House of the Angels

Anne and Sybilla paced about Sybilla’s room, pondering the star chart Anne had chalked upon the floor. Every star, every line and every planet was drawn perfectly but Anne wasn’t sure if their findings were correct. If she was right….great. If she was wrong, then it could prove disastrous.

“You think it’s right?” she asked Sybilla.

“Yep.” Sybilla replied. “The results don’t lie.”

Anne sighed and looked at it again, shaking her head. “Blood moon in the fourth house ain’t a good sign.” She said to Sybilla.

“The Witch Moon.” Sybilla mused. “A sign that it’s gonna be a long, hard fight.”

Anne couldn’t bear the thought. She had already lost her husband, very nearly lost Kyle and countless others in the past. Whenever the blood moon arose it made her nervous. It was a sign of a long fight as well as impending doom…..and it was about to loom high over Bayou St Therese and all who lived there.

“Don’t be afraid of it Anne.” Ramiel told her. “Fear is only a mindset.”

Maybe Ramiel was right. The more Anne thought about it, the more she began to think that maybe for once, this omen wasn’t all bad. “Whatever the case,” she said. “We’re going. Tell the others to go and get their weapons.”

Ramiel, Erin and Sybilla all went upstairs, knocking on the bedroom doors of the residents and told them to get their weapons ready. Knives, swords and hooks were sharpened to a frightening point while staffs, hammers and concealed weapons were tested to be sure they worked well.

“Pick your poison Grey.” Dylan told him when he opened the trapdoor in his bedroom floor.

Grey sifted through the box of weapons until he found a pair of sharp silver sai, with prongs so sharp that no enemy had a hope of being left alive. “I’ll take these.” He sighed. “Looks like everybody else had their eyes on the bigger stuff.”

Eve took for herself a pair of hidden blades, the leather bracers going up past her wrists to conceal the blades within the holders. Everyone else took whatever they could get their hands on, be it big or small, blunt or pointed. By the time they were ready, they assembled at the bottom of the stairs in the entryway of the house.

“Alright ya’ll,” Sybilla announced. “This is it. There ain’t no turning back. Once we go, we go. Anybody wanna stay behind?”

No one raised their hands. They had waited too long for this moment to arrive.

“Good.” Sybilla remarked. “Ya’ll got one shot at this. Don’t waste it. Let’s move out!”

The little ones were ordered to stay behind with Berta who gladly gave up her only day off to make sure that they stayed safe. Once everything else was set, Sybilla, Anne, Erin and Ramiel led the residents of Angel Manor out into St Augustine Street which had grown eerily quiet. The sky was beginning to turn a bright shade of red-orange with the sun slowly sinking on the horizon. Soon the huge blood moon would be out to cast its shadow on the bayou, tinging the horizon a bright blood red….perfect for battle.

“Anybody have a few words?” Sybilla enquired as they picked up the pace.

“Not unless they’re our last ones.” Dan answered.

Sybilla rolled her eyes but no one spoke. All of them had one thought on their mind…..get home alive. They didn’t say it, but Sybilla knew they were thinking it.

They crossed over Pelican Bridge but instead of taking the route toward Mason Noir, they passed right by Bijou Square and kept going until they reached the area known for two things, hospitals and hotels.

The angels passed by row after row of old houses and hotels left over from the days of wealthy robber barons and proper society women until they found it. The Lafayette Asylum was still standing but its outer shell had decayed greatly since being shut down in the late seventies. Graffiti and lewd etchings defaced the eroding red brick and the glass in the windows had shattered, breaking away to almost nothing.

“Ya’ll sure this is it?” Sybilla enquired.

“Definitely sure.” Grey answered.

“Looks like we’re gonna have to find a way in.” Anne theorized, looking at the surroundings. “Doors look like they were sealed shut from the inside.”

“I think I know a way in.” Joseph spoke up. “Alex and I were looking over the blueprints and it looks like there was an area around the back used for an entrance and exit by the personnel.”

“Lead on then.” Anne told him.

Joseph led everyone around the back, through thick overgrowth and hedges that hadn’t been trimmed in over forty years. Mangroves, cypress and swamp trees grew in profusion, even where there was very little water. Roots jutted out of the ground and tripped the angels up at every turn until at last they came to the entrance. A wide, square doorway that stretched into a black void opened up as if to swallow all who entered it. Up above was a sign bearing a Latin phrase the angels were all familiar with.

“What does it say?” Anne queried, seeing the fearful look on Joseph’s face as he looked at the sign above the door.

“‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,’” Joseph answered, carefully reading and translating the Latin. “For not even the sweet release of death can save you now.’”

“Jeez,” Kyle remarked. “These doctors really were obsessed with Dante.”

“And what better way to make people afraid than by telling them something like that.” Sybilla added.

Joseph’s attention was suddenly turned to something else. For a second he thought he heard several voices beckoning for him and the others to cross the threshold of the door. They begged and pleaded for them to go in, crying out with fear and helplessness.

“What do you hear?” Anne pressed. “Joseph, what is it?”

“There’s souls still trapped here.” He answered. “We have to go in. Esther, can you and Molly light the way?”

Esther and Molly nodded and each conjured up a glowing orb of pale yellow light out of the palms of their right hands. Joseph stepped aside and let them pass before leading the rest of the angels over the threshold of the door and into the black void.