Verse 6

[This is part of an ongoing tandem writing experiment. To read the full story, click here.]

Frederick left the throne room swiftly for the safety of the antechamber. He hunched his shoulders slightly and kept his gaze fixed to the ground, trying to hide the blinding fear swallowing him whole. He had heard Lucifer speak of the Daylighter only once. The tone of voice in which he spoke during that lecture matched exactly the tone he had just used to send Frederick after the Daylighter. The Master’s eyes had been so fixed, as if he were reading a page from the book of his brain, a page worn and wrinkled from over use, highlighted and rewritten until its contents made sense only to the author. Frederick knew he must remember, and remember well.

As he replayed that conversation in his mind, Frederick feared he’d forgotten how to retrieve the object his master so desired. Finding it was easy; practically everyone in hell knew where to find it. Standing in the throne room’s antechamber, all one had to do was take the far-seeing tunnel of lidless eyes until it forked at Cerberus’ kennel. Get past the old, nasty pooch and pluck the Daylighter from its home in a pool of liquid mama.

The magma was no deterrent. Hell was just as hot as the liquid rock inside the Earth, and hotter still when the furnaces were really humming along. But, creation’s very essence resides in heat, in the moment, in action. To let creation cool is to kill it, and the end of creation inevitably means the end of existence; the very situation Lucifer finds himself in, currently.

Frederick knew how to get to the Daylighter, even how to house it in enough magma to keep it warm for hours. What he could not remember, however, was how to get past that three-headed, shit-eating guard dog, Cerberus.

Frederick wracked his brain for what Lucifer had said, and with each failed grasp he sensed the answer slipping further and further away. The situation was dire enough for Lucifer to request the Daylighter, and he would be enormously pissed were he not presented with it, pronto. Frederick let the question of how to bypass Cerberus alone, for the time being, and started across the antechamber.

The loud clicking of his shoes ceased immediately when he crossed over the threshold into the tunnel. It was like walking into a giant drainage pipe, only covered in endless, lidless eyes. Never blinking, always watching, and every single one connected to his Royal Lowness. Fredericks’ heels slipped and slid over the moist lenses, and there was a constant squidgy sound followed by a fait pop, as he squashed the tiny orbs. It sounded like someone popping bubble wrap, one whole sheet at a time.

Each time he took a step, the previously flattened eyes sprang up anew, rolling to follow Frederick in his progression. Every one in hell might know where to find the Daylighter, but it was only because no one dared tamper with it.

During his eons in hell, Frederick had been de-sensitized to the grotesque, the horrific, and the insane. Crushing eyeballs by the dozen had no affect on his mood, but the feeling of being watched by Him did. He wondered how clear Luci’s vision was, spread out over so many channels. Surely he could see Frederick, but could he see into him, as he could in person? Could he tell his number one servant, his go-to guy, had no idea how to get past his pooch? Frederick thought he heard a slight chuckle run past him down the tunnel. He increased his speed.

Frederick smelled the beast just before he saw him. Lying prone, Cerberus’ enormous paws, each the size of a large stepping stone, were crossed in front of him, his three heads resting on top. He was more wolf than dog, with three long snouts wrung in black fangs; a hell hound of the highest caliber, an indiscriminant killer, and fabled throughout the world that was.

Cerberus remained motionless, eyes closed, and Frederick’s heart soared for an instant, thinking the old bastard had finally fell asleep on the post, after all the long and boring years. Frederick kept his eyes on the dog, shortening and quickening his stride in the hopes of scooting past unnoticed. Unfortunately, his complete attention paid only to monster in front of him, Frederick overlooked the threshold separating eyeballs from hard floor, just ten feet away from Cerberus, and his left heel came down in an echoing click on the granite.

Ace posted this entry because Ross was having HTML issues. But Ross wrote it.