Hell's Revelation (Book 3)

Chapter 18

Darkness didn't care to greet me like an old friend, and I was left sleeping fitfully; dreaming things that set my heart racing and my blood boiling even as they lay dead and dormant in my chest. I didn't remember most when I finally woke several hours later, but I remember well the sense of urgency and dread that had pulled me from my slumber, under rested and grouchy.

One good thing that did come from a few hours of shut eye, was a new sense of clarity that had taken over my head. All the tools were there at my disposal, they had been ever since I was reborn into this new body, I'd just been missing how to harness all of that power. I'd been allowing myself to stay too tied to my old body, to my old powers, and not allowing my mind to expand to the lengths that my new power could. Nothing was new, not as such, everything was an extension of what I'd already possessed, and to reach my full potential I needed to open my mind and stretch myself out of my comfort zone. I just had to relax and allow it to take me.

Finally I knew how I could convince Jesse. All of these memories I was collecting were being stored up inside me, but they were no good contained inside if I could show no one but myself, understanding how to project these things outwards was vital, as was finally understanding that for the concept of the Revelation to work my power could not possibly be limited to touching only one individual mind at a time. I was the conduit through which all the truths of Hell would flow, and through me they would be projected so that all might learn of the corruption threatening to crumble our society.

The Revelation was going to come, and I would be very first one to realise the truth.

I was out of the bed and on my feet in a flash. Striding confidently through the dark hallway back into the main chamber I made my way straight for the selection of flasks and phials that were still collected at one end of the vast table. I'd left everything there after making the sleeping potion I'd forced down Jesse's throat, Frank had gone to great pains retrieving everything I'd requested, including everything I'd need to wake him up again.

"What are you up to, Love?" Frank had obviously returned at some point while I slept and he watched me quizzically from across the room.

"I am going to wake Jesse up," I said simply as I measured out a scoop of hawthorn berries into a solution of eyebright.

"Wake him up? And how exactly do you plan on stopping him from running back to Malick?"

"Well, you know how they say that your mind works out all of your problems while you sleep? Well they weren't kidding."

"You're actually telling me the answer came to you in a dream? How very cliché of you, Love."

"Not exactly." I sprinkled some shredded ginger root into the mixture and set the alembic over a flame, checking the tube was in place. The draught would take some time to distill, but it would be ready before the day was out. "More like I already had all the answers I needed, sleeping on it just helped me to put everything in order, fit all the pieces together so I could finally see the big picture."

"So you really do know how to make this work then."

"I've got a pretty decent theory, yes."

"That response does not fill me with optimism."

In the midst of tidying away the potion ingredients, I slammed a glass flask down on the table a little too hard where it shattered, startling Lucas out of his slumber. How long had he sat there sleeping when he should have been keeping watch over our little section of Hell while I did the sleeping. It happened before Frank returned else he'd have made a point to sleep in his bed instead of the chair, they were vaguely more comfortable.

"What's going on?" he slurred, blinking the sleep from his eyes and not yet fully aware of where he was.

"Well I'm not trying to make you optimistic. I've got a pretty good theory, and in the absence of anything better to try I say we run with it."