There was a table in the center of the room. In the middle of it was the bowl filled with my blood. Floating on top of that was the lock of my hair, tied tight with a piece of twine. All around that fated vessel were a number of other small bowls filled with various powders and liquids. I didn’t ask what any of them were. On the floor was a hexagon with a star inside it painted on the floor in white. Around the perimeter of the room was a thin line of salt.
“You and I are going to go on a journey together tonight,” Tituba murmured.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re going to sneak past the gates of hell,” she answered, and a shiver of terror raced down my spine.
“Why on Earth would we do that?”
“Because in order to complete the ritual, we’re going to need the tears of an angel,” she answered.
“Why would an angel be in hell?” I questioned.
“Because Cain put him there,” she replied.
I paused for a long moment before I met her eyes, swallowing heavily as her meaning dawned on me.
“We’re going to find Abel, aren’t we?”
“We are,” she said tersely. She was clutching a bundle of smoking incense in her hand so hard that her knuckles had turned white.
She was scared too.
I didn’t know why she’d be doing this for me, but I almost didn’t want to know because I was afraid of what that reason might be. There had to be something for her to gain out of helping me to bring down Cain and neuter him of his power, I just didn’t know what that was yet.
I should be more careful, but I was a desperate woman on the run. For now, I would ignore my reservations and I sincerely hoped that I wouldn’t regret it later.
We took a seat across from one another and she told me to lay the backs of my hands on the table, a symbol for our journey beneath. She began muttering softly under her breath and my bowl of blood started to boil. She mixed in several different ingredients and soon the boiling liquid turned black as night. When she was finished, she took a sip and indicated that I was to follow suit.
It tasted sweet although I couldn’t place the flavor.
She took my hands in hers after that as she continued to speak in tongues and after that, the floor started to rattle beneath our feet. It grew stronger and then, all at once, the ground opened up under us and we began to fall straight down into the unknown. I swallowed my screams of fear as a massive updraft of air slowed our descent until a new ground hurtled up from beneath us, forcing us to land hard on our feet.
The darkness was oppressive, so pitch black that I couldn’t even see my fingers in front of my face. All of a sudden, a single candle flame brightened in front of Tituba’s face, illuminating the shadows and revealing a very tall stone door right in front of us. On it was the carvings of an untold number of tortured individuals and screaming faces that would haunt me until the end of my days. In Tituba’s other hand was the bowl of my spelled blood. She poured some of it onto the ground at her feet and a terrible groaning echoed all around us.
The gates of hell were opening.
I heard the crack of a whip escape through those doors. After that, a scream. Followed by another. And another until the only thing I heard was the misery of the damned.
Tituba walked forward and I followed. For a moment, I felt like lamb being led to the slaughter, but I swallowed my fear and continued on into hell right behind her.
We entered into the Great Hall, but much of it was hidden in shadow. From what I could tell, it was enormous inside and a great number of miserably grotesque stone statues lined the entryway to either side of us. Each face was splintered with a terribly realistic expression of abject terror and pain that would haunt my dreams for days to come. More screams echoed all around us and I did my best to turn my focus away from all of them.
I wanted to ask Tituba where we were going yet I elected not to. I was afraid of giving away our position and exposing us to monsters that were far more dangerous than anything that inhabited the Hellmouth and the Earth. The scrolls in the Demon Hunter library hinted at beasts capable of true annihilation and devastation and those that fed and thrived on the souls of the innocent. The last time one of those demons had been released had brought about the Dark Ages, killing an undocumented number of people in a time where deaths weren’t recorded, thousands of pure souls, all consumed in the name of the devil.
I shivered. The air around me stirred. It felt treacherous to even breathe it in.
A hel
lhound howled, announcing its presence to us. The rest of its pack followed. Defensively, my magic pulsed inside me and I lifted my palm, igniting my own flame that hovered just above my skin. I poured more of my own power into it and the light grew bigger, illuminating even the deepest shadows in this immense foyer.
We were surrounded by at least three dozen gigantic hellhounds. They were at least three times the size of a wolf, with sharp canines that extended at least six inches as well as blood-red eyes that glowed in the light of my flame. Every single one of them was pitch black in color, making it easy for them to hide in the shadows.
In an instant, they could be on us, ripping us into pieces.
They didn’t move. Instead, they just stood there, watching as we walked forward, like our very own demonic welcome party.
Tituba continued to murmur in soft tones, muttering words in another language as she fluttered her fingers in rhythmic patterns. The ground started to tremble beneath our feet. I wondered if we were going to go even deeper.