Echoes in Eternity (The Pella Series Book 1) (58 page)

“I trust you, Nieto!” I say making my choice.

“Only trust me to the end of my mission. I’m the one who is going to bring you to death, seal your soul and stop your heart long enough so that you can make it through the
Double Horns of Consecration
. But you only have a limited time. You must be revived but neither I nor your father are allowed to restore your life back. This is not a resurrection. You will still have your soul encapsulated within your
Hieron Osteon
…”

“My what?” I ask in a squeaky voice.

“It’s the location of your
Life Force
; your
Holy Bone
located at the base of your spine.” I’m distracted with the growing snarls in our pursuit. My anxiety rises. I have to make life changing choices with insufficient and imperfect information. Lovely! Each of the choices will lead me to my death one way or the other today. I was telling everyone that I wanted to make my own choices. Either karma is a bitch, or God has a weird sense of humor. I might as well choose the manner in which I get to die. I finally decide that I’m not dying in the maws of Cerberus or by being sacrificed. The thought of Cerberus immediately opens up the flood gates of my hearing.

“Nieto! I can still hear the snarls. Much louder in fact!” I whisper into his mind anxiously. “Am I supposed to be able to hear it…them?” I correct myself.

“Not through your own ears!” he says calmly but with a sudden move hits my body sending me out of his grasp like a baseball! I can’t believe he kicked me! I feebly try to utilize my newfound senses. I hear the loud, ferocious growls echoing in my head sending shivers down my spine while whooshing upwards like a planet out of its orbit.

“One down, two to go,” I hear Nieto in my mind.

The surprise of the kick completely dissipates and is replaced with terror when I see in my direct vision the beams of three sets of flashing crimson irises of Cerberus in the pitch darkness. Triple monstrous maws snarl and open wide displaying rows of sharp canine teeth and huge fangs. One of the heads positions itself, ready like a catcher’s mitt to get a bite out of me! What goes up must come down, and I’m speeding directly towards its ravenous maws! Shit!

“Nieto!” I shout both in my mind and I think my voice manages to make a feeble echo exciting the Cerberus further!

Nieto intercepts and shoves me out of the way of the bite of its jaws so fast. I don’t slow down or even go straight down into the abyss. In fact, I have no idea which direction I’m traveling! Another of Cerberus’ heads raises, widens, and thick saliva oozes between the canines. Unbelievably, Cerberus stretches its neck as it jumps in my direction to capture or bite my body. Its feral roar and agitated growls get louder; like the master predator of Hades it is, Cerberus is singularly focused on me as the hissing snake heads covering its mane gets excited with the hunt. Just as one of the heads closes its maws with a chattering force to clamp it on my body, I’m yanked back along with a snagged fang on the flexible shell I’m wrapped in.

“Nieto! Are you using me as bait?” I ask horrified, finally realizing the double purpose of the protective layer
that I’m wrapped in while it is covering my body, even every strand of my hair like an ethereal body suit.

“No
t particularly,” he says simply. “Your passage is approaching soon. Once we complete our united journey, you must travel another day’s distance and you shall arrive at your intended destination.”

“I’ve been here for a day already?”

“No. I said another day’s distance. The heads of Kerberos reach three days distance. You’ve been falling for six days.”

“What? I’ve been
falling for six fucking days?” He gives me an admonishing look.

“You’ve traveled six days of distance. The fall into the Tartarus where Marcus is takes ten days. You have four more to go. Time is always relative. A few minutes, a few days, or a few weeks may have passed in the location from whence you fell. I don’t count the days or time like humans or
the Nephilim do,” he says as I watch agile fingers collect the snagged fang out of the protective layer he wrapped me in.

“Nieto, watch out!” I shout instead of whispering to his
mind startling the humongous beast who is now training all three heads on me greedily opening its jaws to rip me and my soul into shreds. It’s almost too late when I see the scorpioned tail positioned and ready to inject its poison into me. Several things happen all at once. Nieto’s face changes: In fact, he appears to have four sets of them; one in the likeness of the face of a beautiful man. The head of a ferocious lion is on the right side of the man’s face. On the left, he has the face of an ox. The opposite side with the man’s head is the head of an eagle. Nieto is a
Cherub
! Each side has wings stretching upward. As strange as the Cherub is, Nieto looks simply magnificent; I’m completely awed! I see the two wings touching one another, and two covering his body. At this moment I could totally appreciate the majesty of his creation. Each wing goes straight forward; and all creatures go wherever Nieto wants to go. He doesn’t even have to turn to change directions! Each direction is the right direction for him.

“I see it all, Miss Ellie!” The sound of his confident voice echo
es from all directions in my mind, getting me out of the state of mind gawking at Nieto.
Having eyes on the back of your head
takes a brand new meaning with him. The wings on Nieto’s eagle head starts whipping rapidly creating a strong air current, churning up and finally blowing a cyclonic force of wind first halting my descent into the abyss, then lifting me up tucking me into the eye of the storm within an ethereal cage away from the Cerberus’s barbed poisonous tail.

“You’re a
Cherub
!” I shout into his mind with realization. Of course, he is! I should have known, because he can fly on the wings of wind or time! I am completely mesmerized with the magnificent guardian of the gates of Eden. If I’m a key that can open the gates he is guarding, it’s only natural for him to follow me to prevent me from falling into the wrong hands!

Nieto is blindingly fast. His movements are just a blur even with my powerful Nephilim vision I’m learning to utilize. I see his arms move at such velocious speed, I can only observe the blue streak left in their wake through my mind’s eyes. Cerberus deflects Nieto’s first move he makes in my defense. Shifting in size to the size of a very large hound, it scorpions its
jointed tail. It scales the jagged towering walls like a lizard, running on the vertical surface. Huge boulders tumble down in a rock slide in my direction forcing Nieto to shift the location of the tornado he encapsulated me, but that shift puts me in line with two of Cerberus’ heads. It roars victoriously for getting me where it exactly wants me. I’m closer to the Cerberus than I am to Nieto though still tucked into the tornado. Cerberus seems unaffected. It scales the bronze and iron walls and its body flies directly over the eye of the storm and jumps into it!

“Nieto!” I scream. The storm holding me within its enclosure dissipates, and I fall like an iron anvil. Cerberus dives beneath me, cutting my fall and landing me right on its back. I have no escape from its angled tail. I can even see the poison beading at the tip of its stinger. It inches towards me speedily. I try to dislodge myself from its back, but two of its maws open wide on both the sides
which I can fall into. I’ve no route of escape. I pull my legs up and play the frog hopper in the limited room I have on its back. But, the end of the game comes sooner as the stinger pins me ready to deliver the deadly poison. A bright fire in the appearance of burning coals intercepts and encases the poison ejected from Cerberus’s barbed stinger intended for me and he pulls it back just as fast turning the container into a bronze colored urn which gets sealed with a flash of lightning. I’m yanked off of Cerberus’ back like a snagged fish on a hook and distanced away from Cerberus but now I am free falling.

Cerberus is now howling furiously, and all of its heads spewing foam, shaking its heads, maws snapping. Its eyes
are trained on me with one purpose: to kill. Cerberus is terrifying and transforming; appearing to be the size of a bus in one moment and the size of a horse the next, altering its size with ease while comfortably moving over the towering gray walls’ jagged surfaces with more agility than a flying mountain goat as if he’s immune to gravity, taunting us! How can it do that? I’m still falling with no solid surface below. But the frothing in the mouths, now very pissed Cerberus seems to be shifting in size constantly. It is very much in its own natural element here, relentlessly trying to get me!

“Miss Ellie,” whispers Nieto’s human face. “I need to collect one more fang and take your life just enough so that we can have you bypass the gates of the underworld through the
Double Horns of Consecration
. The Cerberus won’t be able to touch you then as long as you are in here. But it won’t let you out either. By all accounts, you’d be dead,” he whispers. With a simple swipe of his hand, my descent slows and I stop tumbling. He dives and he’s next to me within the next second.

“How do I get out of here then? I know that you said you can’t get me out. But will you be able to offer any help to get me out?”

“No,” he replies with finality.

“Huh… But, you want me to trust you?”

“Yes. You already said that you trust me,” he states. Whipping his eagle wings, he tucks me back in the eye of the storm once again.

“I did… I did.” I think to him, contemplating. “Just so you know, I do not blindly trust you. There is a deep seated something in me… I can’t recall it, but I have this…”

“Hold that thought,” he speaks to my mind as his lion face clashes with one of Cerberus’ heads reaching out for me. Nieto unleashes his lion onto the Cerberus and their rumble is the most terrifying sight I have ever seen. Cerberus’ mane of snakes tries to bite him. Nieto’s eagle beak rips off the angry hissing snake heads savagely. Their battle is ferocious; the vicious symphony of roars, growls and hisses are amplified and echoes around the abyss in a deafening onslaught. It’s a bloody standoff; I feel helpless with no way of being able to help Nieto. No Calvary is coming to aid either one of us. But as the putrid scent of the dark, oozing blood burns my nostrils, I sag with relief that it’s Cerberus sustaining the injuries and not Nieto.

I’m still tucked in the
eye of the tornado Nieto created to keep me away from the Cerberus as he fights to collect what he needs to kill me.
To kill me
… I mull over the idea in my head, distracting my thoughts from the creeping anxiety of the ensuing battle before me. I amaze myself at how calmly I can await my own death. What breaks me out of my own morbid thoughts is the sudden raging fire engulfing both the Cherub and the Cerberus in a great cloud. The precipitous explosion puts me on full alert. I can hear my heart beating in my ears like the jungle drum, my breaths are shaky, and my eyes are wide but unseeing. I can only trust my Nephilim senses. Roars and growls echo all over the abyss, raising and awakening other ghastly voices. This is Hades after all. Am I causing the death of a Cherub? I shake and shudder violently in my own skin though there is no variation in temperature in the protective layer covering me like a second skin. Guilt and worry drowns me.

“Nieto! What can I do to help you?” I shout with my arms feebly flailing in the tornado’s eye. I can’t even get out of the wind cage he put me in for my own protection!

“Please Nieto! I want to help you!” I pound my fists to break my ethereal cage he put me in earlier. My concentration is broken when I hear powerful wings outside of the tornado. I surprise myself by how easily I can distinguish three sets of them. I’m further surprised when I can clearly hear them. Closing my eyes, I probe my surroundings with the eyes of my mind just like Nieto ordered me to do earlier. Three beautiful, powerfully winged young women. The red haired one is dressed like a huntress with a bow and arrow. The brunette looks like a warrior with a shield on her back but I can’t see her weapon and the blonde is wearing a chiton with short-length skirt while wielding a whip and each one of the women are wearing boots of the huntress maiden. I immediately know them to be Furies because I recognize their description from the books Uncle Gabriel had read to me since childhood. I always thought of them to be something of the ancient stories. Some of the books described them to be ugly women with snakes for hair, but just like my Uncle had corrected the books, the women were remarkably beautiful, yet vicious and unforgiving in nature. His words echo in my mind: “
The ugliness of the Furies lie in their nature. Their beauty is their lure; another weapon. Their voices are sweet and melodious, weakening their prey for a swift kill. When you see the killing blow, it will already be too late
…”

“Do you know the punishment of crimes against the natural order?” asks one of them in a chiming, sweet voice. Her voice is velvety, soft; her sweetness is like the Siren’s call
both inescapable and deadly.

“Did you come to join your father, daughter of Marcus?” croons another.

“When the other Nephilim of your generation died and took their rightful place in the dungeons of
Tartaros
, you cheated us from having what is rightfully ours. And now here you are, fallen into our midst. How lovely!” Is she clapping her hands in a congratulatory manner to taunt me?