Ash Return of the Beast

CHAPTER 57



Tortured screams of human souls echoed throughout the darkness as Ravenwood made her final descent. She knew her own soul could be devoured at any moment by any one of the endless streams of demonic figures swirling around her. She was caught in the current of a virtual whirlwind of terror, the demons whipping around her, taunting her, reaching for her, their hideous laughter rising to shattering crescendos. It was a nightmare beyond anything she had imagined and she was locked in with no way out, no way back to the light, without the ayahuasca spirits to guide her.

Then, in the midst of it all, she saw something else, something emerging from out of a billowing gray haze. The amorphous shape was twisting, curling in on itself like a thick smoke. Slowly, it morphed into a living likeness of her own mother.

Ravenwood stared in shock at the familiar figure. The woman was holding a grotesquely deformed newborn baby girl to her naked breast. The infant was covered in blood, mucus dripping from its creamy, scaly skin. The thing’s umbilical cord whipped back and forth like the tail of an angry serpent.

This is your precious baby.

It was her mother’s voice speaking tenderly, lovingly.

Here, my dear, would you like to hold her for a while?

Ravenwood recoiled as the mother image thrust the disgusting thing toward her. The infant’s large eyes flew open, its tiny hands reached out. It squeeled. Momma…

Ravenwood turned away, horrified. When she looked again, she saw the baby was beautiful, exactly as she had always pictured it. My baby.

Instinctively, she reached out, longing to hold the precious child in her own arms. Then she stopped short as the distant voice of her higher self told her it wasn’t real. She withdrew, reluctantly, hesitating. But the child she’d so desperately wanted, lost at birth, was here, now, in front of her––within arm’s reach. Her maternal instinct struggled against her better judgment. Her soul cried out. Dear God! Don’t do this to me!

***

Tocho took the moist cloth and wiped away the tears streaming down Ravenwood’s face. He turned to Tlacatecolotl. “Can’t we stop this? She’s suffering, for god’s sake. Look at her!”

The shaman shook his head. “There is no way to bring her back. She understood that.”

“But––”

Tlacatecolotl took Tocho’s hand and placed it on Ravenwood’s chest. “The heart of a warrior,” he said. “Never underestimate it.” He looked Tocho in the eyes. “Especially this one.”

***

Ignoring the distant warning from her higher self, Ravenwood reached out to receive the child. It let out a piercing screech the instant she touched it. Squirming and wriggling around madly, it morphed into a repulsive creature, a ganglion, with a dozen scaly tentacles twitching and thrashing about. Ravenwood quickly released the creature and it flew back into the arms of the mother image.

The mother image laughed and bellowed. “It hates you! Your own child hates you!” The words came spitting out of her mouth with a vicious sting and a perverse sense of glee.

An intense emotional pain ripped through Ravenwood’s heart. But it also caused her higher self to light up and take hold of the situation.

Remember, they feed on your fear. Release it. Trust in yourself. Embrace the love you have for that child you never knew. That love is your shield. Remember what you have learned over the years. This is why you are here. Your knowledge is your weapon. Use it now.

Ravenwood absorbed the guidance. A surge of empowerment took over and the renewed connection to her higher self was causing something else to happen. A faint light was forming, boring a tunnel through the immense darkness.

Peering into it, she thought she saw something, something that triggered a brief jolt of fear. The light momentarily dimmed in response to her reaction. She pushed back against the fear, the light brightened, and she looked once more. In the distance, at the end of the tunnel, she could see it––the Gate.