Robert Browne - The Paradise Prophecy

“You have got to be kidding me,” the spy said, her voice laced with disgust.

“All creatures, dark and light, want to be loved.”

A moment later, the angel again took the lead and they made their way down the path. The scorpions skittered up close, but did not attack, instead turning and following like excited children, as the three continued forward.

They soon passed through the mouth of the chasm, entering a narrow cave with a low ceiling. They all ducked to keep from bumping their heads, and saw roaches and spiders clinging to the rocks, the roaches rubbing their wings together as if ready for flight, their feathery whispers faintly reverberating against the walls.

The spy and the scholar exchanged brief, uneasy glances as they followed the angel into a shadowy tunnel. The angel withdrew his knife, spoke a brief incantation, and the knife began to glow, illuminating their path. Several multi-legged insects that the humans didn’t recognize scattered away in fright, disappearing down a dark hole in the tunnel floor.

The three stepped around the hole and continued on, moving along a curve until the tunnel opened out onto another cave. The angel came to a stop and pointed his glowing knife toward a stone archway on the opposite side.

“The entrance to Pandemonium.”

“At the risk of sounding like a complete idiot,” the spy said, “what exactly is Pandemonium?”

“A city built by the great Mulciber in honor of Satan. We call it the City of Lost Souls.”

They heard a sound and something moved in the shadows of the archway. Then a thing that looked like it should be a wolf or a dog stepped forward and began growling at them.

All three heads.

“A trinine,” the angel said. “It won’t harm you unless you upset its master.”

“Its master?”

As if in answer, a figure slithered out from the shadows behind the three-headed dog. It had the body of a serpent below, and that of an old woman above, her breasts sagging, her hair stringy and gray, her face etched with lines, her teeth crooked and yellow.

“Well?” she said. “Are you going stand there staring, or come inside?”

The two humans exchanged glances again, then followed the angel as he crossed to the old woman.

“What’s the fee today?”

“Same as always,” she said. “Nothing more than a kiss.”

The thought of this turned the humans’ stomachs, but they were soon distracted by movement in the shadows on the opposite side of the archway. The shadows shifted and something dark and menacing moved forward, a shape with no real definition.

Whatever it was, it was watching them carefully.

“Go back to sleep, boy,” the old woman said. “They’ll pay their fee.” Then she looked at the three visitors. “Won’t you?”

“With pleasure,” the angel told her, then stepped close to her and leaned down, kissing her on the lips. The woman snaked her arms around him and held him there for a moment, then finally released him.

“Be on with you, then. Next.”

The two humans once again exchanged glances, neither of them anxious to move forward.

“Come on, come on,” the old woman said, “or I’ll sic my son on you.”

The trinine growled and the shadows on the far side of the archway shifted again. Not one to waste time, the scholar leaned down, giving the old woman a kiss. Again she snaked her arms around him, holding him there, and when she released him, he stumbled back, his eyes wide and slightly embarrassed, as if he’d enjoyed the moment but didn’t want to admit it.

Then it was the spy’s turn, and she clearly did not want to do this. Steeling herself, she tucked the shotgun under her arm, then sidled up to the old woman, crouched down and hesitated, not sure she could go through with it.

“Oh, for Lucifer’s sake,” the old woman said, then grabbed the spy and yanked her close, planting her lips on her. A slick tongue slithered down the spy’s throat and a burst of pleasure flowed through her. Then she, too, stumbled back in a daze and struggled to stay on her feet.

“All right, boy,” the old woman said. “Open the gate.”

A moment later they heard a faint creak as the gate was opened, and the humans took the path toward the City of Lost Souls.

Pandemonium.

The place was at once familiar, yet like nothing Callahan had ever seen before. They seemed to be in a canyon of some kind, with dark, cavernous walls, but with no sky to speak of.

No moon. No stars.

Yet something was stirring up there. Something oppressive. Hostile. A malevolent turbulence-as if some dark spectre was watching over them.

A long row of burning torches lined the narrow road, and the walls on either side looked like huge, blackened beehives fashioned out of dark stone.

Homes, Callahan thought, but left it at that.

She didn’t want to consider what might be living inside. And she hoped she’d never have to find out.

Up ahead was what looked to be the center of the “city”-if you could really call it that-a cluster of ancient stone structures with pillars and archways surrounding an open square.

But a normal city would be bustling with activity, and this one wasn’t. In fact, it was deserted. A ghost town. No one milling about. No lights in the windows. No sounds. No nothing.

And Callahan wondered why.

“Where is everyone?”

“Asleep,” Michael said quietly. “And be thankful for it. In a few hours this place will be crawling with creatures you’d best not see. Otherwise you might not get back to the overworld with your sanity intact.”

Too late, Callahan wanted to say, but she remained silent.

She’d been to cities all over the world, traveled to some of the most dangerous places imaginable, but as they moved toward the empty square, she’d never been so unnerved before. Never felt a weight like this. An uneasiness so deep that it seemed to drag her down.

The threat here was not so much ex ternal as it was in ternal . And she suddenly realized that what she felt was despair. The despair of a thousand lost souls all gathered in a single place, buzzing inside her like bees in a hive.

If her father had felt only a fraction of this before putting that gun to his head, then she understood why he’d done it.

No one could live with this feeling for long.

She glanced at LaLaurie and knew he felt the same. He’d already had his taste of hell, and she was pretty sure it had been more than enough.

They came to a stop, then Michael ushered them under the shadows of an archway.

“Wait here,” he whispered. “And keep your voices low. You really don’t want to wake anyone up.”

Callahan frowned. “I thought you said this was neutral ground?”

“For angels,” he told her. “Everyone else is fair game. That’s why they call it Pandemonium.”

He was gone for an eternity.

After leaving them behind, Michael had crossed to another archway and disappeared beneath it, swallowed up by a curtain of darkness. When several minutes had passed and he hadn’t returned, Callahan started feeling restless.

“What the hell is taking him so long?”

“Give him time,” LaLaurie told her. “He obviously knows what he’s doing.”

Until now, LaLaurie had been uncharacteristically quiet. Callahan wasn’t sure what was bugging him-other than the obvious-but he hadn’t been the same since they’d escaped Belial’s most recent assault.

She knew he had seen something on those pages that she wasn’t privy to, but she figured it couldn’t be any more horrific than what they’d experienced so far.

Deciding to risk getting her head bit off, she said, “What’s going on, Professor? You’ve barely uttered a sound since we left the church.”