Soul Bound

Sitting in a chair on the side of Mara’s workplace my feet are up on the wooden table. I’m currently eating a sandwich I brought from home. Being done with my sandwich I stuff the baggie it came in into my pocket. Mara’s workplace I’ve always found creepy.

The temperature in here is freezing. I forgot how cold it can get in here. I’m surprised Mara is able to stay in this cold for so long her being human.

The workplace is a circular room with wooden workbenches built into the wall. With cabinets above them with all sorts of colorful potions, herbs, powders, and skulls.

Then there are little plastic cases that have insects, rodents, and snakes in them. The room looks like it would belong to Dr. Frankenstein.

“The tracker says archangel Michael is in hell as we speak,” Mara says looking at a tiny compass-type contraption.

“Finally we found him! He barely ever leaves heaven!” I express how excited I am with a squeaky voice.

“Why do you need to find him again?” Mara asks. I can’t believe she doesn’t remember since I’ve complained about this since we met.

I huff. “Michael has my lost sickle. My dad and him are friends. I don’t know the whole story all I know is my dad told me Michael had it last. I’m getting it tonight. Six years and finally it will be mine.”

“Well If I was you I’d hurry up. The tracking spell says you only have thirty minutes until the tracker stops. That means we were right he’s going to die.” She explains.

“I almost forgot do you have the soul well?” I can’t believe I almost forgot it.

“Why are you going to need it?” Mara asks confused.

“I need my sickle back he will probably want to make a deal so I won’t reap him. To get him back here I would need it.” I say searching her counter for it. I’m looking high in the cabinets and below in the drawers.

“Where is it?” I ask her but then I find it behind a potted plant. “Never mind I found it.” Placing it in my pocket I then rub my hands together excitedly.

“Open the portal to hell, please,” I say while taking the tracker from her. Walking over to an empty space in Mara’s workplace I wait as she follows. Then she waves her hands while whispering to herself.

What looks like an oval painting with a hellscape in its center sits hovering above the ground. It is shimmering green around its edges.

Putting myself into the spirit realm as I pass through the portal. Inside the spirit realm, everything is a different shade of faded green. It almost feels like time passes slowly inside it.

Your eyesight makes objects inside look hazy and slightly blurry. If you look directly into the sky there is a black and faded green vortex swirling nonstop. Every time it’s jarring when you first pass into it.

Upon entering the portal even in the spirit realm I can feel the heat of hell. It rests upon my skin like a weighted blanket. I can feel my body trying to adjust from the cold to this hot temperature. It does quickly because I’m powerful but that doesn’t mean it didn’t feel weird for a moment.

My first time in hell. I take in my surroundings. I’m at the top of a gigantic pillar of rock. The sounds of dirt crunching beneath me. Puffs of smoke come up from my feet. I can see so much from being this high up. Lavafalls to the left pool into one lake of lava. A crack in the earth in the north center appears to be a cavern.

Then to the right is what looks like a small city. The torchlight is visible from here. In need of the tracker, I take it out of my pocket and face all directions. The arrow is pointing to the east towards the city.

Faintly I can hear the sounds of weapons clashing and voices yelling. Extending my wings I fly in the direction of the yelling. As I get closer I notice there’s a huge rectangular portal against the rockwall.

A bright room lies behind it. I can tell because of how faded the green is. It’s almost white. The image moves in and out and ripples like water whenever an angel exits the portal.

There’s a huge battle going on between angels and demons. Some were flying in the air locked in battle with a large black demon with a huge neon green flamed sword. He easily takes out two angels and moves to help a demon on the ground.

A grotesque black creature bites the head off of an angel. Then an angel gets a green flamed-tipped sword through its shoulder and out the back of it.

Michael is in combat with an angel in the middle of the field. Off to the side, I see a woman on the ground unconscious with three other angels and a man made of white sand that breezes like he’s in the wind.

Michael hauls back with his sword and decapitates the other angel. I gasped because I wasn’t expecting it. But faster than I thought possible the angel grows his head back in no time. Faster than Deadpool would recover.

Michael while the other angel is distracted dashes over to the woman and picks her up. Then he starts running towards the portal. The other angel jets to him and knocks his legs out from under him. Michael and the woman fall to the ground.

Heading closer to stand near Michael and listen to what he’s saying. “You’re like a god down here. You can have anything you want. You’re still Father’s favorite. He made it so you would never die.

I only ever wanted fathers to love but you know how that goes. She is what I want and you’re going to keep her from me?” Michael says sounding like he’s in pain and hugging her close to him.

“Michael you’re killing her she needs Raidian to live. Michael looks at them confused. The woman now cups her hand on Michael’s cheek.

“It’s okay Michael. Reactivate Raidian. It’s okay.” The woman tries calming Michael. I watch as Michael swipes down her arm and the white sand man appears.

“Archangel Michael. You have desecrated my sacred vessel.” Raidian’s voice booms out of the woman.

“Don’t Raidian.” The woman says her voice is weak.

“Your sentence is death. I warned you. Now face punishment.”

“Raidian don’t!” The woman whimpers out. The next second there is just a pile of ash on the ground. Smoke puffs are the remnants of him blowing in the woman’s face as she starts to cough.

Michael’s spirit is hanging over what used to be his body which is now dust. His hand goes to reach for hers but it goes right through it.

My eyes watch his face as he takes in the effect his death had on the others around him. His face looks destroyed. “Was I really that horrible?” He asks out loud.

“Oh, you really are that horrible.” He knew my dad was abusing me and my mom and never once did he step in and try to help. Not once. Some angel.

“Oh, Keres! Nice to see you here. My you’ve grown. Came to reap me I see.” I want my sickle is what I want.

I glare at him my eyes conveying I won’t take any bullshit.

“Where is my sickle, Michael?”

“Oh, you didn’t get that back yet?” He acts as if he’s surprised I haven’t gotten it yet.

“Do you remember when I used to give you piggyback rides?” He tries for his laugh to sound genuine but it’s obvious it’s fake.

“Yes, I remember.” I shrug as if to say who cares? I remember him not helping me and my mom.

“Okay, let’s make a bargain,”

My eyebrows shoot up. Just like I thought he wants to make a deal.

“I will tell you where your sickle is and I can tell you a way you can reap Lucifer. If you don’t take me to purgatory and get me my body back.”

Reaping Lucifer? If that’s possible... I would be so much more powerful. For this alone, I will help him. “I don’t trust you. Not to mention your body is dust.”

“I know you know a powerful necromancer. Shall I sign the deal in blood?” How does he know about Mara?

“You no longer have blood,” I say like he’s a dumbass.

“Okay, then I guess I’ll spend forever in purgatory and you will never know how to reap him,” He says being over dramatic.

“Lucifer can’t be reaped, he’s immortal he can’t be killed.” Can he be reaped?

“I beg to differ,” He says sounding confident.

I sigh. “Fine! It’s a deal. First, where’s my sickle?”

He looks at me blank-faced all of a sudden. “It’s near the river Styx.”

“What?” She yells. If her eyes could turn red they just would of. “What part of the river? It’s huge!”

“It’s in the most northern part near the demons being buried alive area. A favorite area of mine in hell.”

I look at him like he’s a psychopath. “Lovely and how do I reap Lucifer?”

“Easy you just need to get Raidian from Xirasti. Raidian can kill him. Don’t hurt her. All you need to do is touch the tattoo with intent to take it.”

“How do you know this?” I ask him skeptically.

“He just killed me in a blink of an eye. Turned me into powder. Not even Lucifer can regenerate from that.” He’s grinning now looking like the Cheshire cat.

How am I going to pick up his dust? Can put it in the pocket of my skirt? Sticking my hand into my pocket I feel the plastic baggy. Well, this will help.

Bending over I start to place as much of him in the baggie as I can. I’m meticulous and try to get every ash I can. Once I feel I have sufficiently gotten it all I right myself. “Careful with that I’m precious cargo.”

While rolling my eyes at him I tie off the baggy and place it into my pocket. Then I get the soul well out of my other pocket. There is a little clasp on the side of the well I click it and it snaps open.

In the center is a small compartment. Nodding my head towards the well I signal for Michael to get in. Michael hesitates so I press the well onto his spirit and it sucks him into it. The case snapping into place and hitching it with the clasp.

I press the ring on my finger and we are transported back to Mara’s. Then I turn off the spirit realm.

“So tell me and Mara what happened from the beginning?” Michael’s spirit body is walking in circles around the round room. His index finger and thumb pinching his lip in contemplation.

“What exactly do you want to know? Raidian turned me into dust. So I’m dead and now here with you.” He keeps walking in the same circular path his fingers still on his lip. “You promised me she could fix my body.” He nods his head towards Mara.

“Well, Mara what do you think?” All that remains of him is ashes in a little ziplock baggie. My mind keeps telling me that there’s not enough ash in there.

“You’re lucky I brought a dinner with me today and that it was a sandwich. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had anything to put you in.” Humor is clearly heard in my tone. He stops pacing finds my eyes and glares.

“Listen I’m going to tell it like it is. Not all of his angel ass is in that ziplock which means I’ll need to create it from scratch. Well, not just his ass.” Her gaze trails off. “Well, maybe his ass could be missing.” She looks off into the distance again.

“What do you mean my ass is missing?” Michael twirls in circles trying to look at his ghost ass.

We both ignore him.

Grabbing the baggy from my hands she twists it around and tosses it from one hand to the other. Her lips are moving quickly because she is having a full-on whisper conversation with herself. I’ve known her for years she does this quite often. The workbench is nearby and I follow her to it.

Once there she places the baggy on some kind of weird scale. It’s some ancient kind of scale so I can’t tell what the results are. She starts writing things in the air and then counting her fingers.

Waving her hand like she was erasing what she wrote. Then she used her fingers to write in the air again. Narrowing her eyes they come back into focus. “He’s missing about twenty percent of his body.”

“From this, we can see what exactly needs to be done. In order to reanimate him I need to turn the ash back into body parts. After that, I can construct the pieces that are missing. In order for his wings to work I need to make sure the pieces are put together properly. This sounds simple but it’s not. It’s going to take all my time and energy. So you better supply me with lemonade and red licorice. Because this is going to take a few months.”

Michael stops his pacing. “I figured it would take that long.”

“Back to the story Michael. You told me about Raidian but who is he?” Asking because I don’t know.

“Raidian is Lucifer’s Sword. Which is now someone else’s. I tried to take that person with me to heaven and Raidian killed me.

“Well, I’m going to need to get my sickle. If Michael tells you where my sickle is can you teleport me directly there in hell?” I ask Mara hopeful.

“I can open a portal randomly but I’m not sure I can specifically have you end up in a place. We can try though. Once I send you I could open that place again. But to just open to a specific place I haven’t seen is hard.” Mara says while tapping her finger to her lip in thought.

“So where is it precisely Michael?

“North part of the river Styx just where the river starts to bend. Near the burial area. Far east it’s right near where the river starts.” Michael looks over to the baggy and then Mara. “So is she going to get started or what?” He says frustrated. Looking over at Mara I watch as her jaw ticks.

“Is that enough to make a portal to?” I ask Mara.

“We can try,”

“Oh yeah, Michael, did you actually put it in the river? Or next to it?” I’m glad I thought to ask this question.

“It’s right where the bend in the river starts. I buried it there. I made a symbol on the ground where it is. It should be easy to see.” Michael says not being much help at all.

Walking over to Mara I wait for her to make the portal. She whispers hurriedly to herself. The portal shows up. “Does this look right, Michael?” He walks over and nods his head. Setting myself in the spirit realm just in case. Then I step through the portal.

The bend in the river is a little ahead of me. I’m careful where I step looking for a symbol on the ground in the dirt. I turn around in circles not seeing anything.

Maybe I’m too close to the river? Maybe he put it a bit further out? One step at a time I slowly look for the symbol. I’m about to give up until I look down and there’s a symbol just under my foot.

Kneeling down on the ground I take my kursarigama and start digging into the ground with the sickle portion. It’s not far down until I hear my kusarigama ping on something else. I reach into the hole and pull out my sickle. My face breaks into a huge grin. Finally. I press the ring on my finger and teleport back to Mara’s.