Going Lucid (9 page)

“Somehow,
I doubt a habit will work,” Malakha said heading out the class with Sabrina
long after the rest of class had left.

“Why?”

“Just a
feeling it won’t be that easy. Besides, I’d look ridiculous in a habit.”

“No you
wouldn’t,” Sabrina said rolling her eyes. “It’s at least worth a try.”

“And
where are we going to get a holy habit from?” Malakha said as she stopped to
round on Sabrina expectantly.

“The laundry.
Where else?”
Sabrina
asked.

******

“I look
ridiculous in this,” Malakha said later, after she and Sabrina had found the laundry
and snagged a habit.

“It was
the smallest one I could find,” Sabrina said with the veil in her hand. Malakha
glared at her before the girl could even approach with it, and Sabrina raised
her hands in a sign of surrender before throwing the veil onto the bed.

“You
don’t look that bad,” Malak said, but his laughter said otherwise.

“This
isn’t earning you any brownie points,” Malakha snapped.

Malak
stopped laughing and then after a pause said, “Wait. I have brownie points with
you?”

Malakha
continued to glare at him causing Malak to say, “Fine. We’ll stop.”

“Speak
for
yourself
,” Sabrina said covering her mouth to
muffle her snickers.

“That’s
it. Forget it. There’s got to be another way,” Malakha said beginning to take
off the habit that she was wearing over her uniform. It was hot anyway.

“No,”
Sabrina said holding up her hand though she was still snickering. “No. Just try
it. I’ll stop.”

Malakha
turned to look at Malak this time. “So how do I do this lucid dreaming thing?”

“You’ve
got to relax,” said Malak.

“I am
relaxed.”

“No. I
mean, relax like you’re about to go to sleep or something.”

“You
mean lay down?” Malakha asked.

“If it
helps,” Malak said shrugging.

Malakha
sighed in impatience as she laid herself down on her bed.

“Now what?”

“Just
relax.”

“I am
relaxed.”

“No I
mean relax and be still like you’re about to go to sleep, but without going to
sleep. What you want to do is trigger a REM cycle.”

“A REM cycle?”

“The cycle of sleep when dreams happen.”

“But I
don’t want to go to sleep.”

“That’s
why it’s called lucid dreaming. In a lucid dream you’re aware that you’re not
in your normal reality which grants you more control over yourself and the
dream. Maybe doing that will help you willingly cross the divide.”

Malakha
groaned and said, “You’ve got about five seconds to explain this to me in a
better way or I’m going back to get tablets from Eliza’s boyfriend.”

Sabrina
sighed and said, “Maybe we can help her.”

“How?”

“We can
be like a hypnotist. Being hypnotized is like a lucid dream isn’t it?” Sabrina asked.

“Kind
of… maybe,” Malak said. “But we don’t want to hypnotize her.”

“I
know. We’ll just help her relax,” Sabrina said pulling her desk chair to the
side of Malakha’s bed.

“Are
you sure you know what you’re doing?” Malak asked.

“People
do it on TV all the time. It can’t be that hard,” Sabrina said and then she
lowered her voice down to a soothing whisper. “Okay Malakha. Let’s start with
your breathing. Clear your head. Don’t think of anything that excites you or
makes your heart race. Think soothing thoughts. Think of watching the sky or
something.”

“What
am I? Four?” Malakha asked, finding Sabrina’s voice whispering in her ear more
annoying than soothing.

“I’m
just trying to give you ideas because as far as I know, nothing you do is even
hardly relaxing or not exciting,” Sabrina replied.

Malakha
sighed again, folding her hands over her stomach as she tried to come up with
something on her own. Then that tune, the tune she had been trying to play at
the piano a week ago, came into her head. She still didn’t know what it was
called or who the composer was, and it was really beginning to irritate her.
She’d need to spend some time to find it later. Maybe if she could remember the
movies she had heard it on…

“Do you
have your soothing thought?” Sabrina asked.

This
time her friend’s voice sounded soothing and Malakha nodded.

“It’s
not something that will put you to sleep, is it?” Sabrina asked.

Malakha
shook her head.

“Good.
Okay. Now focus on it. Go wherever it takes you. Ride it like… like you’re
riding the waves on a lifesaver or something.”

“Really,”
Malakha heard Malak say to Sabrina, but it was starting to sound distant, kind
of how Sabrina had sounded when she heard her in the back of her conscious back
in Hell.

“You
try it,” Sabrina replied, still using a soothing whisper except her voice was
more distant too.

Malakha
was again starting to feel like she wasn’t in control of her own body, her
limbs frozen, but surprisingly, she didn’t feel trapped. In fact, she was
beginning to feel like she was floating on air or better yet like she was
drifting on the waves of a calm sea. Malak and Sabrina were still there, but
their voices were distant and something, somewhere, had appeared behind them,
appearing as a mirage probably would.

Malakha
began to drift past them, towards the mirage-like image that had appeared
behind them. As she did so, the world Malak and Sabrina were still in began to
become surreal and mirage-like, while the other world, Hell, began to solidify
and stabilize. Then Malakha didn’t feel like she was drifting. Instead she was
falling, but only a short distance. Still, she wasn’t prepared to land and
stumbled, falling forward on her hands and knees.

Malakha
looked around, taking in the dilapidation, the bleak and dulls colors and
outside the window, the continuous overcast. She was back in Hell.

Chapter
Nine

Lucifer

She was
in a building; a large, dark, old building that looked like it needed to be
condemned. Not only could she see outside through the window, but also through
the holes in the ceiling. It was night in Hell too, but there were no stars as
the sky was still covered by the perpetual overcast.

Malakha
shivered a little, rubbing her bare arms, absently noting that Sabrina had been
wrong about the habit being able to cross over the invisible divide with her.
She stood up, making sure to cross her arms over her chest as she wandered out
the room and into the hall, cautious of where she stepped. The last thing she
needed was to fall through the floor.

The building
seemed very familiar, and it was only as she was climbing down the rickety
stairs, careful to avoid splinters in the wood, that she realized why. It
seemed this old building, church or whatever, was like a rundown mirror image
of her school. In fact, the last time she was in Hell, the neighborhood she had
been in was an even more rundown version of the neighborhood Eliza’s boyfriend
lived in. Malakha wondered if there was a rundown mirror image in Hell of every
place that was on Earth or Heaven as Julius had called it.

“You
look a little lost honey.”

Malakha
turned around, stumbling off the last step of the staircase as she did so. At
the top of the steps was a woman, older than her and very… voluptuous was the
only way Malakha could describe it. It was hard not to notice the dark skinned
woman’s curves with the short miniskirt and the tight bodice she was wearing.
Was it even
safe
to have breasts that
big?

“Not
really,” Malakha said. She should probably feel a little more comfortable
around the woman than she did around Julius being that she was naked, but for
some reason she wasn’t. For some reason, she really wished Julius was here
instead, and Malakha wasn’t sure if that was because the woman made her feel
really insecure about her own body or if it was the way the woman seemed to be
leering at her. Julius didn’t look at her like that.

“You
sure?” the woman asked as she began to come down the stairs. She cocked her
head to the left a little.

The
gesture was innocent enough, but it seemed so much more sinister to Malakha.

“Perfectly,”
Malakha said and when the woman was getting too close, began to take a few
steps back.

Malakha
wasn’t exactly sure what happened next, only that one moment the woman was
halfway down the steps and the next Malakha was being pressed against the wall
with her hands forced on either side of her and one the woman’s legs lodged
between her legs. Malakha tried to move out the way, trying to take advantage
of the fact that she was smaller than the woman since it was a tactic that
worked in the movies. Apparently, it didn’t quite work that easy in real life.
She was effectively pinned.

Malakha
heard voices as she continued to struggle against the woman’s grip.

“Nancy,”
another female voice sang from amongst the voices. “Who is that?”

“Just a
lost little pet who stumbled into our abode,” the woman, Nancy, said.

As she
said this, she breathed buried her nose in Malakha’s neck and inhaled deeply.
When she exhaled, she began to nuzzle her head in the crook of Malakha’s neck
like a baby or even a cat.

“Need
some help!” another woman’s voice asked from amongst the excited giggles.

“No. I
can handle this one,” Nancy said and then she stuck out her tongue and licked
Malakha from the bottom of her neck all the way to the back of her ear. Malakha
shivered and tried to break free again. All she needed was one of her hands.

“Always
so selfish Nancy,” said another voice, disappointment evident in her tone.

“You
taste delicious,” Nancy said giggling.

“Thank
you,” Malakha said through gritted teeth as she tried to breathe, a feat made
hard because the woman had the weight of her whole body pressed against her.

The
woman laughed and then pulled her head back a little so that she could look
Malakha in the eye. Her red eyes shone with glee and when she grinned, she
showed off sharp, yellow stained canines.

“A
fucking vampire,” Malakha muttered. “Perfect.”

It was
then she remembered the silver pocket knife in her hand. Sabrina suggested that
she take it with her, just in case, and Malakha was glad she had. She flicked
it open and then went lax in the Nancy’s arms, hoping that it would make the
woman loosen her grip.

She
did, and Malakha used the opportunity to snatch her wrist out her arms and cut
the woman across the cheek. Nancy jumped back, letting out a terrible screech.
Then wings appeared on her back, and feathers grew on her arms while her nails
elongated and turned into claws and her feet curled into talons, somehow
managing to cause the woman’s black cowboy style boots with silver buckles to
only slip off instead of ripping them to shreds.

Malakha
could only watch, mouth agape at the transformation, and she suddenly
understood why people in movies simply stared in shock when a monster appeared
and started to come for them. She couldn’t move, not sure whether she would
have been better off if the woman had been a vampire. At least a vampire
might
be a little rational. Harpies,
from what she knew of the legends, were not!

The
beast’s second screech snapped Malakha out of her reverie. This time it didn’t
sound like the harpy was in pain or even angry. This sounded like a cry for
help.

“Well
don’t just stand there! Run!”

Malakha
only processed that she had heard Julius’s voice after she had started running
in the opposite direction of the harpy in search of an exit. If the layout of
this building was anything like her school, then she already knew them all. All
she had to do was get to them.

“Malakha duck!”

Malakha
fell face first on the floor again and felt Julius jump over her. He collided
into the harpy that had started to chase her. The harpy fell onto the ground
while Julius fell neatly on his feet. Then he grabbed the harpy’s arm and spun
around with her three times to gain momentum before letting her go. The harpy
flew back down the hall and into two of her fellow harpies that had come to
help her.

Julius
then reached down to grab Malakha’s hand.

“Come
on. We’ve got to get out of here.”

“I’m
not arguing with that,” Malakha said, but then Julius pulled her towards a broken
window. “What are you doing?”

“Getting
us out of here?”

“I
don’t know about you, but where I come from, humans don’t fly.”

“I know
they don’t,” Julius said and before Malakha could respond, he grabbed her
around the waist and launched them out the second story window.

Malakha
barely had a chance to scream before they landed on the back of something soft,
something that was flying them away from the building that was occupied by
harpies.

“Hold
on,” Julius yelled over the wind and then added, “And don’t argue with me this
time!”

Malakha
had no objections anyway and clutched Julius around his chest as he steered
whatever it was they were riding on. They landed only a few minutes later, in
the middle of a dead barren field that was far away from the harpies’ home.

Julius
then grabbed Malakha around her waist again and jumped off their ride. When
Malakha turned around to see what it was, she realized that it was the
zombie-like eagle that had attacked them the last time she was in Hell.

Seeing
her bewildered look, Julius said, “It only needed to be tamed.”

“Sure,”
Malakha said shivering a little and remembering her state of undress now that
her life wasn’t in danger. “Give me your coat.”

“Who
are you to be making demands?”

Malakha
gave Julius a wry look, a little disturbed with herself at the fact that she
was more comfortable around him naked than she had been with the female from
before; probably because he wasn’t trying to eat her, even though he did seem
to have a wandering eye.

Julius
sighed as he took off the coat and handed it to her.

“Not
like I could see anything. It’s too dark,” he said as she put the coat on.
“Speaking of the fact that it’s dark, what are you doing here?
Late at night no less?
That’s even more dangerous than being
out in the open during the day for people like you.”

“Because
I needed to talk to you and at night is the only time the nuns and the monks
will leave me alone long enough on a weekday to be here for a while.”

“For a while?”

“Not
like that. Just long enough to talk to you.”

“Talk
to me.
For what?”

Malakha
shivered, still trying to knock off the cold some. Noticing that, Julius
roughly said, “Come here.”

Malakha
stopped rubbing her arms, cautious of his outstretched arm.

“Why?”
she asked taking a step back in case she needed to run away from him too, even
though she was sure he would catch her anyway.

“Do you
want to freeze to death?”

Malakha
looked at him, understanding of what he was offering slowly dawning on her.
Finally she said, “I guess not.”

“Then
come here.”

Malakha
slowly approached him and when she was in his reach, he grabbed her and led
them both to where the large bird they had ridden on was resting. He sat them
both against the beast’s tail feathers and then pulled Malakha into his arms to
keep her warm.

“Now
tell me again why you came to talk to me.”

Malakha
sighed, trying to ignore how nice it was to have Julius’ arms around her.

“Something
weird is going on in my world, at my school.”

“Weird how?”
Julius asked.

Malakha
started at the beginning, with the laughter, followed by her first time in Hell
after the rave, then the laughter that had been followed by Eliza attacking
her, and then Michael having a seizure in the middle of the hall after hearing
the same laughter accompanied with growls of anger. Julius was silent after she
was done, and Malakha started to think that he had fallen asleep. She looked up
to make sure and saw that he was only staring straight ahead.

“So
what do you think?” she asked.

“I
think you have a problem on your hands,” he replied.

“I know
that,” Malakha replied.

“No.
You don’t. This is just going to get worse.”

“How?”

“Because
for a demon to control a person through the cracks in the divide is delicate
business. Whoever is causing the trouble at your school is going about it
sloppily, and I think it’s because it noticed you could hear it when he hadn’t
made a conscious connection with you,” Julius explained.

Malakha
tucked her legs in closer to her body and asked, “What do you mean it’s going
about haunting my school sloppily?”

“It’s
not haunting your school and when I say sloppily, I mean that…” Julius trailed
off and then said, “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not from Hell.”

“Then I
guess you’ll have to explain it to me,” Malakha said. “It’s not like I have
anywhere else to be.”

“People
from hell can’t just start shouting through a crack to someone they’ve made a
connection to in order to control them. Otherwise they fight it and stuff like
what happened with that guy in the hall happens. They get hurt trying to resist
the command because in your world stuff like that means the person is crazy or
something right?” Julius asked.

Malakha
nodded against his chest.

“Or
people like that girl that attacked you want the voice to shut up so bad that
they recklessly try to do what it says or try to silence the voice by
destroying themselves.”

That
explained why Eliza tried to kill herself, Malakha thought.

“It has
to start out subtle and then as the victim gets used to it, they think it’s
just their own voice in their head. They think they’re still in control when
really,
they’re acting on something else’s accord. For a
relatively weak person, it could take only a few days. For someone with a very
strong will though, it could take years, maybe never.”

“So
it’s definitely trying to get my attention?”

“Maybe,”
Julius said. “You won’t know for sure unless you find out what it is actually
doing this through the divide.”

“And
how do I do that?” Malakha asked.

Julius
unwrapped
his arms from around her, and Malakha tried to
ignore how cold it was when he did. He stood up and then helped Malakha to her
feet.

“Ask
Lucifer about it. He might be able to help.”

Malakha
blinked, the name sounding so familiar that she had to make sure Julius had
said it and not something else.

“Did
you say Lucifer?”

“Yeah.”

“As in Satan?”

Julius
laughed. “Is that what the people in Heaven call him?”

“Never
mind,” Malakha said, shaking her head dismissively. “Who is he?”

“Who do
you think? He’s the king of Hell.”

“The king?”
Malakha asked.

“Yeah.
Don’t you people in Heaven have a king?”

Malakha
shrugged. “Some places do. Not everywhere.”

Julius
hummed as he began to climb back on the large zombie eagle. He reached down to
help Malakha on.

“You
can get me to Lucifer so I can talk to him?”

Julius
hesitated a little before saying, “I can get you to where he is. Getting you to
talk to him is a different story.”

******

Julius
was right. Getting her to Lucifer was one thing. Getting her to talk to him
would be hard. It took them a few hours on Julius’ bird to get them to
Lucifer’s castle; a large dark and bleak place that, while much more put
together than anything else Malakha had seen in hell, was still cold,
dilapidated and dull. If that wasn’t enough, the sounds coming out of the
castle made up for it. Awful screeches, moans, and other unpleasant noises
pierced the walls and beasts flew, scuttled, and walked in and out of the
castle and into the dull city that surrounded it. In essence, Malakha and
Julius stuck out like lambs amongst wolves.