Spirit Wars Read online

  To be with the woman he loves, one man will move heaven and hell…

  When Nate Cuervo dies in a diving accident, he realizes he isn’t ready to leave everything behind, including his soul mate Samantha. He falls into an underworld prison where the only way out is through a reaper named Sephtimus Rex. As head reaper, Septhimus leads an army of Crows tasked with the cold deportation of overstaying spirits from the human realm.

  New Series

  When Earth ended, three worlds began.

  Free Top-Secret Chapters

  Spirit Wars

  Mon D Rea

  Contents

  Book Description

  New Series

  Title Page

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Prologue: The Underworld Wars

  PART ONE: The Foundling

  Chapter I: The Clock in My Brain

  Chapter II: Welcome to the Flip Side

  Chapter III: Lounge of the Dead

  Chapter IV: Hell’s Supercomputer

  Chapter V: Love Macabre

  Chapter VI: Cry of the Fershee

  Chapter VII: The Reluctant Reaper

  Chapter VIII: Love after Death

  PART TWO: The Sleeper

  Chapter IX: A Vision of Balloons

  Chapter X: The Crow Man

  Chapter XI: Homeschool Hell

  Chapter XII: Infernal Affairs

  Chapter XIII: Graduation Day

  Chapter XIV: Picking Up Lessa

  Chapter XV: The Bucket List

  PART THREE: The Wyrd One

  Chapter XVI: The First Soulmates

  Chapter XVII: Atropos Reborn

  Chapter XVIII: Sam and Me

  Chapter XIX: Hell-Breaker

  Chapter XX: The Appointment

  Chapter XXI: The Mutiny of the Crows

  Chapter XXII: Unholy Alliance

  EPILOGUE: More Infernal Affairs

  Also from the Author

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw

  With Ravine, shriek’d against His creed.

  - Tennyson,

  In Memoriam A.H.H.

  Prologue: The Underworld Wars

  They exist among us in secret. Their ancient war has spilled across the borders into our world, and what passed for blood from their undying energies inked the provisions for a halfhearted truce.

  They are the two great primal forces; the superpowers of the afterlife. One spawned by light, the other by darkness. One tasked with recycling everlasting souls into mortal bodies, the other with banishing them into a perfect, grim prison.

  They come in many forms but all of them discreet, misleading. Some humans see and name them as angels. Others worship them as gods of destiny. All reduce them into familiar myth and superstition to dull the world-shattering implications of their existence. And so, the two warring camps take their most consistent and harmless forms: benevolent storks and ravenous crows.

  Any human word or symbol would be a cliché because they’re as natural a part of life as the laws of physics or the features on one’s face. The only cliché is man’s tendency to value one to the exclusion of the other. Because the two forces necessitate each other; they’re two sides of the same supernatural coin.

  But who would believe the truth even if it stared us in the face? Many choose to ignore it, content to live in the safety of lies, the delusion of control. Humans find comfort in the belief that we devise our own fate and pass time in our own steady pace, but deep down we know we’re merely sojourners from this realm to the next. Behind every wall and through every crevice, other worlds lie beyond our senses.

  Parallel to our dimension yet incredibly exotic, perfect antitheses of each other: Helium, kingdom of the great white storks, and Necro City, territory of the dark reapers.

  PART ONE: The Foundling

  Chapter I: The Clock in My Brain

  There are several layers to true darkness. It’s like when you go scuba diving and the transparent, color-tinged water gets bluer and bluer the farther down you go, to the perfect violet shade. You’re an insignificant speck and your flimsy stab jacket is all that stops you from plunging to the lowest, bleakest, most Godforsaken point of all. It’s that spot right before you hit pitch-blackness, where you realize you’ve already ceased to exist.

  My name is Nataniel Cuervo. I was born one day in October. I was abandoned on the porch of Blessed Children’s when I was just a few days old so I’m not really sure about the date. I met the love of my life when I was twenty-three. Her name’s Sam.

  Depression’s weird. All I need to do is get up from this foldable lounge chair where I’ve been sitting all night philosophizing about the sea, the universe, and fate; but standing up feels like too much trouble when weighed against the alternative of non-existence.

  This is what happens when I run out of meds. I turn into one hot puddle of self-doubt. Add my utterly pointless yet true-to-life psychic ability and you’ve got the perfect breeding ground for recurring, parasitic dreams.

  Did I say dreams? That’s inaccurate because in fact there’s just the one and it’s always been the same. Dream, nightmare, vision, whatever you want to call it; I know its dreamscapes like the back of my hand.

  First, there’s the strange room whose walls are covered from floor to ceiling with computer monitors. With a steady, almost insectile hum, the hard drives fire data swiftly and perpetually, occasionally emitting electronic beeps and clicks as they tally mutations in sequences of genetic codes, in infinite strings of destinies. A voice whispers distinctly: Lachesis, like the name in Greek mythology.

  Then I’ll be whisked away into the post-Apocalyptic ruins of the world. Every grain and chunk of rubble littered as far as the eye can see buzzes the same entomo-mechanical drone. And amid all this chaos, a solitary figure walks in black raiment.

  The whole thing ends with the ravaged land sprouting wings and rising as a colony of angry bats, all determined to drown the heavens in shape and sound. I wake at this point invariably bathed in cold sweat.

  The infernal noise from the dream has hung around me every waking moment of my life. I just didn’t think it was such an awful thing when I was still a kid. Now it seems like I was ever only this OC Math major who couldn’t function without his prescription meds, who couldn’t even go to sleep without a light or a TV on in the background and who’d wake up as soon as it turned off. That was the kind of person I’ve been, always wired and restless inside.

  I can count on one hand all the times I’ve been free from this curse. The first was when I lay in bed with Samantha and listened to her whispered secrets. Sam; breathing, fragrant proof of a miracle. The first time I made love to her, everything fell into a deep hush.

  I caught another spell of peace when I moved here to Concepcion, a tiny seaside village in Southern Luzon, Philippines where the air’s salty and fresh and the people still haven’t been consumed by their wants. Once a week, Sam drives from her career and family in the capital to me down in the province.

  As a public-school teacher, I teach not only Math but also Astronomy, Marine Biology and Ornithology (the last three are unofficial and inspired by the pristine environment). My audience consists of underprivileged teenage students – little fanciful star-gazers, keen scouts and bird-watchers – whose stuttering and lack of self-esteem call for segues into Speech and Drama.

  I remember the day I arrived and the first time I saw surf up close. It lay just beyond the welcoming smile of Mrs. Salas, the thin school principal who has an impression of frayed elegance about her. I hastily excused myself and couldn’t help laughing as the waves rushed and soaked my jeans. Their roar and rhythm felt all wrong when in fact it was my own senses that had been set to th
e unnatural beat of the city. A lullaby as I lie in bed at night or a blanket of silence in my many dives, the music of the sea has never failed to soothe me since.

  But then the alien drone of the nightmarish computers came back with a vengeance, and now I live inside a fog of noise. Though I’m afraid to admit it, via my psychic sense I have a fairly good idea what it all means.

  Like a superfluous and cruel joke of fate, I know exactly what death sounds like. The first part of the vision that keeps playing in my brain? It’s about supercomputers recording the accumulation of damages to a person’s genetic code. In a word, a biological countdown to expiration.

  The second segment of the dream is harder to interpret. But there’s this unholy fear in the pit of my stomach that says it’s far bigger and more frightening than any human mind could comprehend.

  At this point I find myself in the kitchen getting ready for a dive. It’s like this when good ol’ depression visits; I move around in a daze. I write a note for Sam because she might arrive this morning as per the old schedule. I pin it under one of the fridge magnets before I change my mind. The note reads: Gone to catch some rays. Not much sun since you left.

  Our slow falling-out is hurting both of us. My clinical depression has given birth to a secret third presence. Like a fat black Buddha sitting cross-legged between us, it keeps growing and pushing us apart. And maybe that’s for the best. Sam awakens in people a thirst for life they don’t know they have.

  Sam, her skin baked to a golden-brown heaven so every time she smiles there’s the jarring contrast of pearly teeth. I can never resist freediving for those underwater gems that beckon for three-minute breath holds.

  A part-time model and full-time Art History major, Sam’s Filipina with more than the average Spanish in her blood. She got ahead of her time when she bloomed bigger and faster than the other girls. It’s like she just woke up one morning a full-grown woman and had over the night outgrown and burst wider the skimpy shorts she was wont to wear, but of course all her favorite pairs had been bought already ripped. She gives as an excuse a special medical condition that exempts her like a malamute puppy in the tropics; and though it’s true she looks more at home on the beach than anywhere else, there should be a law against her walking around the hut in only her bikini. Carrying my ice-cold bottle of beer, distracting and irresistible.

  She’s a bit old-fashioned in her belief in soulmates, which I guess is a good thing for me except every time she treats me like her own fixer-upper. She can be ultra-altruistic too, only too willing to sacrifice her own happiness so I can search for mine. And I know she longs for a bit of long-gone chivalry from all the chick flicks she watches.

  But if she could be just one thing, Sam’s a secret stretch of beach one discovers with a bit of cave-diving. On our dives together, I’d feel blissfully content to linger a while and just watch her rise back up to the surface. Her tiny belly grinding, her body hanging down amid sunbeams breaking through the veil is an affirmation from heaven, bringing tears to my eyes inside the goggles.

  Sam, my own personal hideaway.

  I steer the motorboat to my favorite dive spot. It’s after the swift diffusion of morning and the light’s just now starting to get warm. I drop the anchor and turn off the engine. I go about the business of stab jacket, tank, wetsuit, weight belt, and mask. I find myself more methodical in my movements than usual, but as soon as I dive through the surface my breath’s stolen away by the world that lies underneath.

  It’s too easy. I lose myself again in the visual feast and yearn to coexist with its broken time. I touch the multi-hued coral reefs, glide with the mantas, drop by a shipwreck frozen in time and just marvel at the vibrancy and color of life around me. Dives like this one make me believe that if I wished hard enough I could grow gills.

  After some time the flashing light in my dive computer tells me decompression has started. What I do next is the most natural yet also the most shocking: I tear my mask off and flip my regulator over my shoulder.

  My depression has taken its toll.

  Land’s the farthest place in my mind and there’s nothing remotely strange about the thought of giving up and just accepting my fate. There aren’t any serious consequences for me, not even the possibility of losing my life.

  Once an eerie calm takes over, all sensations go through a sieve of extreme clarity, every tiny experience becomes more vivid than I’ve ever felt in my entire life. It’s like my body had been transformed into a giant microphone tuned to a lone pair of lips and the many tiniest vibrations they made. As though a mist has suddenly been lifted, I see the world exactly as it’s meant to be seen: raw and in all its terrifying splendor. I become a bystander to my own body, which is presently taking the greatest abuse.

  I barely notice I’ve been holding my breath till the need to live kicks in. Always the instinct for self-preservation. I quickly dismiss this and resolve to break through my pain threshold. My eyes bulge and feel like pincushions.

  When I inhale at last, saltwater freely enters my voice box. It cuts a burning path. I cough and gulp more. And as my throat goes into spasm, involuntarily blocking the invasion of water, I begin to panic and feel my consciousness dimming. Despite everything, there’s one thing I can swear is the literal truth: images of my life flicker inside my head.

  I see the toddler orphans laughing at my antics… myself learning to ride a motorbike… Sam smiling at me for the first time…

  …ever so beautiful I see…

  …death not as an end but a beginning, like being born backwards

  Next thing I know I’m being dragged upwards. My mind’s protesting but my entire body’s limp.

  Must be one of those damned fishermen…! Sto-

  Aboard a boat (mine? the fisherman’s?) my rescuer gives mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and tries to jumpstart my quiet heart. Seawater’s dripping off him and all over my face.

  Out of frustration, the man delivers a mighty, perfectly-vertical, all-knuckle blow to my chest. It still fails to clear my lungs of seawater. I realize I’ve crossed a point of no return and feel a confused sense of relief as a great icy coldness settles upon me.

  The fisherman’s sobbing and shaking. At this precise moment, Death comes for me.

  Now I can tell everyone from experience: Death’s made up of these black, amorphous yet recurringly bird-shaped and fluttery things. Like iron fillings that bristle when you pass a magnet underneath them, their sharp edges and talons cut my skin. They mob and press me downwards and deeper, persisting till the bottom of the boat creaks.

  This very curious, unknown species of birds is whispering inside my head in that oh so familiar entomo-mechanical hum. My mind-snapping nightmare brought to life. The noise becomes louder and louder in sync with my racing heart and soon it’s a deafening roar as the birds home in on their prey.

  I realize with ice-cold fear, these creatures are thoughtlessly bent on bringing me an even worse fate than death: the descent to madness.

  Chapter II: Welcome to the Flip Side

  With a jolt that’s more mental than physical, I slip right through the solid bottom of the boat and back into the water. I sink like a statue propelled by those pointy, erratic things that are mostly crow.

  Although the medium’s perfectly wrong, I’m falling backwards at a skydiver’s terminal velocity: sixty meters per second. I can tell because I used to be really into motorcycles. But that was nothing compared to this. I’m being sucked down a maelstrom of hissing, exploding water; a human bowling ball in a slide that plunges all the way down to the bottom of the sea.

  I feel an intolerable amount of pressure and pain building against the tissues of my middle ear. Then there’s a light pop, either real or imagined, followed by a gushing feeling of relief as cool water flows past the bleeding eardrum on either side of my skull.

  I slide out of the sunlight zone into the twilight zone, 200 meters below surface, and on till I finally pass the deepest, bluest zone of the sea that divers o
nly dream of. I come to a world where every last thing that’s good and hope-infected has been snuffed out.

  Because I chose to ignore my deco stop earlier, my dive computer has shut down and is no longer of any use to me. I streak on farther down to a place where creatures don’t need eyes to live in the absolute darkness.

  Deeper still… about a full minute of free fall…

  … a minute and fifteen….

  … a minute and thirty…

  I should be about half as far as James Cameron has reached; that is, inside a steel submarine with 2.5 inch-thick walls. Certainly deeper than is humanly possible.

  I’m in the hadal zone, named after the Greek god Hades and where the pressure should equal a ton on every centimeter of flesh. The ocean’s deepest level, 6000 meters below.

  My back slams down against a firm yet surprisingly bouncy surface. I open my eyes to snap out of whatever hallucination I’m having.

  Above me, a solitary, unnatural glow is held out like a lifeline, but a nagging suspicion in my brain tells me this is exactly how a false hope would look if it took on a form. I’m in a dream inside another dream, a hole of melancholy that’s much too deep for me to surface out of.

  There’s no other explanation than that an underground river flows in the center of the earth, because now I’m lying flat on another boat. A gas lamp is being dangled by the boatman but it’s kind of sickening to watch because I can’t tell where the lamp ends and where his hand begins. The walls of the lamp look like they were made right out of human skin, making the light muted and mutated. I think: Anglerfish.

  This last thought, combined with the mounting feeling of vertigo ever since my eardrums broke, proves too much for me. I spring up and vomit into the river.

  “Now, now, you wouldn’t want to rock the boat too hard,” the ferryman, an old man in a brown hooded robe, says in the voice of a man half his age and thrice his size. “Those aren’t fish you’re feeding, boy.”