The Pentagram Child: Part 1 (Afterlife Saga Book 5) (54 page)

“I guess it’s simple really, my mind and body would crave you to the point I would project myself to where you were and I would wake hating myself even more for doing that to you.”

“Oh…I see.” I said not really knowing what else to say.

“But it was when I took control of my own Brother to get closer to you. I knew then that it was no longer safe for me to be free at night.” This was when it all started to really click into place and I said the name I had been hearing for the last year.

“Tartarus.”

“Yes, Tartarus indeed.”

The rest of the night I sat and listened to the tortured tale of a grief stricken king who was forced to give up who he believed was his queen. And by the end of his story I had cried for, not only what I had been through but now also what he had been through as well.

He explained about Tartarus being a prison in the deepest bowels of Hell but first he had to tell me about why such a prison was created. So he began to tell me about the Titans. Before the Earth knew mortal men it was said there was a great battle of Immortals. For many years they were a peaceful race until they first discovered that they could kill one another, branding them immortals no more. It was the greed for gain in power that started the War of the Heavens and was led by an immortal called Cronus.

It was also said that day that the skies rained with blood, sinking into the Earth and giving its first life to mortal men. Adam being the first and Eve soon thereafter. Now in regards to the victors they declared themselves Gods and vanquished the fallen enemy into Mount Tartarus and imprisoned them there, renaming them the Titans. Cronus became the King of Titans and in history it is known that Zeus forgave him his sins and made him ruler of Elysium.

Of course I wanted to know what Elysium was, thinking it would probably be some pretty bad place if this Cronus had been made ruler over it. Well I couldn’t have been more wrong when finding out it was actually an Afterlife for Gods and their relations to go when their time was at an end. I think at this point I was close to getting a headache so Draven put an end to my confusion and said,

“We do not believe Cronus has ever been ruler of Elysium nor do we believe he is even hidden there but we do know that he exists and still to this day is the biggest threat to releasing the Titans.”

“And that would be bad…right?” I said making him reply simply and to the point,

“Extremely.”

After that Draven went on to explain that the possibility of anyone, let alone Cronus ever releasing the Titans was near impossible as to do this they would need the blood of one of the first. And the bloodline of the Titans had long ago become too diluted to ever hold any power as the human race bloomed into its own unstoppable force. And Cronus’ punishment by Zeus was actually that the power in his blood was stripped, so even as one of the original Titans, he had no power to free his brothers or sisters.      

I had then asked Draven about Tartarus and he told me it was located in the deepest levels of Hell and where the most dangerous of his kind was still to this day imprisoned. The Titans are said to be held at the belly of this mountain surrounded by a flowing river of lava and their bodies infused within its hardened rock that the lava can’t touch. It is said that this rock that covers their bodies is to prevent any of their blood from touching the chains in which they are bound. Chains that were part of the mountain itself.

This was all fascinating and I told him so making him smile but then he soon lost this smile when I asked the most important part,

“So what does this have to do with Aurora?”

This was where the story really began.

He started telling me about someone called Eos, who was known as the Goddess of Dawn but she was also classed as a Titaness. Now a Titaness is what is referred to as a female Titan. In the first generation of Titans there were twelve of them. The males were Oceanus, Hyperion, Coeus, Cronus, Crius, and Iapetus Draven told me listing them off at an impressive speed. Then there were the females, the Titanesses and they were named Mnemosyne, Tethys, Theia, Phoebe, Rhea, and Themis. I nodded at this point thinking I was never going to remember those names other than Cronus as the main baddy.

But then Draven informed me there was in fact a second generation and in this second generation was Hyperion's children Helios, Selene and Eos.

“So this Goddess of the Dawn was one of the original Titan’s daughters?” I asked and when his expression looked sad I knew the next part I wasn’t going to like and I was right. 

“Eos in Latin is Aurora.”

“What!?” I shouted in both annoyance and shock.

“So she really is a Goddess.” I said laughing without humour and feeling my shoulders slump.

“Yes, in a sense but she is also a Titaness and this believe me, is not a good thing.” Draven said lifting my chin up and rubbing a thumb over my bottom lip that I held in my teeth.

“Well I guess that’s something.” I said sulking at this new information.

“So this was the only reason you saw her like you did that day.” I frowned across at him and asked him what he meant. He went on to explain that the only place he knew of that would contain that weakened side of him and therefore force himself under control was Tartarus. The only problem was that he needed his demon side to be tied to a place physically or it would simply override his control and break free. That was where Aurora came into it.

With her being a second generation Titan she was the only one with the gifts to bind Draven’s demon for the night, until he was once again in control. He told me how he had gone without sleep to begin with but his vessel still needed the rest to function.

So in the end he found this was the only way. He had a special bed made, that journeyed everywhere with him and this bed would also be his travelling prison. It was made with the same mountain rock that was in Tartarus as its headboard so that his arms would be locked and encased there making it impossible for him to move. Then as his demon side would be sent down to the deepest depths of Hell, his Vessel and Angel side would remain asleep until Aurora came to free him in the morning.

I thought back to that night and he agreed with me how it must have looked but looking back I knew he spoke the truth. Once again Sigurd’s advice came back to me and I knew I shouldn’t have run even then. But saying that, I doubt I would have received my answers as I was doing this night.

“So how long did this have to happen for?” I asked although the question pained me. The very last thing I wanted to do right then was think back to the amount of times Draven had to be straddled naked by his ex!

“Up until the point you tore off your necklace.” He said looking pained by the memory but his answer surprised me. He then went on to explain that it was in that moment that his demon finally recognised that I was no longer theirs. After that there was no longer any pull that couldn’t be controlled and his time in Tartarus was no more.

Well all this certainly explained all the dreams of him in Hell that I had been having over the last year. And it also explained why people often referred to Draven as being in Hell, along with the Oracle herself. She hadn’t lied but she also hadn’t told me the truth either. I was starting to think back and realise that what Draven had said about the Fates was most likely right.

“So now you know the truth.” He said finishing the conversation just as the sun had started to rise. We had been up for hours but the importance of hearing everything he had said was like living through something monumental. It all made sense and even though I would never agree with Draven’s decision, I couldn’t honestly say what I would have done differently if the roles had been reversed. After all, I had literally gone to Hell and back just to try and save him. He had died in a sense and imprisoned a part of himself in Hell just to save me.

“Come, I think it is time we put that busy mind to rest, don’t you?” He said picking me up off the couch I had slumped down on to get more comfy and then he walked me over to the bed. He lay me down and the instant he did I could feel my eyes start to give in.

“Wait! One more question?” I said forcing my eyes back open and alert making him laugh. He rolled his own eyes in good humour and lay back next to me, pulling my body into his arms.

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Can you blame me?” I asked and he gave me a soft grin before saying,

“I never would, now tell me your question and then you can sleep.”

“I just wanted to know if Takeshi was alright as I didn’t see him at the Ball tonight.” I said remembering this was a question that had been coming in and out of my head all day.

“He is fine, he just needed to rest.”

“What is it that happens to him?” I said trying to sit up but Draven shook his head and pulled me back down so my head was resting on his shoulder.

“Takeshi has a very talented gift that I will explain in detail at a later time, but for now all you need to understand is that he has what is known as a ‘Second sight’. His gifts allow him to home into certain beings and channel their memories. I guess the best way to explain it would be like picking out pieces of a puzzle at random and trying to discover the picture. The closer the beings the more puzzle pieces there are to grab.”

“So what happened?” I asked referring of course to the same thing that must have happened all that time ago after my kidnapping by Morgan.

“The puzzle pieces all showed the same thing.” I frowned and asked the question I thought was a safe one to ask, but I soon discovered I was wrong…

“A wooden dagger with a Pentagram.”

Chapter 38

Secret Symbols

“Keira! Keira wake up!” I woke with a start and bolted upright in bed panting at what I had just seen. Draven was holding me and gently pushed my wet hair that had become drenched with sweat back from my face.

“It’s okay, it’s alright now, I have you my girl. It was just a bad dream that’s all.” He said soothing my jittering nerves as he put my head to his chest. I took the long moments I needed to feel Draven around me and the safety he provided.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” He asked after my breathing had calmed. I thought about that question and knew that after last night there were still things I needed to tell him. And having this nightmare only reinforced that decision that the time was now.

I let my mind go back to that frightening place and it was as if I could even smell the blood that saturated the ground. The only difference this time was that in the meadow of death there was no Draven and the sky was raining with blood. Even I knew that this change in my nightmare reflected on the facts that Draven told me that night and I remember looking up in the dream expecting to find the Gods fighting a war above me.

The skies were filled with dark stormy clouds and the ground was foggy in the distance. It was as though all my dream wanted me to see was what was directly in front of me and that was pieces of a Pentagram. I looked down at my own skin that was quickly getting soaked and was at least thankful to realise it must only have been raining blood inside the circle of the star. Everything on the outside was simply wet and that included me, but so long as I wasn’t covered in blood I didn’t care.

In my dream I bravely took a step further and came stupidly close to the Pentagram, stopping at the first body part that had been crudely hacked from some poor soul’s body. I could only pray that these people had all been dead when this had happened. That thought alone made me want to heave but I had already done that once in this dream. No, now was the time for me to be brave and really see what the dream wanted me to. I could only hope it would give me some answers as to why this had happened and more importantly, who had done this?

Was it the man in the painting with the wooden dagger or even worse, the man that was shown to me at the end, the one I thought I had trusted? Could it be? I stepped closer and looked down to see my feet couldn’t get any closer without crossing the gruesome line. Then that’s when I heard it. The sickening sound of meat being butchered and when I saw a shadowy figure of a man throwing chunks and pieces away behind him, I knew I could no longer be naive.

The figure stood up from being hunched over the slaughtered body with what looked like an arm held in his hand by the bone that protruded from the top. Then he turned, keeping his hooded head down and placed the arm at a diagonal on the grass, creating the last sections of the symbol.

This was all so horrifying and sick and twisted that I would have liked nothing more than to take that wooden dagger and drive it into the chest of the man. The man that I now thought was Alex. But this was when something started to dawn on me…where was the dagger?

This man wasn’t holding a dagger in his hand but something that looked more like a lengthened machete. And it was when the figure started to rise up and finally take notice of me that it all started to make sense. Everyone had it all wrong. It wasn’t Alex who was the bad guy here.

Not at all.

It had all just been made out that way with his connection to me. I knew the truth now. I knew it all…now it was just time to have it confirmed and that happened when the figure pushed back his blood splattered hood.

I knew I was right but no amount of knowing can change the shock you experience when you’re proven right in the worst way. I took in those piercing white eyes with a tiny black dot in the middle that I could barely see. His skeletal face which had seemed to be transferred onto his original handsome features was now even more painful to look at. And then he said the same words to me that he did that day at the Auction.

“Until you’re ready to be pushed, Girl”

It was at this point that I had awakened, only this time Draven had been there to hold me.