“Mary! At last! I’ve found you!”
“Billy! It’s me….”
“Mommy, where are you?”
And so it went. It was the weight of a hundred million souls upon him.
He was just about to give himself over to the desperate despair when it happened. They all stopped and froze where they were, as if time itself had been suspended. The voices stopped, and there was only silence.
Erik became aware of a gradual lighting; the brick red glow slowly turned orange, and then yellow. The shades dissolved around him, backing away from him as if he had become some fearful, frightening creature.
Erik noticed that the light wasn’t coming from around him, but from inside him, as if he himself had been illuminated from within. He could feel the radiance warming and refreshing him. He felt rejuvenated, as if he had taken a cool, refreshing shower on a hot summer’s day, and had been given a magical potion of energy and life.
To the damned souls around him, though, it was as if he had become poisoned. They retreated from him now, holding their hands and arms over their eyes in distaste and terror. He could no longer hear them-their voices had become mute to him-but he could see their lips moving as they cried out in fear and loathing. Whatever he had become was hateful to them.
He slowly crawled to his knees and looked over at his friend, Johnny Dovecrest. The Indian had also become transformed. His whole body was lit up, as if he had a strong fire burning inside him. The effect reminded Erik of paintings he had seen of angels, where the artist had somehow embodied them with a magical, mystical glow.
The doomed souls were moving away from Dovecrest as well, slowly backing away and holding out their hands as if to ward him off. The swarm had stopped completely and was now moving away from them both. It backed up against itself like a traffic jam as the shades melded into one another, and then slowly, almost with a delayed reaction, turned back the way they had come.
Dovecrest, too, had crawled to his knees and he met Erik’s gaze. A small, smile parted his lips, and Erik smiled in return. The two men sat and watched as the doomed hordes moved away. They could still see the damned souls, but could no longer hear them, or feel their anguish. And they no longer attracted the damned, but repelled them.
“What happened?” Erik said, finally.
Dovecrest stood up slowly and shook himself off. “I’m not sure,” he said. “But I think our prayers were heard.”
“Heard and answered.”
“Yes. Heard and answered.”
Erik got to his feet and looked around. The masses of the damned ignored them completely now, as if they had never existed. Erik took a step towards one of them, an old man who must have died recently, since his rags were not as rotted. The soul of the man backed away in disgust.
Erik noticed that the glow of light was fading away now, and both he and his friend were returning to normal. But the feeling of refreshment remained. They had experienced just a drop of heaven here in this hellish place, and it was enough to rejuvenate their spirits, at least for the moment. Neither man knew if it would be enough to sustain them for the rest of the battle. But it was obvious that they had not been destined for this place, and, whatever happened, their fate would not mean staying here for all of eternity. Whatever they had to face, it couldn’t be worse than this, Erik thought.
“Come on,” Dovecrest said. “I have a demon to destroy.”
“And I have a family to rescue.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
1
Todd could tell something had happened, but he didn’t know exactly what. He knew the demon knew it, too, because it became angry and agitated and swore under its breath. Todd knew that whatever had happened must be good if the demon didn’t like it. Still, he had no idea what had to be done next.
His mother was in bad shape now. Her pains were more regular.
“The baby’s coming soon,” she told him. “Very soon. Just stay and help me, Todd.”
“It’s ok, Mom,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere. You’ll be fine.”
“Hey, you’ll be the only kid on the block to have delivered a baby,” she said. “Won’t you have a story to tell your baby sister!”
Todd forced a laugh. “Yeah, she’ll owe me big time!”
“She sure will. We’ll both owe you big time. I’ll tell you what, when we get out of here we’re going out for a huge ice cream sundae.”
“I want chocolate chip ice cream with whipped cream and cherries,” Todd said, playing along with his Mom.
“And I want strawberry. With whipped cream and nuts.”
His mother’s face winced in pain and she struggled not to cry out.
“I think she’s coming, Todd,” she said. “You know what to do?”
He nodded. She had told him what to expect and what he had to do. He thought it was gross and disgusting, but he couldn’t let that stop him. When the baby’s head came out he was supposed to hold it steady and help guide it out by pulling, but not too hard, as his mother pushed. He knew about cutting the chord, and had found a sharp stone for this purpose. And he knew about getting air into the baby’s lungs if she didn’t cry. The only thing he didn’t know was what the demon was going to do next.
He looked at the monster from the corner of his eyes. It didn’t actually look like a monster anymore. It appeared as a normal man. But he knew better. He’d seen it transform and he knew what it really was. Even now, he wondered what it was up to as it drew shapes in the sand and chanted foreign-sounding words. He knew nothing good could come of that. He’d never seen anything like that in the normal world.
He turned back to look at his mother. Her face was scrunched up in pain. He knelt down between her legs and waited. He’d never seen his mother naked before, and it made him very uncomfortable. He just wanted this whole thing to be over. He wasn’t a doctor and he didn’t know how to deliver a baby. What if something went wrong? What if it got stuck.
Todd blinked hard to hold back the tears. And suppose the baby was born ok, and things went right. What then? The demon wasn’t going to just let them all go, just like that. It had something horrible planned for them. And Todd was afraid he would be the one to come out the worst.
He’d seen that awful head growing from the thing’s shoulder earlier. Would he end up like that? He knew he’d rather die than become a monster like that. He thought if it came to that choice he’d figure out a way to kill himself. He’d keep that sharpened stone just in case he needed it for more than just cutting his sister’s chord when she was born. He might have to use it on himself.
Then his mother clenched her teeth and reared up, and a pool of liquid flowed from her and onto the sand. She’d told him this would happen, but it grossed him out anyway and he wished he could be sick. But he swallowed hard and didn’t let on that it bothered him. He had to be strong now. They were in enough trouble without him caving in and being a baby.
“It’s ok, Mom,” he said. “I’m here. We’re going to be ok.”
She forced a smile and wiped away a tear.
Todd took another look at the demon. The monster was totally absorbed in whatever it was doing now. Todd wished the baby would hurry up and be born before this thing finished whatever weird plans it had cooked up.
2
Erik knew he had to find his wife and son, but he had no idea where to go next. This entire world had been designed with one thing in mind-to be completely and totally monotonous, featureless, and uninteresting. The black sand went on for as far as the eye could see, broken only by obsidian rocky outcroppings that became tedious in and of themselves. The sky-or whatever it was-was completely black and starless. Erik suspected it was more a ceiling than a sky. He had the dreadful image of being trapped underground in an infinite cave on a planet that made Jupiter look like a speck in the universe.