“Ain’t no man ever seen the face of my Lord, no,
Not since he left his skin…
He’s the one you keep cold on the outside, girlie,
He’s at your door, don’t let him in.”
-Sixteen Horsepower, ‘Black Soul Choir’

YEARNING TO BREATHE FREE

By Meriades Rai

October 31st – The Last Day

So, there’s this guy. He’s dead, wormfood, popped his metaphorical clogs after a lifetime of hedonistic excess, and his immortal soul is tumbling on down to Hell, where he finds The Devil waiting for him. The Devil, he’s smiling – all red and teeth and secrets – because smiling is what he does. The dead guy, he starts weeping. He’s terrified, wants to know what Hell has in store. As you would.

“Hey,” says The Devil, “Don’t sweat it. Are you hungry?”

The dead guy sniffles, and nods.

“Well then,” says The Devil. “You’ll like Mondays. On Mondays it’s All-You-Can-Eat down here in Hades. Chicken ribs in hot sauce, corn dogs, pizza with double pepperoni, peach cobbler and ice cream. Sounds good, right? Now, are you thirsty?”

The dead guy licks his lips.

“Well then,” says The Devil. “You’ll like Tuesdays. On Tuesdays we go bar crawling along the river Styx, and it’s perpetual happy hour. Beer, Jack D, cocktails with cute little umbrellas. You like gambling?”

The dead guy slowly begins to smile.

“Well then,” says The Devil. “You’ll like Wednesdays. On Wednesdays we hit Dante’s casino on the ninth circle and we roll the bones ‘til dawn. Just one hint if the roulette wheel tempts you – always bet on red. You like to smoke?”

The dead guy raises an eyebrow.

“Well then,” says The Devil. “You’ll like Thursdays. On Thursdays we kick back and relax in the back room of the Gehenna lounge, with a few hand-rolled cigars and some great company. Or, if your tastes are a little more expensive, we can turn a blind eye to the odd line here and there, capish? Now, you like women?”

The dead guy grins.

“Well then,” says The Devil. “You’ll like Fridays. On Fridays we go down to Sheol Show You Heaven and get entertained by Hell’s Belles, all butt and wink and wiggle. They’ll do whatever you want and however you want it – there may even be a chance of a snowball in Hell, if you catch my drift. Now… you like having six-inch, rusted spikes inserted between the links of your vertebrae whilst having your jaw dislocated and splintered by rocks, and boiling blood poured through razor slits in your throat?”

The dead guy suddenly pales, his eyes widening.

“Flesh lashed from your bones by wire whips?” says The Devil. “Sodomized by wooden stakes rolled in crushed glass? Eyes punctured by wasp stings whilst your genitals are melted in an open flame?”

The dead guy screams. Wails. Thrashes. The Devil sighs.

“You know, that’s the funny thing about Hell,” he says with a shrug. “No one ever looks forward to the weekends around here.”

Just a little joke for you there. Once upon a time it made me laugh. Now, not so much. Go figure.

October 20th – The First Day

The Seekers outnumber me by twenty or thirty-to-one, but I get the feeling they don’t much fancy those odds – not considering what I’ve become. And what is that, exactly? Beats me. All I know is that the woman most people would recognise as FBI special agent Rebecca Lockwood is gone, and in her place is… me. A good foot taller and wider, dolled from head to toe in studded black leathers, head seemingly on fire. And this isn’t even Brooklyn.

Inside, I’m still Becky. On the outside, well… that’s something else entirely. But, at the present moment, that’s the least of my concerns.

For a brief, hopeful second, I truly believe that the Seekers are going to turn tail and haul their ugly asses out of my jurisdiction. Yeah. Straight after those flying pigs, right? The beasts pace back and forth, studying me… until one of them suddenly throws back its misshapen head and emits a piercing, blood-curdling shriek. A heartbeat later the rest of them follow suit, and I realise with a thrill of horror that this is some kind of call-to-arms. Then, they surge forward, still howling, their claws outstretched. They want a quick kill. They’re going to be disappointed.

I raise the Desert Eagle in my right hand and loose two shots. In some distant corner of my mind I’m perhaps wondering how many bullets I have left, but in that instant I discover that it no longer matters. The barrel of the gun doesn’t eject iron, not any more – it spits fire. Like me, it has been transformed. And this isn’t even normal fire, I instinctively realise. No, it’s something far more potent than that.

Two of the Seekers bearing down on me are halted by the impact and stagger, their screams dying in their distended throats. Their eyes, black pearls in sockets of rotting flesh, shoot wide – and then they burst as their bodies are consumed with a bright, unearthly flame that rages with a kaleidoscope of vivid colours. It’s a conflagration, wild and intense, a combustion of inconceivable fury… and the skin and bones at the heart of it all are rendered as localised hurricanes of blackened ash that are quickly dispersed upon the air.

There is something in me – some alien aspect of this new being I have become – that can give a name to this devastating violence. Hellfire. But I don’t have occasion to reflect upon its nature. Three more Seekers are almost upon me… and, instinctively, I lash out with the length of chain that is clenched in my left hand. Twenty pounds of iron link, and I heft it effortlessly, suggesting that my strength has been augmented along with my size. With a sickening snap and splinter of bones, the chain slices through the advancing Seekers like a blade, sending them sprawling in all directions. As they flail in agony upon the ground I pick them off with the Magnum, my aim unerringly precise. Each of their heads explodes in a geyser of blood and burn. It’s every bit as satisfying as it sounds.

“No!” shrieks another of the creatures, skittering in behind me and wrapping its talons about my legs. “We won’t let you send us back!”

This is the second time one of them has spat these words at me, with foul breath and wild eyes. I can’t help but wonder what they mean. The fiend flexes its claws, trying to puncture my leathers and then the flesh beneath. I wield my chain without mercy, battering the Seeker across the neck, then kicking it bodily away. Another one leaps at me from the side, but I whirl where I stand, point the Eagle, and blow a hole the size of my fist in the fiend’s scrawny chest, causing its rib cage to rupture out of its back like the quills of a porcupine. It crashes to the ground and skids away, twisted and smoking.

More Seekers close in. Flourishing gun and chain I turn in a slow circle and glare at every last one of them, aware that I’m wearing golden flames like some kind of halo. That’s me. The wrath of God. Or, maybe not Him exactly…

“I CAN KEEP THIS UP ALL DAY,” I hiss. “CAN YOU?”

“They’ll fight to their dying breaths, I assure you,” murmurs a male voice, off to the side of me. “After all – they have nothing left to lose.”

Even before I catch sight of the man standing over in the shadows of the pine trees on the edge of the clearing, I know that he’s not one of them. However, he isn’t human either – that much is immediately obvious. No man could possibly be this… beautiful.

He’s remarkably tall, perhaps seven feet, with broad shoulders and an upper torso that is bare despite the chill mountain air, and corded with ridges of muscle cut with scalpel precision. His skin is burnished copper, almost gleaming, and decorated with a lattice of long, tapering scars. His black hair shimmers like oil, so long and thick that it hangs down in tightly woven braids as far as the white cloth wrapped about his waist. His eyes are pools of deepest black with small but distinct flickers of golden candlelight at their core. The light dances when he smiles. It’s the kind of smile that pierces hearts like a hook snags fish. Colour me hooked.

And then, not least, there are the wings, extending out from his back like a lavish cloak of intricately woven feathers of purest white, threaded with gold.

“WHO ARE YOU?” I ask, all but forgetting the Seekers for one insane moment. Fortunately, they seem to be content to keep their distance now that this other has appeared. I guess I’m about to find out if that’s a good thing or a bad one. I’m betting the latter.

I know what the man is, of course. The wings give it away somewhat. My mind is screaming the truth at me: Angel. Angel.

The opposite of me.

His maddeningly bewitching smile widens, as if he can read my thoughts, and I catch a glimpse of sharp, golden teeth.

“My name,” the angel breathes, with a voice like fleece and dreams, “Is Edrebus. I am of the Seraphim, the highest order. Given time to acclimatize to your new self, little one, you would perhaps begin to remember me from aeons past… but alas, it is not to be.”

There’s no attempt to veil the warning in his words. I want to react, but my senses are suddenly sluggish, and I can barely move. This, I note with that customary dash of ironic understatement that is so quintessentially me, is not good.

Edrebus cocks his head, studying me with those shimmering eyes. I can’t help but scrutinize him in turn, noting the play of scarred flesh across his hard abdomen and the delicate curvature of his throat. I wonder what his skin would taste like, how it would feel to run my fingers through his hair. When he looks at me does he see the flaming creature I have become, or the woman who lurks inside?

“A pity that we could not have met under more convivial circumstances, my lady,” he eventually murmurs, every nuance of his red lips begging for a kiss. “But your endeavours will cost me aplenty should you be allowed to continue. Thus, I fear I must terminate our acquaintance before it has even begun.”

The angel spreads his wings then raises one hand, palm outstretched. Initially I remain hopelessly mesmerised by his eyes, drawing me in like campfires in the fog, and panic wells within me…

…but then I am stung by the sight of sparks of cobalt blue dancing between the joints of his surprisingly elegant fingers, and they spur me. I hear the soft crackling of magic – sacred, ancient magic, the oldest magic in the universe – and I feel the air thickening about me. Fire ignites within my heart, incandescent with rage. It jolts me, finally, from the cloying web that he has spun so tantalizingly about my physical form. I remember what I am – a badass bitch in skin-tight leather with a flaming skull for a head and a really big gun. Stands to reason I shouldn’t have anything to be particularly fearful of, when you think about it.

In one fluid movement, I raise the Desert Eagle, aim, and fire.

Edrebus’ head explodes. The ball of unholy flame that exits from the barrel of the Magnum enters through the angel’s delicate mouth and detonates in a rush of heat and blinding light. I flinch backwards, half raising my arms to shield myself from the inevitable spray of flesh and blood and bone…

…but it never comes. Instead, something happens that I know I’ll never be able to understand or accept, even though it takes place right before my burning eyes.

The air is filled with a wet, red mist. It swirls, like a viscous blizzard in a Christmas snow globe gifted by a degenerate Santa Claus. Then, impossibly… all the hundreds of thousands of tiny little fragments of matter begin to knit back together. Slickly, softly, returning exactly whence they came. I stare on, stunned. The Magnum slowly drops to my side. All around me, the Seekers seethe. I think they might be laughing.

And, before me, Edrebus finishes replenishing himself and then just stands there, fully restored. For a moment, he is still. Then, he flutters his wings, cricks his neck, and glares at me. He isn’t smiling any longer.

“Needless to say,” he hisses, “That wasn’t pleasant. Trust me, new one. Hellfire hurts. But, when all is said and done… my kind invented the idea, not yours. And now there’s a purer version I think it’s time you experienced.”

Edrebus raises both hands above his head, and the sparks between his crooked fingers shimmer crimson and violet. Which seems to me to be the most appropriate time to explore the old adage of discretion being the better part of valour, and to shift my sassy little leather-clad ass.

The motorcycle that appears to be at the centre of my current situation is idling close by, its engine purring like a panther and its wheels lit up with whorls of flame like spinning fireworks. I lunge for the bike, vaulting astride it as a cluster of Seekers swarm around me, slashing and stabbing with their claws. I whip my chain to one side and then the other, driving them back with a number of satisfyingly vicious blows, but I don’t bother with the Eagle this time, tucking it away into the folds of my tunic so that I can free up a hand to hold on to my ride. The engine roars as I urge the bike forward, swinging the chain for all I’m worth…

…and Edrebus steps out into my path. The smile is back.

“Those before you have gone by the name of Ghost Rider,” the angel growls. “It’s an infamous heritage, have no doubt, and one ever destined to end in tragedy. However much this hurts you, girl, I’m actually bestowing upon you an act of kindness.”

And then he breathes a simple incantation, ancient words I can’t understand but which chill me to the quick nonetheless… and, for the second time this day, I am engulfed in a veritable torrent of pain.

I scream. It’s a hideous sound, deep and dark and broken, the rape and butchering of naked souls. I slump forward upon the bike, my body arching and twisting in the grip of agonised spasms. I feel my flesh begin to weep and shred within my leathers, feel my skull begin to tremble and crack, feel my flame begin to dim…

…and then, for the first time, I hear its voice. The creature. The dragon in the cave, the tentacles in the pit, the troll beneath the bridge. The thing that surreptitiously crawled inside me when I used the bone key given to me by Johnny Blaze, and which now dwells within me, insinuating itself into my veins like a grinning cancer.

It calls itself Zarathos. And it has words of comfort…

Edrebus the angel is smiling, content that he is sundering my spirit with his holy magicks. Only when I slowly raise my skull and stare at him with burning, ethereal eyes does he realise that he has underestimated me, and his smile fades. I am the spirit of vengeance, consumed by Hellfire; I am the spawn of blood and flame and darkness. Edrebus himself gave me my name: Ghost Rider. Rebecca Lockwood still exists – I’m still me, and forever will be – but for now it is the demonic ghoul I have become that fills my enemy with a sudden, terrible fear.

“HELLO, EDREBUS,” I say, straightening my back in my seat. “IT’S BEEN A WHILE.”

The angel grimaces. “Zarathos.”

“BROTHER.”

“We ceased to be brothers when you abandoned the host,” Edrebus says. “When you betrayed us.”

“WE’RE ALL FALLEN NOW,” I murmur. “SOME OF US FURTHER THAN OTHERS.”

Edrebus’ countenance darkens like summer thunder, and he abruptly turns away, this brief exchange apparently done. Which, I have to say, suits me fine. The Ghost Rider is speaking in my voice – my new voice – but the words aren’t coming from me. I, personally, haven’t got the faintest idea what these two are talking about. For someone who prides herself on being a busybody and a gossip wherever possible, you can imagine how that bites. When this is all over and done, me and the unholy presence squatting in my soul are going to be setting out a few ground rules, let me tell you.

“IS THIS WHAT IT HAS COME TO?” I say. “IS HIS WORLD NOW SO DRENCHED IN SIN THAT HEAVEN MUST ACCEPT REFUGEES FROM HELL JUST TO MAINTAIN A BALANCE? THESE ‘SEEKERS’ ALL ABOUT US… THEY SEEK ASYLUM, YES? TORTURED SOULS, DOOMED TO THE UNDERWORLD FOR ETERNITY BY YOUR OWN EDICT – AND YET HE HAS BEEN FORCED TO INSTRUCT YOU, ONE OF HIS PRECIOUS SERAPHIM, TO SMUGGLE THEM OUT OF MEPHISTO’S REALM. THIS IS PRICELESS, EDREBUS. TRULY PRICELESS…”

Now facing away from me, Edrebus spreads his wings as if to ascend… but then, he pauses.

“Perhaps,” he breathes, “He is not involved in this.”

“NO? THEN WHAT… A PRIVATE ENTERPRISE? WHAT COULD AN ANGEL POSSIBLY DEMAND IN PAYMENT? AND IF HE IS BLIND TO YOUR ENDEAVOURS, THEN…”

My voice trails off. I can hear Zarathos thinking. It sounds like the rattling of knucklebones in a bag stitched from the dried skin of murdered children.

Edrebus turns and glares at me over his shoulder. “This is the beginning of the end,” he says, softly. “New battle lines have been drawn. There is a third player in the game. And there are no coincidences, young lady, in this world or any other. Be prepared. An offer will be made to you – and you would do well to accept it, for far more than your own life will depend upon it. We shall meet again. But for now… farewell.”

The angel then rises, quickly, up into the vast, silver-blue skies overhead. He takes his leave without further word. Sulking. Nothing sours a gorgeous-looking guy like a childish temperament, let me tell you. I watch him recede into the distance – and so do the Seekers all around me. They all seem a touch panicked. Evidently they weren’t expecting this little vanishing act. My heart bleeds. I gun the bike, brandishing my chain… and the fiends all disappear into the surrounding forests, shrieking.

Asylum seekers? From Hell? If my new face wasn’t already set into a permanent scowl then I’d be forced to come up with one of my own. Very little of the past hour has made sense – but there’s one man who may be able to help me unravel the threads. I glare across at the cabin.

Johnny Blaze.

All I have to do is hope that he’s still alive…