Echoes of the Past

Chapter Nineteen

It was a long, cold walk to civilization. Being back only created grief of its own kind, almost making me wish I’d stayed in the quiet tundra. Normal communication from Hell was impossible, and I couldn’t go home with the DSI goons hanging out. They’d proven they weren’t looking to put me in cuffs anymore, preferring to put me in a grave; a literal one, not the metaphysical representation of the actual, real grave I’d fallen into.

Blame the confusion on my college psychology professor. I didn’t need more than one semester to realize I had an abnormal psyche. That and a five dollar bill would get you a hit television show.

Stuck for a place to go, I finally decided on the old DRAC base where we’d kept Lilith’s body after she’d been sacrificed to bring Longinus back to life. It had been attacked and everyone there murdered by the Nephilim, the half breed bastards of angels. Kind of like me, only from the other side of the supernatural tracks.

It was a pretty good bet no one from DRAC had even bothered to do anything but collect bodies and shut the place down considering all that’s happened since. I figured it was a chance work taking. I was right.

The place hadn’t even been sealed off. The DRAC workers apparently busted their asses to get all the people out and strip the place of anything that might be seen as out of the ordinary, but they left the mundane stuff there. The compound off the beaten path, they weren’t worried about anyone stumbling across the place before they could give it a proper shutdown. All the security systems had been deactivated. The place was abandoned.

I went inside and was amazed by how spotless it was. There wasn’t a hint of the bloodbath that occurred there. The desks and chairs and computer equipment were clean, though it was clear many were missing, damaged in the battle, but only someone who’d been there before would have noticed. I knew the hard drives on the computers would be replaced or removed and all the lines scrubbed and cleared of recording devices and electronic triggers that translated the coded messages sent over them in order to forward it to the appropriate responders.

Worried about Scarlett, I called her first, musing on the strange mix of magic and technology that allowed mundane conveniences to work in Heaven but not in Hell. There was no answer. I tried again and again but wasn’t able to reach her. I called Karra next, looking to let her know I was okay, but I couldn’t get a hold of her either. It was frustrating, and it scared me. With Mihheer able to track me down, he might go after Karra just out spite. She’d been there with me when he first showed up, so he may well have picked up her essence. At least with Karra, I could reach her through Chatterbox. Once I got back to Hell, I’d send a message that way and check in on her. Right then, I just needed to make sure Scarlett was safe.

I called Katon. A few seconds later a telepathic connection was opened between the two of us. “Hey, I need to find Scarlett. Have you seen her?”

His distinctive voice cut through the psychic ether and sounded inside my head. “I haven’t. What’s wrong?” I could hear the concern in his telepathic voice.

“I don’t know for sure that anything is, but I need to warn her…just in case. The alien and I duked it out over Lucifer. The guy got away, but before he left he told me he would hunt down another person on Earth who shared my uncle’s bloodline. That’s Scarlett.” I heard Katon growl.

“I’ll find her.” He got straight to the point, empty static ringing in my head right after.

He’d developed a crush on my cousin recently, so I could count on him to race to her rescue. Better still, he was capable of defending her, or at least backing her up more than proficiently as Scarlett could take care of herself in a fight. The two together could probably whoop Mihheer’s foreign butt. Figuring Katon had already cut the link, I headed out to hop a ride back to Hell.

Katon surprised me when he cut back in. “Frank?”

I nodded, and then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Yeah?”

“I couldn’t find anything about your alien buddy…”

Seeing how he was trapped in my uncle’s basement for a millennium, I pretty much expected that.

“…I did, however, come across a report of a couple of dimensional anomalies that happened during the fight for Heaven,” he continued. “The first one was just a tiny blip, several dimensions away. It happened at the height of the storms. The contact was blurred and unsteady, and only lasted for a few moments before disappearing or being shielded. It originated from somewhere outside of our connected dimensions so there was no way to trace its origin. The second one was a far more powerful disturbance. It came from within Hell and reached out into the unknown, right around the time we were gathered outside Eden. Rachelle wasn’t able to track that one either, but upon reflection, she said it probably lasted for several hours before it went away. She couldn’t even be sure where in Hell it came from, given how little attention she’d paid it.”

I sighed, thanking Katon for the information. He signed off to find Scarlett, promising to let me know as soon as he did. Once he was gone, I made my way to a portal to Hell, all the ones at DRAC shut down. It gave me some time to think about what Katon had told me.

The first blip was most likely Hasstor. He’d said his arrival would most be noticed, and it seemed he was right. While Rachelle had been with us then, she was still unconsciously scanning the integrity of the dimensional walls to be sure nothing came through and surprised us. A powerful mystic, she was in tune with the ether and would have reported the disturbances had she not been so distracted.

The second incident was Baalth’s little science project. He’d always underestimated Rachelle and her ability to pierce the gloom of protective wards and spells. She was far more powerful than anyone gave her credit for, her flighty and distracted nature the perfect cover for her astounding abilities. She, no doubt, picked up on Baalth’s gate as he tried to block it from view. I smiled at that, the information giving me something to dig at Baalth with. He hated being one-upped.

As I headed off to the portal, laughing, a cold realization popped into my head. My laughter died.

Baalth was already gone by the time we reached Iran. He was with Lucifer then.

All of sudden it made sense. It couldn’t have been Baalth’s portal that Rachelle sensed. It had to be another one; one that had been used to summon Mihheer to our universe.

Gorath was in Hell.

Panic fueled my rush to find a portal. If Mihheer could track me using just the tiny bit of my essence found in the vial I’d buried at my mother’s grave, would he have a problem finding Lucifer were Baalth’s portal to be opened? In the midst of a war, it was a good bet they’d be calling on the power fairly regularly, opening up a glowing beacon that led straight to my uncle.

Another thought came to me, smashing into the insides of my skull like a bullet train. Mihheer finding Lucifer wasn’t the worst that could happen.