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Trinity
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I watched in suspenseful dread as the man came toward us. I don't think that Rudy noticed him just yet. Well, that said a lot about Rudy's attention to detail and his awareness of surroundings. If I was going to make it through here alive, intact at least, then I was going to need to be the one to protect us. Rudy, as big and strong as he appeared to be, could not be counted on to do that.
"Rudy?" I whispered his name and as the warrior quickly walked over to us. "We have a problem."
"Huh?" He jolted to a stop and turned to look at me, then at the man that I was watching with worried eyes. "W..why is he coming over here?"
"Great. I was hoping you could tell me that. I mean, I am the one that is not from the underworld, whereas you are from here." I was speaking sarcastically and with a little more anger and force than I intended to at the moment. I shouldn't be treating him like that, but I truly couldn't help it at the moment.
"Well, it is unusual for any of us to leave our posts. I..I shouldn't have left, and he doesn't look like a way between."
"A what?" I shouldn't be asking when we clearly didn't have the time to talk, but I had been surprised by his words.
"The guards that take souls to their punishments. They are called 'way betweens'. They show the soul the way between the gate and the punishment."
"Well, I guess that was actually pretty self explanatory." I chuckled to myself and what I should have been able to figure out for myself.
"We do not have much time before he reaches us." Rudy was still walking forward at a nonthreatening, non hurried pace. "I do not want to present the appearance that we are nervous or that we know that we are in a place that we should not be. I would like to show that guard that we are not in the wrong here. I am just escorting you."
"I agree. If we run, he will give chase and that would probably not end well for us." I responded without taking my eyes off of the other man.
The man, like Rudy had said, reached our path in almost no time at all. He was standing there, blocking us from moving on. That was when I noticed that this had to be a giant. I was used to tall people, those that were close to seven feet tall, but this man had to be closer to eight. And not only that, but he was broad-shouldered and powerful looking. I bet he literally had the strength to take someone's head off with a single punch. That was how powerful he looked.
"Halt." His voice was deep and low. Even though he spoke in what seemed to be an average tone, his words boomed around the entire area as if he had used a megaphone or microphone and speaker.
"Is there a problem?"
I truly had thought that Rudy would stutter again, like he had done a few times before already. I was actually quite happy to see that he was being so calm and sure of himself at the moment. That would help us out quite a bit in this situation.
"Who are you? What are the two of you doing here? What business do you have in these parts?"
"I am Rudolphus Desmodius. I am escorting a soul through the Halls of Purgatory." Thankfully, Rudy still spoke confidently and didn't falter.
"Tell me why? For what purpose are you taking a new soul to this area of Purgatory?"
"She is not a new soul. She is not even dead." Rudy did his best to start explaining things.
"That is preposterous. There are only dead souls in the underworld. Dead souls and those that guard it. Not even the Gods and Goddesses that govern these parts come to this place. They take the souls that they punish personally to their own domains."
"Are those domains not part of the underworld as well? If they rule over this place, should they themselves not dwell here?" I was so surprised by what I heard that I had to say something. Even though I immediately regretted it the moment that I had finished talking.
"Do not speak to me, mortal. I will not be treated like some commonplace mortal."
"I am not a mortal, nor am I commonplace." I knew that my tongue was going to get me into a lot of trouble right now. I was a little too keyed up to be calm and civil at the moment. I knew that I needed to be that way, but my body just wasn't conveying those thoughts to my mouth.
"Really? And what, if you do not mind explaining it to me, makes you so special? What makes you any less common than the other humans that come through these halls?" This man was truly angry at me right now.
"I am not a human. I am a goddess, a queen, a wolf shifter, a Fae, and a witch. I am far from anything that is common." There was anger filling my voice now. This man was going to learn to respect me, even if he wasn't one of my subjects. Even if I was technically nothing to him.
"I do not believe that you are a goddess. What reason would a goddess have to be in the underworld? You are not a ruler of one of the hells. You are not an overseer of paradise. You are nothing to the inner machinations of the afterlife. Therefore, what would you, a self-proclaimed goddess, be doing in our realm?" Oh, the amount of sarcasm and spite that he was spitting at me was going to tip me over the edge.
I was getting to my wit's end. I was through with being here in the underworld. I wanted to get this over with and go home as soon as I could. I didn't want to be here any longer than I absolutely needed to be. And right now this asshole was prolonging my forced visit to the afterlife.
He may think that he is big and strong now. He may think that he was able to do so much to me. He would most likely think a lot of things about me. But he would be wrong. He would be so wrong that it would cost him more than he was willing to pay. These people, these men, according to Rudy, were alive. And that meant that he could most likely feel pain and receive a punishment. They weren't beyond the torture that they were inflicting onto the others. They, specifically this asshole, were not above my wrath.
I tried to keep my calm, though. I had already been shown just how my actions affect the things around me, how I can cause consequences. I didn't want to put anything out of order in Hell, this was not the place to be doing that. Still, that didn't change the fact that he was annoying the fucking hell out of me.. No pun intended there.
