The boy looked up at me with those lifeless eyes. There was nothing there, either in his features or his facial expression that told me there was a heart beating in his chest.
‘To take my soul back,’ he said bluntly.
I nodded and motioned towards the alter. The time for conversation was gone and instead I simply wanted to get the ritual over with so I could move on to something more important.
There was no resistance from the child as he walked to the alter and lay down on top of the blood stained stone. A part of me was glad, but the other part wondered how he could be so forthcoming knowing that his life was about to be taken from him.
I moved so I was standing by the boy’s side and placed my hands on his chest. The monk’s, including Pertilius, surrounded us and started chanting in their ancient language. Under the palms of my hands I could feel the child’s heart slow with each second until it eventually stopped.
I looked down at his lifeless face and watched as his mouth dropped open. Something black and shapeless began to escape from the cavity. The monk’s chants filled the air, seemingly growing louder, as it wrapped itself around my body before soaking into my skin.
My stomach suddenly felt like I had swallowed a slab of ice and it was only once the chanting came to an end and I removed my hands from the boy’s body, that the feeling dissipated.
‘It is done master,’ said Pertilius.
The other monk’s all placed their hands on the boy’s body and within moments it began to crumble into a small pile of ashes before being blown away. The last heir to the throne of hell was now gone and that left just one last thing I had to do.
‘What would you have us do now, master?’ Asked Pertilius, and I noted that his voice had changed. He sounded more regal, or more respectful maybe.
‘I need to find my wife.’
The realm between hell and earth was whatever a soul choose to make it. Unlike hell where Satan, or I should say me, had the power to shape everything a soul would see, in this realm it was the soul who had that power.
Thanks to Pertilius and his brother’s I was able to locate Lisa sitting under a huge, old oak tree. All around her where green fields with no animals or wind to give it the impression that it was alive.
Tears were trickling down her cheeks as she stared out at the vast landscape, which for some may have been heaven, but I knew for Lisa it was just another form of hell.
‘Hey you,’ I said, as I approached her.
Startled she looked up at me and for a moment it looked like she couldn’t recognize me, but her smile soon returned.
‘Oh my god, you did it,’ she said, scrambling to her feet and rushing over to give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek I had waited so long for.
‘You didn’t think I was going to leave you alone in this place did you?’ I teased, my own smile growing.
She hugged me tighter and if I had been human again I was certain she would have squeezed the air right out of my lungs.
‘I can’t believe you beat Satan, Samuel,’ she said, her eyes still brimming with tears.
‘Well it was that or death, and you know how I feel about dying,’ I joked, but her smile didn’t grow.
‘What happens now?’ I could see concern spreading across her face like a thunder cloud.
‘Take my hand and come with me,’ I said, offering her my outstretched arm.
Hesitantly she took it and within the blink of an eye we were being transported across space and time. The fields the tree and everything else from that realm quickly becoming a distant memory.
When the world came back into focus we were standing in a hospital room with a young, and heavily pregnant woman, laying on a bed while a nurse rubbed ultrasound lube all over her swollen belly.
Lisa turned to look at me confused. She couldn’t understand why our presence was going undetected.
‘Why can’t they see us?’ she asked.
‘Because you’re a spirit and I’m now the all-powerful ruler of hell,’ I said, maybe a little too bluntly than I had intended.
‘Okay, but why are we in a hospital room with a pregnant woman?’
Now that was the question I thought she would have asked first, and as much as I hated to admit it, I could feel my heart sink a little as she did so.
‘Well, you remember I told you that if I beat the Devil I could put you back into your body here on earth and give you a chance to start over again?’
‘Yes, but that’s not my body,’ she said, pointing at the woman who was in the process of being scanned by the nurse. Both women were watching the greyscale image on the screen intently.
‘Well, it turns out that not even the Dark Lord has the power bring a body back to life after it has been buried in the ground for so many years. So the next option is to put you into a new body,’ I was trying to sound upbeat about it all, but inside I was dying a little.
‘You mean reincarnation. But I want to be with you Samuel. You’re my husband. The man that I love. I don’t want to be away from you,’ the tears were coming back with a vengeance again and I brought her close to me so I could kiss and hug her.
‘I know but the simple truth is I’m now the ruler of hell. The one place I feared going to the most and I now own the bloody thing. But you can’t be there with me, apparently it’s against the rules and believe me I got the monk’s to double check on that one,’ I could feel my voice crack as the gravity of the situation kicked in. ‘so, this is the only other way. She is your new mother.’
Lisa looked at me, fresh tears trickling down her cheeks, and then back at the woman lying on the bed. I could see she wanted to fight me but the look in my eyes told her this was the only way out for her.
‘But I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you,’ she whimpered.
I could feel my heart break even more as I tried to wipe away her tears.
‘I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you too, but there is nothing else that we can do. If I don’t take the throne there could be a biblical war, and being a nomad soul just isn’t your style,’ I said and was grateful when I got a chuckle from her.
‘I will always love you, you know that don’t you?’ she said, giving me one last kiss on the cheek.
‘And it will be the same for me. Who knows, maybe in years to come I’ll be able to retire and start over again with you by my side,’ I said.
Inside I wanted to scream at her not to go. I wanted her to put up as much of a fight as possible, even though I knew that this was the only option for her to finally be happy.
I watched as she let go of my hand and walked over to the bedside. I blew her one last kiss before her spirit transformed into a brilliant white mist which entered the mother’s womb through her naval.
There was a hollowness in my heart that I now no will never go away. The one thing I had wanted most in my human life was gone and I would never be able to hold her in my arms again.
But at least I could do something to make sure that Lisa’s new life would be the happiest one possible. Moving to the bedside, I let my hands hover over the woman’s swollen belly and recited the sacred chant Pertilius had taught me.
The words, as ancient as hell itself, where still a mystery to me, but the meaning was universal. It was a simple spell that would provide lifelong protection from evil from the moment she entered the world.
And with me as the new boss of hell, I was going to be keeping a very close eye on her.
The woman’s belly glowed briefly, enough to let me know that the spell was complete and it was now time to go back to my new home. I had no idea what the future would bring for me, and despite all the power invested, I felt it was best to just go with the flow.
I lingered for a few more seconds, just long enough to hear the nurse tell the woman that her new baby would be a girl. I could feel a smile grow on my face and a tear prick my eyes.
At last I had been able to do something good in my life for someone who had, and always will be, very special to me.
Now it was time for me to take my throne.
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