“Please Stasia, don’t send me there! Please!” she screamed in terror.
I faltered as her fear washed over me, and a momentary pang of sympathy stalled my anger.
With her features returning to the young, innocent face of a girl, I hesitated a second too long. As I began to pull the dagger away from her, she laughed demonically and stuck her own dagger into my stomach. Pain exploded from the newly formed wound, and my rage returned with a vengeance; strengthened by the added layers of betrayal. I lifted the dagger easily and brought it down into her chest.
“No!!!” I heard Priscilla scream behind me. Bianca’s eyes closed as she quickly began to fade below me. Her form shrank from human, to the familiar thin ribbon of silver; which appeared to then be sucked up and away towards an unknown source. I held a hand over the bloody cut in my abdomen and struggled to stand. Priscilla was doing the same, with the intention of attacking me again. I then dragged myself and half-stumbled over to Phoebe and Carmen, who were still unconscious.
“Phoebe! Carmen!” I shook them frantically. Phoebe finally groaned and made an effort to open her eyes when I felt it. A prickling cloud of cold, aching evil wrapped its tendrils around me and tightened; slicing my skin and yanking me down to the ground. I struggled against it, but only succeeded in cutting my skin further.
“I’m really getting tired of you,” Nadia materialized beside me, glaring down at me as I lay helpless on the ground. Her eyes flitted up toward Priscilla with icy hate. “And you.”
With a flick of her hand Priscilla screamed, sunk to the ground and began to fade. As her soul morphed into a silver ribbon, she followed the same path as her sister and disappeared from sight.
Nadia muttered something with irritation and then faced me. Her golden eyes flashed as her skin and hair sparkled of gold. It was more apparent than ever that she was connected to the Underworld. The evil tendrils floated off her skin, alluding to the firing inferno that burned just below the surface. She wore a tight bronze skirt with a flowing white blouse that highlighted her golden skin. She shook her head at me.
“I suppose if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” She glanced at Phoebe and Carmen, rolled her eyes, and growled, “Get up.”
With another flick of her hand, they were swiftly hoisted to their feet; instantly regaining consciousness. I watched as Phoebe’s anger began as a slow simmer within her narrowed eyes, and then roared to life as she attempted to move and couldn’t. I froze in fear, as the white vines at the bank untwisted and slithered towards my roommates. Shaking myself mentally, I struggled against the tendrils that held me down as the taunting vines curled around their legs, torso, and arms with painstaking slowness. Carmen receded further into herself as she looked on in eerie silence. Phoebe struggled against the death grip of the vines, but Nadia only succeeded in looking bored.
“Leave them alone!” I yelled at her. “They don’t have anything to do with this.”
“You did this,” her eyes sparkled with madness as her words caused a memory to resurface.
“This is your fault. You killed them.”
“No!!” I screamed. Nadia just smiled and flicked a finger at Carmen and Phoebe. Instantly, the vines tightened and cut off their ability to breathe. Carmen’s eyes bulged while Phoebe continued to struggle.
“Carmen! Phoebe!” I called out to them, feeling utterly helpless and inadequate as my roommates were strangled to death. Nadia glanced down at a non-existent watch on her wrist.
“Time to go,” she claimed, as if we were simply late for an appointment. She flicked a finger at the vines again, which promptly lifted Phoebe and Carmen off the ground. I felt myself also being lifted as the evil tendrils continued to slice through my skin. “I’m taking you where you belong.” She brushed her hair off her shoulders, smirked at me in victory, and snapped her fingers. “Hell.”
Chapter 37
Silence. It precedes many things. The punch line of a joke. The deafening boom of fireworks. A much deserved standing ovation. For us it preceded a terrifying experience that we would never, and could never, forget. The moment Nadia snapped her fingers, we were transported somewhere that no nightmare, no fear, no dark corner could ever compare with. It truly was Helclass="underline" Tartarus.
“Stasia?” Phoebe whimpered quietly next to me.
We found ourselves standing on parched soil that was blacker than black; staining everything it touched. Our clothes were quickly covered in the suffocating soot and I could feel it collecting in my lungs. But Nadia and her evil vines had disappeared. It took me several moments to register our surroundings; being that I had never seen anything like it before. Suspended at least twenty feet off the ground were thousands of tormented souls; held captive. From the sky, a thin rope of fire attached to a shackle circled their necks. From the ground, a similar rope of fire stretched upwards; securing their ankles. Both ropes were pulled taut, leaving each soul vulnerable and helpless. I could feel something that resembled evil, but it was much less organized. It felt more like a boiling madness that pressed against me; poking and prodding to wiggle its way in. I pushed it away and envisioned my mental barriers so that I could think straight. I also felt an overwhelming hopelessness that was threatening to suck the energy out of me.
“Phoebe, don’t move,” I warned her in a low voice; unsure as to what would happen if someone or something figured out there were three new residents.
“Make them stop screaming!” Carmen screamed at the top of her lungs in agony. She clutched her head and squeezed her eyes shut; crouching down to her knees. I glanced at Phoebe, who was attempting to comfort her with a pained expression. The screams of the souls were apparently lost to us. I could see their grotesque mouths stretched open as they struggled against their binds, but all I heard was silence.
“Why don’t we hear them?” Phoebe glanced up at me with trepidation.
“I don’t know,” I whispered, feeling completely defeated.
“Make them stop!” Carmen screeched again, even louder.
“We need to get her away from them,” I advised Phoebe. I closed my eyes and sent out some intuitive feelers in the hopes I could sense which direction we needed to travel. To the north, west, and south I felt only more madness and hopelessness. To the east, I felt a slight trickle of light that washed over my skin like a breath of fresh air.
“This way,” I instructed Phoebe. She pulled Carmen upright and we both supported her weight as she continued to fight against the screams. We half carried, half dragged her for what felt like miles over the scorched earth. At last I could see a clearing up ahead, but I had a foreboding feeling that it wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Once past the forest of screaming souls, Carmen was able to walk on her own; but completely drained and still in shock, she remained unresponsive. We held her hands and continued to walk. I noticed that the trace on my arm had grown murky and dull under the weight of delirium surrounding us. The wound from Priscilla’s dagger and the slashes from Nadia’s evil had stopped bleeding, but the damage had been done. Every move stretched and reopened each one, which burned incessantly and sent sharp pains along my skin.
We arrived at a wall of misshapen branches that arched towards the sky and then fell back down to the parched dirt; creating hundreds of scraggly tunnels. A layer of a black, moss-like substance hung over most of the branches; preventing us from seeing more than a couple of yards within. This stretched out all the way to the horizon in both directions, and appeared to be our only option. I closed my eyes again and felt that same sliver of light, and knew that we were heading in the right direction.