Page 71 of Phoenix Academy: Madness

Hell, of course, is easier to get to than the Great Beyond—no reason to put the big locks on the place where they torture you for eternity, since no one wants to go there. But the further out you go, away from the spirit realm and towards everything else, the harder the traveling gets.

With my mother, I've helped guide spirits into the spirit realm and beyond, but I've never stepped foot in it or seen it fully. I've only ever felt its wind or glimpsed at its edges; no more. This will be a first for me, a journey I may not come back from. The spirit realm is dangerous, and known to swallow adventurers whole, never to spit them back out again—mind, body, or soul.

It doesn't feel like I'm in a dangerous place beyond the veil, though. I followed David's grey form into what looks to be nothing more than a garden. With tall hedges hemming in a wide stone path, and rose bushes twining through a square up ahead, it looks more like paradise than a sliver of terrible nowhere leading to Hell.

But then I take a step forward, and feel the ground shift beneath my feet. A terrible smell greets my nostrils, and David growls. The panthers both swish their tails and stalk forward, flanking us and protecting us. Wary, I drop Jennifer's hand and reach for a rifle that isn't there.

Next time I'll bring a gun. Doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would typically be useful in the spirit realm, but one never knows. I wasn't expecting a winding path or rose bushes here either.

The more steps we take into the garden, the worst the smell that greets my nostrils become. It's pungent and rotting, with a heavy layer of perfume over the top that only makes the smell worse.

Xavier shifts back into form and says, "I don't like this. How far do we have to go down this path?"

"Far enough that she senses the curtain into the Great Beyond and is drawn to it. Jennifer, do you feel anything?"

"I don't know." Her voice is light and airy, as if her head is in the clouds. "I'm starting to feel... different. Like I can't quite remember what I look like anymore."

Something about crossing over, or just my magic wearing off, has changed her. The fashionable, short blonde platinum hair that fit her so well is growing long, dark, and stringy. Her outfit keeps shifting, from the blouse to a dress to a robe.

But more than that, the worst thing is the blur that's fading her form at the edges. Every specific part of her features—the slight upturn to her eyes, the curl to her mouth—is starting to disappear, blending into a general face that will eventually return to the ghoul I saw before.

"We have to go fast." Kicking up my pace, I ignore the increasingly putrid and floral scent as it floods my nose and mouth. When I reach the end of the path, it's so far worse to the left than the right, and my instincts tell me to follow the terrible smell rather than avoid it. "Hurry—this way."

Reggie shifts back as well. "Are you sure about this? It smells like butt and old lady bathroom up in here."

"Positive." There's more firmness in my voice than I really feel, because I'm afraid that if I let them seed their doubts in me it'll all be over. "There's something about this direction. It's leading somewhere, I can tell. We just have to get there quick."

I have no idea how far into the spirit realm we'll have to go before Jennifer senses the Great Beyond—or how far wecango before putting ourselves in danger. The spell Auerbach gave me, along with my magic, seems to have anchored our souls to our bodies, but too long here and we'll lose our corporeal forms, just like Jennifer. And given all the things I haven't managed to finish up in my mortal life, I shudder to think of the poltergeist I'll turn into.

Thankfully I spot our destination fairly quickly down the path: a fountain with dark red blood running through it instead of water. Gruesome, but glancing at it with my naturalistic senses reveals that it's much more than a fountain; there's a water nymph waiting for us at its bottom, and beyond her, a tunnel that no doubt leads to the next layer of the spirit realm.

David makes a low, whining noise as we approach the blood fountain, then sits down and refuses to go any further. Sighing, I dig my fingers into his ruff and coax him towards it, ignoring the glare he slants up at me. Jennifer's face is almost unrecognizable, and she hasn't spoken in several long moments; I fear the worst if we don't get her to her final destination soon.

Once we do, I'll have to go back to the campus and explain what I've done. But that hardly seems like the greatest obstacle considering right now I'm fighting against the very currents of death.

"I don't like this," Reggie says, staring at the blood fountain. "I mean, I doubtanyonelikes this, so I'm just saying the obvious. This seems like the wrong path."

"It's the direction that speaks to me. How could it be wrong?" I don't want to question myself too much; all the things I've learned about the spirit realm have taught me that your first instincts are to be trusted, as the later thoughts are almost always wights and poltergeists invading your mind. That's something Reggie doesn't know, I realize, since no one ever taught him about this place. "Don't let yourself doubt the path ahead. There are dozens of spirits in the garden all around us, hiding from human sight. They could put thoughts in your head and make you reconsider. The most difficult path is always the right one."

Clearing his throat, Xavier points out, "Not always. Sometimes it's just the most difficult path."

I hesitate, even as I wonder if this, too, is part of the test of the spirit realm. But they're both right; I don't know that the blood fountain, with the clever nymph waiting at the bottom and the tunnel I can sense just beyond, are the right path. In fact, I don't even know how I can sense the tunnel; it's not alive, so normally it would be beyond the scope of my senses. But something about it is calling to me regardless.

"I don't understand..." Looking around, I suddenly feel lost and confused. Why in the world was I walking towards a blood fountain with such fervor? What's going on here? "We need to get to the next layer of the spirit realm. Deeper within. But this direction... this direction feels like it goes towards..."

At my side, Jennifer, whose face is like a melting wax figure, smiles—but on her it's more like a terrible, horrifying grimace, a mouth yawning beyond control.

In a voice like a thousand locusts buzzing she says, "Hell?" Then, reaching out, she clasps her hand on my shoulder and holds me tight. "That's exactly where we're going."

Eyes wide, I reach out with my senses to stare into her spirit, but somehow it'schanged. The woman I met in the mortal world, with the sad story and the sadder death, is gone. In her place is something different—something that I can't quite pin down, but that feels masculine and horrible, greasy and ever-changing. Some lowly, evil thing spit up from the bowels of Hell itself.

A trickster.

One that fooled me with sheep's clothing.

Before my eyes, "Jennifer" shifts and changes.Herface unmelts, reforming into something different and new, body shifting and stretching. I try to pull out from the grip holding my shoulder, but the thing grasps mehard, and roots me to the ground.

Xavier and Reggie both reach for it as they realize what's happening, but some kind of invisible force field around its shifting form keeps them away. Even David's angry, toothy attack just slides off like butter. And thought I can tell they're trying to speak to me, I can't hear them. Somehow whatever invisible barrier that has been erected between me and them cut off any sound. It's just me and this thing in here now, and I have to face it alone.

---