She steals a quick glance to her left. The smooth, quicksilver surface of the lake sparkles crimson, reflecting the ceiling embers high overhead.
Must hurry… before the demon sentry in Jacob’s holographic program appears.
She jogs faster, adrenaline and fear distracting her brain from the physical pain, the double-edged sword gripped firmly in both hands.
Twenty years of existence, twenty years of nightmares. For six years she has watched her son prepare for war within this same hellish environment. But this is no holographic program, and she is not Jacob.
God, please let him still be alive.
She races past the alabaster tree, hurrying to the cross and its unconscious crucified victim.
‘Jake? Jacob, honey, it’s me!’ She reaches the wooden cross’s base, gazing up at its crucified figure – who slowly opens his iridescent eyes, a smile appearing on his angelic face.
Dominique’s jaw drops. ‘Devlin…’
The Seraph spreads its wings, then leaps off the cross, his feet pouncing on Dominique’s chest, his talonlike toenails puncturing her environmental suit.
And then his wings stop flapping, and he leans in closer, staring at her, his dark expression quizzical. ‘You’re not Immanuel?’ He straddles her chest and sniffs her neck, his nostrils inhaling her scent. ‘First-Mother! Where is your other son? Tell me now, or I’ll kill Jacob.’
‘I’ll tell you… but first… I want to see him!’
Devlin’s wings beat the air, lifting him off Dominique’s chest. Regaining his feet, he pulls her up by the hair, then drags her toward the calabash tree.
Jacob is on his back, his throat and limbs pinned beneath the tree’s thickly knotted alabaster roots.
‘Speak now, or he dies.’
‘Manny never made the voyage. I took his place.’
Devlin’s eyes blaze violet. ‘Impossible.’
‘It… it’s true.’
‘ Arrgggghh!’ Devlin clubs her in the back of the head, sending her crumpling to the oily ground-unconscious.
The Seraph closes his eyes, allowing his mind to slip inside the nexus. Lilith is waiting for his consciousness within the dense white haze.
Immanuel is not here, Mother. The twins have altered the past!
It doesn’t matter, as long as the portal to Hell is unsealed and Lucifer is resurrected.
But it takes the presence of both Hunahpu twins to unseal it.
You forget, we still have One Hunaphu. His presence, combined with Jacob’s, will provide all the energy needed to open the gate.
Yes, but we cannot tap into his energy field while he remains within his protected domain.
This time he’ll leave. We’ll lure him out using his loved ones.
The pain jerks Dominique awake as Devlin drags her by the hair toward the luminescent white tree.
The Seraph stands before the immense trunk, flapping his wings. ‘Open your eyes, One Hunahpu. I want you to gaze upon the face of your beloved soul mate as I violate her before your God!’
The being punches Dominique across the back of her shoulder blades, the crushing blow dropping her to the ground.
She feels the Seraph’s talons shred the remains of her environmental suit down the back, then screams through her regulator as he pulls her pants down, exposing her bare buttocks.
She gags as powerful hands lift her hips to his naked groin.
‘Unseal the portal, One Hunahpu, or I swear to Lucifer, I’ll rape and torture her every minute of eternity!’
Two pinpoints of aqua blue appear in the gooey white sap, the outline of a face revealing itself just beneath the surface of the calabash bark.
Ripples appear on the lake, and the surface begins undulating, as if something large is disturbing the depths.
Devlin stares at the exotic liquid. It’s happening. The portal’s opening!
Jacob opens his eyes.
The subterranean ceiling is alive with flames that leap away from the broiling embers like solar flares. He attempts to sit up but finds a great weight pressing against his throat, more resistance binding his upper torso and limbs to the ground.
He hears his mother’s cries. Feels his father’s presence.
Closing his eyes, he slips into the nexus.
Jacob Gabriel’s mind enters the frigid white mist and he is afraid.
It’s been an eternity, my love. Have you missed me?
The haunting whisper tickles his ear. He can smell the jasmine, then he sees her eyes, radiating a bright Hunahpu blue.
The lithe form moves out from the mist, her swollen breasts pressing against the sheer fabric of a vermilion-colored negligee.
Her gaze is drawn to his right arm, which is still raw and bleeding from the last attack. Come closer, cousin. Let me lick your wounds.
Jacob backs away.
Still frightened?
Devlin… is the monster my son?
He is Lucifer’s son.
It didn’t have to be like this, Lilith.
Ah, but it did. Her irises simmer violet in the supernatural light. I was born into Hell and I’ll die here, not as its victim but as its conqueror. Abandoned by God, I turned to the only ones left who would embrace me, those of the lesser lights.
They weren’t real, Lilith. They were voices in your head.
You were a voice in my head, but I still loved you! And what did you do? You abandoned me in my hour of need, first when we were teens, then when you left on the Balam. You helped sow the seeds of my corruption, now you can reap the harvest of your selfishness!
Lilith’s dark complexion pales to a ghostly white, the pupils of her azure eyes flaming to vermilion. The once-sensuous mouth deforms, twisting… distorting into a hideous vertical orifice. The purple labia-like lips widen, the grotesque grin chilling Jacob’s blood.
Moving toward him, the she-demon allows the straps of her nightgown to fall, then she steps out of the garment, exposing her vile sex.
Jacob swoons, unable to focus, the nexus whirling in his head.
She leaps for him, driving him backward as if he were struck by a sledgehammer. Straddling his chest, she claws at the remains of his body armor as he struggles to regain his breath, the slit of her hideous mouth pressing closer to his face, revealing multiple rows of tiny, razor-sharp black teeth.
Jacob dry heaves at her sulfuric breath. He grabs her throat with his right hand, attempting to keep her groping face away, while his free hand fights the claw at his groin, frantically attempting to prevent the rape.
From his isolated isle of calm, the consciousness that is Michael Gabriel feels the sudden disturbance within the nexus. A sense of dread overwhelms him as he registers waves of energy and senses the struggle so close to his protected domain.
Devlin abandons Dominique, moving as if in a trance toward the shoreline of the lake, whose waters now radiate an emerald tinge. ‘Hear me, Father. Send forth your demon sentry. Empty the pit of Babylon and reveal the Gates of Hell, so that I might release thee!’
Dominique crawls toward Jacob, distancing herself from the Seraph. ‘Jake? Jake, wake up!’
Jacob is pinned beneath the thick roots of the calabash tree, thrashing wildly, as if in the throes of a horrible nightmare.
The sound of a heavy gong tolls in the distance.
The village of the Fallen Ones empties, its members slowly making their way to the shoreline of the metamorphosing lake.
Jacob’s mind screams as he struggles in vain to keep the Succubus at bay.
Lilith’s face is hideous, taking on the proportion of a Gorgon. Amoeba-like mealworms crawl from porous openings along her flesh, releasing a putrid secretion and inhuman pheromones.
Jacob flings his head from side to side, gagging at the stench. Physically outmatched, mentally exhausted, pinned to the earth, he finds himself overwhelmed by a presence whose sheer force of will threatens to tear his own consciousness apart.
A bloodcurdling scream bellows from his throat as scalding-hot mucus drips from the Abomination’s naked loins.