Arianna Rose: The Gates of Hell (Part 5) (15 page)

“Oh I can help you solve that mystery if you’d like.  No charge,” Arianna barely managed, the words coming out in small gasps. 

For a moment, Desmond paused, his mouth partially agape as what she’d said registered in his brain.  “You!  It was you?” he spun toward her and pointed.  “I thought you loved me!  Oh man!  You are diabolical!”

Arianna couldn’t speak.  She was laughing so hard words escaped her.

“Laugh it up, go ahead!” he teased good-naturedly.  “Just wait until you have a favorite piece of clothing you love and I find awful, like maybe that oversized, moth-eaten sweater you drape over you, huh.  How would you like that to disappear?”

“Don’t you dare,”
she spluttered, her stomach muscles and cheeks hurting from laughter.

Despite giggling like loons, no one turned around or gawked at them.  For a brief period, they got to shed their titles of Desmond the mighty warlock and Arianna the all-powerful Sola.  They were simply a couple out at a carnival enjoying themselves.
  Desmond slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, and they continued to walk along. 

Brightly colored dragons
whirled and spun as delighted squeals echoed from within their hollowed centers.  The Polar Express whipped in a circular pattern.  Music blared from a bandstand.  A crowd roared.  The experience was a multisensory spectacle to behold.

On the outskirts of the main hub where rides and vendors reigned supreme, striped tents had been set up. 

“She’s got to be in one of those tents,” Desmond said of the psychic they searched for as he pointed to the makeshift houses. 

“I suppose so,” Arianna agreed with a huffy breath.  “This is crazy,” she mumbled. 

Pushing past people as they dared to divert from the flow of traffic, Arianna and Desmond proceeded to the clustering of tents and immediately spotted a large, billboard-style sign announcing Madame Dafeenah. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Desmond said as they stopped and examined the
advertisement.  “Is that a joke?” he asked and pointed to the rendering of a woman with a black, silken kerchief tied at the back of her head, heavy black eyeliner and red lips to match long, red fingernails, peering intensely into a crystal ball.  The sign read “Madame Dafeenah Knows All.”

“Come on!” Arianna stom
ped her foot against the now dirt path.  “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” she grumbled. 

They followed the sign to her tent and found that it was set up sandwiched between the World’s Fattest Man and the World’s Only Living Pig Man.  Each of the three attractions charged five dollars for admission. 

“This doesn’t seem right,” Desmond commented.

“Ya think?” Arianna asked sarcastically.  “They’re charlatans.  World’s Fattest Man!  Pig Man!  I mean, come on already!  I hate to say it, but Briathos and the others got this one wrong.”

“I agree,” Desmond said and shook his head.  “Where do the carnival people come up with this stuff?”

“I don’t know, but look how
many people are willing to shell out their hard-earned cash to talk to a supposed psychic,” she said and jabbed an index finger toward the line that snaked out of the tent and wrapped halfway around it. 

“Oh wow, that’s crazy, and kind of sad,” he replied with a small frown. 

“Huh, well I shouldn’t stand here griping.  We’re buying tickets, so we’re no better, I guess.” 

“Ugh,” Desmond groaned as they strode to a small ticket counter and paid ten dollars for a reading with Madame Dafeenah. 

While they waited on line, they watched the others who waited with them.  Anxious chatter about lotto numbers dominated one conversation, while another sought a discussion with a relative who’d passed away two years ago.  By and large though, the most commonly anticipated aspect of the people’s impending reading was to hear about all the wonderful happenings the future held in store for them.  Arianna couldn’t help but find it pitiful.  Lotto numbers, conversing with the dead and glimpses into the future were improbable given that they were paying five bucks to see a woman housed between a morbidly obese man and a man who probably wore a prosthetic pig snout glued over his own human nose. 

“This is pathetic,” she leaned in and whispered to Desmond.  “Are you listening to what people are saying?”

“I’m listening, and it’s all very sad,” he replied and shook his head. 

After a few minutes, a flap in the tent opened and a girl who looked no more than seventeen came out crying.  Try as he may, the boy with her could not seem to calm her. 

“H-How could she have known that?” the girl sniffled, taking short, sharp breaths.  “I’ve never told anyone that in my life.”

“I don’t know,” the boy answered, his brow puckered with concern.  “Let’s get the hell out of here, get something to eat or go on some rides.”

“I don’t want to eat or go on rides.  I want to go home now,” the girl said, a fresh wave of sobs racking her body. 

Hearing the exchange between the boy and girl, Arianna and Desmond exchanged
questioning glances.  Arianna remained skeptical.  Hormones and a love of drama could have easily motivated the little display they’d witnessed.  It by no means meant that Madame Dafeenah possessed one iota of credibility. 

Another pair slipped into the tent and left shocked and emotional, then another, and another. 
Face after face filled with sorrow or emotion-laden lines trailed from the tent.  Whatever line of bull Madame Dafeenah was dishing was good.  She seemed to have a knack for touching raw nerves if nothing else. 

Finally, the time came for Arianna and Desmond to meet with the would-be teller of fortunes.

“Next,” a raspy voice called out.

“I guess that’s us,” Desmond shrugged.

“I can hardly wait,” Arianna replied in a monotone voice as she raised the vinyl lappet of the tent. 

Inside, a small round table with a black velvet covering had been set.  A glass sphere perched on a stand sat at its center. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Arianna nodded toward the crystal ball. 

Desmond shook his head and rolled his eye
s.  “Let’s just get this over with.”

Arianna sat at the table and Desmond sat in
a chair off to her left side. 

“I’ll be right there,” the throaty voice called.  An exotic accent touched her words. 

“And the accent, too!” Arianna whispered and twisted toward Desmond.  “This is too much.”

A curtain of beads in the far corner shook, making a click-clack sound,
and then a small woman wearing a black dress stepped through.  Long ebony hair fell in a plaited ponytail to the middle of her back, a black scarf tied at her nape, and piercing silver eyes rimmed in thick charcoal liner stared out from skin so tan it looked like cocoa powder.  Her appearance was mysterious and striking at the same time. 

“Hello, I’m sorry to have kept you waiting,” the woman said, her burr unusual, and sat before Arianna.  “I am Madame Da
feenah, as the giant sign reads,” she added with an arc of one dark brow.  “What brings you here?”

“I was hoping
you
could tell me what I’m here for,” Arianna said in a low, defiant voice. 

Madame Dafeenah twitched.  “You’ve come for answers, of course, as everyone does,” she replied in a tone that matched the one Arianna had used.

“Touché,” Arianna said. 

“
Now, do you want your reading or not?” Madame Dafeenah asked curtly. 

“Sure, why not,” Arianna answered. 

Madame Dafeenah reached out a hand and Arianna placed hers within the psychic’s palm.  A white glow began dancing between Arianna’s fingers, spreading between her and Madame Dafeenah in a spiraling helix.  The ground rattled.  Arianna was vaguely aware of the rumble beneath her feet, slow and rolling like an aftershock. 

Silvery retinas sparkled like crushed diamonds before
disappearing altogether and blanching to match the whites of Madame Dafeenah’s eyes.  Arianna drew in a breath and held it there, her nerves taut with wonder and confusion. 

In a trance-like state, Madame Dafeenah began speaking
, her eyes shining with ivory brilliance.  “Arianna Rose, daughter of Cathy Rose, born on December 20, 1993.  You moved around throughout your childhood, never staying in one place.”

Arianna had to hand it to her;
Madame Dafeenah had done her homework.  She probably had a webcam hidden somewhere in the room and had snapped a picture then Googled the rest.  Seasoned frauds did do some research on their subjects, and in her line of work, even simple or seemingly trivial information could help Madame Dafeenah and be expanded upon.  The whitened eyes were a neat trick, one Arianna had never seen before. 

“Your mother was burned at the stake, murdered,” Madame Dafeenah continued.

A tingle ran like quicksilver down Arianna’s spine as snow-white eyes roamed her face, Madame Dafeenah’s mesmeric voice outlining the worst moment of her life with unerring accuracy. 

“Your father, a man named Curt Seldon, was a local drunk from Patterson, but his lineage is of no importance.  Your essence, the true soul
of your powers, was instilled in your mother by a higher power at conception by an energy centuries old.  You were chosen to stop him.”

Fine hairs on the back of Arianna’s neck stood on edge. 
She released a quivering breath.  A Google search would not have divulged how her mother had died.  No one outside of her immediate circle knew of her mother’s demise.  And they would never tell, of that she was confident.

Arianna desperately wanted to look at Desmond, to gauge his reaction, but try as she may, she could not tear her gaze from Madame Dafeenah. 

White eyes regained their silver irises and Madame Dafeenah’s dark-brown sugar skin looked dusky.  “It’s you,” she gasped.  “You are The One, light personified.  You possess the ancient answers.  You’re the key to the beginning and the end.” Madame Dafeenah rambled, her words colliding with one another in breathless, fevered mayhem.  “You are the source that will end evil.  You are the Chosen One.  You are the Sola.”  Madame Dafeenah’s eyes were round and glazed with reverence.  She was clearly shocked at her own words.  “Sola,” she breathed and fell to her knees, bowing her head humbly.  “I-I am in awe of your presence.”  She lowered her chin to her chest, eyes cast to the floor.  “Why have you come to me, Sola?”

“I have been sent to you because I need your help,” Arianna spoke with a voice far stronger than she felt.  I
n truth, she could have benefited from a spell with her head between her knees.  How she managed to maintain an air of composure was beyond her. 

“Anything you ask of me, I will do.  I am your humble servant.”

Madame Dafeenah treated her as if she were royalty.  No matter who did it, or how often it happened, Arianna always squirmed.  To her, she was still the girl from one trailer park or another who’d raised herself and been referred to as “low-class” more times that she could count.  Regardless, she was what she was.  And right now, as the Sola, she was a person who existed apart from class distinction.  She was tapped to save humanity, and Madame Dafeenah was key to helping her in her mission. 

“Do you know what is happening?  Do you know what is expected of me?”

“I vaguely know of the legends, things the Roma people, my family, told me through the years,” Madame Dafeenah answered. 

Arianna knew she needed to share with Madame Dafeenah exactly what was happening, that in order for her to understand the gravity of the situation, she needed to see it firsthand. 
“Take my hands,” she said and offered both to her. 

The seer stood and took
Arianna’s hands.  An electrical rush of power surged from her fingertips and shocked Madame Dafeenah, jolting her as if she’d been hit with a livewire, then a slow, steady ripple of power streamed, strong and steady like an ocean current.  The world, a fiery wasteland, swirled in burning colors of red and gold, a poisoned scene of death and decay.  Among the pits of flames were gruesome images of savagery.  Men women and children—innocents—were butchered in the streets, torn limb from limb, by bloodthirsty demons.  The heavens wept embers and the sea churned garnet blood.  The gates of hell had been opened, and evil governed all.

“Do you see why we need you?” she asked Madame Dafeenah and watched as fat teardrops fell from her unblinking eyes.  “Darius has only three more gates to open before that image I showed you becomes reality, before the world is his.  If what you saw is what you want then we’ve made a mistake in coming here.  But if you are on our side, you can see why we need your help.”

Madame Dafeenah plucked an amulet from her bosom and clutched it between her hands.  “I am with you, Sola,” she promised. 

“Good,” Arianna replied.  “We need you to come with us now.”

Madame Dafeenah hesitated for a moment as if sorting out the details of her swift departure from the life she knew to the life that was her destiny.  “I just need to tell the owners of the carnival.  The Farley brothers have been good to me.  I can’t just leave them without so much as a good-bye.  They’re like family to me.”

Arianna considered Madame Dafeenah
’s request.  She looked to Desmond who gave a small nod.  “Fine,” she replied.  “Go right now, though.  We don’t have a minute to waste.”