Arianna Rose: The Gates of Hell (Part 5) (7 page)

Following Jason with the rest of the group behind her, Arianna tore open the door
.  The sky had grown dark, thick, ominous clouds appearing suddenly as if a mighty thunderstorm was imminent, and veins of lightning bolted horizontally. 

“What’s this?” Desmond asked, his eyes cast to the horizon, but Arianna raised a hand, halting his sentence before it was finished.  The unearthly darkness, the slithering volts carving the heavens, his question of it, all were meaningless.  His gaze discovered what hers had, for he sucked in a sharp breath,
and then drew his daggers from the sheath at his back. 

Tawny eyes dotted the darkened landscape, predatory
and sinister in their amber hue, and sitting beneath brows that arced and pointed like sharpened scythes.  More animal than human, the beasts were monstrous with yellowed teeth, bared and pointed like deadly blades.  Demons, too many to count, waited for them.

Near the front of their ranks, she
saw Dane’s body engulfed in radiance.

A blinding flash of light hugged his body.  He snapped both hands out to his sides, summoning fiery bursts of glimmering
luminescence.  A silvery-purple sheen of light exploded in his palms.  Light swirled and coalesced into a tight ball of dense matter, growing bigger and bigger until she doubted any power remained inside him.  She knew he was capable of such a phenomenon, had trained with him.  But never had she seen a display such as the one before her eyes.  He resembled a celestial body, a star or comet.  But when he launched the ball of energy, the shroud of color left him, and he looked more like the warrior he actually was.

The orb hurtled through the ether and landed against the chests of two fiends advancing slowly. 
The ground beneath her feet began to buckle and sway as the blast knocked them back.  Another shimmering blue orb formed almost immediately at his fingertips. He dispatched it as well, and as he did, the gravity of the situation came into razor-sharp focus.  A brilliant flash of light whizzed in the distance and ripped through surrounding trees, creating a spray of bark and splinters.  Jason flung spheres toward the demons, sending some tumbling backward and killing others. 

The beasts looked among
one another, pausing for a stunned moment, then charged from every direction.

The old woman Arianna and Desmond had seen on the street not long ago, stoop
ed and gnarled with cherub cheeks and a kindly twinkle in her eye then, flung her agile form at them now, mouth wide and amber eyes glowing.  “Die, Sola!” the woman cawed as she released a demonic cackle.  Arianna dodged the attack, crouching just in time.  But Desmond did not.  A talon-like nail dragged against the side of Desmond’s neck leaving a trail of blood in its wake, sending forth a surge of power from a reserve deep within her. 

Seeing blood spill from him, no matter how trivial, elicited fierce tremors
that shook her body, and her vision was once again veiled in crimson.  Her heart, racing seconds earlier, slowed along with the scene in front of her.  Drenched in blood red, she swore she could not only hear but smell the putrid lifeblood coursing through the veins of the beasts attacking, and every fiber of her being yearned to kill them all. 

Her muscles twitched as her arms shot out to her sides.  The force of her energy pulsed like an electric current before a stream of fire
jetted from her hand and reduced the old woman to a mound of ashes. 

She exchanged a knowing look with Desmond then watched for a split second as he disappeared and materialized before demon after demon, claiming their lives with his
blazing daggers.  She began launching her own attack, unleashing a torrent a fire from her fingertips.  But before long, she realized too many were rushing her—rushing all of them.  She paused for an instant, and in that fraction of a second, felt a small, compact form slam into her back.  Immediately, teeth sank into her flesh and she cried out.  A demon was on her, gnawing at her skin.  In her periphery, she saw that Ramiel had three creatures latched to him. Two resembled monstrous, distorted versions of vicious primates while the third was familiar.  It was the freckle-faced boy from the store.  Charles, shy and soft-spoken earlier, hung on to him, long canines coated in blood.  He and the others tore the flesh from Ramiel’s body in gory chunks, crying out with malevolent glee as they did.

Gripping the beas
t on her back by its prickly mane of hair, she called upon strength she never fathomed she possessed and yanked hard, feeling muscle and tendons, skin and bones separate, until she held only a head.  The body went limp and landed against the earth with a soft
thud
. 

She took a step toward Ramiel, but realized it was too late.  He collapsed to the ground, his eyes unfocused, unseeing. 

“No!” she screamed out and saw that four trainees lay dead next to him, their bodies mangled.

Feeling her anger mount and her breathing become short and shallow, Arianna called forth every ounce of her strength, rousing her energy until her body glowed a fierce scarlet hue.  In one swift expulsion that exploded from her body like a single sonic boom, a tidal wave of fire projected from her, consuming every being in its path that was not connected to her.

When small plumes of smoke coiled from the sooty piles of fallen fiends and Arianna saw how many of her group had lost their lives, the world became an ocean she no longer felt the will to swim in.  The constant battle against a current intent on drowning her became overwhelming, too much to bear.  So she stopped, even if just for a minute, and allowed the overpowering tide to tug her downward.  Spiraling in the murky depths of despair, Arianna realized that her power still grew with her anger and that if only she had been capable of controlling them from the start, none of her loved ones would have died.  Loss would not be her constant companion.  All of it, each death, was her fault. 

Trembling so hard her knees gave out from beneath her, she
fell to the hard ground, distraught beyond measure.  Not only had she been too late to save the town and stop Darius again, she couldn’t protect her own, those close by even. 

Arianna wondered whether she would be able to end Darius’ murderous binge and save humanity
when she couldn’t even protect those closest to her.

Chapter 5

Deep beneath an Argentinian monastery, Darius strode down a long tunnel to open the third gateway between the realm of Earth and Gehenna.  Baal, a hulking mass of muscle with an amber mane that surrounded ruby eyes, an upturned snout and a massive jaw, walked a few steps behind him on his right, along with three trusted servants he’d brought over when he’d opened the first portal. 

Abdiel, a being
capable of suppressing powers who reigned over much of the slave population of Gehenna, followed as well, his long, purposeful strides a result of his towering height.  With skin the color of nutmeg and eyes composed solely of irises that resembled polished onyx, Abdiel was an impressive creature to behold.  Slim of build but with rippling muscles that strained against his skin, his lean form was equally as intimidating as Baal’s bodybuilder physique.  He was soft spoken and his voice held within it a quiver.  But that quiver trembled with the threat of violence like the strike of a finely honed blade. 

Naberius, a powerful demon who controlled legions in the underworld,
lumbered alongside Abdiel.  Walking with plodding, graceless steps that slapped against the trickle of water flowing at their feet, Naberius was the skin-and-bones embodiment of a bludgeon: thick and clumsy and tricky to wield, but capable of killing with a single strike.  A rotund belly draped over the waist of his loincloth and drooping flesh encasing his pectoral muscles resembled a female bosom in size and fullness.  Naberius was the doughy hunter no one ever saw coming, the one no one ever expected.  His round cheeks and bulbous nose sat beneath eyes that twinkled like the benevolent elf, Santa Claus.  What dwellers of the realms did not know was that the twinkle in his eye was little more than the glitter of hellfire, shining not with mirth and benevolence but with violent anticipation. 

To his left,
Lilith, a sexual entrepreneur who used her body to torture those damned to lower levels of hell eternally, floated effortlessly.  With skin as pale as the driven snow and hair that rivaled the sun, Lilith looked the part of an earthbound angel.  Her face, the muse of countless works of art through the centuries, made Aphrodite look like an ugly stepsister.  Rosebud lips and high, regal cheekbones, both striking and breathtaking to behold, did not compare to her large, luminous eyes.  Almost alien in their size, her irises were so blue they resembled cut sapphires, piercing, and capable of snaring any mortal or immortal man in their sight.  Her heart-shaped face ended with a pointed chin that gave way to the slender column of her throat, lowering further to swollen mounds of milky cleavage.  Every inch of Lilith was designed for seduction, torturous seduction.  Darius’ groin ached with need at the thought of her much talked about prowess.  A loosely tied robe of red material so fluid it coated her body like blood, pooled at her feet and moved soundlessly as she glided in his peripheral view.  He struggled to restrain himself from descending on her and taking her right there in the tunnel. The hood of her robe was pulled over her head so that it sat at the crown of her skull, framing her face and creating a gap that afforded him a fleeting glimpse of the coral nubs beading at her chest.  Desire coiled tightly, almost painfully so, but his time would come to have Lilith; he knew it would.  Now just wasn’t it.  A more pressing matter, namely opening the gate, needed to be dealt with.  Still, with every step she took that offered him a peek at her creamy, ripe breasts, his self-control was tested further. 

Intermittent rumbles echoed
and jarred the concrete beneath his feet, the call of Gehenna growing louder, beckoning him with a demand that matched his own to send forth its fiends.  He swept his eyes about the darkened curves of the tunnels, searching for the juncture between empires, the thin veil between what mortals called hell, and Earth.  Instinct pulled him along, and Lilith’s lithe body became less of a diversion. 

A faint moan rolled with the steely reverberations of a bottomless echo
as a low vibration of energy slithered from the dark, sinister and strong.  Darius continued at a brisker pace, eagerness getting the better of him.  The blackness was reaching out to him, tugging him with dusky fingers, to remove the shroud between worlds. 

Ancient words
dripped from his tongue, an incantation of evil, as the scroll of black stretched several more paces.  But his journey would end soon.  A gentle breeze, ripe with the familiar foulness of Gehenna, landed against his chest like a fist. 

“Stop,” he raised a hand to halt the others.  His group obeyed, stopping where the whirr of energy teemed in the air so fully he could feel its pulsation. 

“We have arrived, my lord,” Lilith’s dulcet voice, rich in exotic inflection, stated more than asked.  She twirled her head so that she faced him, and the section of atmosphere that buzzed in front of her stirred, causing the air around her to be redolent with the heady scent of thousands of blood roses. 

Lilith’s electrifying stare and arresting features combined with her evocative fragrance was almost Darius’ undoing.  He shook his head, as if to clear the images of her on all fours offering her slick center to him, and swallowed hard.  Time enough to indulge
in his every carnal delight would present itself after he opened the portal. 

Smirking as though she’d read his thoughts, Lilith arched a delicate brow and licked her lips lasciviously, heaving a deep breath that thrust her chest outward. 

“Yes, the time has come.  The third gate will be opened,” Darius answered her question.

Baal snorted and scraped his foot against the concrete floor of th
e tunnel, the sound primal and excited. 

Abdiel sank to one knee.  “My lord,” he said and dropped his chin deferentially.  His quiet voice and submissive tone belied his power. 

Darius felt a tremendous flow of pride rush through him that he, a demon from hell who once kowtowed to the likes of Agnon and Asus, serving as their whipping boy, their lackey, now commanded an entire realm singlehandedly.  

“It is a rare gift to witness your skills firsthand.  I am in awe,” Abdiel continued. 

As much as he enjoyed having his ass kissed by Abdiel, he’d much prefer it be done by Lilith. 

“Rise,” he said with an absent flick of his wrist, commanding Abdiel to cease his shameless flattery
and stand. 

He pushed past the tall, slender master of Gehennan slaves and
approached the space where iniquity frothed and foamed. 

Equipped with power, courtesy of the late Agnon, to free some of his loyal warriors, he stared at the space before him, sniffing the pungent stink of rot and death that hung
there, thick and heavy like drapery.  But no drapery, when pulled back, could reveal what he was about to reveal.  He raised his hands slowly, then with arms outstretched, focused his thoughts on Gehenna, a sinister realm of fire and destruction, of complete chaos and waste. 

A jolt snapped f
rom his core as he labored and struggled against the molecular structure of the universe, against gravity, space and time.  Though easier each time he undertook the endeavor, opening the portal was still a task that caused beads of sweat to trail from between his shoulder blades down to the small of his back.  But he breathed deeply and met the challenge, reaching out with every ounce of strength he possessed, and battled until a section of air before him became visible, quivering and shimmering like heat radiating off pavement on a sweltering summer day.