Chapter Seven

1

 

     Beyond a lone glass pane shadows slashed in two by an intermittent canary vein of lightning. Drayton Falls needed a guardian to preserve its secrets and warriors of judgment. Succumbing to mortal requirements violated such a treasured position. Like a snake her head bobbed and weaved. Her thin swan like neck lengthened as her face now pressed against the cool glass panel. From between her parted lips darted a divided tongue that tasted the smooth surface. Upon the swallow of night she opened her coal eyes to view the segment of life now slowing to a crawl. Soon enough power would be hers to wield.

 

     Who was in need of judgment? Against her scaly skin a dull pink crept as brilliant pupils shone from within murky depths. There was always someone, she discerned. There was always someone in need of judgment and atonement.

 

    As she blinked a section of wall exploded. Clouds of dust obscured fragments of flying plaster and glass. Across a choppy block of pavement Destra spread her webbed fingers. The two slits in her face widened. Orange orbs swelled within. As her mouth cracked open a thin rope slithered out to taste crumbled debris. Slowly rubble turned over. Underneath laid fresh soil. Its grit worked between her teeth. The rows of needle thin bone chewed it into dust.

 

     Her scaly face twitched. A new arrival graced the banks of her mind. She was a rather haughty young thing, secure in her belief she knew all there was to know about life. Destra hissed. A string of salvia jetted from between her thin black lips. The young girl would never last. She had yet to learn her opinion was a magnet for trouble. Still, as far as humans went, she was a mighty detestable one.

 

     Even now as a wall of fog rolled across the way the judge was on the hunt. His large bulky frame was split down the center. From the gaping wound, organs continued their function. They pulsed with each giant step he took.

 

     Yes, Destra thought, he would be a fine executioner. His bulging mammoth head twisted on the thick stump of his neck. Barbed wire wrapped about him as though a clever decoration choice. It was wound so tight flesh swelled on either side of the strong wire and its teeth.

 

     "Yes," Destra hissed, her hook like fingers clawing fresh dirt and squeezing large clumps. "Seek out the critic."

 

     Death comes but only in a swift blow to the innocent, she thought, watching the rotund monster stride between two buildings. For the arrogant, death is a bittersweet hell fashioned by hounds who purpose inflammable responses. Soon even the most dejected would suffer unto a new order.

 

     She crawled along on her belly, occasional whipping out her tongue and stopping only to examine cold slabs of flesh littering the avenues. She turned into an alley where a fresh blood trail sparked her interest. It was a wide and dark joy that enticed her senses.

 

    "Oh, the blood of the arrogant," she confirmed after a brief taste. As it filled her mouth with a copper flavor she slithered on. At the end, slumped up against a chain link fence was the critic. Her mouth yawned, exposing a hideous hole missing a tongue and teeth. Her eyes forever stared up at the smoky heavens. They had become clouded marbles now, but Destra still leaned forward to look into them.

 

2

 

     Krosnos/Heather staggered onto the fog enveloped street. Through her eyes everything blurred a moment before becoming clear. As her focus sharpened the figure in the distance was easy to read. She stumbled toward it, one foot after the other and sometimes not in that order. This is what caused her sway and lurch forward.  She paused as again contents grew hazy. The smell of decay and burnt debris was everywhere though nothing in her proximity revealed destruction aside from collapsed sections of road.

 

     Another leap over her own feet and perfume filled her nostrils. The figure spun around and sobbed. Her face caked in dirt and her hands streaked with blood, she appeared happy to see her. Wet dark hair stuck to her cheeks and neck, hung like string over her shoulders and down her back.

 

    "Thank, God," the stranger cried. "I was beginning to think I was the only one stuck here!"

 

     Heather's stomach clenched. Whatever was inside her was drifting away, its hold loosening. She coughed and shivered, her eyes burning as tears filled them. Then all at once it was gripping, clawing at her conscious.

 

     "Run," Heather croaked. "Get away from me!"

 

     The woman shook her head, confusion playing across her features. Her mouth slackened. With a step forward she whimpered.

 

     "I told you to...run," Heather growled and watched as her fingers tore into the woman's throat. Blood spurted in violent bursts, speckled her face and warmed her cold flesh.

 

     Feel the misery that welcomes atrocity. It has been given to you as a gift. Do not try to deny it. It works through you, opens you to new worlds and sharpens your ability to function. It will never be forever as long as you cloud your judgment with compassion. I hold the key to the past, present and future. All you have to do is accept it and know hell, Heather. Know that hell is here for you.

 

     Feeling the woman convulse beneath her assault Heather sank to her knees and scrambled back until a surface restricted her movement. Through a veil of tears she watched the woman's body fall into a broken heap.

 

3

 

      "You won't succeed."

 

     The sweet echo made Destra groan. She did not have to look back to see who it belonged to.

 

     "What do you want," she growled. Thin emerald lines thickened over her chin and distorted cheekbones. "You have no business here. You have no right to tell me how to do my job?"

 

     "Your job," the feathery texture of the reply came in a light breath and continued. "Your job is this place. You prepare hell for so many but what about your own sins? What about those whom you have betrayed? Do they not need justice as well?"

 

     Standing on her tail Destra glowered down at the angelic doll gazing up at her with twinkling precious jewels.

 

     "I have nothing to atone for," she roared. "I am free of it all. Have you not forgotten our laws are different from human ones?"

 

    "I forget nothing," the painted perfect lips said.

 

     "Then leave before I bare more heinous works of walking art upon the dwellers trapped here. Would you care to see mayhem at its best," Destra asked, the corners of her mouth pulling back until they wrapped around the back of her skull.

 

     The doll's bright eyes looked away. Her ivory skin was smooth and glowing. "I do not wish violence on any creature. That is why I beg you to cease this at once!"

 

     Destra lowered until they were face to face. "I will never stop. My hell will keep growing until it is all that ever was and shall be. You cannot begin to understand the fruit of my hate baring seeds for a universal harvest."

 

     "You will not succeed," the Doll Dagger repeated.

 

     Destra's eyes blazed as her pin prick nostrils flared. "Leave me now, you wretched excuse for a sibling," she bellowed, steam hissing through her gapping jaws.

 

     "And what if heaven challenged you?"

 

     "Power lies within the heart, not the mind," the voice echoed in the recess of her darkness.

 

     She whisked around to stare into angelic pools of vibrating blue.

 

     "What do you know?" Destra hissed, her stubby arms coiling toward her body. As they rolled out they became beefy and lined with thick veins. "You are a figment of charity. Nothing you say or do will change the position humanity has pushed itself into!"

 

     The Doll replied, "Perhaps not entirely, but you forsake humanity far too early, Sister. For every mistake a lesson is learned. For every horror committed an act of love opens closed doors. Perhaps you should reconsider your side."

 

     Destra lowered her head, stretching her neck until it hung loose like a rope that swayed in the wind. "You assume too much. I have never once been in a state of mind where so called good acts consist of pure kindness."

 

     The Doll's ruby mouth cracked to reveal perfect polished pearls. "You speak in absurdity. It is a shame you insist on living in it as well."

 

     Destra growled. It was a low humming noise like a distant airplay in the sky. "I don't know if you realize just how blind you are."

 

     In a snap Destra shot forward, weaved in and out of sagging grass and over jagged heaps of earth. In her wake writhed maggots feasting on rotting flesh. There were heaps struggling to latch onto a severed finger or limb. A flash of brilliance as heaven opened a wound of despair shone however brief the land of the dead. It was a massive plot.  Gazing upon the yellow strip that ran along the black ribbon of road, Destra lowered her head. Broken sections of tar splintered beneath her claws as she pulled her snake belly along the turnpike. Her eyes narrowed.

 

     "Upon what disease might an ocean of sorrow benefit from," she asked herself. "From what affliction will agony mother infection? Perhaps the answers are not within the atmosphere. Perhaps they reside in patience."

 

      She hesitated. Tasting the air with a flicker of her forked tongue she leaned back, rising like a Cobra. Whispers of remote turmoil floated to her on decay scented breeze. She stiffened a moment, allowing it to wash over her in uneven tides and then relaxed as its sweet melody alerted her senses to such pleasures as murder and mayhem.

 

     Her tale swiped at upturned concrete. Listening to it shatter behind her she flexed around the question. A bright white wall sprung up. She flexed harder, but the more she tried to see beyond the obstacle the thicker it became. Pulling back she swore under a hiss. The Doll was not a fighter in the traditional sense, but that did not prevent her from preparing an impenetrable defense.

 

     Beneath her the earth shook. With her head tilted to one side she observed a portion of road melt away into nothingness. Roaring up from the endless spiral of fog that soon settled in its place, a sleek skinned sheet of muscle slithered into frame. At one end it yawned to display a jaw filled with rows of needle pointed teeth. Two beady emerald eyes opened alongside its smooth head. They blinked at her, seemed almost to smile, and then it shot forward into the unknown.

 

     She slouched forward to charge in the opposite direction. Trees and buildings were distorted blurs blending into one another. Smells intermingled into one another but a sip of decay lingered on her tongue as she raced past a stockpile of corpses. The odor was repugnant, overpowering and every bit as enjoyable as the imprint of agonized expressions forever on their frozen faces.

 

     Forever had not changed much except for the way pleasure was processed. Due to the stabbing tides of time, Destra knew it was only a matter of when before the shades of innocence played again through the eyes of the Doll. There was no escaping it.

 

     Leaping over a twisted lamp post, she hissed at the thought. In all her years she never been as disgusted as she had been while looking into those eyes. At times she felt as though her ill will might break. Evil had its rewards. That was for sure, but since when did it come at such a high price?

 

     She shook the thought loose. Ahead the red pyramid judge had snared another disenchanted soul. Her ragged clothing torn from her body she dangled by the throat in one oversized hand. With the other hand its fingers dug into her chest, wound tight her hammering heart and gave it a jerk. From the gaping hole gore pulsed, her still beating organ soon after squished as its grip tightened.

 

     Listening to wet gurgling noises as blood sprayed from the victim's sagging mouth, Destra chuckled. Its harmony was almost heavenly. A decent cord to play would be to allow her life to linger while ravishing other organs. It certainly would be worth seeing but at last she had to be on her way. Playtime was scheduled for eternity and yet as she continued to slither she discovered eternity might not be forever should the Doll meddle further in hell's affairs.