If you're just joining the adventure and would like to start at the beginning, click here
Chapter Thirty Five
Jenna swore at the computer in frustration. Not a Harriet Le'Roche anywhere on the planet it seemed. It had been the most irritating few days she'd had in a very long while, starting with the returned phone call from her Aunt Rona.
Rona had first wanted to know why she was trying to find Aunt Harri. Jenna had been prepared for that, telling her she felt sorry for the woman and thought as a good Christian she should see to her well-being. Her aunt had feigned hearty agreement and informed her that although she didn't personally know how to reach Harriet she would find out.
For the next four days she was pummeled with phone calls from every single member of her aggravating and seriously opinionated family. And the end result? Nada. No one had an address or phone number for the woman. Her grandmother haughtily informed her "misguided granddaughter” that her sister had stopped talking to everyone over a decade ago and had since moved away leaving no forwarding address. When Jenna pointed out that it was the family who quit talking to her there was a great deal of harumphing, followed by a lecture on the ignorance of youth.
Reading between the lines of her various gossiping relatives she gathered they believed Harriet was possessed by demons and that sweet little Jenna would do well to give up her foolish notion.
Possessed by demons, huh? Well if she could just find the woman she could determine the truth of that pretty quickly. Her intuition told her their conclusion was horseshit and she was more determined than ever to find her.
She leaned back on the chair. I need a private investigator, she thought. That was how people went about finding the hard to find, wasn't it? Of course that required money, which she didn't have. She flipped open her phone and called Anna for the tenth time that day. No answer. It was beginning to piss her off...whoa, what the hell? A fluttery feeling hit her in the stomach, then became painful and she doubled over. Anna was in trouble, something was wrong. The pain subsided, but the fluttery feeling of panic got stronger. She dialed Anna once more, her hand shaking. No answer, shit.
It was the second night after Jack had left them that Anna found herself walking down the street without her constant companions. Will was shacked up with a girl and Josh had gone to bed having spent the previous night doing research until the sun came up. She'd tried to aid him by using her laptop to look up various things, but found that with all of the questions she needed to ask she was more of a hindrance than a help. This in turn made her feel somewhat useless, and she started thinking that maybe Jack had a point.
No, that's bullshit, she'd chided herself. Sure if she really was just a girl without all of her kickass abilities there might have been some truth to it, but she wasn't just a girl.
So she set out with something to prove, a natural recipe for disaster.
She was following a guy being dogged by a shadow for several blocks when he turned a corner off the main strip and away from people. She paused briefly, looking back over her shoulder at the comfort of the street lights and well lit shops, but then steeled herself. ‘Don't be such a pansy’, she thought, ‘if you manage to take out this shadow then the guy will be free, it will be your first real act as a superhero’. She continued along this line of thought as she started after them, but then the shadow did something odd. It stopped and let its host move on. It turned towards her, and for the first time she saw features inside the smoky darkness. Alien eyes in a warped and haggard face regarded her with a mixture of what she thought was fear and curiosity. And then it spoke and she could only stare at the misshapen mouth, the language foreign to her. It seemed to realize this after a moment and fell silent.
And there they stood facing off, and she realized if she were going to make a move she'd better do it before she lost her nerve and fled. Which in retrospect would have been the wiser choice, but as old timers are fond of saying, you live, you learn.
In one graceful leap she was on it, and she didn't allow herself to register exactly how it felt before she sank her teeth in where she supposed its neck would be and began to tear....
And the world was darkness. A vast an empty void of black so thick it had texture.
And somewhere in the endless black hole of her new existence there were noises. Crunching, squishing, spitting, keening, surrounding her, engulfing her. She tried to shout but her features were frozen.
And then she heard voices. Muttering in low tones and eerie whispers, the sounds of her deepest nightmares, now her reality. She tried to move but she was made of stone, a stone without substance. She felt nothing.
And then the whispers grew louder and they began to chant, forming words and the words were reciting every sin she’d ever committed, every lie she'd ever told, every hurt she'd ever caused. They did not cease, they grew louder, still in whispers, overlapping, never ending.
She was in hell.
‘Here in the dark, here in this empty void we remain for all time….’the words filled her mind and horror seized her as she realized she'd died and the myths were true, vampires were condemned and she was damned. Yessss, the voices agreed, Damned for all eternity, forever and ever and ever….
Time was passing, flowing and ebbing and yet it was also still. It was endless infinity, time without time and she would spend it right here in this black hole where monsters moved all around her, always keening, whispering, accusing.
She could feel the beckoning to madness and it was relief, relief to lose her mind and not know where she was or who she was, and she began to slip away.
No. No. No. No. No. The word began beating at her brain like a drum, and at first she could not comprehend it….and then she saw a face. A hazy image in the otherwise unending darkness, but she knew its features. And then there was another and then another. She knew them. And she loved them.
She loved them.
She loved.
Her senses rushed in at her, coming alive, and she had a body again and a voice and she was shouting at the things surrounding her, telling them that she did not belong in this world of darkness because she loved...
She sat up fighting for breath and opened her eyes, light hitting her retinas and causing pain that she welcomed and refused to blink away. She heard voices and felt arms around her, holding her, and she sank into them weeping soundlessly, tears blurring her vision, and still she refused to blink.
Something pressed against her eyes and she pawed it away in horror.
"It's okay, you're okay, it's all right Anna come on, talk to us. Can you hear us?" She tipped her head up slowly and stared at the familiar features, one of the images that she loved. His mouth was moving but her brain was having difficulty unscrambling the sounds.
"I'm going to call an ambulance," said an unfamiliar voice and the garbled sounds made her afraid. She slowly turned her head in its direction and cringed away from him. He spoke again, his words drifting down a long tunnel and she shook her head violently, seeking the eyes of the one holding on to her. "Will?” she whispered.
He smiled, relief flooding his features. "Yeah, it's me."
“Josh?” she whispered again.
"Right here." Josh crouched down next to her.
"Home." She spoke the word and it echoed in her mind sounding strange and foreign. She began to shiver and Will's arms tightened around her.
Josh stood and spoke to the stranger and he backed off, the rest of the people disbursing now that the drama was ending. All of these things she registered in some place in her head that vaguely grasped this world she was once a part of.
"Can you stand?" Will asked her softly.
She slowly moved her gaze from his face to her legs and stared at them. She felt his arms around her waist, pulling her up and supporting her. She turned her head slowly and saw the place where the creature had stood....and it all came back to her, her mind coming back together in a rush. She was in the alley where she'd attempted to kill the demon. And it had taken her to hell. No, that wasn't right. She hadn't gone to hell, she wouldn't be here. It had all been in her mind.
She recalled being told of the psychological powers a demon could wield and she had not understood. She shuttered and stumbled and Will lifted her up into his arms and carried her down the street.
Generously created for me by @son-of-satire