The Awakening ch.22

    In a dark room with a single blue orb in the center of the black stone ceiling as the only source of light, on the giant black metal high pedestal bed with soft dark purple blankets Rick laid sleeping on the blankets in a long black night robe. The room is windowless with a single wooden door that is a dark blackish red color nearly camouflaged with the black stones of the plainly decorated room with just the one bed on the other end opposite the door. Rick slowly awakened staring up at the high ceiling, his dazed gaze slowly dropped to his feet, and beyond them. Across the room in front of the door Litmet in her beautiful human form appeared wearing a black see through silk robe with a black bra and black panties (also silk) underneath. Rick sat bolt up right on the edge of the bed, and notices as his feet hung off the edge that there was more than a foot between his feet and the stone floor.    

 

    “Huh?” he thinks, “A high bed?”

 

     He wiped the sleep from his eyes and looked over to see the woman he had only seen before in what he had thought was a dream.

 

    Rick quickly got to his feet “Where am I?” he screamed to the mostly nude gorgeous form before him, “I demand you let me go at once demon.”

 

    Litmet in a calm voice simply asks him, “Do you know who I am?”  

 

    “Yes,” retorted Rick with a hint of arrogance, “of course, you’re Litmet, that demon that messed with my dream.”

 

    “Well it seems you recognize me,” stated Litmet with a laugh, “my daughter no doubt told you about the dream trick.”    

 

     She walked over to him and with a little smirk turned towards the outer wall, and with a wave of her hand the stones fused, shrank and pulled away like a curtain to reveal a window. Rick expected to see the grey forest again so was unprepared for the sight before him. Out side he could see that the castle was teetering on the edge of a cliff. The castle was solid black but not made of stone it was like shimmering black onyx only metal with a strange black ring around the base. To Rick it appeared that the castle wasn’t touching the ground, rather floating above it. Beyond the castle he could tell he was on a black mountain; everything was black, the rocks, the trees, the bushes, and even black thorn covered vines, covered with red crystal eye like structures along the vines. He saw below a strange giant snake like animal with three red eyes and black scales as it slithered into the woods. Rick estimated that from as high up as he was that that animal had to have been nearly forty feet in length and wider for its body than any snake he had ever seen. In the distance beyond the cliffs and down at what he assumed was the base of the mountain there was an endless sea of purple, pink, and violet mist.

 

    “Where am I?” asked Rick to himself. He looks up and sees that the sky is the same as with Sehkmenta’s castle but that gives him little comfort.

 

    “You are in my castle.” said Litmet, “Now as for being released, well my castle is floating above the Black Mountain which is as big as Mt. Everest, smallest of the five mountains in this region. This mountain rests in the middle of the Mystic Valley, a place about the size of Texas I believe. In this valley magic is the very mist with in it making it the same color as the skies above the Land of Styx which means nothing to you as it’s a completely different world you have never been to and I just mention it for no reason. The only law of physics in the valley is chaos. All around the valley are four mountains; to the north is the White Mountain, a place of ice, snow, and frozen horrors. To our south is the Red Mountain, a place of perpetual heat and fire, where even the animals and plants are ablaze, it is very much like the Hell you so fear. To the east lies the Blue Mountain, a peaceful blue garden like place save for the fact it is home to the blue skinned vampire race the Suihrai who make your vampires on earth look like kittens by comparison. Now the west holds the Green Mountain, a place very much like the mountains of Europe with green plants, and by far the safest of the five mountains for a human save of course for the tendency of dragons to call it home. These four mountains completely surround the valley. So if you wish to leave, go ahead. You won’t make it off this mountain let alone across the valley to one of the other mountains to face their horrors.”

 

     And she thinks with a smirk, “not to mention the fact this whole place is a floating continent in the Goddess’s grand universe.”

 

    She stopped for a moment to look at Rick’s pale shocked expression and with a quick smile she continues, “Besides there is something you should see and know.”

 

    She turns from the window quickly and looks him right in the eyes with her own great blue eyes and continues, “Your order is not as benevolent as you think.”

 

    With a wave of her hand a green speck of light appeared in the air that expanded out to form a window in the air to a strange scene. Through the portal window Rick can see a terrible storm. Litmet zoomed the image in to a church on the edge of a ridge overlooking a gas station. In front of the church Rick sees a lone man holding a sword before him with a great grey furred female Dire just beyond the sword tip with two black baby Dires between her legs.

 

    Rick raises his eyebrow thinking, “Who would attack a large predator with babies, let alone a Dire?”

 

    Rick saw the man suddenly drop the sword and the Dire spit out the other half of the blade. “My God!” yells Rick, “That man is going to be killed!”

 

    Litmet just smiles and simply says, “Was”.

 

      Rick can only watch as he sees a large black male Dire come flying down from above hitting the side of the church smashing it to pieces. Litmet zooms the image in real close to be just to the side of the man as a blast of energy shoots out of the black male Dire’s mouth blasting the man into a charred corpse.

 

    As Rick drops to his knees in disbelief he says, “That man, he was my old partner Mike.”

 

    Litmet closes the window as the four Dires leave the area and a group of trucks pull around the front of the gas station.

 

    Litmet turned to Rick, who was still on his knees, “That was earlier today,” she says, “you have been sleeping for some time now, seems I used too much energy to stun you.”

 

    She chuckled at her joke to herself then continued, “Several members of your order died today including your old friend.”

 

    Rick seemingly not noticing what she had told him says, “That was Pine Ridge and that black Dire was Rhuen wasn’t it?”

 

    Litmet simply nodded her head as a response. “But I was there,” says Rick, “months ago I think. I saw Rhuen; I saw it kill an entire clan of Skin walker werewolves. Mike would know better than to take on something like that.”

 

     “Your order,” says Litmet, “never told him what they were, and even after they found out about them and knew he intended to fight them they didn’t send help, instead using their Elite Paladins to hunt for me. Even after I had left the area they thought it a better use of their time to have them searching around in circles in the desert rather than saving two old men, one of which was an old veteran of your order in fact. In fact out of all the people who were in that church only one member of your order survived that encounter and only because he was smart enough to run away. It seems Rhuen even left two civilians alive as well, one the son of the man that fled and that man’s brother lying in the debris, & Rhuen even let those humans in the trucks live even though he could just as easily have destroyed them.”

 

    Litmet smiled and seemed to take on a superior tone as she continued, “Your order on the other hand is less merciful, and they would kill an innocent person seeking a cure from a curse.”

 

    “You know that for a fact,” she thinks to herself, “considering I got that from your mind while you slept.”

 

   Rick thinks back to an incident years before in which a man had come to the Vatican searching for help because he had been bitten by a Nosferatu vampire and was soon to die and rise as one. The order secretly abducted the man and killed him, dismembering his body so he couldn’t rise again. He thinks how he always hated that they did that but felt he could change the order from with in.

 

   “But now” he thinks, “They would sacrifice our own people and civilians just to hunt down one demon. Why? Why would they do that?”

 

    Litmet hearing his thoughts leaned down to him and put her glowing hands on his shoulder and told him, “The Order of The Knights of the Golden Cross is a hold over from the Holy Roman Empire. They seek to control the world and the powers in it.”

 

    She leaned back but kept her hands on his shoulders, as she did so Rick looked up at her and said, “The doctrine says to control the magic of the world and tame the evil.”

 

   Litmet lowered her hands to the sides of his shoulders and lifted him to his feet “They use magic,” she said, “even demonic artifacts, in fact I know what I know thanks to eavesdropping on your leader.”

 

    She took her right hand off of Rick and waved it in the air creating a new portal window.

 

    Rick can’t believe what he sees and doesn’t know how to react; she had created a window looking right down at the Head Inquisitor from above in his office. Rick’s thoughts are jumbled as he sees this alarming revelation,

 

    “She…created…a…window right in his office…, but…the barrier should…prevent that.”

 

     Litmet just looked at him and smiled. He saw her smile, but before he could ask her how she did what she did his attention was caught by something the Head Inquisitor had just done.

 

    The Head Inquisitor had opened the drawer to his desk and pulled out a small black pyramid like object and appeared to be talking to it.

 

    Rick wide eyed turned to Litmet and asked, “What is that thing?”

 

      “I’ll turn on the volume for you.” Was all Litmet said and with a snap of her fingers Rick could hear the Head Inquisitor speaking with the pyramid which talked back to him in a deep voice. They were discussing a sacred claw item in India, the pyramid told the Head Inquisitor the claw could be used to create an army for any one who uses it. Rick couldn’t believe the Head Inquisitor had agreed to send people to get it, and his reason even more so alarmed Rick as it was for the future use when they make their final move and bring the world back to the church.

 

    Rick starts to become angry as he hears the Head Inquisitor pick up the phone and give the orders to find the claw for some bull shit reason that demons were looking for it and they had to get it before the forces of darkness did.

 

    Rick think as Litmet closes the portal, “All the times I was sent to get some artifact before the forces of darkness did and rarely had any obstacles, and very rarely were the demons that were to be found around one artifact really associated to the demons found around a different artifact that we were sent after. I always thought that was strange, guess I was right there never really was some evil organization from hell going after them. After all if the H.E.P. was behind any of those cases, as we had so often been told, then they would have been repeats of the disaster in Egypt. Damn it!”

 

    He turned, red faced, to Litmet and practically screamed out, “What the Hell was that thing!”

 

     “That was a chaos box,” she said calmly, “it emits a special energy as its own power source, which has the side effect when kept by a human by giving them immortality. It has kept him alive since the early 1900’s & with that thing he has been plotting to control the world, he even teamed up with the Kukeen during World War II.”

 

   Rick is in such a state of shock that he seems to forget what he is talking too; even allowing her to hug him in order to comfort him like a child, even petting the back of his head.

 

    Rick starred into space before getting himself out of Litmet’s embrace by taking a step back, as he did so he whispered to himself, “Such an evil right under our noses manipulating us. I have to do something about it.”

 

    Litmet took his face in her hands, holding him on either side of his jaw as if to kiss him and looked him in the eyes while saying, “They are very well armed and with many magics to help them, but the leaders of the Order of the Golden Cross must be destroyed. Only then can it become what you think it should be.”

 

    Litmet let go of Rick’s face waiting to see his next move.

 

    Rick shook his head “No,” he said, “only more manipulators would move in, just like with any secret group that has had a coup.”

 

    Rick looks down and sighs deeply than continued, “We have no choice, the order must be disbanded and started anew, but they won’t go with out a fight.”

 

     Litmet’s eyes flashed red for a moment as she said, “Then you shall have to be the one to do it,”

 

   He looked back at her in disbelief as she continued, “the one to disband the order and defeat its leaders. I could help you.”

 

    “Why would you help me?” asked Rick.

 

    Litmet smiled as she stepped closer to Rick, “Because,” she stated, “I don’t like the one who is manipulating your order and would like nothing more than to see all his cherished plans go straight to Hell.”

 

    Rick more than a little surprised thinks, “Damn, didn’t expect that, I was half expecting some bull she is the real good guy lie.”

 

    Litmet with a sly seductive tone said, “I can grant you the power to defeat your enemies. Would you like that?”

 

        Rick thinks as he looks at this beautiful yet deadly woman, “She could just as easily have killed me, I have no doubt she could level the Vatican if she wanted to, if she can get a portal past the strongest wards in all our church than she could do anything. She might just be on the side of good, a fallen angel perhaps, one of those that fell for fraternizing with humans and not one of Lucifer’s warriors.”

 

     Rick looks conflicted in the eyes of Litmet, “perhaps a little push” she thinks as her eyes glow blue, “not enough to control but only to push his convictions in the right direction.”

 

     Rick takes a deep sigh, puffs out his chest and with as much conviction as he can muster says, “Yes, I want the strength to save the true face of the church and destroy this evil which plagues us and wants to subjugate the world.”

 

    Litmet in an impossibly fast instant transformed to her nine foot tall winged cat woman form. Her wings wrapped around Rick pulling him in close to her now naked fur covered body, even though Rick hadn’t seen her cloths vanish.

 

    Rick starred wide eyed at her fangs thinking, “Oh dear God please don’t tell me she is going to bite me like a vampire.”

 

    Even as Rick was thinking as such, dark blue flames wrap around him and Litmet, emanating from the floor beneath her feet and following her wings around them both. She closed her wings around him as the flames grew to obscure their bodies in a giant blue tear drop shaped fire ball.