Reaching out with my ungloved hand, I touched the page in front of me and was sucked into the memory.
I landed in a grain field and immediately hunched over, resting my hands on my knees as I breathed fresh air through my nose until the urge to vomit passed. I’d forgotten how unpleasant it was to travel into a life book memory. It felt like someone had reached in my chest, grabbed my soul, ripped it from my body, and flung it through time and space, which made sense because that was pretty much what had happened.
Straightening, I searched for Apollyon, but didn’t see him anywhere within the stalks of yellow wheat stretching out in front of me. In the far distance stood a small thatched-roof dwelling. Maybe a house? A ribbon of smoke snaked through the air off to the left that I assumed was from a controlled fire.
A man’s scream pierced the air behind me, and I spun to see Apollyon about thirty feet away, dressed in gleaming silver armor with a longsword gripped in his right hand. There was a man standing in front of him, hunched and looking like he was holding his gut, who tipped over and disappeared from view below the high grain.
I moved toward them, ghosting through the golden stalks that reached mid-thigh, as the man continued to make keening noises from the ground. My heartbeat was frantic, and a ball of trepidation lodged in my throat when I spotted the red dripping from the end of Apollyon’s blade. I forced myself to keep moving even though part of me wanted to portal out of this memory so I wouldn’t have to face what was to come.
Just as I reached the scene, the wailing stopped and was replaced with short panting breaths.
It shouldn’t have been a shock to see the dying man laid out in front of Apollyon, but the brutality of what had been done still gave me a start. Apollyon had split a man open from groin to navel. His entrails overflowed, spilling over his body and onto the ground as a pool of blood grew around him, wetting the dry dirt.
I tried not to be affected. After all, this had happened in the past and there was nothing I could do to help now. But my heart went out to the poor man who Apollyon had just cut down. Dropping to my knees, I tried in vain to comfort the man who no doubt had only moments left to live, but when I reached to hold his hand, my own just passed through.
The man’s gaze stayed fastened onto Apollyon’s. His lips moved and I heard him utter one word before he succumbed to death. “Why?”
He hadn’t spoken English, but somehow I still understood it.
I glanced back at Apollyon, hatred burning in my heart. If looks could kill, he’d already be dead. In contrast, Apollyon’s expression was unreadable. He didn’t seem to be taking pleasure from the man’s death, but he didn’t look too remorseful either. It was almost as if he was devoid of emotions, which in and of itself was freaky. It wasn’t until the man’s soul began to peel from his dead body that Apollyon showed any deference toward him.
I stumbled back, getting out of the way of the man’s spirit as he stood and looked down on his broken and bloodied body. His form was slightly transparent, like how Skye’s was on Earth, but his spirit form was whole again and his plain tan tunic was unbloodied.
The soul glanced up at Apollyon, his dark gaze full of sadness. “Why?” he asked again in spirit form.
“You are a means to an end,” Apollyon said callously, watching the soul with a keen eye.
Anger flashed across the man’s face, but it was replaced with shock as he started to glow. I stumbled back a couple of steps, also surprised by the sudden brightness coming off the soul.
Apollyon smiled. Sheathing his sword, he lifted his hand and a streak of black magic shot from his palm, hitting the soul right in the chest and wrapping around him, binding his arms at his side. The soul hovered about six inches off of his now dead body and Apollyon held him trapped there as he squirmed.
Hadn’t he done enough to this poor man?
“What are you doing?” the soul yelled as he tried to break free of Apollyon’s power. But the evil fallen angel didn’t answer. He only squinted in concentration and the smoky band of magic that stretched from his hand and wound around the soul grew thicker.
I hated that I had to relive this memory, that I was helpless to intervene, but it felt like something important was about to happen. Maybe this was how Apollyon consumed souls? Maybe it was something else? But even though what was happening was wrong and twisted, I had to see what Apollyon’s endgame was this day. I needed as much information as I could get from the past to get the upper hand on him in the future. To find Tartarus.
The brightness grew around the soul until I couldn’t see his figure anymore, only light and the ribbons of Apollyon’s dark magic.
Suddenly, the soul lifted off the ground and shot into the air. Apollyon adjusted his grip on his magic so that he was holding on to the rope of dark magic with both hands. As the soul ascended, Apollyon was tugged into the sky with him. Since I was tethered to Apollyon through his memory, I was pulled along with him.
All three of us shot upward. Even before I had wings, heights had never bothered me much, but not having control over where I was going as the ground got farther and farther away was unsettling. I looked up and saw a round portal open in front of a cloud. It wasn’t like any portal I’d ever seen before. I couldn’t see what was beyond the opening; it was covered with an iridescent film that shimmered in the mid-day sunlight. Golden sparks shot from the circumference of the round gateway. It was beautiful.
The soul, which now looked like a burning ball of light, marred only by Apollyon’s black magic wrapped around it, reached the portal and shot right into it, pulling Apollyon and me with him.
As with going through any other portal, there was a moment of disorientation before I regained my bearings. When I did, I found myself on the edge of a small village filled with thatched roofed structures nestled into a valley between two snow-capped mountains. I spotted a few people here and there, carrying water, laughing. They were all completely solid but had a slight luminescence to them.
Tartarus.
This was it! This was how Apollyon had found the realm. He’d hitched a ride to Tartarus with a soul that he’d murdered.
That was wrong on so many levels.
I wanted to look around and take in as much of the secret realm as I could, but besides being tethered to Apollyon, there just wasn’t time.
Turning in a circle, I located Apollyon off to my left. The soul we’d ridden in with was nowhere to be seen. Apollyon had likely released him and now had no more interest in the poor man. There was a huge smile on my demented father’s face that looked more than a little unhinged.
“You can’t be here,” someone said, the words foreign to my ear, but yet again I understood them.
