The Afterlife series Box Set (Books 1-3) (35 page)

“It is not good to mess with other people’s business. Why do you even care?”

“So now it isn’t good to care about someone else?”

Mrs. Ohayashi sighed. “Okay, I will take you to his cabin. Be down here in my classroom at midnight. And be precise.”

“But won’t he be asleep then?” I asked.

Mrs. Ohayashi sighed deeply. “We will just have to wake him up then, won’t we? You want to warn him about this, right? In the middle of the night no one will see us.”

“Sure … But what about the guards? They will never let me go out in the middle of the night.”

Mrs. Ohayashi sighed deeply. Then she got up from her seat and floated to an ancient Japanese chest of drawers she had in the corner. No one ever came near it, since the rumors were that it was filled with all kinds of dark magic that wasn’t even allowed on the school. Some even said it was a gateway to Satan himself—that Mrs. Ohayashi was like the gatekeeper of hell, and she went through it every night and came back out of it every morning. I wasn’t stupid enough to believe them, though. But I did feel my heart begin to race as she opened the top drawer.

 She stuck her hand in and pulled something out. It looked like and old leather bag. Then she closed the drawer carefully and floated toward me.

“This can help you,” she said and handed me the bag. “Put it on while you are still in your bed and you will have no problems getting past the Angels.”

I started to unleash the rope to open it, but Mrs. Ohayashi stopped me. I looked at her. She shook her head.

“Not now. Wait until you are alone, and don’t let anyone see what is in the bag,” she said.

I had hardly left the classroom in the cellar before I found a corner where no one would see me. Carefully I opened the rope around the bag and looked into it. I was paralyzed. I put my hand inside and took it out. The amulet was shining in the sunbeams from the window next to me. It had a green emerald in the middle that looked like an eye staring at me.

“The Batuz,” I whispered as I put it back in the leather bag. In history I had learned that it was guarded by the Angels. Since it was too dangerous in the wrong hands, it had been locked up along with other treasures in Heaven. How did Mrs. Ohayashi get her hands on a thing like that?

C
HAPTER 23

W
ITH THE AMULET AROUND
my neck, I floated with ease past all the guards in the castle. They didn’t even stop their chattering or in any way sense that I was there. It was a great feeling and I quickly found myself in the cellar of the castle. I floated through the door to my Art of Transition classroom and found it empty. Only the light from the big moon outside lit up the room. It was so quiet I could hear my own breathing.

“Don’t breathe so hard. Someone might hear you.”

I turned and found Mrs. Ohayashi standing right behind me. In the dark I couldn’t see her eyes at all.

“Do you see me?” I asked.

“No, but I hear you. With all that noise you are making, someone is bound to hear you soon.”

I swallowed hard.

“Don’t do that either,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Don’t swallow like that. That makes way too much noise too. Plus I really don’t like it. It’s disgusting.”

“Oh, okay,” I mumbled.

Mrs. Ohayashi sighed. “Let’s go.”

We crossed the big lawn in a great hurry and entered the woods to find a marked path. Mrs. Ohayashi stepped in front of me and we followed the trail that wound deep into the dark forest. On our way we passed a lake and went through a dense patch of cedar trees. It took less than five minutes to reach an impasse. The path let us directly into a rock and I thought we had gone in a wrong direction, but Mrs. Ohayashi continued. She put up her hand and simply penetrated the rock as if it wasn’t there. Then she went through. I, on the other hand, had never gone through solid brick walls or anything that solid, so I became nervous. I put my palm on the rock and tried to push it through. But it didn’t work.

Suddenly Mrs. Ohayashi pushed her head back through.

“Are you coming?” she asked.

I sighed. “I don’t think I can.”

“Nonsense,” she hissed. “You are a second-year student. You are in my class. Of course you can go through a rock by now. Just do it!”

Her angry voice made me jump and as I did I pushed my hand right through the rock. Slowly I pushed the rest of my body to follow until I had passed through what appeared to be the solid stone façade of a mountain. It was dark inside and I couldn’t see anything, not even Mrs. Ohayashi. I took in a deep breath. With my hands outstretched in front of me, I ventured a couple of small steps into the inky darkness and stopped. Fear seized me for a second as I tried to breathe, unsure whether or not I should continue. Then I heard Mrs. Ohayashi’s voice somewhere in front of me.

“Come on, what is holding you up? I don’t want to spend the whole night out here. I have classes in the morning, all right?”

I pressed on. I didn’t see Mrs. Ohayashi anywhere but assumed she was in front of me. Slowly my eyes got used to the darkness, and a few minutes later they adjusted enough to make out a single passageway curving off to my left. Within a hundred feet, the tunnel turned abruptly and suddenly I found myself on the edge of what looked like a huge cavern, like a big hole of emptiness. The air in the tunnel felt heavy and oppressive.

Bravely taking another step following the path along the cavern, I saw Mrs. Ohayashi floating in front of me. I caught up with her as we reached the exit. Light from the big moon above us hurt my eyes as we went back into the forest.

“That my dear, was a shortcut,” she said as we both were outside again. “You can take that thing off now. We are far away from the castle now and you do want Adahy to be able to see you, right?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said and took off the amulet. I gave it to Mrs. Ohayashi who put it in her pocket.

“His cabin is not far from here, just follow me.” Mrs. Ohayashi started floating through the forest.

I followed her closely.

The forest was so quiet that it was almost unnatural. Where were all the animals? I looked in the trees but saw no birds, not even an owl. A short path led us to a clearing. An old wooden shack stood in the middle of it, lit up by the bright moonlight.

Mrs. Ohayashi stopped.

“Is that it?” I asked.

She nodded while glancing around with a nervous look. She hesitated as I floated into the clearing. I looked up and saw the stars above. They seemed even bigger than usual. The shack in front of me looked small and old, and suddenly it looked like something I had seen before. That was when I looked down at the path in front of me and saw the blood. An entire trail of blood went through the grass. My heart stopped and I froze. It was the cabin from my dream.

I turned to look at Mrs. Ohayashi, but she was no longer there.

“Mrs. Ohayashi?” I called.

No answer.

“Mrs. Ohayashi?” The sound made an echo between the trees. And then it was quiet. Not a sound, not a wind, not a tree moved. I was alone.

The quiet was broken. I heard a sound above me and looked up. A bird. A big black crow circled in the air. Then it started descending. Faster and faster it moved toward me while cawing so loud it almost hurt my ears. It came so close I had to move to avoid being hit by its beak. As it flew past me I was certain I heard it laugh. Then it was gone.

I remembered my dream. My dad had followed the trail of blood to the cabin. But what was behind the door, I didn’t know. I never got that far in the dream. Maybe it had something to do with my parents, I thought. Or could I be dreaming again? Whatever it was, I had to keep going. Whether I found Adahy, my dad, or something else behind that door, I had to go there. There was no turning back.

I started floating cautiously toward the cabin in the distance, following the trail of blood. I wondered about Mrs. Ohayashi. Had she left me here? Had something happened to her? Should I go and look for her? Or was this just a part of some plan she had? Had she set me up for this? Did she read my mind and know I wanted to go find Adahy and then she just told me she knew where he was? But why? To get me out here all alone? But it wasn’t like she pushed me out here; she was really reluctant in the beginning. Maybe that was just part of her plan—to make me ask her and beg her to show me to him. I didn’t want to believe that, and I really didn’t want to go into that cabin all alone.

I passed a young tree in the middle of the clearing. It reached out of the ground like a giant hand with crooked fingers.

Suddenly the trail of blood seemed to stop. But we were still far away from the shack. I looked at the trail and then back at the cabin. It seemed to be even further away now than a second ago. It was like it had moved. What was going on? Then I heard a voice. It was more like a hoarse whisper from behind me.

“Meghan … Meghan … Don’t forget to watch your back.” The voice was almost singing.

Slowly I turned and saw the big black crow. It was sitting in the young tree behind me. Did that voice come from the bird?

“Watch your back, watch your back,” it continued while cawing.

I floated closer to it while my heart was racing. What was this? Was it Mrs. Ohayashi?

“What did you say?” I asked.

The big bird lifted off the branch and as it did it turned itself into a panther—the same big black panther that I had seen at the stables. The same that had ripped Adahy open. It roared and threw a paw toward me.

“Adrian?”

I felt my hands were shaking and my entire body trembling as the panther roared again. It made a huge echo in the forest.

“Is that you, Adrian?”

The panther took a few steps toward me and suddenly its face seemed to be changing. The eyes I recognized and the face that grew out of it was very familiar.

“Portia?” I asked as her face appeared in front of me. She was laughing out loud. Her green eyes were like fire in the night.

I backed up in fear. At my last encounter with Portia, she had thrown me against a wall so hard my body had almost dissolved. It was very painful. Since then Salathiel had sent her to hell to be with other evil spirits. This was the first time I had seen her since then.

“Is that really you, Portia?” I said with a shaky voice.

 When she opened her mouth a voice nothing like hers filled the air. It was like a hissing whispering.

“What does it matter who I really am?” it said.

“You are not Portia,” I said.

“I can be anyone I like, it really doesn’t matter,” it said, and then something happened to Portia’s face. Out of it grew another face. The eyes changed first and just by seeing them I felt my heart stop. Portia’s fair face slowly turned into someone who I never thought I would ever see again. It was Jason’s’ step-dad. The guy who had almost beaten Jason to death with a baseball bat.

“You!”

He burst into laughter.

“Or maybe you would rather prefer me like this?” the voice said and changed its face again. This time it was the eyes of Adrian looking at me.

“Who are you?”

“I am nobody, and everybody,” he said.

“That is not an answer. Who are you really?”

The face changed again, this time back to a black panther. It roared again and started walking around me. As it did it changed its appearance and was now a long serpent. Its long tongue was vibrating while it talked with hissing sounds.

“You know who I am.”

“I know you are not Portia, Jason’s step-dad, or Adrian,” I yelled. “So tell me, who are you really?”

“You know who I am.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“You even know my name.”

I shook my head in confusion. “I don’t know your name.”

The serpent twisted around me. “Oh, but yess you do,” it hissed. “Try to think really hard.”

 “I don’t know!” I yelled again.

The serpent came closer and twisted itself around my legs. “But I really think you do. Now why don’t you say it out loud?”

My heart was racing. Only one name came to my mind. “Azazel?” I stuttered.

“Ahh, that sounds so good when you say it,” it hissed out loud. As it did, it seemed to grow into double size.

“You … just became bigger …”

“You are making me stronger. Your fear makes me more powerful.”

“I am not afraid of you.”

The serpent burst into laughter again. “Ha-ha … but I see right through you, my dear. I see your weak heart. I feel your fear. I feel your doubt. I devour it.”

I went quiet for a minute. The serpent stared at me like it was waiting for my next move.

“So you caused the screamers at the school?” I asked.

“Yess. You like that, did you? Nice trick right?”

“You used Adrian to freeze people? Freeze their bodies and minds in a state of terror?”