The Trailokya Trilogy, Book Three: The Lucent Rise

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Morgentus moved through the shadowy streets of New York, just paces behind the vratin he'd been hunting for decades. The feeble old man was no match for his cunning. He just had to reach out to take him. Drawing the hunt out a little longer made the moment exquisite. The lord of the pit could hardly wait to experience his brother's reaction when he found what he'd done.

Gallo turned into the fenced yard alongside the gothic cathedral. If Morgentus was to strike that night, now was the time, before he got back to his haven. After he gave the signal, several of his serpents closed in. Morgentus grinned to himself, delighted that at last he cornered Oriael's pet.

"Not so fast, Baron," a voice called to him from the shadows.

A woman with clownish, red hair stepped into his line of sight. The bitch was old and wore caked on makeup. The baron frowned in disgust. She shared the same sentiments about him.

"This one is protected from the likes of you, fallen one. Another step and your serpents go to Oblivion. Now, call them off like a good lad," she said.

"Insolent bitch!"

"Ah-ah-ah," she corrected him. "Agnes Smith, and I'm not just human—Illuminati. Stand down, Baron," Agnes said.

"Wretched witch," the baron growled.

Agnes drew a pair of short swords from beneath her coat. The serpents had abandoned their original task to assist their master. In a flourish of glinting silver, she dispatched the soldiers and left the corpses to flake into nothing. Her aspect, now cast in his direction, was a warning. The rumble of motorcycle engines joined them from the corners at each end. Warnings were no longer idle threats.

"Another time then, Agnes."

Morgentus smiled, with a promise to meet her again. He then clawed open a gate from which to escape her and the Magnus goons. Safely through, Morgentus flung his hand up to shutter the gate. He didn't spare a look back at the ruffians who ruined his plans. Instead, he would take his failure out on another.

Gathering more serpents to him, the baron entered a sprawling home in the warm clime of the Western United States. He rather liked the weather here compared to the frigid Northeast; it was much more like home. The evening was unseasonably warm. A breeze blustered through the shallow-rooted trees that made their lives in what was once a desert. A patch of Jahannam in Samsara, he mused.

The Spanish style manor housed one of Morgentus' finest projects. Quiet as the grave, that structure held many secrets from other worlds. Nearing it, he picked up the odor of shades. Their scent spun through the air completing the likeness to Acheron.

In a billow of coal dust, he gained the second level. The soft moans of human pleasure tickled his ears. The smile he wore moments before Agnes Smith disrupted his now hunt returned. He opened the door to one of the several bedrooms. A man and a woman tangled in each other's perfect limbs made the scene in the low light of candles. The baron allowed the couple their moment, taking a seat in a dark corner from which he could observe. He always found their version of lovemaking bland, but this was different. The level of depravity was stunningly low-key in its undisclosed manner, making it rather delectable.

The woman, not very attractive in any conventional manner was the bio appliance of his marditavya. Dark circles accented her prematurely aged eyes, caused by the draw on the atman that powered the link between Cursia and it. The baron's careful attention throughout the girl's life had made the mix of the two personalities possible. They were indiscernible, except that when the human he overtook was present, the green of the eye grew brighter, whereas when Cursia was present, her eyes faded to a muddied brown. She was also nearly identical to the woman he stole from the ferryman: from the uneven tones of her skin, that were more shadowy in crooks and bends, to the swollen lips and dark hair. Much of her, however, was achieved through medical procedures and cosmetics. He never understood why she wanted to resemble her possessor, but perhaps there was proof of the marditavya's upper hand, more than he surmised. Melanie Estelle was merely a ghost hanging by a thread to the body she'd been born into, leaving the label of her name for a disguise to her murderer.