Arianna Rose: The Gathering (Part 3)

ARIANNA ROSE: THE GATHERING (Part 3)

Published by Jennifer and Christopher Martucci

Copyright © 2013

All rights reserved.

First edition: April 2013

This book is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Chapter 1

Water flowed like blackened blood, rushing past Desmond toward a dark and distant heart in the cavernous bowels of New York City.  He
drudged against a knee-deep current with his heart thundering louder than the rush of water as he traveled through a storm drain beneath the streets and skyscrapers, beneath the world.  He had no idea where he was headed, just that he was being pulled by a force more powerful than his will. 

The current seemed intent on testing his will, on pushing him back, away from his destination.  But he refused to be slowed.  His legs ached and his temples pounded as he frantically forged ahead.  He did not know why, but a sense of urgency drove him as it never had before. 

Intermittent rumbles echoed around him and shook the concrete beneath his feet like the growl of a mythical beast awakening from the pits of hell, warning him to retreat.  But Desmond did not heed its warning.  He did not scare easily.  And he knew he was not destined for hell.  Where he was going promised to be far worse than any hell he could envision if past experiences were an indication of what his destination held.

Recently, he had been drawn to many different locations, roused from sleep in some instances, only to be pulled, a
s if he were being tugged by an immense magnet, from location to location.  Each time, a force potent enough to move mountains had seized him and guided him toward unspeakable horror.  Each time, he’d been too late; unable to save a single soul.

Mass slaughters,
dismembered bodies and charred remains had been indelibly etched into his memory, horrific scenes of brutality branded eternally in his brain, scenes that haunted his days and nights.  He could not predict the potential atrocities awaiting him at the end of this new journey.  He only hoped that he would arrive in time to prevent more deaths. So he continued to slog through deepening water, and remained vigilant. 

Sweeping his eyes about the darkened curves of the tunnel, h
e moved as quickly as the current allowed him to, willing his legs to push onward, and listening with his entire body to the concrete world around him.  Fueled by guilt and panic, he did not know what he was moving toward, just that every part of him was tightly wound, teeming with nervous energy.  All the while, an innate awareness cautioned that his new destination would reveal something more than the others had, and that it would concern Arianna Rose, the Sola.

The mere thought of Arianna evoked a clenching sensation in his chest so strong
it squeezed the air from his lungs.  Arianna had been a part of his life for as long as he could remember.  She was a part of him, deep and rooted, unlike any other had ever been.  He felt as though her soul were entwined with his.  But now she was gone, wrenched from his life for the first time in what seemed like forever, her absence leaving a gaping hole in its wake.

He had left her in Herald Falls, alone and reeling from loss
, and he hated himself for doing it.  Leaving had been next to impossible, especially since he’d wanted nothing more than to stay and comfort her, to protect her as he always had.  But he’d had no other choice.  He’d been bound by duty.  He had been groomed to guard her, not fall in love with her.  She had an important job, one so significant that she’d been condemned to a life of solitude for fear her focus would be compromised.  She would be their leader.  And her powers were growing fast.  She was rising to her position as the prophetic Sola.  Nothing could stop her.  No one could stand in her way, including him.  Her fate had been sealed according to the most scared of their ancient scriptures, a fate that did not include him.  He’d had no choice but to leave, against both her will and his own.  He was not her fate despite feeling as bound to her as he was to his own heartbeat.  The only difference that remained was that he was allowed to keep his heartbeat, while she remained a distant dream. 

He’d thought about ignoring the prophecy, about damning it all to hell and staying with her.  But he’d been afraid, afraid of ruining all that his kind had worked for, their centuries-old struggle to survive.  He had not wanted to selfishly sacrifice the efforts of his people.  Leaving had been the hardest decision he’d ever made.  He’d known that if he’d stayed,
he would not have had the strength to ever leave her and would have risked disrupting her future, the future of all of their kind.  And their kind needed her.

Arianna, the Sola
would be called upon, would be pulled as he had been to his present location, to assist their people by bringing them together, and protecting them from the evil that ceaselessly stalked them.  She was needed elsewhere, everywhere, and without him.

Without him
, the words rattled around in his head like a ball of barbed wire, tearing at his thoughts, at his heart.  Having her ripped from his life had been torturous, and only two weeks had passed.  Envisioning a future without her was so bleak and painful, it seemed inconceivable. 

He
stopped briefly, weighing the magnitude of a future that did not include her and felt the cool rush of water driving against his legs.  As he paused, he felt something brush against his calf.  It receded for a moment and Desmond was about to disregard it when it bumped his leg again.  It felt large, larger than the other debris that had passed, and solid. 

He quickly patted his cloak and immediately felt the small flashlight he’d stored inside it
.  Up until now, he’d traveled in the darkened tunnel using only the energy that pulled him magnetically toward his destination.  But whatever knocked against his leg sent caution shooting through him like a bolt of electricity.  He quickly pulled his flashlight from his pocket and shined it downward. 

Desmond felt his legs threaten
to give way beneath him for a split-second when he saw what waited in the beam of light.  He gasped and nearly dropped his flashlight into the blackened waters, sickened by the sight before him.  A small body bobbed face-down.  Pants and a gauzy pink blouse billowed eerily in the shadows and long blonde hair wafted out around a head like a golden halo.  With a trembling hand, Desmond reached into the water and quickly turned the small body.  The bruised and marred face of a young girl stared up at him with milky blue eyes, imploring him to put her spirit to rest, to avenge her death.

He cradled the frail body, lifting her from the murk and filth, and saw that a maroon arc sat just below her chin.  Her slender throat had been cut.  Tears burned the back of Desmond’s eyelids and he silently vowed to punish those responsible for such a heinous act, for taking her life.

With the girl’s cold, lifeless body pressed against his chest, rage gathered deep inside of Desmond, rage so volatile and pure, his entire body began to tremble and his vision wavered.  Questions swirled unendingly in his brain.  Who would do such a thing, murder an innocent child?  Why was the child floating in the sewer drain among garbage and refuse?  Were there more like her where he was headed?  His mind demanded answers.  The girl’s soul demanded vengeance.

Desmond’s body sprang into action.  He was loath to bear witness to more
butchery, but he knew he needed to move.  He needed to see if anyone lived.  He sped his pace and moved at a jog against the flux of water, testing his muscles against it until they burned.  With the haunting image of children dying each time he blinked and the water working against him, his breaths came in shallow pants.  He felt his lungs blaze and was about to pause when a bloodcurdling shriek rang out. 

The tortured cry pierced
the darkness like a blade, cutting at the gloomy abyss with its razor-sharpness, and resonated through his bones.  The hairs on the back of his neck rose like quills and his heart slammed wildly in his chest.  The desperate scream awakened something in him, a dormant, primal part of him.  His legs answered the call.  He found himself moving quicker than before, racing faster and faster until the resistance beneath him lessened.  He looked down and realized the water level had lowered abruptly.  Little more than a shallow stream covered his feet.  Without moving water opposing his every stride, he was able to run, still clutching the body of the little girl. 

The splash of his feet slapping rhythmically against the waning rivulet was the only noise in the tunnel, until the sudden sound of voices
stopped him dead in his tracks.  He waited and listened intently, trying to discern what was being said. 

Darkness, thick and sinister, surrounded him.  All he heard was the faint
, silken, sinuous swish of water trickling past him.  He closed his eyes, using all of his energy to sense where he ought to go next.  His eyelids fluttered briefly before shadowy fingers reached from beyond the blackened void and tugged him.  He opened his eyes and felt himself being pulled forward.  He flicked on his flashlight long enough to see he was approaching a point where the tunnel turned off.  He would either continue along the tunnel, or veer toward what looked like an abandoned maintenance structure.

An overwhelming wave of energy crashed against him and dragged him in its drift to the threshold of a steel door, making plain his destiny.  The
maintenance shed door stood slightly ajar.  Faint light seeped from it and the voices he’d heard grew louder. 

Desmond gently placed the girl’s body on a narrow ledge just beyond the door.  He closed her eyes and pleaded for his maker’s mercy and promised her in the same breath that those who’d harmed her would suffer.

“Silence!” a voice boomed from beyond the door and caused him to spin toward the sound, prepared to battle.

When he saw that no one addressed him personally, he allowed himself to relax, but only slightly.  He inched toward the entryway and drew the hood of his cloak over his head
.  He peered through it and had to stifle a gasp, for what he saw shocked him nearly as much as what he heard and felt. 

The limited space offered him a view of
a crudely fashioned altar.  Behind it, a husky, robed form preached. 

“The time is upon us!” the man
addressed a full room of nearly twenty other robed figures.  “Our time has come!  We will be drawn together to rid the world of the wretches that inhabit this planet!”

He immediately
recognized that the man was not human, felt the rush of a familiar force, felt the man’s energy, along with the collective energy of the room, collide with his.  He was a warlock, like Desmond, and the others present were his kind as well.  He did not know for sure to whom the man referred, but felt dread slither down the length of his spine, and the gravity of the situation began to unfold.

He pushed the door open further
.  As he did, his mouth went dry and the sound of his blood roaring in his ears temporarily drowned out any other sound. 

Folding chairs had been arranged around the room, roughly two dozen of them.  They all faced the makeshift altar the robed man spoke behind.  But beside the altar was a sight so bone-chilling, Desmond had to control the urge to make his presence known and speak not with his words, but with his daggers instead. 

A cage had been brought into the room, a compact cage small enough to fit two large dogs at most, and was situated to the left of the altar.  But dogs did not occupy the cage.  It held two people, a woman and a boy no more than eight years old.  Desmond felt the heated rise of his temper brim dangerously as he saw that the boy’s hair matched the flaxen color of the girl whose throat had been slit, the angel who now lay upon a concrete lip of a sewer drain.  His blood began to boil, ire flooding it like molten lava.  The boy trembled and cowered, terrified for his life, and the people responsible were his own.  His own people were caging and slaughtering innocents, children. 

Desmond took another step forward, propelled by fury, and disregarded his own safety.  He stepped into a lair of pure evil.