Steam clouded the inside of Jenny’s helmet; she was breathing too quickly. She yanked the thing off and tossed it aside, blinking repeatedly at Yeshua’s footsteps in the snow. Already the steady snowfall was filling them in, erasing them just as Yeshua had disappeared.
“Yeshua?” she called out, glancing around, half expecting one of his bodies to stand up from the pile of ghouls or emerge from the crowd of deaths. She walked briskly, trying to figure out what had happened, and made her way to the frozen ghouls.
Her heart was pounding. Hundreds of blooded ghouls were covered in a layer of snow spread out as far as she could see. There might’ve been even more, but falling snow limited visibility, and Jenny got the sense she was standing on the edge of a mass grave. There was a solemness, a blanketed quietness as she stared at all the frozen figures who looked too much like people.
Most of them were still on the ground, stuck to one another like victims of a natural disaster. A few had gotten to their knees or a halfway standing position. The ghouls’ red color looked foggy pink.
Some of them looked like they were reaching for her, and she imagined it must’ve been horribly painful to freeze to death. Their empty eye sockets glared, as if accusing her. Was this her fault? Had she messed something up? Was Yeshua dead?
Yeshua had said something about the cross before he’d vanished, and she remembered how he’d dragged that thing across the gloomy world to the pillars. As if he couldn’t go too far without it.
Did that mean he was bound to it by more than just flesh?
She dug her nails into her palms, trying to search her memory. She’d been so focused on opening the passageway, of getting out of that nightmare – she didn’t even think to bring the cross with her. Why hadn’t she noticed?
But how was that her fault? She couldn’t have known.
Yeshua should’ve told her. Or had he tried to? He’d shouted several things, but she couldn’t have understood him in that mess of blood and teeth and desperate hands.
Jenny tried to find the spot in the air where the passageway had hovered. She felt around, turning this way and that, trying to remember where she’d been standing in correlation with the ghouls, but everywhere looked the same. It was snowing, gentle but relentless, already tucking away the footsteps and disturbances in the snow.
The deaths muttered and whispered, and she heard echoes of their questions. Where is he? What is she doing? It’s so cold. I’m hungry. She wanted to tell them to shut up. To be quiet. She needed to think. Gentle trails of steam rose from where the snow landed on their bodies; a little fog gathered around them.
Jenny was breathing hard, voluminous clouds of breath escaping her lips. It was cold. Too cold. And the deaths were huddling for warmth. But she figured they’d be okay for now. When she’d freed the first death, that girl had felt so hot to the touch, like she’d been on fire. They could keep each other safe from the cold; Jenny had to figure out how to help Yeshua.
She couldn’t bear the thought of him stuck in that world again, back in that storm of blood with more and more ghouls crawling out of the ground to feast on him in his weakened state.
Or would he fight better now without any restraints? He wouldn’t have to worry about harming one of the deaths, and he might be able to feed on the ghouls and grow fuller and stronger again. She tried to calm her breathing, reminding herself that he was several magnitudes more powerful than her and that he could handle himself. Panicking wouldn’t help.
But it wasn’t just fear for his sake that was making her head spin. Slowly, she turned to the deaths. There were about thirty or forty of them huddling close together so that they looked like a blob of torn purple cloth and fog. Snow stuck to their hair and melted down their faces. That wasn’t going to help. That would make them feel even colder. What was she supposed to do with them? How could she help them?
She did not want to feed them with her own flesh.
Her teeth started chattering. Her shoulders trembled as the cold seeped through her armor and into her bones.
Okay. I can open the portal again.
Then I can go see what’s happening to Yeshua. Maybe I can bring his cross over too.
Then he can come here and explain things and we can figure out what to do next. How to find the World of Souls. How to help the deaths. How to get to Susan.
Trying to stay calm, she reached out again with one arm, armor peeling back to expose her knuckles and wrist to the cold, as though that might help. As though more sense data could activate what she needed.
She turned slowly in every direction like the needle of a compass trying to find north. Snowflakes tickled her nose. She deepened her breath, taking her time, trying to keep the worrying thoughts at bay. And after a few turns, she felt it. A slight, magnetic tug, and she stepped toward it.
There was a slight gelatinous pressure in the air, like she'd found something gooey and invisible. The air felt thicker. Bumpier. Like a scab. A tremor radiated through her chest. She was feeling the healed wound between worlds. It was similar to how the cafeteria floor had felt after she and Susan had brought the school back, when Jenny was trying to leave. How did it work?
Once a passageway was cut and then healed, would it always be there? Like scar tissue between worlds? Or was this some aspect of Valescent Light that allowed her to open the passageway again without creating another wound?
Sucking in a deep breath of cold air, she activated Valescent light, and a golden aura enveloped her palm and fingers. Colors skipped up to her fingertips to fade away, and a wave of dizziness hit Jenny so hard she stumbled back, losing her balance. The light blinked out of existence.
“Gah!” she spat, breathing even harder than before. Sweat beaded down the side of her face before the frigid air sent shivers crawling across her body. She leaned forward and grabbed her armored knees, trying to steady herself, spitting onto the snow.
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This was more than exhaustion. More than a lack of stamina. Pressure gathered behind her eyes, and her brain felt wrung out. She remembered the gaunt expression on Susan’s face after using Valescent Light to heal Jenny from the brink of death. How tired Susan had looked. How sunken her eyes had been. A potion couldn’t restore her.
The skill drew on something more than physical exertion, and Jenny had the sneaking suspicion that it had to do with her own death or soul or something. She squeezed her knees, her hair falling forward to cover her face. “Fuck.”
She couldn’t use it again. Not now. Not for a while. She had to rest. Like the ability was on cooldown. She slumped to the ground, her knees hitting the snow with a crunch. Her ears were freezing. The tip of her nose was freezing, and she was sure that her snot was turning to ice. Were her lips turning blue?
What the fuck was she supposed to do?
Ignite!
A roar of frustration tore through her throat, and a stream of fire billowed out of her mouth, melting the snow in front of her before she raised her face to scream at the cloud covered sky. Snow hissed and evaporated, and when she snapped her teeth shut, she closed her eyes. The warmth faded as quickly as it had come, sapped away from her face and her insides by the freezing wind of this world.
I’m in hell.
What was it that Yeshua said before? Hell had frozen over? Wasn’t that just an expression? Something people said? So, if this was hell, why was it snowing? Why was the ground frozen? And where are the demons?
We are right here.
Her eyes flew open. “Who said that?” she demanded, standing and taking a menacing step toward the deaths. “Did you hear that?” It had almost sounded like static. Like a voice crackling over an old timey radio.
They shook their heads, their torn robes fluttering as another breeze swept by. They all looked ragged and cold, and Jenny searched for the first one, the one she’d freed, the brown woman. Her eyes were wide and frightened. She was hugging two of the younger deaths to her, trying to keep them warm.
Your warmth has guided us to you. The voice rattled through her head like a distorted phone call, as though someone was about to lose connection.
“Hello?” said Jenny in exasperation. She summoned her hatchet back, light flashing as anger burned inside her throat. A tense pressure pounded behind her eyes. “Who’s talking? Where are you?” She turned around and around, before snapping at the deaths. “You guys seriously can’t hear anything?” She jabbed her hatchet accusingly in their direction, and they all stepped back, blinking at her like she'd gone mad.
She almost apologized, but she couldn’t stop shaking. Something was reading her thoughts. Reading her mind. Something was talking to her from inside her head again.
You are not going mad. We are not speaking to the Dead.
We are speaking to you, strange human.
She clenched her teeth so hard she thought they’d shatter in the cold. She whirled around, scanning the snow for where she’d dropped her helmet, seeing nothing but snowfall and the crowd of deaths and the frozen ghouls. She couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t stop the boiling hot rage from taking over. She was done with invisible beings talking to her like this. “Who the fuck are you? What do you want?”
You are intruding on our home. Perhaps you should answer these questions first.
“Okay...” The voice was right. She was the one intruding. She didn’t really have a right to make demands. But she still had another question. “Why can’t I see you?”
Light shimmered in front of her, over the field of frozen ghouls. Many lights that sparkled and sizzled, ranging in color from red to yellow to blue, like a swarm of bioluminescent insects all buzzing their wings. Jenny stepped back, holding her hatchet defensively with both hands, trying to figure out what was coming. Was this some new monster? Some other creature that would try to eat her? She was so sick and tired of fighting for her life. But if these things were going to attack, why communicate? Why give her any warning? The lights rained down on the ghouls, sparkling and glimmering like shooting stars all concentrated in one area.
When a light splattered onto a ghoul, the body began to glow. The snow melted away from its head and limbs, and with several cracks, the frozen creature’s joints moved, and it returned to life.
Its head turned. Blue flames alighted in its eye sockets, as though someone had just turned on a gas stove, and Jenny gripped her hatchet tight, ready to strike it down. Was this some new form of ghoul? Would it try to eat her too?
This body hungers...
She bit her lip, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. Every instinct in her body told her to attack before the creatures got up. Before they were fully awake.
But it was communicating. It wasn’t a mindless monster. It wasn’t like the angels.
The fist ghoul’s limbs twitched, and it stood, head lolling back, chest protruded forward as its arms swung uselessly. It moved unsteadily on its feet like a puppet held by strings. With a shaking step forward, it righted itself and more blue fire spilled from its eyes, rising upward so that they looked like two flickering horns jutting out of the ghoul’s head. Jenny couldn’t help but stare. In the empty eye sockets sat two balls of flame, like miniature blue stars.
Demon (Vesseled) (stage iv)
Jennys heart sank. The demon was stage iv. It didn’t have a level, but it wasn’t NULL either like Yeshua had been. Cold sweat ran down her back. What did Vesseled mean? Was that referring to the ghoul’s body?
The other ghouls were standing as well. Some with orange flames. Others with red or yellow or white. And they ranged from stage i to stage iii, but there weren't any other stage iv’s or anything higher. None of the others had blue flames.
Within moments, there was a small crowd of them. Their heads lolled like they were too heavy for their shoulders, but the one in the lead, the only one with burning blue eyes, took another shaking step toward Jenny. Its head swerved back before falling forward, chin bumping its chest as its arms waved back and forth, trying to find its balance.
Her body twitched, ready to run away, ready to fight, but unable to decide. Were they a threat? The ghouls already had cartoonish features, with those bulbous heads and thin limbs, but as the demons stumbled around, struggling to right themselves, she wasn’t sure how to respond.
Their eyes burned brilliantly, and the bloody red sheen of the ghouls’ bodies faded away, returning back to white so that they blended in with their surroundings. If it wasn’t for their fiery eyes, Jenny would've lost track of them.
What are you? Asked the first demon, its mouth opening and closing, teeth clacking in a repetitive pattern, like watching a low budget animation where the audio and the lips were out of sync. The voice was still inside her head.
Was the demon moving its mouth to pretend it was talking? Or was it imitating her? She took a step back, trying not to appear afraid. Trying to stay calm. She glanced back at the deaths then back at the demons as more frozen ghouls came to life, their eye sockets filling with flames. A strange sense of panic clung to her limbs, and more snow continued to fall.
Was this going to be another fight?
If they were limited to their ghoul bodies, then all she had to do was strike them down. “I’m human.”
A strange human. The demon’s mouth opened and closed again as it spoke. Snowflakes touched down and melted all over its bulbous head, sizzling and evaporating where it reached the blue flames of the demon’s eyes. We seek your light. You have a gift.
“My light?” asked Jenny. Other ghouls shook themselves free of the ice and stood with burning eyes. There could've been a hundred o them by now, standing behind the demon with blue eyes, gathering like an army rising out of the snow. “What do you want with my light?”
It seemed to be glaring at her, the blue flames growing larger and larger. Then its teeth clacked. Its static voice flitted between her ears. Restitution.