Echoes of the Past

Chapter Thirteen

Home sweet Hell.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’d run here to escape something I’d done, but it felt like it might be the last. With Lucifer not around to protect me and DRAC looking to inherit all my crap, I was truly on my own for the first time, in a very long time.

Whoever Mihheer was, he had a beef against me thanks to this Gorath guy, but neither name rang a bell. Not that it mattered much. I’ve spent my whole life being singled out for something I didn’t remember or simply had nothing to do with; guilt by association. This was probably an inherited gripe. As I thought earlier, Mihheer was probably the guy who’d been trapped in the case in Lucifer’s chambers; if not him, then Gorath. That seemed to make more sense.

While Mihheer was packing some power, he didn’t strike me as needing such an ornate prison to hold him. Then again, I could simply be presuming the alien script was powerful seeing how I didn’t understand it. In their world, ugly might be the dominant form of empowering wards. Right now, I was just pulling shit out my ass, and none of it smelled right.

Exhausted, I took a sip of Uncle Lou’s jazz juice and thought about putting in a call to DRAC about the whales, but I was pretty sure they knew already. It wouldn’t take them but a few seconds to realize I was involved. Probably best just to let things unfold. For all I knew, the DSI might have wiretaps on DRAC’s lines. They couldn’t tap into the telepathic network, but for me to reach that, I’d need to put in a call. It wasn’t worth endangering anyone. Besides, it looked like this was Lucifer’s bullshit, which meant it was up to me to clean it up whether I wanted to or not. At least in Hell, I might find something stashed away to give me an idea who and what I was dealing with.

Having torn apart a good chunk of Lucifer’s rooms, I decided to search the area where Asmoday had been killed. Separated from the rest of the quarters, and closest to where the case had been stored away, I thought maybe there’d be something stashed there. Not to mention, I didn’t really want to stumble across anything else about my mother and Lucifer. I just wasn’t up for it.

As I found my motivation, I felt a surge of power at the gate, the portal opening. I spun around, whipped my gun out and pointed it at the portal, lowering it just a second later as Karra’s essence hit my senses. She appeared in a huff, her beautiful face contorted with worry.

“Whales, Frank? Seriously? It’s all over the news.”

I shrugged. “What can I tell you? I’m so resilient my enemies feel the need to think outside of the box to take me out.”

She shook her head and stalked over. Her eyes were narrow and streaked with red as she ran her hand across my forehead. “You look like shit.”

“Uh, thanks. You too.”

“You’re feverish and pale.” She ran her fingers down my cheek and placed her palm on my chest. “You’re burning up.”

“Whale cooties, most likely.”

“Stop joking, Frankie. You don’t look good.”

I pulled her in close and kissed her cheek. “I’m fine, just worn down. I ran into our little alien again. Mihheer’s his name, and he apparently works for a bigger alien called Gorath. Who names these guys? Anyway, I suspect they’re out for revenge for Lucifer locking away whichever one of them was inside the case.”

Karra sighed and returned my kiss. “You need to be careful, because I think you’re right. I spoke to my father.”

I took her hand and led her down the hall toward Asmoday’s old prison. “What did he have to say?”

“I drew him a number of the symbols that were on the book and case, but he didn’t recognize them. He did think, like we did, that the script was written as a containment spell, designed to hold something, or someone, inside and keep them weak. He also thinks he has an idea as to when the thing was imprisoned.”

We slipped into Asmoday’s room and I dropped onto one of the couches to catch my breath. Karra sat beside me.

“Close to a thousand years ago, my father sensed a tear in the dimensional wall, which led into Hell. He said the power he felt was godly. He’d never felt such energy beyond Lucifer or God Himself, and he knew for certain it wasn’t them. Not even the current incarnation of Baalth compares, he says.”

Damn. This wasn’t sounding good. I leaned back into the couch to continue listening.

“The entire supernatural world felt the entry. My father, along with all of Lucifer’s lieutenants, returned to Hell to find Lucifer had killed the being who’d come through the rift. There was nothing left but a strangely shaped, charred corpse, bereft of any essence.”

“If Lucifer had killed it, wouldn’t he have gained its powers, seeing how the thing is most likely a demon?” I already knew the answer.

“Only my father questioned Lucifer’s account of what happened, unable to sense a corresponding power increase in Lucifer similar to the force he’d felt break through the dimensional wall. He was told the being was likely an alien, its power not transferable upon death.” Karra settled in against me, her hand mothering my brow. “At the time, my father believed what he’d been told. However, given what we’ve stumbled across, he feels Lucifer only imprisoned the being, and your uncle’s recent departure has allowed the alien to break free.”

“Sounds about right. With Mihheer popping up out of nowhere, it makes sense Gorath was the one trapped inside the case and his minion helped break him out. Either that or they were both inside. Doesn’t really matter one way or the other, though. Locked up for a thousand years, they’re bound to be pissed. With Lucifer nowhere to be found, they’ve only got me to beat on until they find him.”

Karra inched in, holding me close. “Shortly after the rift in the wall, that’s when Lucifer was said to have resumed contact with God.”

I glanced over at Karra, a lump forming in my throat. “So, whatever crashed our universe was powerful enough to spook Lucifer into contacting God so he could figure out what the hell he was dealing with.”

“Looks that way.” She squeezed tighter. “These two could well be part of the enemy God and Lucifer fight against. If that’s the case, the ones here may well be more powerful than any force we’ve ever encountered.”

“If that were true, wouldn’t we sense Gorath? If his arrival set off the entire supernatural world, why isn’t he pinging across the board now? Someone would have noticed him over the course of a millennium. It doesn’t make sense.” I growled and stood up. “We need to decipher the language on the case to figure out what the hell it was supposed to do. If it-“

Karra stood up and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Don’t worry, Frankie. We’ll figure it out,” she said, strangely loud before leaning in and kissing me deep. My body, despite my mood, started to respond. Her muffled words put me back in neutral.

“Someone else is here,” she spoke softly into my mouth, turning me so I could glance through the cover of her wild hair. I saw a shadow at the doorway. It disappeared as soon as I spotted it.

I pulled away from Karra and chased after the shadow. “It’s running.” She was on my heels.

We zipped around the corner and I let my senses loose. There wasn’t even a flicker of supernatural energy to be found beyond the ambient essence of Hell itself. We searched for a few minutes, but found nothing. Either the person watching us was human, or they’d teleported out of Hell before we could get a bead on them. The latter was far more likely.

“Damn it!” Not even Hell was free from prying eyes. That was seriously limiting my options when it came to hiding.

As though she’d read my mind, Karra turned to me. “Hell isn’t safe, either, Frank. You need-“

I raised a hand to cut her off. “I know, Karra, I know.” Letting loose a deep sigh, I started to pace, staring off at the stone walls of my uncle’s old sanctuary. “I’m running out of options here. While I can kiss up to Baalth and probably be pretty safe, I won’t get any answers. Even if he knows something, he’s not gonna share it with me if it will cause him problems.” I turned to look at Karra. “Your dad doesn’t know much, and I certainly don’t think DRAC would, not with Abe dead.” The words rasped hollow in my mouth.

“Stay with me, Frankie.”

“I can’t.” I leaned in and kissed her to soften the rejection. “You saw the whales and all the damage, and I’m only dealing with the flunky. Even if you can kick my ass, I’m not gonna put you at risk.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her against me, willing myself to tell her what I really thought; what I felt. “You’re all I have, Alukarras. I know you can take care of yourself. Shit, you’re way more capable than I am, but it’s not you these guys are after, it’s me. As long as I can keep it that way, keep you out of danger, nothing that happens to me matters.”

“It matters to me.” The sadness in her voice shattered my heart.

With a passion I reserved only for porn and punching people in the face, I clutched her tight and kissed her for all I was worth; about a buck forty, fair market value.

After a few moments, I pulled back. “I’m not gonna let these two shitheads kill me and take me away from you, I promise. I’m also not gonna let them take you from me. We’ve spent too much of our lives apart, Karra, and I intend to spend the rest of it together, no matter what.” I stared into her eyes and waited for her to give in. It took a bit, but she finally conceded. She knew she couldn’t out-stubborn me. “So far, Mihheer has been getting the drop on me. It’s time for that to stop. I need to find something about the language of the book and figure out if there’s anything in it that might help send these goons back to wherever they came from.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“Well, since I can’t trust Baalth to be honest or not take the book from me, I need to talk to someone else who was around when Gorath first came through the rift. It doesn’t hurt that they owe me a favor.”

“And seeing how there’s only a couple of people alive who fit that description, and won’t want anything to do with the daughter of Longinus, I’m guessing you don’t want me to go with you.”

“I’m sorry, Karra. You know how they are.”

“That’s what worries me.” She sighed and punched me in the arm. It hurt; a lot. “You better come back to me, Frankie, or I swear, I’ll hunt you down, resurrect you, and kill you again for leaving me.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” I gave Karra a big hug, smothering my laugh in her hair. “You frighten me, woman.”

“Good. Maybe you’ll listen…for once.”

She was made, but she knew me well. We said our goodbyes and she headed home to be with Longinus even though it wasn’t what she wanted. It was the only move I had any faith in. I collected the book from its hiding place and set up the gate for transport. There wasn’t much hope I’d learn anything new about Gorath and Mihheer, but I had to try. If they were part of the war God and Lucifer were fighting, maybe I could pass the buck of impending doom onto folks more suited to deal with this kind of apocalyptic bullshit.

That thought in mind, it was time to visit the desert once more.