Mona Lisa Darkening

CHAPTER EIGHT

Gryphon roamed the halls of the Demon Prince's home. At first, the house staff was leery of him, a new demon. But when Gryphon didn't try to jump them and tear open their necks, they gradually relaxed, leaving him alone to pace through the empty rooms like a dangerous ghost.

Blaec, the High Lord, kept an eye on Gryphon in Halcyon's absence. The High Lord had explained everything to Gryphon. Good thing Halcyon hadn't been there when he had. Gryphon would have tried to rip open his throat, and tear his head off, too, if he'd been able to. In the hours since Halcyon's abrupt departure, he'd had a chance to cool down. Now heartache more than anger ate at Gryphon like a dull, gnawing pain. Regrets… so many of them. And chief among them was his lady, Mona Lisa. Her face filled Gryphon's mind. Her dark eyes laughing, tender. Soft as they made love. So fierce when she fought, defending those she loved.

Mona Lisa, you were supposed to be safe, he cried inside. But safe was the furthest thing she was now. She was filled with demon essence. And no matter how small the amount, what she had within her was the same wildly savage nature that resided in him now.

From what the High Lord had told him, she was much like a new demon. It was enough to fill Gryphon with horror and heartache for her. Because what he was now frightened him — that terrible loss of control, when control had been everything to him. The strange urges, the unstable temperament.

No matter how he still looked the same, Gryphon was different. Completely and utterly different. More unthinking beast than man. In time, Blaec had said, Gryphon would be more like himself. Never exactly the same again, but closer to what he had been in the living realm, less beset by the primitive new hunger of the dead. It would be at least two long years, and that was being optimistic, before he could be trusted unsupervised around the living.

He knew he could not be trusted around those he had once loved. He'd come to that conclusion a week after he had awakened in this realm and still found that ravenous, beastly hunger for blood undiminished within him. Even now, it had not eased in its intensity. Even though he could control it better, that control had its limits. If blood wine was there within his reach, he could go for a time without grabbing for it. But he could not deny himself that eventual sip. He had tried several times and failed. The hunger had grown and taken him over completely until he'd become mindless and incredibly dangerous. He would have attacked a maid, who had chosen that unfortunate moment to enter his room, had not Halcyon stopped him. That episode made all the house staff wary of him, for good reason. Never trust a new demon, was the saying down in Hell. It should have been branded across his forehead for all to see.

Despite Halcyon and Blaec's assurance about how well; his control had been since. Gryphon knew better. He knew how terribly fragile it really was.

Hell was not this realm. It was being without Mona Lisa. It was knowing that if he really, truly loved her, he would not let her anywhere near him for the next five years.

He had come to that resolve — to be truly dead to her — then Halcyon's revelation had come by way of his father. And what Blaec had told Gryphon nearly unraveled all of that hard-earned control.

Blaec had thrust the chalice of blood wine at him and told him to drink when his eyes had burned red during the course of their talk. Gryphon had growled, tried to knock the drink away, disgusted with his weakness, his need, angry with the bearer of such horrific news. He had resisted until something even worse than his hunger had stirred inside of him and stretched his skin.

"Drink, you fool!" Blaec had said. It was the harsh urgency in the High Lord's voice that finally broke through to Gryphon and made him snatch up the drink and gulp it down — no careful restrained sips. Just sating that hunger, and sating it quickly, so that whatever frightening thing had moved within him quieted once more.

"Was that my demon beast moving in me?" Gryphon asked, setting the empty chalice down with a trembling hand.

Blaec nodded — a short, curt gesture.

"Is there reason why you do not wish it to emerge now?" Gryphon asked.

"I did not wish to explain the destruction of the room to my son, and the possible damage to you. Damage that I would have had to cause in order to control you. The first time you shift into your demon beast form, it should not be while your heated emotions rule you. I'd also strongly advise allowing more time to come to terms with your new nature before attempting to wrestle with that especially dangerous aspect of yourself."

Another near miss. He seemed to be having quite a few of those lately.

Gryphon was calm when Halcyon finally returned. The Demon Prince had only been gone for a few short hours, but it had felt like days. It was a relief to feel Halcyon's powerful presence entering the house once again. He wouldn't have returned so soon if Mona Lisa were missing, Gryphon told himself. He would have stayed to search for her. Whatever Halcyon had sensed had to be a mistake, a flaw in the bonding ring. Then Gryphon saw Halcyon's haggard face, the grief-stricken despair in his eyes.

Halcyon told them simply, "She is not there. She is no longer in the living realm."

It was suddenly hard for Gryphon to speak, to ask questions. "Do you mean that she is dead?"

A brief hesitation. Then Halcyon nodded. "I fear so."

"Is she… is she here?"

"No," Halcyon said. "I do not sense her in this realm."

Gone, Gryphon thought. The loss skewered him like a knife, even worse than the loss of his own life. Too many things hit him all at once — hot anger, cold despair, that first touch of raging grief. They all collided inside him, so that for a moment he only felt blessed numbness, an artificial calm before the explosion.

Then Halcyon was speaking again. "Father, a black light took her."

His words froze Blaec.

"She was Basking when a veil of darkness moved across the moon, traveled down the moon's rays into her," Halcyon said, his eyes fixed intensely on his father. "Her people said the black light seemed to wrap around her, and she simply disappeared."

"NetherHell," Blaec said, looking grimly at his son.

"NetherHell?" Gryphon asked, his eyes going back and forth between the two of them. "Where is that? Is that where she is?" The wild hope that suddenly flared in his heart was muted by their somber look.

"NetherHell is another separate realm. A lower realm," Halcyon explained. "And today is Aequus Nox, when the planets align and the sun crosses the celestial equator, allowing a short span of time when the walls between the realms thin."

"You believe this black light took her to this other realm? To this NetherHell?"

Halcyon glanced at his father, and it was Blaec who answered. "The old writings make note of such an occurrence happening once before, over five centuries ago, when the time of Aequus Nox coincided with a full moon. A black light traveled down and struck two Monère warriors. When the dark light vanished, they, too, were gone. They were seen a year later in the Cursed Realm, greatly changed."

"The Cursed Realm?" Gryphon said, feeling dread well up and spread inside him.

"Another name for NetherHell," Blaec said. "Not all Monère who die go to Hell. Some go to NetherHell, those who are… more evil. Many humans, corrupted ones, go to that realm upon their death."

"Mona Lisa wasn't dead, though. She was alive," Gryphon said, his hands rounding into loose fists. Too tight and he would puncture himself with his demon nails. He'd found that out the hard way.

"A part of her was dead, though." The import of Halcyon's words sank into Gryphon, and he found himself moving. Only Blaec's hand on Gryphon's shoulder kept him from finishing the lunge he'd started toward Halcyon.

"It's not only Halcyon's demon blood in her," Blaec said, gripping him hard. "That part of her alone would not have landed her in the Nether Realm. Mona Lisa also possesses Mona Louisa's essence, which was more evil than good, if you recall."

Blaec's words — and reasoning — calmed Gryphon down enough to mutter, "You can let me go now, High Lord."

Blaec did so cautiously.

"So you are saying that Mona Lisa was transported down to NetherHell because of that tainted part of Mona Louisa's dead essence in her?"

"Yes," the High Lord said. An expression too much like sadness moved in his eyes.

"Then we go there and bring her back."

Thick, stony silence.

"Father," Halcyon said. "I need your help."

A wave of energy pulsed out from the High Lord and filled the room. Power strong enough, suffocating enough, to snatch away Gryphon's breath and squeeze a gasp from him. At the involuntary sound, the oppressive power immediately lightened as Blaec brought himself back under control.

"You cannot go there, Halcyon," Blaec said.

"I cannot not go, Father. Please, you have to open the gate for me."

Gryphon looked and saw something in Blaec's eyes that he could never have imagined seeing in a being so powerful and old. He saw fear — fear for his son.

"Why don't you want Halcyon to go?" Gryphon asked.

Blaec's gentle, even tone masked for a moment the dire contents of his words. "Because NetherHell is not like any place that you know of. It is the realm for the cursed, the damned. For the evil ones. And like the dead souls of the people it pulls down, the realm is twisted and evil in its own way. Those that walk the Nether Realm become altered. The damned souls that find themselves there start to change almost immediately. The corruption that is within starts to become visible on the surface of their skin after only a week's time. We know this because the gate between our two realms was once open. I closed it almost a millennia ago when a distorted Nether creature crossed into our realm and escaped into the living realm. Five demon guardians were lost and more than twenty humans were killed before we were able to stop it."

"The potential for good and evil resides in all creatures. In animals as well as humans and Monère," Blaec said. "We are all a mix of good and bad. It is the balance between the two that is important, that decides which realm one goes to for those gifted with afterlife. Those who have more good balanced in them find themselves in Hell. Those who are more evil become inhabitants of NetherHell. Unlike other realms, though, the Nether Realm continues to actively distort the physical self, mutating it. Not only does it change the outer appearance, more important, it changes what is inside you. Slowly, surely, it grows the bad part that resides in you, expresses it more fully, molds it more strongly, twisting and unbalancing the natural equilibrium. No one is safe from this effect, because no one is one hundred percent good. There is some bad in all of us. With time, and time is a crucial matter here, all who reside there change. For the worse, not the better. Even if I reopen the gate, this thinning between the realms exists only for a twenty-four-hour period. After that, the barriers between the realms solidify again, and you would be trapped in that realm for another ninety-two days until the walls thin once more at summer solstice. Ninety-two days can alter you much in body and spirit. In so changed a state, I could not allow you to return to Hell," Blaec said, looking at Gryphon. "Do you understand?"

He did. And his decision was an easy one. "Halcyon need not go. I'll find Mona Lisa and try to bring her back in that twenty-four-hour period. If I don't make it back in time, then I'll stay there in NetherHell. I'd rather become a twisted damned creature down there with her than exist here without her."

"A noble sentiment," Halcyon said. "But you are newly dead. You, alone, are not strong enough to handle this task."

"His new status will actually make it easier for him to walk the realm's thicker atmosphere," Blaec said.

"Easier to physically walk that realm, yes. But not strong enough in psychic power to survive its many dangers as I could — to have any chance of finding Mona Lisa in less than a day and bring her back. He is only just coming into his demon strength. You know as well as I do that I must go."

"I'm going with you," Gryphon said with firm resolve. "My existence here means nothing without her."

"You are young in Monère years, as well as demon years," Halcyon said, not unkindly. "You will find another to love."

"As you so obviously did," Gryphon said darkly. "In your over six hundred years of existence here, I'm sure you found dozens, hundreds, of other women to love before Mona Lisa."

Halcyon nodded wryly, conceding Gryphon's point. Before Mona Lisa, he had found no one. After her, there would also likely be no one. "In this, sadly, I am in agreement with our young love-struck demon. I would rather be in that realm with her, just on the slim chance that she is there, than exist here without her. I'm sorry, Father."

Both grief and understanding were in Blaec's eyes. "You have found love. Love such as few of us ever know. It is not something to be sorry about, son. It is a treasure worth fighting to reclaim. But thought of losing you…"

"It comforts me to know that you will be here if I don't return," Halcyon said, gripping his father's arms. "You have guided our people for more centuries than I have existed. In truth, I have always felt partly to blame for your withdrawal, for the apathy that gripped you for so long."

"Why would you feel such guilt?" Blaec asked.

"Because had I not been here to take over the rule of our people, you would never have allowed yourself to fall into such a state."

"You are my son," Blaec said, frowning fiercely. "You and your sister, Lucinda, are the sole reasons why I still exist."

"Then you know why I must go. Please, Father. Open the gate for us."

Slowly, the High Lord nodded. "Very well. I will reopen the gate this one last time. You will have twenty hours to bring her back." Several hours had already passed since the clock started ticking. "If you do not return by then, the gate — and this realm — will be forever closed to you."