.

   “Give it up! Here’s your future S.V.C.!”

   Rebecca walks towards the bench – the junior varsity squad all begin their routine.

   When Rebecca reaches the bench, the S.V.C. stand and marches single-file to the left side of the gym. They ready themselves to join in with the junior varsity squad towards the ending of their routine.

   “Here.”

   Julianna startles as a black leather bag is placed near her face. She takes it and looks at Jennifer. The girl’s eyes have makeup to cover the pinkness around them. But she still couldn’t hide the puffiness.

   “I put your phone number in my phone, now what?”

   Julianna stands and motions her head towards the front door, “Come on, I want to show you something.”

   “I can’t leave,” Jennifer answers with reference to the school’s policy on squad attendance.

   “It’s been taken care of – class attendance and all. You have a free day.”

   “And how did you pull that off?”

   “If you can find the strength to do what you’re doing, then I can explain everything to you. But not here. I just need you to trust me for a little while longer.”

   Julianna holds out her hand, “If I disappoint you, you can spank me.”

   Jennifer’s nose crinkles as she gently shoves away the offered hand, “I don’t think so.”

She motions her head towards the gymnasium’s exit, “Let’s go…freak.”

   Julianna grins.

   Julianna leads Jennifer to the parking lot. She stops by Jennifer’s Bentley and informs her that she will be back in a second. Upon returning, Julianna has a black duffle bag in her left hand.

   “What’s that for?”

   “I need three hours with no questions,” Julianna informs, “Did he believe in Jesus?”

   “What?”

   “Did your brother believe in Jesus? Did he serve Him?”

   “Uh - yeah, he believed, but he didn’t serve Him. My brother liked to party and have fun.”

   “We need to go to your house and I need three hours of your complete trust – no funny business or anything – promise.”

   “You’re not making any sense,” Jennifer counters, “Why do you need to go to my house?”

   “Trust, Jennifer. I need you to do that, please. When my three hours are up, I’ll explain everything.”

   Jennifer glances to the third row and looks at Mandie’s brown truck. She reaches into her purse and tosses the girl her car keys, “You’re driving. My foot is killing me.”

   The drive to Jennifer’s house is mainly quite. The girls’ minimal conversation consists of the upcoming party and the highlights of the assembly while Jennifer was away. As Julianna pulls into Jennifer’s driveway, she immediately notices the six-car garage.

   “Nice house.”

   “It’s not as great as it looks.”

   Julianna shrugs her shoulders, “Eh - mine’s better.”

   “Pfft. Sure – whatever you say, Mandie.”

   Jennifer reaches above Julianna’s head and pushes the button to her garage door.

   “You can park right there,” Jennifer points to the last stall on the right, “It’s easy to get in and out of it.”

   Julianna pulls the car into its place, turns off the ignition, and opens the driver’s side door. She reaches into the backseat and retrieves her duffle bag before exiting the blue-metallic Bentley. When she closes the door, she looks at a limping Jennifer hobble her way around the vehicle’s front.

   “Okay, Mandie. You got me here. What’s the plan?”

   “Take me to the room where he did it.”

   “What the..?”

   “Three hours – you promised.”

   Jennifer takes a deep breath. She begins walking towards the door leading into the kitchen area of her house, “You have two hours and thirty minutes left. And don’t expect me to go in there with you – it’s not happening.”

   Julianna follows her hostess, “I’m not either. I just need to be somewhere close.”

   Jennifer opens the door and pushes it open. She steps inside of her house and waits for her guest to enter and close the door.

   “Let’s get this over with before I change my mind.”

   Julianna nods. She silently follows Jennifer through her house. They pass some statues of a boy and a girl, descend up a staircase, and turn left down a long hallway. When they reach the hall’s end, Jennifer points at a door.

   “That’s the one.”

   Julianna points to a door directly across from the one where Danny died, “What’s in here?”

   “I don’t have the code for that room.”

   Julianna looks at the digital keypad, “A lot of security for a house.”

   “Dad is away a lot. It’s his piece of mind.”

   “Where’s the closest room you have a code to?”

   Jennifer begins walking. Julianna turns leftward and follows.

   “One, two, three, four, five…”

   The cheerleader stops at a door to the left side of the hallway, pushes in a set of numbers into the keypad, and opens the door.

   “…twenty-four, twenty-five….”

   Jennifer looks questioningly, “What was that all about – you autistic?”

   “Something like that,” Julianna answers.  

   “I don’t believe you,” Jennifer counters.

   “Two and a half hours.”

   Jennifer walks into the room, “Closer to two.”

   Julianna enters the room and looks around. A bar is to her right with a stereo system positioned cater-corner in the opposite side of the room. She looks to her left and sees a coffee table in front of a couch.

    “This is where we used to party together,” Jennifer informs.

   Julianna doesn’t say anything. She walks over to the couch, places her duffle bag on the floor, and sits down. The guest opens up the bag and retrieves a bottle of sleeping pills.

   “Are you serious right now?”

   Julianna glances to Jennifer before retrieving a bottle of water from her bag. She opens her pill bottle, and takes two tablets – chasing them down with the water. Julianna kicks off her shoes, tosses her pills and water into the duffle bag, and lies down.

   “What are you doing?”

   “The sleeping pills are non-narcotic. Not the same thing as what you’re dealing with,” Julianna says while staring up at the ceiling.

   She closes her eyes, “I haven’t learned how to do this on a whim yet.”

   “Do what?”

   “Two hours.”

   “And what am I supposed to do in the mean time?”

   “Stay here and let me go to sleep.”

   “Two hours, Mandie,” Jennifer answers with a firm voice, “I’m going to roll you off of my couch. And you better start talking. If you don’t, you’ll end up stuffed inside of my car trunk.”

   Julianna ignores the cheerleader’s taunt. She concentrates on a rock within her mind’s eye. She can see white sand. She can see a beautiful woman. She can feel a gentle breeze finger her hair. She can hear…

   “Hello,” Lilith greets with her smoky sounding tone, “Did everything work itself out?”

   Julianna jumps up and runs over to the Lilith rock. She pecks Lilith on the left cheek.

   “Yes, thanks for the help. Jamés almost killed me.”

   Julianna rushes to get her clothes off.

   “I know. I read it on my wall. You toyed with him a bit too much, anguisette. Demons are dangerous. You must be more careful.”

   The younger woman tosses her clothes on the rock’s surface. Lilith hands Julianna her earth-line outfit.

   “Thanks,” Julianna says while slipping her hoodie on.

   “This is your Jennifer trip, no?”

   “Yes,” Julianna says while finishing her dressing. She turns and darts over to the earth-line. Julianna steps across. She closes her eyes with images of a specific room.

   “Good luck,” Lilith says quietly after Julianna vanishes. The woman with bronze skin begins folding the clothes next to her.

   Julianna opens her eyes whenever she feels the familiar rush begin to subside. She sees Jennifer to her right. The cheerleader is sitting with her long legs stretched outward as her back leans against the wall by her stereo system. Her ankles are crossed while she looks at a picture of her brother. Julianna walks closer and does her best to burn Danny’s image into her mind.

   Julianna turns and accidentally makes eye contact with her body. She feels a strong tug. She quickly turns her attention to the doorway and runs out into the hallway. Although she is getting better at it, she still doesn’t have the ability to look at herself for very long without being joined to her body.

   The first time she saw herself, the joining felt as if it were instantaneous. Of course it wasn’t, but it felt like it was. Since then, she has been practicing. But she isn’t very good at it. And if she thinks of her body while travelling from the earth-line, then her body she always finds. There is still so much to learn about the physics of this realm. This place is so chaotic and difficult to understand. But Julianna is improving with each visit.

   She turns her body to the right and peers down the hallway. The red carpet makes it feel more like a hotel than a home. She takes a deep breath as her ears are filled with the sounds of tormenting screams. If she had any doubt about finding him, that fear has been replaced with a new one.

   Julianna hears deep growling echo throughout the hallway. She squints as the hallway extends itself – reforming the very length of the natural physical hallway. She grins triumphantly.

   “Not this time,” Julianna says. She looks down and begins walking, “One, two, three…”

   “twenty-four…twenty-five.” Julianna stops and turns to her right. She looks at the door in front of her. She can feel an intense heat coming from its surface – hot enough that she doesn’t want to touch it. There can only be two reasons for this type of heat. 

   The first reason would be the result of the presence of Hades Escorts. These guys are no joke. In the physical realm, these creatures can cause flowers to literally blacken with a fried singe as they pass by in close proximity. When given permission to do so, they have the power to cause spontaneous combustion within a human body. Mankind might explain it away as an anomaly, but these guys are not an anomaly. They are very real. They are the culprits behind the curtain, so to speak. And if anyone inside of the physical realm would ever stop to think about the reported cases, they would see that there is not one single case where the victim was, also, a Chosen one of the God of Heaven. Hades Escorts are demons. And demons have rules, too.

   The second possibility – behind this kind of heat emanating from the door – is even scarier than the first. If this is the case, Julianna cannot enter. Flames in this realm are not unlike the flames found in the physical realm with regards to intensity levels.   

   However, in this realm, these flames burn that which is eternal. An internal being can never die. The flames never fade. Those caught within them are held with the flame’s mighty vice of a grip. There is no escape – for the flame once touched will shelter its victim forever. A shelter provided that yields the screams and cries of those who can never die.

   Additionally, if Julianna were to accidentally touch one of these flames, her body would be rejoined in the opposite fashion. That is, her spirit-soul consciousness would be ripped from her physical body and wrapped with the very flames she touches. And her spirit-soul – the part of her which stands before the door – would be joined to her spirit-soul consciousness. Not a pleasant thought. Not a pleasant thought at all.

   But it is what it is – just another example of a long list of twisted perversions designed by the One who created this place to begin with. And this just adds to the ever-growing list of things to hate about
Him
. Julianna will never understand how so many people have come to believe that
He
is love. If this is true, then it is a love she wants nothing to do with. He
is
cruel and evil. The evidence speaks for itself. It’s not rocket science.

   Julianna turns and approaches the door to her right. She touches it. It is cool. Keeping her right hand lightly touching the wall’s surface, she walks towards the room of screams. Not until she reaches the door of her concern, does the temperature rise.

   “That’s good,” Julianna says quietly, “I guess.”

   She taps her bottom lip with her left pointer finger, “I wonder how many of you there are?”

   She cannot call on Dranestan for any help. He is a soldier captain – a warrior through and through. But he cannot declare war against his own kind unless ordered to do so by someone of higher rank. He has authority over his own charges as well as any lower ranking demon, but not these guys. These guys are a different breed altogether. Hades Escorts are not soldiers. They have more of a political purpose associated to them with just a hint of policing. They find spirit-souls and shove them into fire; that is, when they tire of toying with their prey.  

   Julianna takes a deep breath and exhales. She inhales again and grits her teeth together. Reaching through the door, she grabs hold of something very,
very
hot. She yanks.

   “Ahhh!”, Julianna screams while spinning away from the door. Her hands release the burning object. They are blistered severely. She doesn’t have to look to know that this is the case. Lilith might not be able to leave marks on her physical body, but these guys can. It’s all part of the wonderful flame’s package.

   “What do we have here?”, a high-pitched voice speaks with delight.

   Julianna unconsciously takes a step backward. Her hands excruciate within their pain levels. She looks upward.

   “Who are you to grab me?”, the high-pitched voice taunts with a hint of amusement.

   The tall demon has thin lips and a big head. His mouth does not move whenever he speaks. He is a telepath – just like all Hades Escorts are. He reminds Julianna of one of those alien creatures in the movies known as the grays. His skin is they grayness of burned charcoal, and his legs are super thin. His fingers are eerily long. He wears a tattered black full-length overcoat. Smoke escapes the jacket’s cracks and holes.