Chapter 6 Conversations in Limbo
CONVERSATIONS IN LIMBO
ELIZA
“Surely it wasn’t that bad?” Tara asked, making me lift my head from the desk and look straight at the goblin propped against the wall my desk was against, biting his toenails, making me try not to vomit in my mouth. Then I looked to my friend and told her,
“Trust me, it was worse.”
Of course, she couldn’t see the main reason my words were true, a reason that was now licking the dirt from under his nails like it was fucking candy. Again, forcing me to suppress the urge to be sick.
“In what way?” she asked, causing me to release a sigh before explaining what had happened during the meeting, minus my new tagalong. Which was a problem I was going to have to address pretty soon, and in a way that sent his little, grey ass packing back to Hell. Which was why I told her,
“Look, I have to go. Can you cover for me if anyone asks where I am?” I said and stood, putting on my jacket, knowing she had already retrieved her duffel bag of clothes from the bathroom.
Clothes that I hadn’t had the time to change into, on account of the meeting from Hell and the goblin to match it.
“Wait, where are you going?” she asked, stopping me from leaving long enough to glance back at the goblin who had, at the very least, now stopped making a meal out of his toes.
“To get rid of a problem,” I replied, making him huff before having no choice but to follow me as I made my way to the elevator.
“Charming, and after everything I did for yer, girly.”
“Did for me?! You could have gotten me fired!” I bellowed once it was safe to do so, as thankfully, the elevator was empty.
“Oh, please, that bitchy little harpy got what she deserved,” he said, waving it off as if it was nothing.
“No, what she deserved was a slap in the face, but that’s beside the point.”
“Which is?” he asked in a bored tone.
“To not do shit like that in the middle of a meeting I had worked my ass off for,” I scolded.
“Then yer a fool,” he replied with a snorted laugh.
“Excuse me!?” I snapped, just as the doors opened and let someone else in. An older woman, no less, and one who looked quite taken aback by my reaction.
“I’m sorry?” she asked, making me glance at the floor number, realizing she must have come from the accounting firm on level six.
“Oh no, no… that wasn’t aimed at you,” I said, causing her to frown as she took in the rest of the empty lift. Then she gave me a skeptical look, making the goblin chuckle.
“I was, erm… singing.”
“Singing?” she questioned, making me wish she would just drop it already!
“Well… more, erh… rehearsing, for a play… anyway, this is my floor, bye now and have a nice day… and you can shut up!” I snapped down at whatever his name was as he laughed his little lumpy ass off.
As for the old lady, she saw this as she, too, got off the elevator.
Of course she did, considering it was the ground floor… duh, Eliza!
I quickly exited the building and got myself in a cab, and just before I slammed the door, I told the goblin,
“Yeah, you think that’s funny, then you can make your own way there, chuckles!”
He frowned and gave me the finger as the cab drove off, making me lean back against the seat and close my eyes, hoping that was it. That I was finally rid of him.
“That wasn’t very nice, yer know.” His voice made me jump, and I looked in astonishment toward the seat next to me… where he was now sitting.
“Ah! Goddess! How is it you keep doing that!?”
“Excuse me?” the cabbie asked, which wasn’t surprising, seeing as I was now talking to myself.
I fumbled for my cell out of my bag and shook it at him, telling him,
“Sorry, I was on a call.”
And just like the old lady in the elevator, he gave me a dubious look, as clearly, this was going to be my day for them. I decided that if I didn’t want to look crazy by having this conversation, so I held it to my ear and spoke without looking at the goblin.
“Oh yeah, because that is way more convincing,” he said dryly.
“Yes, well, at this point I don’t really care, now start talking,” I snapped. However, what I received in return was not what I expected, when he started to chant,
“The voice of the damned rose in a bestial moan.
There Minos sits, grinning, grotesque, and hale.
He examines each lost soul as it arrives
And delivers his verdict with his coiling tail.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked after he started with his strange poem, one he merely continued with,
“That is to say, when the ill-fated soul
Appears before him it confesses all,
And that grim sorter of the dark and foul
Decides which place in Hell shall be its end,
Then wraps his twitching tail about himself
One coil for each degree it must descend.”
I frowned before asking,
“Are you telling me where it is you come from?”
He sighed and, for once, he dropped the attitude while telling me,
“The realm of Oblivion.”
I frowned and shook my head a little as I tried to get my head wrapped around it.
“You mortals know it as Limbo,” he added, when clearly my wrinkled nose was enough for him to get the hint that I needed more.
I think, at this point, I was still holding out for the fact that I drank too much caffeine and was clearly under a lot of stress.
That I was, in fact, hallucinating, and he wasn’t actually real.
But now he was telling me he was from one of the circles of Hell and that I had summoned him from there.
Thankfully, I was saved from answering as I paid for the cab and, seconds later, was standing back in my mom’s shop, facing my sister, who was currently serving a customer.
“Lily-pad, you’re back!” she exclaimed happily, well, that was until she saw my face, one that must have said it all.
After this, she lost her usually infectious grin quickly, and finished serving the customer before wishing them well in the usual Shadowmere family way.
“Thank you for shopping at The Littlest Witching Hour, and remember, to be a witch is to know the power of your own magic.”
The woman smiled and walked out of the shop with her goods. A Vampire’s Tears candle, easy to see, was sticking out of the top of her bag.
“What happened? Oh, tell me it wasn’t that Slutbag Jennifer again?” I was about to answer when the goblin jumped up on the counter and said,
“Well, hello, beautiful.”
I rolled my eyes, making my sister frown in confusion when I snapped.
“Will you quit it! Oh… no, wait… that wasn’t aimed at you…”
She looked behind her to see if there was anyone there, which there wasn’t.
Something that prompted me to ask, “Is Nate still here?”
“No, he had to finish early… why?”
I rushed over to the shop front door and locked it before flipping the open/close sign that was a pair of witch’s hands surrounding a glass ball.
“What are you doing?” Sabrina asked when I even went as far as pulling down the blinds.
Ones my mom installed for whenever she was using the shop as a place to hold séances.
Or any other meetings centered around trying to communicate with spirits of the dead.
Damn it, she would so know what to do right about now.
“Oooh, right, setting the mood, I see,” the goblin said, clicking his fingers and igniting some of the display candles. Something that naturally made my sister jump.
“Quit that!” I snapped, looking at where he sat with his legs dangling over the counter, staring up at my sister like she was some demonic sex symbol. Naturally, this little fire starter startled my sister enough for her to stare wide-eyed at the candles as I went around blowing them out.
“Whoa, how did you? Noooo,” she said before covering her mouth with her hands as if she had just figured it out.
“It’s not what you think,” I said quickly, knowing exactly where my sister’s head was at. Something she confirmed when she exclaimed excitedly,
“You’re a witch!”
I groaned in response before pointing at the new bane of my life when he started laughing, warning him,
“Don’t say a word!”
“Who are you talking to?” Sabrina asked, looking to where my finger was pointed.
“Okay, so I know this is going to sound wild and crazy and…”
My sister started laughing before reminding me,
“Seriously? Come on, Lily-pad, we were brought up with wild and crazy, and everyone in Morro Bay knew it… so just spill already.”
“Good point… okay, so, here goes… I was in the bathroom, and I was trying to get dressed into Tara’s spare clothes after my asshole boss basically told me to change, and then something just kind of… happened.”
Hearing this, she folded her arms in an ‘I am pissed off at your boss and gonna cast a spell on him’ type of way.
“What happened exactly?” she asked, and after releasing a heavily weighted sigh, I nodded to what was, no doubt, nothing but an empty counter.
“That happened.”
“Humf, charming,” he said, making me shake my head as though it would help.
“I can’t see what that is.”
“Perhaps I can help with that,” he said, and after a click of his fingers, my sister screamed before quickly running behind me.
“Dear Goddess!” She exclaimed in fright.
“Yeah, my thoughts exactly… especially when a bunch of runes started to lift off the dress before exploding into a bright light and knocking me out, only for me to then wake up to him over there, slapping my face.”
“You slapped her!?” Sabrina shouted, focusing on the least important part of my story.
“Hey, hey, I was tapping her cheek, and besides, she wouldn’t wake up… what was I supposed to do? Keep flushing the toilet and hoping a sopping wet fanny would rouse her?” At this, he wagged his eyebrows at me, and I shrieked in outrage.
“I wasn’t even on the damn toilet, and my panties were firmly in place and I… look, that’s not important here,” I argued.
“Oh, but I think it is,” the goblin said, winking at my sister, and I purposely ignored him.
“He has a point,” Sabrina commented before I shot her a look of disbelief.
“What? Details matter,” she countered, and again, my habit of shaking my head to try to rid myself of the pointless elements of this conversation ensued.
“Look, can we get back to the major issue here? Which is clearly how in the Goddess Hecate, did I summon a demon from Hell and, more importantly, how do we get him to go back?!”
The goblin turned serious and said, “Oh, no way! I’m not going back.”
“What!?” I cried.
“I am not going back,” he stated again, making me close to stomping my foot like a toddler.
“Oh yes, you are!” I snapped, making him fold his arms, and thus the arguing began.
“Okay, then go ahead, girly, and try to magically make me.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and said,
“Fine! You wanna play it like that, well, I summoned you, so I must have the power to send your skinny ass back!”
I started rubbing my hands up and down my thighs in hopes of something happening. Of course, I ended up looking like some class-A weirdo, as it did nothing but warm my thighs. Although, he couldn’t hide the moment of panic that flashed across his face when I first started to try… umm, interesting.
“Okay, fine, it’s not working right now, but it will,” I warned with a wag of my finger.
“Maybe it just… I don’t know, needs to recharge or something?” my sister suggested, making me sigh, as this time, it was my pervy little Goblin that answered.
“She’s not a vibrator, kitten… look, yer brought me here, and any demon that gets to the mortal realm has free will, and guess what, girly, that means I don’t have to go back if I don’t want to.
And well, I kinda like it here,” he said, leaning back casually against the wall of flyers my mom allowed people to pin up on our notice board.
He also swiped one of the black and white striped lollipops out of the jar on the counter and made the wrapper come off with a swirl of his finger, before popping it into his mouth with a loud smack of his lips.
“Well, he’s got spunk, I will give him that,” my sister said, making him wink at her.
“Eh, whose side are yer on exactly… he just called me a fucking vibrator!” I snapped, mocking his accent.
“No, I said you weren’t one,” he pointed out, mocking my own accent and making my sister repeat,
“He said you weren’t one.” I rolled my eyes at this before Sabrina continued.
“Besides, he is kinda cute… I mean, if you squint your eyes,” she whispered this last part, making the demon comment wryly,
“He also has excellent hearing, deary.”
“Great, good for you… Look, I don’t care if he looked like a damn Care Bear, he has to go back!” I argued, making my sister chuckle.
“Well, there is this one club I have heard about, and there is a rumor that there is a guy there who is a pretty powerful male witch.”
“Male witch? I thought they liked to be called Warlocks?” I asked stupidly. As really, the guy could have wanted to have been called the Wizard of Oz for all I cared, as long as he could help me out. This time, it was my sister’s look that said it all.
“Okay, so not important… go on,” I said, waving my hand.
“It’s a secret club called the Veneficus.”
“Veneficus?” I repeated with a frown, looking to the demon that had just gasped when hearing the name.
“I’m not sure what it means, but I am sure Mom would know,” Sabrina said with a shrug of her shoulders.
“And what is the guy’s name?” I asked, ignoring the look of panic on the goblin’s face.
However, it wasn’t my sister who answered me and that rattled look now transferred into his voice, one that almost trembled as he repeated the name of the club.
“Veneficus.”
My sister ignored him with a wary look cast his way, but told me anyway,
“They call him… Lord Oblivion.”
At this, the goblin started choking on his lollipop, and continued to do so as I commented with a chuckle,
“Lord Oblivion… Goddess, that’s corny, but then I guess Lord Voldemort was taken,” I joked, making my sister giggle, something that stopped the second the Goblin started with his chanting again.
“The soul descends and others take its place:
Each crowds in its urns to judgment, each confesses,
Each hears its doom and falls away through space.
‘O you who come into this camp of woe,’
Cried Minos when he saw me turn away…”
Naturally, my sister and I exchanged wary looks before she whispered,
“Erh… What’s he doing?”
I shrugged my shoulders and told her,
“I don’t know, he started doing this earlier,” I replied as he walked closer to us and ended his strange ramblings, now facing us with a serious look on his face.
“…Without awaiting his judgment, ‘watch where you go, once you have entered here, and to whom you turn! Do not be misled by that wide and easy passage!”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, but his reply couldn’t help but make me shiver.
“Lord Oblivion, the keeper of souls…”
“…Enforcer of the Judged.”