Passing the door felt like wild fire burning his entire boy, Stephan stepped to the house or base of the alleged Jack the Ripper, and just as Yara said, he felt a lot weaker.
The whole party stood in a mostly empty entrance corridor, which led beyond to another empty space.
it was eerily silent, and poorly lit to add. Each step echoed like ten people walked through.
Dust covered every part of the place, not even a set of foot prints could be seen.
“Are you certain this is the right place?” Dorian whispered to Violet.
“It is, and it is not uncommon to use these illusions.” Violet pointed to the area around them. “It is elementary for most purples.”
“Let me shed some unnatural light to our surroundings.” Yara still walked in a bizarre way, as if she was drunk, but Stephan knew that she was one of the strongest purples living, she will recover fast. At least this is what he hoped.
Yara moved her hands in the air, and a purple light came out from them.
Under the parts touched by the light, decrepit and decomposing furniture could be seen, the floors had trails of something brown, that Stephan assumed were dried old blood, and at the far end, some mechanisms were placed facing the door.
Violet bombarded the mechanisms with fire bolts shooting from her hands.
The illusion disappeared, and the hall could be seen for what it really was, a sad and old place with signs of somebody living in it for an extended period of time.
At the far left corner, was a set of stairs that climbed above and below.
“we have two options, either above or below.” John approached the stairs. “Jack the ripper could be in either direction.”
“And if he is in one, then the other one is trapped as hell.” Dorian touched the railing of the stairs with his white glove and rubbed the dust between his thumb and index fingers.
“Should we split?” Stephan who was an orange, was completely out of his element in the city, and he could only call on the molds and small insects in the place, which were less than viable.
“Let me try something first.” Dorian took a long breath, shook his head, then he sat on the soiled floor. “The things one does in pursuit of justice.” He laughed as he looked at his now dirty suit, closed his eyes and leaned back.
For some moments, nothing happened, then Dorian opened his eyes, and a strange yellow light shone out of them.
“The one who killed me resides within, beneath the ground are parts of my body where he grind them to dust.” A feminine voice came from Dorian’s lips. “Burn my body parts, and his evil desire will be vanquished.”
Dorian fell backwards and a long scream came from his throat.
“I guess we just announced our presence, in the loudest way possible.” Yara moved around the room as she inspected the destroyed mechanisms.
“So, we know now that his lab is below, and his residence is most probably up.” John helped Dorian up. “The question is, should we destroy his formula and faces him in the process, or should we destroy his formula and wait for him to come knocking.”
“I like your one track way of reasoning things.” Stephan laughed. “Let’s go down then.”
It was evident, preventing their foe from finishing his formula was paramount, and whether they managed to capture him or not was secondary to that.
Agarthans knew that there will be always others coming after to finish what they started, the whole civilization of Agartha was built on continuation of previous generations efforts.
“Before we descend, let’s cast a shield on all of you.” Violet already started her spell.
“I will help you with another layer then,” Yara joined her soon after.
Stephan felt that the hairs on his neck were standing on an end, like they were electrified, but since he had been in similar situations before, he knew that this was the shield around his body.
Few minutes later, the party descended the stairs.
Just as John stepped on the last stair step, he fell forward howling.
Violet pushed forward in front of Yara and Dorian, and started to weave something in the air and pointed it at John.
John was in the throws of a transformation, his own body’s means to fight the violent pain from the spell holding him captive.
As Violet finished, John stopped his screams, but he was now an eight feet tall werewolf, who looked around him with blood shot yellow eyes.
A low growl rose in the throat of John, and he snapped at Violet, then he ran inside the vast dark basement.
From the far corner, a curse could be heard.
Yara whispered as she stepped off the stairs, followed by Violet.
Just as they took three steps forward, a ball of fire came flying at them.
Yara raised her hand and wall of air held the fire at bay.
Dorian pulled the sword hanging at his side as Stephan pulled out his pistol and both ran to the direction John went to earlier.
The fire wall shed a reddish light over the entire place.
In the middle of the room was sat a tripod which had a cauldron hanging from it over a very intricate design drawn on the floor.
It looked like a dozen geometric shapes drawn one inside the other, all surrounded by magical symbols at their points.
Stephan had seen his fair share of magical drawings, but this was by far the most complicated one he had even seen.
He only gazed at it momentarily as he rushed to John’s side who struggled against a man dressed in a deep purple robe, it almost looked black.
This was their prey, the infamous Jack the Ripper, the one man who managed to survive all those years since his escape from Agartha.
Yara and Violet managed to put the fire out, as Jack the ripper was busy fighting off John, Dorian and Stephan using close range spells.
Slashes appeared on the face, chest and arms of John, who howled and pressed harder against Jack the ripper, who was giving away distance as he retreated to the wall behind him.
Yara started to hurl fire balls of her own at the cauldron, this was their primary reason to be here, jack the ripper should not be allowed his shot at immortality.
Violet nodded to Yara and rushed to aid the others, as she noticed that jack the ripper was retreating behind yet another wall of traps.
Dorian hit the wall first, and he was thrown back no less than twenty feet. His suit smoked and smoldered from contact.
Stephan immediately stepped back, but John started to shift to another form as Jack the ripper hurled at them bolts of ice and lightening.
Violet knelt by Dorian’s side, who took her hand and just stood, unharmed and unscathed.
He winked to Violet as he said, “I am immune to bodily harm.” And he rushed back to the fight.
Violet started to make a counter weave of her own to the trap in front of the others, and then she released it at jack the ripper.
John finished his transformation, and he was a wyvern.
He charged forward at jack the ripper, oblivious to the wall of spells cascading over his body.
Jack the ripper, pulled his robe around him and teleported to the other end of the room, then he immediately threw a huge ball of fire at Yara.
“Yara!” Dorian shouted in alarm.
Yara threw herself to the ground at the very last moment, but even though she did this, her dress was already on fire.
Violet threw a water barrier that swept through the entire room, drenching Yara and erasing some of the intricate lines of the magical drawing.
Yara stood with a vicious smile on her face.
Then she did a strange movement in front of her, and fire poured from her mouth forming a river going towards jack the ripper.
“Get back.” Violet screamed at the men who were heading towards jack the ripper.
The river of fire melted everything in its way, even the floor stones started to bubble and hiss.
Jack the ripper gave a loud shout and disappeared altogether from the basement.
This allowed John the wyvern to advance on the cauldron and crush it in his huge maw.
He spit it out and started to transform back to man form.
Violet rushed and aimed some fire balls at the broken cauldron and it caught on fire.
A very loud shout could be heard from the floors above them.
Dorian took off his long coat and put it around John and they all rushed up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs stood a solid metal door, which Violet attacked first with ice then with fire.
The door crumbled to dust.
they rushed inside the room to see an old man cowering in the corner of the room, very near to the window.
“Surrender Jack, there is not way you will get out of this alive.” Stephan advanced slowly on the older man.
“I think you should use his real name, Abimalach, the dark king.” Yara took a few steps towards the older man.
“You think that you defeated me?” Abimalach threw his head back in laughter. “What the five you did was just push me back a few months, a few years at most.”
“You will not have another chance to do your atrocities anymore.” Violet wove a barrier of air and advanced on Abimalach.
“I am sorry to tell you that you are very wrong.” Abimalach produced a small hourglass with a green glow inside from the depths of his robe, then he put it to his mouth and started to laugh maniaclly.
Dorian rushed the man in three jumps, but he just hit the wall. Abimalach was not there, he was gone.
“He used a time traveling Arcanos. He is gone.” Stephan waked across the room slowly.
“But at least we stopped his immortality spell.” John joined Dorian and Stephan. “Either us, or others would get him the next time in history he tried this again.”
“So, what now?” Dorian looked around to the others.
“We all go back to where we belong.” Violet stood beside Stephan. “If any of you fancies a visit home, we would put some good words on your behalf.”
“I’d rather stay at least till the twentieth century comes, they are making fast advancements.” Dorian took out from his pocket a half singed handkerchief and wiped parts of his suit with it.
“I might be tempted to go back home.” Yara smiled to Violet. “But not now, maybe in another fifty years or something.”
“What about you John?” Violet turned to John.
“I don’t belong there, or for that matter here.” He sighed. “Maybe I will work on that a bit before deciding.”
“Ok, we have a report to write and a lot of questions to answer.” Stephan took the arm of Violet and headed out of the room.
After the walked some meters away from he house that had the legendary killer Jack a ripper, Violet turned to Stephan. “Will you miss this place? Will you miss any of this?”
“I guess I will.” He said in a low voice. “But then, I might be sent here the next month, then I would hate it as much as I hated this visit.” He laughed.
“Did you really hate it that much?” Violet smiled as people milled around them.
“No, not really, this city has its own charm, even if it is covered is ash and soot.” Stephan tipped his hat to a man who eyed them long, of course because of their singed hair and clothes.
“Maybe one day we will join forces again.” Violet leaned on Stephan’s shoulder.
“Maybe we will.” Stephan smiled.
The End of “From Hell” Serialized story.
From Another World.
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