Demonology 107 - Part 4

My name is Mercedes Whitman and I'm a hero on a foreign world. I am the daughter of two heroes, and was trapped on this Earth during an Event that sealed the way back home forever. They call me Black Sapphire when I’m out patrolling, and these are my Blogs.

In unison the three people in the throne turned as one and spoke.  “Why have you come to Carcass?”

Sapphire responded after a moment.  “We came looking for a man, and a prophetic vision brought us to the…city?”  Wynn nudged her from behind.  “I’m sorry I don’t mean to be rude, but the Mystic City of Sham’bala is an actual city.  The Dark City seems to lack an actual city.”

They pointed the floor and she noticed a pentagram begin to glow, the fountain at its center, and the top of the star pointed north.  The glow spread to encompass the stone at their feet and she began to make out the carvings set into the walls of the pit below them.  Outcroppings that looked like buildings cut into the bedrock.  “Huh, how about that a city built into the stone.”  Sapphire mumbled.  She spoke up, “We do not know why we were guided to this location.”

“You came seeking one man, but did not find him but perhaps you did?”  The female spoke alone.

“They did not come for him sister.”  The brothers spoke in unison.

“We came looking for Damien Lockheart, this man’s father,” Sapphire gestured to Wynn behind her.

“He was here once, many years ago,” once again in unison.

Demonology 107 Part 4 - “Bled Chaos, Raw Power”

Damien stared up through the blood pouring from the wound over his eye and grinned through the blood, a tooth dropping from his maw.  He chuckled at the man attacking him.  “So an artificial immortal thinks he can kill one of the High Blood?”  He cocked an eyebrow.  “WELL BOY!!  YOU THINK THAT YOU CAN KILL ME!!”  The shadows in the temple darkened and the man shifted his fighting stance.  The three others stood back and watched.

“We are the Four Woes and we protect this place from those who would take the power and use it for themselves.  I am bound as one of the first to kill you to prevent its release.  My name is Chang and I am your doom!”  His fists lanced out and a flurry of attacks came at Damien, but each one was swallowed just before impact and landed on the wielder of those fists.  His flurry stopped almost as fast as it had begun.  “I…what?”  He shook his head to clear the clouds that had overcome him suddenly.

“I came to this place looking for an immortal and I find four, guarding a cursed well, my time has been wasted and you will pay for attacking me with your life.”  He stood to his full height and straightened out his coat and held a hand out to his side, a weapon of solid darkness forming in his palm as his fingers closed around the handle.

“We cannot die,” one of the others spoke.  “We are cursed to remain for all eternity.  We must stand watch and prevent the rising.  You must finish the combat.”  Chang nodded and the battle resumed.

When the dust settled the temple was missing part of two of its walls and several of the stained glass windows.  Chang of the four Woes was missing, lost in the ether of the Chasm of Never-ending Darkness deep in the Abyss of Lost Souls.

Damien turned and walked through the wreckage as the three remaining Woes sat in their thrones to watch over the fountain.  He paused next to one of the stained glass images and puzzled at the spelling of dark with two k’s.  He shook his head and left the Darkk City of Carcass behind him.

Epilogue

Sapphire slide into the alley and continued running after him, he had been leading her through these back alleys for several minutes, always remaining just out of her line of sight, she could swear that the shadows were hiding him.  “I just want to talk!!”  She cried out.

“They always say that.”  His voice echoed back to her.

“You may be the only hope I have in saving my…a man I care about.”  Her speed jumped up and she cut the next turn a smidgen faster then he counted on and she grabbed his speed and he stumbled. 

“Please leave me be.  I’m not the man you’ve been looking for anymore.  Damien Lockheart died years ago.  I’ve put him behind me and I have bigger problems than you do.  Any skills I had back when I was him are gone now.” She stared at the man before him, and the shadows were actually swallowing him.

She collapsed to her knees.  “I need to save him.  He’s the only thing that I have that’s even close to my old world.  I hate this place.  My family and friends are lost to me and they only people from my old life that survived the Cascade closing seem to be enemies.  I found a tenuous link to that life and he is infected by a cosmic evil that I wish to purge from him to restore his soul.  Magick was my only hope.”

“There are plenty of other actual magicians out there in the world that are more powerful than I was.  You should find one of them to try whatever it is that you want to try.”

“I did try them but no one wants to attempt to displease the Entity, he has ignored the Earth since the Event and a few of them said that Spectacular made a truce with him to leave us alone.  So I tried to think outside of the box and hunted you down as my only chance.”  She stared with pleading eyes as the shadows grew so dark that she couldn’t even make out a shape anymore.

“Perhaps you aren’t thinking enough outside of the box at all.  Magick is a solution but ultimately always has a price, you might end up curing him and the curse might end up attaching itself to another, probably someone you care about.  I would go deeper.”  The shadows snapped back into place as they resumed their normal density and the man who was Damien Lockheart was gone.  Sapphire knew she would never find him again.

She wiped the tears from her eyes and blinked at the wall of the alley before her, amongst the graffiti was a huge yellow number three; it caught the light of a nearby doorways overhead lamp just right.  She stood and walked to the lamp and pulled the bulb from its socket and looked it over.  “I think it’s a black light?”  She mumbled to herself.  “Why would someone use a black light to light an alley?”

TBC in Stand Alone 9

Demonology 107 - Part 3

My name is Mercedes Whitman and I'm a hero on a foreign world. I am the daughter of two heroes, and was trapped on this Earth during an Event that sealed the way back home forever. They call me Black Sapphire when I’m out patrolling, and these are my Blogs.

Sapphire moved quickly and quietly across the chain links towards the temple, occasionally glancing backward once in a while to watch Wynn pick and chose his steps carefully. She sighed and continued toward the temple and the fountain, watching the shadows for any sign of movement. The cloud cover broke as she stepped onto the ‘floating’ island, the sun igniting the stained glass windows that could be seen within and on the wall before her.

She looked it over quickly, but couldn't make sense of the images without being within and having the sun lighting the way for her. She turned and waited for Wynn to finish trekking across the links and assisted him down to the ground, motioning for him to be quiet and to follow her to the doors.

They swung open silently and motes of dust swirled in the air, catching the sunlight and further obscuring the windows. Each wall would have held two massive frescoes, but whatever had caused the partial destruction of the northwest wall had knocked at least three of them down. As soon as the dust settled, Sapphire gasped and stared at the north corner, on which was a slanted wall and the largest of the stained glass visions: Pandemonium in all her glory. To her left hand was Discord, in another glass window. Only Jerusalem Walker seemed to be missing from the trinity.

“There is a similar temple in Sham’bala. No stained glass, but there are frescoes on the walls and they are prominently of Jerusalem Walker,” Wynn said from her side.

“Then that implies a third temple, if this one is for Pandemonium and the Sham’balan one is for Walker. Discord is the third, and has no temple.”

“That we know of. But if she was to have a temple or city of her own... where would it be? Sham’bala and Carcass sit on the intersections of the eight major lei lines of Earth and the galactic ninth that runs through them both, linking good and evil like two halves of a coin, as it were,” Wynn replied.

“Pandemonium wasn't evil; she died a hero when she sealed the Cascade.” 

Wynn shook his head before responding, “She was the darkest one of the trinity. Jerusalem Walker embodied what was good in the universe and Discord the neutrality. Each was a representative of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, and when they came to this barren universe they created the balance of the three.”

“How do you know this stuff?” Sapphire asked.

“They taught us many things in Sham’bala. Jerusalem Walker left behind many teachings. He loved to write, and there are hundreds of volumes of text in which he revealed the creation of the universe... and the world from before. He was the real hero of the trinity, and if it had been up to him he would have sacrificed himself to seal away the Cascade.”

“Always with the teaching, aren't you?” Sapphire knelt down and thought back to those last moments…

"But...why does it have to be you?" Tears flowed freely down her cheeks.

"Because of what I represent. When I am gone, the world will be a better place." She turned away and leaped across the void. The Cascade shuddered and snapped back in on itself and ripped and tore at the Universe. The Armada was lost, and the Cascade was gone.

…Sapphire stood and nodded at Wynn. “You’re right. I was with her just before the Cascade was sealed and something she had said hadn’t made any sense to me at the time. But it does now. She was the darkness in the hearts of man, and when she died, that shadow left the human soul, making the world a brighter place. It was why we have had so much peace since that day. It also makes me wonder why the Shrulk broke that peace all those months ago. Why did it come forward when it did?”

“I have no idea, but just to let you know, we aren’t alone in here.” Wynn pointed at four thrones which were facing the fountain, one was shattered and empty, but the other three each held a person watching the fountain, two men and a woman. They stared straight ahead and did not move.

“This can’t be good…”

Demonology 107 - Part 3: “When Walks the Dead”

My name is Damien Lockheart and this is my journal. If found, please mail it to the Raven Estate in New York.

Joanna paged through the book, reading entries that seemed interesting to her, but ignored most of them. The journal had belonged to an occult detective, and he seemed to be searching for his brother, mother and a close friend who were all lost to him some time ago. She frowned at the whorish nature of some of his cases, and smiled when he shared some insights on who he was before he came to this Earth. She was certain he was an alien, and that his real name wasn't Damien, but beyond those facts she was lost.

She had found the book a few outings before she had started to read its contents. It was found during one of the adventures with her cousins, and she had held onto it, fully intending to mail it to the Raven Estate when she had arrived back stateside... but she could not seem to let it go. She needed to meet this mysterious man, and perhaps go on an ‘investigation’ with him, but his cases always seemed to center around clues that he tried to use to find his family.

“Hey, cousin, if you’re done reading that damn book again we need to move out. We got word of a herd of Yetis rampaging through Oregon and Washington,” Barnabus called down to her.

“If they are in the U.S. then they are Sasquatches,” she returned.

“Nope. Yetis. Trust me. It’s going to be awesome.” 

She sighed and closed the book. She was going to find this "Damien" someday, and it was going to be one hell of a story.

TBC in Demonology 107 - Part 4