Hellscape

Chapter 23: The Jacquerie

    With a flourish, much like her father, Melinoe spins around dramatically, but before she can stomp out of the tent, tugging Lazarus behind her, she comes face to face and chest to chest with Achlys and her dark grey cloud of fog.

    Achlys smiles and waves seductively, "hi there."

    Acting on instinct, Melinoe drops Lazarus' hand and punches the blonde demon square in the nose. Her blonde hair flies behind her as the unexpected blow lands and throws her head backwards.

    "Fuck!" Achlys cries, bringing shaky fingers to her bleeding nose. Pulling them away from her face, a thick trail of sticky black gunk pours from her nose and covers her fingertips. "Are you serious?"

    "Dead serious," Mel fires back, swinging again.

    Dodging the blow and laughing, Achlys spits a wad of black ichor to the floor of the tent, "oh, not yet. But you will be."

    With a strong gust of wind, Achlys blinding fog hurls itself, enveloping Melinoe in the center of a thick cloud. Mel gasps for air and rubs at her eyes, wailing as the fog stings her irises and steals her sight. Melinoe drops to her knees inside the fog, clawing at her throat and blinking harshly against the darkness, but the more she struggles, the larger the cloud forms and the stronger it swirls around her.

    Lazarus watches Achlys stand on the outskirts of the fog, staring directly at it with a wicked grin. Her eyes cloud over with the same thick fog and her fingers twitch at her sides as she controls the cloud. Furiously, Lazarus looks to Mel's father, shouting, "do something! Stop her!"

    Slowly and menacingly, Hades lowers his gaze to the tourist, "she made her choice, now she must live with it. Or die trying."

    An overwhelming sense of frustration transforms within him to a rage fueled bout of courage. The feeling floods his body, curling his fists, he yells, "you're not a demon! You're an angel and that's your daughter! This is not who you are, call her off!"

    "Who do you think you ar-"

    "Call her off!" He shouts again, cutting off the self-appointed God.

    With an aggressive snort, Hades turns his back on his crying daughter as she suffocates inside the cloud. He waltzes over to a different table and his fingers dance across the refreshments as he plucks another cherry from the bowl and pops into his mouth — completely uninterested in his daughter's well-being.

    Lazarus grunts in annoyance and he turns back to Achlys, watching as black ichor leaks down her face, oozing over her lips and bubbling at her nostril. The demon remains trained on Melinoe and the fog as Mel screams inside, curdling his blood and moving his feet.

    Storming across the tent, he grabs a silver candlestick from one of the end tables beside the smallest velvet couch. Achlys can't see him out of the corner of her clouded eyes as he sneaks up behind her. But with an ear-piercing guttural scream from the blinded girl trapped in the demonic fog, Lazarus wraps his arm around Achlys' throat — pinning her back to his chest and in a shroud of white light and one fell swoop, he jabs the candlestick into her left eye.

    The blonde demon shrieks, sinking into him as her legs give out beneath her. He rips the silver stick from her socket and plunges it into her right eye, completely blinding her and exorcising another scream from within her. As he removes the stick again, the thick grey fog dissipates, slinking back to its host and collecting in the two large gaping holes in her face. Black ichor pools beneath the fog, running down her face as she drops to the ground, crying.

    Melinoe blinks furiously, rubbing her brown eyes and rejoicing as the bright light fills them once again. She opens her eyes to Lazarus, seeing the faint residue of white glowing around him.