Chapter 34 #2
With a dull click, a lid popped open from where it blended into the natural frame work of the real panel.
Beneath it was a single, solid black button.
I didn’t look at Kendyll as I reached out to push it.
I worried our eye-contact would make my earlier hesitations return, and I didn’t want to make this difficult for her.
“Wait here, boy,” I ordered Catsper, who still lingered in the hallway.
The elevator doors rattled closed. The cart gave a light bounce before beginning its slow descent.
I reached out to hold Kendyll’s hand tightly, and thankfully, she let me pull her into my side without complaint.
I understood why she wanted to see what was down here and why she trusted Maria, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to be on guard and protect her at all costs.
The air grew colder the deeper we went, and the demonic energy I’d been unable to sense all this time suddenly hit me with a blast of hot sulfuric air. It was like I stood on the precipice of an active volcano that was seconds from erupting with a deadly explosion. I tightened my hold on Kendyll.
“If anything goes wrong down there, we’re leaving,” I told her firmly. “No arguments.”
“Fine,” she agreed, her brow slamming down as she glanced apprehensively around us.
“Can you feel it, too?”
She glanced up at me before nodding. “There’s a very heavy and oppressive feeling down here. I’ve … never felt this before.”
“Because you’ve never met a demon like him before. I told you. This guy’s power is no joke.”
The elevator finally stopped. Fuck. Had we gone down three stories?
I wasn’t sure how deep beneath the building we really were, but that curiosity vanished the minute the doors creaked open.
I stopped channeling power into the buggy as Kendyll and I stepped out into an expansive corridor.
Mildew and aged dust coated the air with signs of its longtime disuse.
It was so dark, a human wouldn’t be able to see their own hand before their face, let alone anything else down here.
So even though I could see through the blackness, I lit a flame within my palm and cast it out so that dozens of balls of light hovered down the stretch of hallway.
A new wave of energy hit me, and Kendyll must’ve felt it, too. She paused midstep and gasped, “Holy shit. There are a lot of ghosts down here.”
That fact only made me more anxious since I knew the souls we were feeling all belonged to one Mischief demon. His power had to be insane if he had all of their collected energy funneling into him.
Strong enough to break weaker demons. Strong enough to break bonds he wanted for himself. Strong enough to kill …
I squeezed Kendyll’s hand lightly. “Don’t stray from my side, okay? Not while down here.”
We moved through the old area, which was more like an underground concrete structure than a part of the hospital above. There were numerous doorways and other hallways branching off of this main corridor, and we peeked into as many as we could.
The first hallway was nothing but long empty cells. Each room was cramped, dark, and only old, discolored blankets remained within them. The smell of blood, urine, and human bodily odors still lingered in the air.
“What kind of place was this?” Kendyll whispered with a horrified look into an empty cell that was still locked.
My Hellfire drifted closer, and the orange flames illuminated a lump of blankets on the ground.
A lump of blankets with a skeletal arm stretched out from under them.
“Oh my god,” Kendyll cried in horror. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth, and she quickly turned away to stare at my chest with wide eyes. “Is that really a body in there?”
I wrapped my arm around her shoulder to tug her closer to me, but I didn’t take my eyes off the long-dead corpse under the soiled blanket. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything good down here.”
I guided Kendyll away from the hallway of prison-like cells that had no business being connected to a psych hospital.
The next series of rooms we reached painted more of a dark picture.
They were surgical rooms containing tables, beds, and chairs, all of which had straps to contain their occupants.
Blood caked numerous surfaces. There were some archaic devices like electroshock therapy machines or lobotomy tools.
In another room, I barely had time to turn Kendyll away before she could see what was inside.
A machine with the ability to pump certain gases stood by an elevated table, and a series of chairs were around it like someone had set it up to watch some sort of show.
A closer look at the tank still hooked to the machine indicated it was a dangerous gas.
Carbon monoxide was written in bold labeling, yet the poisonous gas was hooked up to an oronasal mask, which a corpse still wore.
The skeletal remains of someone were still on that table with the mask decayed around their face and a hospital gown on the deceased figure.
Straps still held the wrists and ankles, though loose now since the body was nothing more than bones.
“Okay, you’re not looking in these rooms anymore,” I told Kendyll as I led her past the rooms that were set up for torture and experiments.
Even though this place hadn’t been used in a long time, I could still feel the remnants of anguish, pain, terror, and confusion like a ghost of their own down here.
A large room stood at the end of the corridor, and it seemed to be some sort of headquarters.
Old, worn charts littered a large table in the middle of the room, and multiple filing cabinets lined the back wall.
Dozens of substances, medicines, and poisons were stashed within glass shelves.
Gas tanks, surgical instruments, and even a box of old sex toys sat around the room.
“I’ve been to a lot of places,” Kendyll began slowly as she approached the table with charts on it. “But I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“I think there’s a reason it was hidden beneath the hospital,” I mumbled.
I glanced at an open chart, which belonged to a child. Notes depicted how they’d reacted to a test of radioactive chemicals being injected straight into their veins.
“All of these patients,” Kendyll whispered mournfully as she looked around the room at all of the filing cabinets labeled in groups of letters from A to Z.
They no doubt contained hundreds of charts.
“All of these people. I would ask how anyone could do something like this, but I know well the monstrosities humans commit against others.”
“And I understand why a Mischief demon would choose such a place for a hideout. The horrors committed within these walls and the stain of terrible emotions would be like a Hell on earth.” I glanced at Kendyll.
“Which is obviously a good thing for a demon, especially one that gets power from that sort of thing.”
“I still haven’t seen any ghosts, though. I’ve only felt them.”
I poked my head out of the doorway to stare at the final corridor we’d yet to venture down. “I bet they’re down there. The energy is stronger in that direction, too.”
After agreeing to return to this room to grab as many files as we could to take upstairs, we started down the final hallway.
Muffled voices, cries, and screams grew louder.
We rounded a corner, and at the head of the hallway was a doorway.
Instead of a door, glowing golden bars barricaded the frame—a demonic cage blocking anyone from exiting.
People could enter, but they’d be stuck on the other side if they did.
I quickly held Kendyll back before she could walk through it.
We peered through the glowing light at the hundreds of imprisoned ghosts on the other side.
Some floated through the air while wailing.
Others rocked wildly in despair where they huddled in a ball on the ground.
Some walked around in confusion, not realizing they were dead and still trying to interact with the other ghosts like they were all just patients in a ward together.
“Look at all of these souls,” Kendyll agonized. “The demon imprisoned all of them?”
I nodded, still in shock myself from the sheer number of spirits. “Yeah. This is his collection.”
“We have to do something,” she insisted. “We have to free them.”
“I already told you that ghosts claimed by a Mischief demon can’t be released unless their demon releases them or the demon dies.”
Kendyll’s fierce gaze hardened behind her glasses as she watched the hundreds of ghosts beyond the demonic prison bars. “Then we’ll just have to kill that demon, won’t we?”
This girl truly was fearless. She talked as though killing a demon of this level was as easy as flicking an annoying bug off of one’s shoulder. I paused. It could be that easy for some, namely Hell’s most dangerous kind of demon.
“I’ll see about getting the demon dealt with,” I told her with a tug on her hand. “For now, let’s leave. We don’t want to be down here when the demon gets back, otherwise, we’ll be joining those souls in there and be of no help.”
Kendyll seemed reluctant to leave them, but she followed. We grabbed as many dirty patient charts from the headquarters area before getting back into the elevator. I pumped power back into it, and with a lurch, we left this Hell behind.