Tribulation Read Online Free PDF Page A

him weak and vulnerable for
days if not weeks. And even then, it wasn’t a given.
    “This better
work,” he said aloud. He’d prepared and thought it through
carefully and was confident that he had a good chance, but of
course, he’d never done this before either. It wasn’t something
that you could practice. He’d traveled the other way before - from
Hell to Earth - albeit with help from Joshua. He’d even traveled to
Earth to Hell before but that was through a portal created by the
Lemure. He’d never actually done this all by himself before.
    ”Draw the
pentacle, visualize the place and will yourself there,” he
muttered.
    Sam still had
some questions. Were there certain designated emergent points in
Hell, much like the churches were on Earth? Could he just visualize
any place in Hell and will himself there? In all fairness, during
his last visit, Sam hadn’t seen much of Hell, intent as he was on
hiding or escaping, so his options were fairly limited. Besides,
much of Hell looked alike. How did you tell one part of it from
another?
    Sam sighed and
decided to play it safe. He would visualize, or at least try to
visualize, the place where he’d emerged last time. Surely that
would work? Surely.
    He felt a
niggling doubt but decided to ignore it. He had to do it. For his
mother’s sake. For Grace. In any case, he was committed now,
trapped inside the pentacle. As a last exercise in procrastination,
he checked that his backpack was secure, that his Katana was
strapped to the outside of it and his Wakizashi was securely tucked
into the belt at his waist. They were exactly in the same places
they had been fifteen minutes earlier. With a shrug, he sat down,
crossed his legs and closed his eyes.
    For a few
minutes, nothing happened. He found it hard to concentrate, his
mind slipping away onto other, more pleasant memories. The pentacle
blocked all the psychic energy that the demon-infested Earth was
now suffused with. It was a pleasant change from the usual constant
mental barrage. He’d missed this feeling. Of course, the remembered
feeling gave way to other memories: memories of Aimi; of shared
pleasures, of caresses and kisses, of her smile and the way her
long hair seemed to dance in the breeze. Grudgingly, he tore his
mind away from thoughts that served to torture him. What was the
point in remembering something that could never be again? Aimi was
in Heaven and always would be. A place where he could never go.
    The thought
made him angrier than he anticipated, wiping out the happy, mellow
memories. Without warning, his mind was channeled to a darker
place, a place filled with flames and terror, a place he couldn’t
deny felt more like home than any other he had known. Hell.
    He locked on to
the thought, squeezing his eyes tighter in concentration. Something
was happening. A movement, a translocation. All at once, he felt
different. Stronger. More powerful. He took a deep breath and hot
gaseous sulfur filled his lungs. Smiling tightly he opened his
eyes, knowing full well what to expect.
    Sure enough, he
was once again in Hell. But it wasn’t in a place he recognized.
Suddenly concerned, Sam stood quickly. The flames of the pentacle
were dying already, its power exhausted. He stepped over the
outline without restriction and gazed around him. His mouth dropped
in awe.
    He was standing
atop a rocky finger. Hundreds of feet below him was a sea of raging
fire. It surrounded the rocky outcrop he was on completely and went
on for as far as the eye could see. Hot winds buffeted him, blowing
the hood from his head as if to tell him that the need to conceal
his heritage was unnecessary here.
    He’d done it –
he’d transported himself to Hell – just not to the right part.
Something had gone wrong. Instead of arriving in a place he vaguely
recognized, he was now trapped and isolated with no way of
escape.
    What the Hell
was he meant to do now?

Chapter
Three
    Hell
    “… to the land of
deepest night, of deep