Seventh Seal - Jacquelyn Faye Page 0,85

dagger while Josie made claw gestures with her hands. Ellis was the only one with a sword. Hopefully, we wouldn't get our asses handed to us, but out of the thirteen of us standing in my living room, eight of us were witches, one was a demon, and one a vampire. We weren't exactly helpless without weapons, but it would have certainly made me feel better if somebody had thought to bring a crate of assault rifles to the party.

"Guess we're ready as we can be," I muttered and motioned for Shea.

He pulled away from Dar and removed his overcoat and shirt before he stood in front of me.

"Let's see if we can figure this out."

"I am sure you will, Lady," he said and turned, exposing the largest group of tattoos on his back.

Remembering to breathe, I put my hands on his back and poured power into him. The entire room lit like a blue star as they began to wiggle and dance over his flesh.

Everyone moved closer, but Nana and my mother moved closest. "Try moving them," Nana suggested, pointing at the randomly scrolling tattoo.

Keeping on hand on him, I touched the lowest point of his back and pushed upward, mesmerized as they swirled upward.

"There! That is Gehenna. Each plane is bordered with that archaic text. I recognize the mountain in the center," Dar said excitedly.

"So, keep going," I said and scrolled some more.

"You went too far. I do not know how I know, but that is the highest material plane. Home of the winged ones," Candace chimed in, fear tinging her voice.

I pushed the tattoos down until a warped plane wrapped in angry text took its place. At the point farthest from the bottom a mountain stood with twisted rivers feeding from the base, crisscrossing the rest of the plane. "Sure, that looks like hell. Let's try that one," I said more cheerfully than I felt.

"We have the map and the key, did anybody bring a bus?" Dennis looked around the gathered. "How do we actually get there?"

I sent another flare of power directly into the exposed plane on Shea's map and wrapped the room in shadow.

We fell at least a foot to the spongy shadowstuff beneath us, but it was unlike any I'd ever seen before. Even the landscape was different. Usually we were surrounded by shards of light that led back to the mortal realm. This time, we were on a road. A road that looked suspiciously like water. We were standing on a frozen river leading through the night sky. Tiny pinpricks of light above us did little to illuminate the expanse around us, but it offered some comfort from the complete blackness.

"There's people down there," Candace said shakily, pointing at the frozen river beneath us.

Sure enough, souls floated by, lifeless eyes staring up at us through the frozen surface as their bodies drifted by.

"It's the River Styx," Nana said with a bit of awe.

"Well, I'm glad it's frozen since we don't have a boat," I answered drearily.

"It is not frozen," Shea answered. "It is covered in shadow??

"Maybe we should just get going." Jimmy looked around nervously, jumping at things that weren't there.

"There's no song. I don't think we're in the shadow realm," I muttered to myself.

Shea reached back and patted my thigh. "I would suggest not taking your hand from the map, Lady."

"Good call." I nodded at the back of his head.

We all started shuffling forward, the river moving beneath us impossibly fast. It felt like an hour later that we halted before a wall of stone with a double doored gate standing twenty feet above us. It would have been impossible to climb even on its own, but the downward pointing spikes of obsidian didn't help either.

"Never in my day," my mother whispered as she looked up.

"Your day had tyrannosaurs until the big meteor put a stop to that."

"Really, Mother?"

"Well, that is the popular theory. But if those scientists had bothered to ask you, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

"Little less quibbling? How do we open the gate?" I looked at Candace.

She just shrugged.

"Maybe just have her give it a push?" Josie offered meekly. "She is the key."

Candace shrugged again and stepped to the seam between the giant doors and put her hands on either side. It was almost comical to watch her struggle and make little groaning noises as she put all her weight behind it. "I do not think this is going to work," she called out when a resounding thud