Lilith's Reincarnate

Chapter Five

 They shackled me down to the cold slab of stone, so every time I jerked my hands the only victory I achieved was pain.

"Join hands, brethren." The man who had spoken early arises, grasping onto a tan hand. "Brother Jensen, please begin."

I struggle against the binds as tears fall down my rosy cheeks. Jensen takes up the ceremonial knife and with his free hand and moves my grimy shirt up, revealing the smooth, ivory skin of my stomach.

"No," I cry, "Please.."

Jensen refuses to stop and the soft pit of my stomach is slowly pierced. I cry out in pain, convulsing as the blade cuts through my intestines like butter.

God, let this end. Let this be over.

Trying my hardest to focus on the Latin chant that was being spoken, I whisper my own. I pray to God to save me, to aid me in my suffering but my lifeline is quiet, no heavenly being was there to protect me from them.

But another tune meets me ears and causes the salty, warm tears to fall even faster; Cosmo sings his Simple Waywisher lullaby and I dare myself to lock gazes with him. Fat droplets roll down his chubby cheeks. Why did you do it?

After hours of excruciating pain, my vision blurs. Flecks of brown intrude my vision and I welcome the darkness, enveloping my mind in a chill that's impossible to shake.

* * *

A cold, brisk wind beats against my body, limp on the cold and lifeless ground. "Greetings, miss." I manage to part my heavy eyelids thick with residue from the tears and find myself staring into the eyes of an older man, his face lined and features dull.

"Who are you?" My eyes trace the outline of trees that appeared to be burning, their dry bark not succumbing to the flames. Bodies of all sizes hung from their thick limbs, heads crooked from the nooses. "What is this place?"

The man clad in a scruffy tuxedo bows before me, "I am Augustine, Butler of Lord Lucifer." Lord Lucifer?

"You've got to be kidding me," I say irritated as I pull myself up from the ground. Augustine gives me a look of curiosity and offers me a gloved hand but I slap it away. "When will I wake up?"

"I am afraid the answer is never, miss." He pulls me by my wrist towards an expansive river where the water is dark and murky and looks to be filled with small objects I can't quite make out.

"How do we cross?" I ask shortly, trying to peer across the waterway but my vision is cut off from thick, ominous fog looming over leaden, clouded water.

Augustine seemed pleased with my answer as he pulled us closer to the bank where I could make out the outline of a man sitting inside a cramped and compact rowboat, oars plunged into the dirty river. "The easiest option is Charon," he motions to the man but shakes his head. "The rowboat is also the decision that will lead to your own personal inferno."

I furrow my eyebrows as a woman of middle age approaches Charon, her footsteps hesitant but knowing. She steps into the rowboat and he puts his palm up, as if waiting for payment.

The woman unclasps a pearl necklace and places it softly in his hands and nods. The string of beauties fades from sight as though his palm was a transporter and Charon's oars thrust into the murky water as they float across the river.

Searching every inch of my body for some type of payment I come up empty handed, "I don't have anything."

Augustine eyes me warily, his gaze falling short on my chest. "If you have nothing, then you are unable to take Charon's Way." He nods to the slow current, "You must swim across the channel. Only then will you not suffer the anguishes of the inferno, miss."

Swim across that hing? "What are those?" I ask while pointing to the objects floating in the water.

His lips pull into a thin and grim line, "Those are the Lord's trophies of those who could not complete the task of becoming one of his ranks."

I let the words sink in and I hear my heart pound uneasily in my chest. "They died again?" I say dumbfoundedly. Augustine nods and begins to step away from me and towards Charon.

"I fear I must report back to Lord Lucifer, please bear in mind if you succeed Aleyne, you will retain your humanity and memories. Darkness be with you," he speaks clippidly, as though he was running out of time.

Augustine's thin, wispy blonde hair flutters in the sudden burst of wind that overtakes us and he vanishes before my eyes, leaving me utterly alone.