The Quarter Moon (Afterlife saga) (38 page)

“Grab your coat lille øjesten, it’s time for a walk into the past
.” I did as I was told and was at the door waiting, trying to hook one arm in my sleeve and pull the door knob with the other.

“You ready for this?”

“Do donkeys eat cherries?” He raised one eyebrow at me and I quickly said,

“Forget I asked…so ready for what exactly?” I asked as we stepped through the door.

“Breaking the rules.” He stated as though what we were about to do was an everyday occurrence in his world. Well, for all I knew, my new found blood brother was a vigilante, criminal mastermind for the Underworld’s underworld. So, of course, I gave him the only answer there was for me to give,

“Hell Yeah!”

Chapter 35

Trapped in Shadow Prison

I was pleasan
tly surprised to find this Somerset House was a quick walk away from the Savoy hotel. Well, that was until Sigurd reminded me that the Oracle was the one who planned most of this, so I gathered it made sense setting her own personal sucker…I mean Chosen One…up in a place that was walking distance to all these places. It made me wonder if she didn’t just do a search on Google… ideal places to stay for the tourist attractions Hell’s Ring/ Cheshire Cheese and one Heart of Paul Whitehead… in other words one Somerset House!

“She really did have everything planned
, didn’t she?” I asked out loud as Sigurd manoeuvred amongst angry pedestrians like a policeman would handle a suspect.

“She sure did
.” He replied dryly, keeping his hood up as if shying away from the crowd. I looked up at him and then looked around at the mass of people that all walked past us like they weren’t seeing a massive 6’ 5” guy all dressed in black who kind of gave off Grim Reaper vibes. This was when I realised it wasn’t the crowd he was shielding himself from, but the late day sun. I took a wild stab in the dark and gathered he wasn’t a big sun lounger kinda guy. Well I guess that cut out the need to get up at stupid ‘o clock and reserve a place by the pool with a towel when on your holidays!

“We
’re here.” His gravelly voice brought me out of my daft thoughts and I stared up at three colossal open archways that were the centre of nine Corinthian columns. My head went all the way back and I counted the nine keystones that all held a stern Godly face frozen in stone. I was actually impressed that from that small paragraph of cryptic nonsense he knew exactly where to go.

I was just taking in the splendour
that was the entrance to Somerset House, when I was roughly pulled through the middle arch around a group of Japanese tourists snapping pictures. As cliché as is sounded, I couldn’t say I blamed them as the place was simply stunning. It opened up into a large square, one big enough that I was sure could it be used for professional football, and that literally took my breath away. It was fronted with a large bronze statue that looked Greek in design with an obviously important man dressed in a toga. At his side stood a lion and the other side, the bow of an ornate ship. On the platform beneath him lay a large, muscled God spilling liquid from a rounded urn.

It was beautiful and as we walked closer I tried to pull Sigurd towards its information plaque. However
, he was having none of this and steered me around it, giving me a view of Somerset House’s vast courtyard.

“Hey, I wanted to read that!” I com
plained, which granted me an unamused grunt before he stated,

“You’re not here on a school trip
, princess.”

“Really
...? ‘Cause you know I thought you would have made an excellent History teacher.” I commented sarcastically.

“You think?” I actually coughed on my own surprise.

“Uh no, Mr grabby, draggy Magee.” This time he growled down at me.

“Don’t make me push your little ass into the fountains
.” He threatened and I jumped when the centre of the courtyard erupted into bursts of water in tall spurts. There must have been at least fifty of them and they all danced along in sync at different lengths. It was as though they flowed along to an un-heard water song.

We continued walking towards the main building ahead and the smell of coffee and baked goods came from the numerous plates sat in front of customers enjoyi
ng a late day break. It was as if we had stepped into a French main street. People took pictures of the stunning architecture and a group of young girls were all daring each other to run in between the lines of water.

I looked around all the bui
ldings that formed a square which could have been seen from space it was that huge! (Ok, so maybe a slight exaggeration but you catch my drift… it was damn big!)

“We are never gonna find it in this place
.” I said feeling my shoulders slump with defeat. I even felt the tears of frustration start to seep up from the worry I had on lock down. 

“Hey
.” Sigurd said softly before turning me to face him. He gripped my chin between his thumb and forefinger to lift my gaze to his. I saw the snake ring glow under the shadow of his big hood and his other hand rose to run the back of his knuckles down my cheek. His open palm came to rest on the side of my neck and he tugged me to his chest as the first tear fell. I felt his head lower and his lips first kissed the top of my head. Then he whispered tenderly,

“We will find the heart my øjesten, this I will promise you now
.” I nodded at his soft words of comfort and his fingers tensed at the column of my neck briefly. He let me go and I leant back to look up at him.

“But how?” I questioned in a small voice.

“Give me the book.” I did as he asked and dug into my bag which was strapped across my chest. I located the book, slapped it into his waiting hand and said,

“Do your thing
, big guy.” This delivered me a wink I could barely see and a cocky smile that showed the hint of fang. Briefly it made me wonder what it was with Demons and fangs but I didn’t think now was the time for inappropriate questions.

Sigurd’s large hand held the back of the book easily in one hand, whilst the other was placed over the raised leather snake on the top.

“Ojentaa Ouroboros.” (Means ‘Reach out’ in Finnish)

I watched as the tiny shadows under his hand crept out cautiously under the light of day before flowing like silk under water into the heart of the book. Sigurd shuddered and my reaction became the domino effect doing the same. We both ended up taking a step back at the same time but for different reasons, as his was to prevent what had already started happening…mine was to get away from it.

But I was too late.

I closed my eyes, not because I wanted to but because I had no choice in the matter. After a few seconds the darkness behind my closed lids released its hold
, but soon I wished for that darkness back. My vision cleared into my truest nightmare, so that I couldn’t stop the scream that tore from my soul. I looked around my basement prison and for a second thought I was back with Morgan. But no, this was so much worse, if that was even possible. See, it wasn’t that experience that I feared the most, although that may be surprising considering what he put me through. Ever since I was seven and transformed into a human with extra abilities of supernatural sight I had the very real fear of one day being committed. The terror of living the rest of my days in a mental asylum was a haunting prospect and it was more than enough to keep my mouth shut on anything I ever saw.

But now…

The room was just like one I had seen before, a small square that held nothing more than a slither of a metal bed and walls void of any feeling. Well, at least it wasn’t padded, I thought without humour. I looked to the heavy iron door, thinking that the frame length locks were massive overkill. What did they think I was going to do…hulk out?

I got up from the cobbled floor and blinked a few tim
es at the unexpected. Wasn’t it usual for places like this to be all stainless steel and cold tiles smelling of disinfectant? If anything this place had a damp stone and mossy smell. I brushed the dirt from my jeans and stood wrapping my arms around my belly for comfort.

“
Hello?” I whispered as a way to test the waters. I heard muffled footsteps from behind the door and the window behind me let through a slither of moonlight, enough for me to see the small square in the centre of the heavily bolted door anyway. It held three bars and was just above my head in height. I tensed my fingers into a fist and then released them as I decided I needed to see where I was. It looked like the same prison I had seen in Draven’s temple, holding a very different female prisoner.

I slowly approached the door and my heart thundered in my chest as though I was walking through a haunted house waiting for a ghostly figure to walk past me. I reached out with stretched fingertips to feel the condensation dripping down the dark metal. When nothing happened and no sounds could be heard
, I braved getting closer. I took another step until I could take no more and I lifted up to my tiptoes. It wasn’t enough to see so I gripped onto the bars and held still. Each movement I made had to end in pause, making sure that the result was still silence.

My grip tightened and I started to lift myself up whi
lst at the same time putting my feet to the door in order to push myself higher. Thankfully, the rubber on my trainers was enough to stop my toes from sliding down, keeping my grip in place. I looked through the bars and scanned the room beyond. What I found chilled me beyond the bone. I found the back of my own face staring back at me.

My long hair still remained but was matted and dirty. Mascara created black tears of panic as I stared down at arms covered in blood. I was wearing a wedding dress torn at the shoulder and a tear sliced in the bodice.

“DON’T HURT HIM!” I screamed in the middle of the room as I spun without reason. My grip turned painful on the bars as some other part of me just knew that I was staring into the future.

“Oh
God.” I whispered but that was when the other me had finally found her focus. Her head snapped round and then she was gone. I took in a premature breath of relief that was short lived.

“AH!” I screamed out as my own terror filled eyes appeared right in front of the door’s window. I let go and fell backwards on my backside with a painful thud that would definitely be painted an unappealing shade of blue in the foreseeable future. I shook my head and in an angry swipe at being so weak with the fresh pain, I ran the back of my hand across my face so as not to get dirt in my eyes.

“What do you want?!” I shouted feeling betrayed by my own self. The other me looked both sad and evil at the same time. My blackened eyes still streamed with tears but this time they looked angry.

“You killed the one I love!” She shouted back and I flinched at the verbal slap.

“I…I…”

“You…you…KILLED OUR LOVE!” The vision of me screamed out the end in a demonic voice that was a fleeting memory in the back of my mind. That voice…I knew that voice…who…?

As I tried to get my mind back in time down a road of demonic discovery, the other me had clearly had enough. She uncurled her bloody fingers and dropped behind the door, no longer in sight. I got up gingerly and ran back to my place at the door.

“Wait!” I shouted and lifted myself up once more but by the time I got there she was gone. The room beyond was empty and as I no longer had a mirror image to fixate on, I could take in the rest of the room. I
t was soon confirmed that this was indeed the room I’d walked into all that time ago in the Temple. But when I looked behind me I saw the window and wondered how. The Temple was situated deep under Afterlife but there the moon shone, just peeking out behind the clouds.

This wa
s the thought that brought on the change. The room started to spin and some aspects of my cell started to morph into another room. I felt a speck of something land on my cheek and I raised my hands to smudge the ash that rested there. I rubbed my fingertips together and examined the black mark that formed from my actions. This was when I looked up to see dirt raining down from the ceiling and the walls started to move back. They then wrapped around forming a circular space with the stones shrinking into smaller blocks.

The floor was soon covered in not just soot but also leaves and dirty trodden straw. The window arched and elongated into a wider slit in the tower room the space had transformed
into. Even the door ahead of me folded in on itself and just as I took a step to escape, iron bars, the thickness of my wrist, shot up from the ground like the fountains at Somerset House. What was left was half the room on my side in a semicircle, barricaded by a wall of bars.

“What the…?” That message was left unfinished as I spun around to see my own form once again, slumped over a bed of straw sobbing. I knew this was a different time
, as my hair was as I saw it in the mirror this morning, short and black. I decided to slowly approach and just before my reaching hand found her bare shoulder, she turned abruptly, scaring me. It took a startled moment for me to realise that the Keira in the future wasn’t staring at me but past me. I felt a chill creep over me as I took in her frightened gaze and readied myself for what I would soon see.

I took in a shuddered breath and look
ed round at the bars, not knowing what I would see in this nightmare realm. It seemed both mine and my future self both had the same urges as a double scream pierced the night. I stumbled back enough to hit the far wall before I fell due to my unsteady legs. The sight before me terrified me enough to take the strength from muscle and sanity from mind.

Gorgon Leeches filled the space beyond the bars
, alongside other creatures of Hell I hadn’t seen before. The tall flaky skin bodies flanked the Leeches and each one carried a weapon in the sickest of ways. Each blade or spear had the ends stuck firmly in their own flesh with darkened ash being the only sign of affliction. Each one had their eyes rolled back into their head and the one coming closer had his weapon of a steel bar rammed through his cheeks, keeping them locked painfully tight together. It caused his lips to form an elongated O making its entire face lengthen in a nauseating stretch.