Caged by Damnation (2 page)

I spent most of the night staring at the ceiling or out my windows. The sun was beginning to rise when I drifted into sleep. A few hours later I was awoken by a restrained howl. My mind was foggy, but I dimly wondered why a wolf was inside my house. A hand brushed my shoulder and I peered through my eyelids to see a canopy of red hair and green eyes.

“Kali?” I thought that was her name, but I had only met her twice and neither time had left room for conversation. “Why are you here?” I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and pulled the covers up to hide my exposed skin. I wasn't used to people I barely knew seeing me in my nightshirt.

“I just wanted to tell you something.” She paused. Her mouth opened and closed, like she couldn’t find the words. “Tonight, you have to answer Death.”

I rolled my eyes. “You didn’t need to wake me up for that. He already told me.” I turned on my side to go back to sleep, but Kali shook me.

“You are going to agree to his terms, right?” I turned my head, shooting her a deadly stare. “I just wanted to give you some advice.” Kali bit her lower lip and looked around, as if to make certain no one could hear us. “You have to become a Hellhound if you want your friend to live, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add in some terms of your own.”

I struggled to follow what she was saying. After a few moments it sunk in. “You are saying I can ask for something in return, besides letting Ash live? Like what?”

She grasped the pendant that hung from her neck, sighed, and looked back at me. Her eyes glistened with amusement and a trace of anticipation. “What you ask for is your choice. There are only five Hellhounds left. Death
needs
you. He rarely bargains, but in this case … I think he would. He can’t afford not to.”

I studied Kali. She looked embarrassed to be telling me all this and I wondered why she would help me. “Don’t you work for Death? I mean, why would you tell me this?”

Her gaze turned cold, “I am telling you this because you are going to become my sister. I may be accountable to Death, but he doesn’t control me. I came here to help, but I can see that you don’t want me here.” She threw open my bedroom door and left my house.

I ran after her, my nightshirt melding to my skin, but failed to withstand the brisk air. “Kali, wait!” She stopped on my lawn, turning back. “I’m sorry. I just felt suspicious. I’m not exactly thrilled with my life right now, but I shouldn’t have assumed you had ulterior motives.”

Kali smiled. “I do have an ulterior motive. I want to piss off Death … nothing would make me happier.” She winked and got in her car. A very uncharacteristic exit for the Hellhound.

I watched Kali drive off, and wondered what demand I should extort from Death. If she was telling the truth, Death would agree to almost anything for me to take my place
among the Hellhounds. I wondered how often Death was put in a position where he was at a disadvantage? Of course, I too was at a disadvantage, but with limitless demands at my fingertips, I felt powerful. Smiling, I walked back inside.

CHAPTER 2

Savannah's Journal

I had spent a lifetime fearing myself, my parents, and what I might become. Now, I knew that my experiences weren't always what they seemed. I had come to accept myself, while retaining some anxiety about the mysteries within me.

I was a witch, a child of darkness, a descendent of the Nephilim with demon blood and an angelic parent. In short, I had come to accept that Asmodeus had been right when he’d declared I was an Anakim.

Nephilim were born from one human and one angelic parent. My lineage, as a member of the Cross family, meant that I was like other witches, but with demon blood passed down to me.

During the age of the Nephilim, the Angels were ordered to abstain from sexual relations with humans. This would allow the power to pass through the bloodline, but would dilute the blood. This would eliminate the danger of a human with the capacity for evil and the power of a seraph.

I was a product of a loophole. My parents were both witches of the Cross line. However, my mother had been possessed by an angel and had reproduced with my father. The result was a unique combination of demonic blood, wiccan magic, and angelic power. I was still attempting to come to terms with being more angel than human. I still didn't know just how much demon was in me, but I was beginning to.

My witch parents were both deceased. I was alone, but somewhere out there was an angel, a second mother, but an absentee one at best. Did I want to know her? Would I look like her? I couldn't imagine a true maternal connection with anyone other than Maye, but secretly I admitted my curiosity.

SAVANNAH

I had spent the summer trying to keep my mind off my past and on the future. That was where Josephine came in. She was training me in the art of divination. Apparently, I had an untapped gift for it, which surprised everyone in the coven. Most witches could perform some form of divination, but they only saw a hint of the future. It was rare to have an ability of my magnitude, which once taught might be greater than Josephine's. Since Josephine was the greatest visionary of our time, this made me something of a prodigy. Only a few of us knew that I could see the future due to the angelic and demonic blood running through my veins.

Good and evil tend to dictate the actions of each individual; each individual’s action then influences the actions of those around them. Having the blood of demons and angels made my third eye especially sensitive to the intricacies of the future. I could pave my way through possible futures and discover unknown threads in a way that surprised even Josephine.

I asked Josephine to forgo her usual trip into town and spend the day with me. The request was unusual on my part since we rarely deviated from our scheduled sessions, but given the stress I had been under, she agreed. 

There are many methods of divination, such as tarot cards, palm reading, and tea leaves, and each witch has their own preference. I preferred to scry with water or flames to induce visions. This was an open method, more difficult to control what I saw. I couldn’t direct the visions; instead I was bombarded by random scenes. In some ways, never knowing where the flames would take me gave me a sense of freedom.

Sitting in the backyard, Josephine had lit a small campfire for me to scry with. Ordinarily, I was a natural, but with my emotions out of balance, divination was significantly more difficult. The impending rendezvous
with Death worried me. Either way, I would lose a loved one, Ash or Willow.

Forcing myself to let go of my troubles, I gazed directly into the flames. Their warmth seeped through my essence to comfort me in an embrace. The fire grasped firmly, pulling me backwards into a dark void.

My heart pounded while I looked around at the vortex. It was as though all the events of my life were suddenly taking place on a four-dimensional screen, surrounding me. Only, the vortex couldn't pinpoint a single event, everything was left to fight. Suddenly, it stopped. A cool breeze smothered the flames and I could
see.

It was cold in this crimson wasteland. At the edge of my vision were a few sparse trees, but they were infested with a red virus. It infected the trunks and was reaching for the branches. The tan sky was devoid of its natural wonder, as if the life had been sucked from it.

I blinked and the scene changed. I was still standing in the wasteland, but now it was covered in death. The decaying bodies of fallen men and women were strewn about. I searched the field for any sign of life. There was none.

I screamed in horror and turned to flee, but my flight was blocked by a hazy figure. I couldn’t quite make out features, but then it moved away slightly, and I was staring into a familiar face. He leaned forward and brushed the tears from my eyes.

Asmodeus smiled and crooked a finger beneath my chin to raise my face. “Shhh… little Anakim. This is not real. It’s merely a vision of what may come.”

My brows crinkled. “You’re … you’re dead. How can you see me?”

Asmodeus laughed.

Tears flooded my eyes while I spun in circles. I tried to find something to hold onto, something that represented my life, or the one I was used to. Unfortunately, the movement forced my petite frame into another spiral. This one was not of my choosing. It was rather like being on a waterslide, plummeting at a fast pace. The more I tried to stop it, the faster the slide became, pulling me down into an unfeeling, inky darkness. The temperature dropped. I screamed, but no one would hear. This wasn't supposed to happen. Visions were
safe.

I landed on a hard surface, knocking air from my lungs on impact.
Ouch
, would have been an understatement. I remained still for a few minutes, as I concentrated on my breathing in an attempt to calm myself. When I regained my composure, I looked around at my surroundings. My brief encounter with Asmodeus was over. I stood at the edge of a forest with a house before me. Technically, it was closer to a castle. Not the fairytale,
I want to wear a pretty, princess tiara
type of castle, but more along the lines of the
once you enter, you will never leave
haunted castle.

As cliché as it was, I wanted to enter.

When I couldn't tear myself out of my vision, my suspicion that it wasn't ordinary was confirmed. I had been deserted, left to fend for myself in a vision directly out of a horror film, compelled to live out the waking nightmare.

The gargantuan doors opened at my approach. The castle was dark, humid, and entirely too dirty for my peace of mind. The sound of scuttling vermin whispered across the floor. I hoped that the rats weren't hungry.

I hesitated in the doorway. A large staircase lay in the foyer with rooms to each side. Turning, I peered back at the yard and wondered about my options. If I moved forward, I was terrified of what waited for me, but if I didn't, would I be stuck in a never-ending vision? Would my body waste away in a comatose state?

I plunged forward, cringing as the doors closed firmly behind me. I would have been grateful that the moonlight allowed me to see where I was going, but it gave the castle a menacing air. Cold, I ran my hands up and down my
biceps.
Should I turn or go up the staircase
? Tears slid along my cheeks and I couldn't help but wish that Asmodeus were here. I would have been relieved by any familiar presence.

The rust-filled sound of a door hinge creaking open startled me from my musing. It had come from the right, but another sound soon followed from the left. My feet moved forward, but stopped when footsteps sounded from behind. The front door flew open in an angry gust and I raced up the staircase. Only, when I reached the top, I wondered if I was doing exactly what the entity of this castle wanted.

I continued moving, stopping to feel along the wall in an attempt to escape. The instinct to survive was natural – fight or flight – embedded in my DNA, but I didn't know what I was fleeing from. I found myself in a window-lined corridor. Many of the windows were broken. The sheer curtains swayed with each breath of air, as if the house were inhaling my essence and releasing the scent in excitement.

Lured into the comfort of the light, I found myself standing in the middle of the corridor, with no idea of how my feet had been enticed to step there. As if in a trance, I looked out the window to my right, down into the courtyard. Vines climbed along the walls, inching towards the sky, aching for the light.

Windows peppered the walls between the plants, and inside, red eyes were blinking up at me. Thousands of creatures stared out those windows, stalking me with their gaze. Screaming, I backed away from the eyes shifting within the rooms, until my back hit the cold glass behind me.

As a gust of air smothered my neck, I turned quickly around to face a cavernous mouth blocking the outer edge of the windows. The house seemed to have come alive, its jaws appearing before the glass, ready to ingest me. The
rows of razor sharp teeth were each larger than my entire body and it was salivating. I screamed, visualizing them tearing into my porcelain-smooth flesh and gnawing on bones that were left over.

At the end of the glass-lined walkway, a doorway lit up in the shape of a crescent moon, surrounded by cracks of blinding light. I had one chance to escape, and this miracle door was it. I made my way towards it at a breakneck pace, praying that I wouldn't trip. My heart pounded, creating the illusion of time standing still and chaos accelerating around me. Screams of glee met the chase I offered, glancing down I realized the sounds came from the beady eyes in the windows on the opposite side of the walkway.

Behind me, the mouth roared in sync with my blood. The Hell's mouth widened, and broke through the glass from the outer courtyard. The floor crumbled as it pursued me, threatening to pull me into the mouth. Before the mahogany flooring could force me to succumb to its fate, I yanked the door open and jumped through. The sound of unsatisfied famine followed me through before the door slammed shut.

My hands and knees slid across gravel. The pain barely registered in the wake of my fear spiraling out of control. I was afraid to look, but my eyes flew open at the sound of birds singing and water rushing. I was cowering before a garden, complete with a bridge and waterfall. The doorway gently disappeared.

The aura of plants reassured me that I was safe. My eyes touched on the silvery sheen of living water, a characteristic found only in a place of divine energy. I crawled towards the water, forcing my body to move while my wounds begged me to remain still. My toes were barely submerged when the liquid glided along my skin, soothing my aching cuts. It brushed through the locks of my hair and removed itself, taking my fear with it.

In the absence of terror, I felt drained, and suddenly heavy. The flowers bathed me in their sweet nectar, and the water welcomed me with its promise of protection. It wasn't long before the birds sang me into a hypnotic sleep. I was safe; I was sheltered.

I awoke to the sound of crickets and the crackles and bursts of a nearby fire. My nerves grated along my temples, bursting forth as a migraine. Groaning, I sat up and was confused when I wasn't greeted by divine beauty. The vision had loosened its hold, allowing the physical world to embrace me.

Josephine brought me a steaming mug. Instinctively, I latched onto the connection she brought with her. Her hands were ice cold, in spite of the steam writhing around her brittle fingers. In a single gulp, I tossed back the tea, trying not to gag at the foul taste in my mouth. The warmth of the drink pushed the healing properties towards every angle of my body. I always wondered what the secret ingredient was in the miracle poultice of Josephine’s tea.

"I had a strange vision." My voice came out in wisps, as though my voice remained trapped in the clenched jaws of my vision.

Josephine's back croaked in protest when she bent to sit beside me. Her brown hair was peppered with bits of gray and even more white. Her face held an intricate maze of wrinkles. She used to joke that each wrinkle was a token of a well-lived life, and each scar was a reminder of the lessons she’d learned.

"I know." She paused for a few moments, staring at the fire, and eventually shook her head. She turned to face me, her gaze flooded mine, and she spoke with a youthful voice I had never heard before. "What you experienced was not a vision, my dear. It was closer to a futuristic astral projection."

I opened my mouth to counter her statement, but closed it when I thought more deeply about my
experiences. "How is that possible? There were monsters, this garden, and blood, so much blood." Tears fell before I could will them not to. "The crimson field spoke of a brutal battle. Asmodeus was there, he... he's dead! He couldn't be in the future."

Josephine pulled me into a nurturing hug, coaxing my tears to descend into delicate sobs. "Darling, when you astral project into the future, it's possible to bring the past with you. Asmodeus was a manifestation of your anxiety, nothing more."

I lifted myself away from Josephine to look her in the eyes. "What does it all mean?"

She lifted her hands to brush the tears away from my cheeks. Her face was filled with dread, but it was as though she was attempting to hide it beneath a layer of optimism.

Josephine sighed, "I don't know. Your sight intersected the message and only you can understand it. I can attempt to help, but I didn't see it. You did." A dumbfounded expression met her answer. "Hmmm ... if I asked you to paint a portrait of me, what would happen?"