The Lost Books: Pentagram's Blessing

"Wake up, Elijah" an unfamiliar voice stirs me from sleep. "Were almost home, wake up!"
My head pounds as I sit up and my surrounding clearify...
It was hot. i had no desire to get up, but less desire to stay. I could tell there was fire burning near and there was a horrible smell. The face that belonged to the voice came in to focus, he was dragging me by my feet and...
Screaming! there was screaming, and lots of it. moving torwards us someone, no something was screaming, something airborne...and inhuman.
"Can you fight? walk even?" the man yelled to me.
It was strange. Screaming, Fire, Dread, Pain...Pain everywhere.
And the sound of wings pounding the heated air.
That was when i realized where I was...Hell.
That was the moment it was too late to help my friend.
I watched, unmoving as Beelzebub, prince of daemons swooped and took my friend before he could unsheath his blade.
Screaming everywhere but not a sound from the victim as Beleezebub undobtably and painfuly...ended him.
It was then that I moved, for the first time in what felt like an eturnity. I got up and ran, so sure of where I was going, but without a destination.
It seemed I was not persued, and yet I knew I was being watched. I reached what looked like a sundial that was stained red and slowly reached for it.
it was strange, when I touched it I saw...
The sundial,
An athame,
Blackness,
Some time earlier myself and two others had circled the sundial somewhere else, now it was just me.
And I knew what to do.
I took out my athame and cut my palm, letting the liquid fill the groove in the sundial. "Zc pc zqeex" I said loudly, in a language unknown to me, and I feel a jolt of pain. I then place my palm over the stilled blood. "Unx hto xukrojh ew jeaqj" the blood darkened and then vanished from the furrow in a haze. "I huro pc qougo..."
I know from the vision that I am about to go, and risk a glance over my shoulder...This was not a place I would miss...
"Tepofukx en hto hakn htkiyo!" I cammanded, then turned the dial three times clockwise.
Hell itself spun around me and the dial then slowly faded out of sight, reavealing a forest with a small shack, green everywhere...and no fire.
I had made it back from Hell.
I had many questions and no answers so I preceeded to the small shack, maybe someone was home.
Someone who knew what the hell was going on.
No luck.
The shack was empty, it had a small mainroom with a futon and radio on a crate and a small bathroom, nothing more. lacking a better option I slept.

...I was running threw a cave...
...my bare feet bloody from sharp rocks...
...my lungs were pounding and felt like they were filled with fire...
...I couldn't stop running...
...they would catch me...
...but, No I'm running the wrong way! toward them!...
...I stop to turn around but there is a tall rocky wall blocking me, wasn't that the way I came?...
...I turn again...
...suddenly a ghostly blade plunges threw my heart...
...I gasp in pain as a silent scream leaves my lips...

I wake up in a cold sweat clutching a note:

Dani Harland...
Mike James...
Abdel Abaddon...
Mary Maklie...
Elijah Kaage...

If I don't make it seek these...friends, -Mathew

Mathew...as soon as I read the name I got another vision. I saw the man that Beleezebub killed slumped over writting the note... I assumed the last name was my own as he had called me Elijah. he then slipped the note into a chest and slid the chest into shadows. I saw the chest open to reveal...
The vision stopped and I saw that I held the chest, it was open and inside where five pentagram madalians.
One for each name on the list. I realized.
I slowly picked up each pentagram and placed them in a small sack attached to my belt loop. when I touched the last one it lit up with black light and the shack shook. "IT HAS BEGUN!" bellowed threw the house. I quickly stashed the pentagrams and checked the note for some clue of what happened.
Next to the name Elijah Kaage appeared a single checkmark.
I pressed the chest's lid shut and got a strange feeling that I was starting to realize comes before visions.
A blond girl crying,
A crucifix,
A shaky hand raises a gun,
A dome toped building,
Darkness, A pop, A scream,
I rushed out of the shack and into the forest, suddenly knowing that I had to find this person...She was on the list.
The forest seemed to go on forever and was vacant of wildlife, I did not even remember the way back to the shack, the trees all looked the same.
I ran for hours in the same direction threw the woods and could not see a treeline, or any sign of a city, let alone the girl or domed building. eventually, hours or days later I am unsure, I clapsed.
Even though I had just slept I was exasted.

...Running threw the same cave...
...stepping on the same rocks...
The dream was the same, but wait...
...The smell of the ocean...
I was near the exit.
...I could see light...
...Outside...Free...
...A tug on my leg...
It was a snake.
...the snake wrapped around me...
...It had a set of dagger fangs...and it slit my throat...
...I fall to a heap on the ground, the snake leaves...

I wake up and dust myself off, it was a nightmare.
I continue on it the forest trying to forget the images of my dream. soon I stumble upon a clearing, someone had cut the trees, all the trees. I could now see back to the shack, it felt as if I had gone miles but it was steps away.
I walked to the sundial and cut my palm again. "Take me somewhere else!" I tell it. "I don't want to be here!" Nothing happened, and I did not know what I said earlier. I spun the dial three times. "take me somewhere else!" I repeated. still nothing.
The blood in the groove shifted and spelled "Where?"
I sat next to it thinking. I could remember no place besides Hell and Here, neither a good destination.
"Take to the domed building." I heard myself tell it.
Again the blood shifted "Pay the price."
"I gave you my blood!" I argued.
"Very well" It spelled.
The pain was worse this time and as the world spun I shut my eyes. When I opened them the forest, shack, and sundial were gone, replaced by a white building with a green lawn. I stood on a path and saw a figure in a hoodie walking toward the building holding a pistol. The gaurds had not yet seen it.
I ran up to the gunned figure and turned her to face me, making sure the gun was between us and unseen.
I stood there staring at her for a while not knowing what to say, she was the crying girl, crying even now.
"Let go." she said softly, as if it were hard to say, or she did not mean it.
"They'll shoot you." I warn her. She just noded. "What's your name?"
"Don't matter." she tries to yank away, but I hold tight.
A guard starts walking toward us, He will see the gun. I quickly pull the girl closer so that the gun is pressed between us and unseen, she hardly fought once she saw the gaurd.
"You kids go someplace else, you aren't allowed here."
"um...Right away." I tell the gaurd and hope that blondie dose not pull something. "Let's go." I start pulling her away from the building and to the street.
She wrapped her arm in mine as we walked, apparently going along with the charade, While I slowly began to empty the gun of ammo, except it was already empty.
"There were never any bullets." she says in a wisper.
I then knew exactly who she was trying to kill...Herself.
"Why?"
"I didn't want to hurt anyone." she awnsered.
By now we were across the street and I could not help but laugh, then stopped myself. "They would not have cared to hurt you."
"Yeah..." she did not say anymore.
A few blocks later I asked, "What now?"
She sighed, "I wont do it again."
"That is not what I meant." She looked at me as if perplexed.
"Your strange." she says simply. "Where are you from?"
I did not know what to say, I was from... "Hell?" I guessed.
She slapped my arm. "I guess that would explain the mideval apperal, but really where are you from?"
I looked down at my outfit. It was a brown vest with a white shirt underneath, brown pants, an athame sheathed at my side and a sack of madallians on my belt loop. "Am I dressed odd?"
"No..." she said slowly. "If you work at a fair."
"Perhaps I do." I refuted. "Do you work at a fair?" She laughed but did not answer, so instead I asked. "Where are you from?"
"D.C., but I probably won't stick around too long."
I could not help but to glance down to make sure I still held the gun.
"Not like that!" She smaked me again.
"Why are you leaving D.C."
She looked away breifly, then back to me. "Nothing here anymore." a fresh tear fell down her face.
"Who was it?" I ask, she had obviously been threw a great loss.
"Parents." She wiped her tears away.
"Do you have somewhere else to go?" She shook her head. "Neither do I," I admitted. "Come with me..."

A while later we were in her convertible on our way out of D.C., The sundial was nowhere to be found.
"So, you still haven't told me, what's your name?" She asks while adjusting her mirrors.
"Elijah Kaage..." I say. "Yours?"
"Mary Maklie."
She was on the list.
"So, Elijah, I know why I'm leaving, why are you?" she did not take her eyes off the road.
"I am not from here." I tell her, she had not pressed me on the subject since I had told her I was from Hell.
"Where are you from?" She asked, neither of us knew where we were going and I could tell she was just making conversation.
"I do not know." I answered after much thought.
"You don't know where your from, but not from D.C.?" She gave me a strange look then focused on the road.
"Not from D.C." I echoed her.
"And whats with the knife?...a knife at the white house is bad." She did a shame on you hand motion.
"The White house? not an orignal name. besides, it is an athame."
"No matter what fansy word you use, it isn't allowed." She informed me.
"You brought a gun." I reminded her. She got so quiet that I was afraid she went dumb.
"Why were you at the White House?" she spoke up again.
"I went to find you." I told her. "I was in the forest and you were about to die so I came to stop you."
"What?" She asked as if she had not heard.
"You were about to die so I came to stop you." I repeated.
"What forest? How did you know what I was doing?" She pulled the car over.
"They would not have let you in with a gun." I try to explain, she was being very difficult.
She stared at me.
"As for which forest I am not sure."
She put her fingers to the sides of her head. "If you were in a forest."
"I was." I assured her.
"How did you know where I was?"
I reach into my pocket. "This showed me, I think." I hand her the note.
"My name?" she stares at the list of names.
"So you have told me." I nod.
"What is this list?" she asks as she hands it back.
"It is a note from Mathew."
"I don't know a Mathew, Who's Mathew?" She questions.
"A dead friend." I say, sure that he was a friend. "Are you sure you do not know him?" I ask, hoping that she did know him, why else would she be on a list of friends from him?
"I didn't know him." she assured. "How did he die?"
"He died while trying to help me in Hell, he was murdered by Beelzebub." I inform her. "After which I left Hell, wound up in a forest, got the note, and went to help you."
"Just to be clear..." she stops as if unsure weather to proceed. "...Are we talking about the biblical Hell?"
"More or less the biblical version, I belive." I noticed a cross hanging from her neck. "but do not worry, I brought no daemons with me, you will not need that crucifix."
"What?" She reaches for the cross.
"Your necklace, it is intended for protection against the daemonic is it not?"
"I guess so...Who's Beelzebub?" she asked.
"Prince of Daemons." I tell her.
"The devil?" She asked
"A devil."
"Wait so, your murdered freind gave you a note that told you where to find me? and your friend was murdered by a demon, devil person?" It was retorical. "Oh my god. your crazy." She leaves the car.
"I do not belive so." I follow her.
"Yeah, well, crazy people don't think they're crazy, thats what crazy people do!"
"Do you think your crazy?" I ask.
"Ugh!" she yells. "Do you hear yourself? Demons and Hell and Devils..."
"Do you not belive in Angels or Heaven or God?" I ask.
"Oh Whatever!" she shouts in frustration.
She throws her necklace at me. It weighed a good amount and hit me square in the face, but i did not feel it. As soon as it hit I was no longer in the middle of a highway.
A winged man,
Bright light,
A baby,
A halo,
Mary's face,
A pentagram,

Mary threw her necklace at Elijah if he wanted religion he would have it. It hit hard and gave him a bloody nose, but he didn't yell or flinch or anything, he looked up at her and his eyes went milky white.
"I'm so sorry!" she ran up to see if he was okay, but he showed no reaction. "Are you alright?"
He reached out toward her and she backed away. He put his arm down and then his eyes went back to a strange storm cloud color.

The vision ended and I saw that Mary had came close, though she looked disturbed.
"Are you alright?" She asked. "Your nose is bleeding and your eyes..." she trailed off.
"I am fine." I tell her. "I saw you."
"I...see you too?" she says as she picks up her necklace.
"No, I mean that I saw you when..." thunder cut me off and we hurried to her car.
She put the roof up and a few minutes down the road from where we pulled over we checked into a motel.
"What where you saying?" she asked yawning as we got in the room, the earlier dissagreement forgotten or at least posponed due to rain.
"Sleep. You are tierd." she did not argue and was asleep quickly.
I sat on the vacant second bed and dug in my bag for the lit pentagram. I found it and it was still glowing a grey-black. "What are you for?" I spoke to it. It gave no answer so I slipped it around my neck and lay back on the bed.
Images of Hell, the forest shack, and finally D.C. passed before my closed eye lids before I slept. then as the last image passed came a place I've come to associate with horror snuck behind my eyes...the cave.

...I stood at the mouth of the cave...
...behind me lay the corpse of a stranger bitten by a snake...
...the water infront of me...
...the sunset...
...albatross' wings beat the sea air...
...No, bat wings...from inside the cave...
...I try to run, but I stumble and the bats catch up to me...
...they rip the flesh from my bones...

I jolt up with a start, waking Mary with a shout.
"What is it?" she asked, once she realized what happened.
"Its...nothing." I try to reassure her, but I was visably shaking.
Before she could say anything there was a knock on the door. I started to stand up but the door was thrown back from its hendges. Then I was face to face with a tartaruchus a keeper of Hell.
Mary screamed as she saw its face...it had deep red skin and souless black eyes. It had two large horns growing from its forehead and wore clothing scarce. It drug a trident on the floor behind it as it approched and we backed away.
"One does not simply visit tartarus." It bellowed.
"I do not intend to go back!" I inform him and unsheath my athame.
"Ha...ha...ha" Its laugh shook the room. "Nothing in any world is more comical than a damned man cornored."
"What's that thing?" Mary asked from my side.
"Mortal!" it intoned. "Does thou not quake at the sight of me?" it asked. "Or does thou not know me?"
Mary lifted her cross at him.
He laughed even more. "Do Not Confuse ME With My Lowly Kinsmen!" as if to empower the proclomation of his rank he raised his trident as if to strike the mortal down...I got in the way.
My athame caught between the prongs of his trident and we both staggared back. "Fool!" he yelled. "You are already condimed, do not make it worse."
"Fight a ten foot tall demon with a trident, or burn eternally." I weighed the options. "I choose fight." I say as I gash his arm and black blood colored my athame's blade.
"You dare draw my blood!"
It was angry and, blinded by anger, swung its trident like a mace. even misused the weapon was still deadly and grazed my throat.
"It appears we are even." I call to it. "something will have to be done about that."
"Agreed." it steps forward and grabs my throat.
Its blood ran down its arm to mingle with my own and searing pain spread threw me. I franticly struck it with my blade but its grip did not falter. "Pixnivth jeaq I yuqq wek opzkuyo" I manage in the same strange tongue as in Hell. Then my sight failed and I went numb, it was as if all had become mist.

Mary watched in horror as the thing choked the life from Elijah then all at once Elijah vanised and the thing turned it's eyes to her.

All around me was mist and smoke. I took a few steps. "Which afterlife is this?" I shouted into the haze.
No sooner did I speak the mist solidified. I turned around to see the tartaruchus' back to me, he was about to impale Mary. I raised my Athame above my head and sank it in his back as high up as I could reach and seavered his spine. He clapsed to the floor.
I leaned over the fallen servent of Hell and it sneered. "Never have the damned triumphed before...finish me." It resigned to it's fate. I lifted its trident and perced its throat, I had expected blood spatter but instead the Daemon and it's weapon combusted leaving nothing but the smell of sulfer in the air.
"So..." Mary walks up to me slowly. "You've been to Hell huh?"
"yeah." I confirm. "We got to go."
"Why?"
"Because if he brought back-up they will be here soon, and if he did not we will get kicked out soon because of smell complaints anyway."
We got back in the car and continued our drive to nowhere.