21

'I think something's happened to him,' said Lucien, walking up to the hole and peering in anxiously. 'It's been an age and he still isn't back!'

'What should we do?' said Grace, looking at the time.

'I'm going after him,' said Lucien. 'I'll be slow and careful, and—'

'Oh, Lucien, Kuro said the same thing before going!' said Grace worriedly.

'Well, I'm really going to be careful,' said Lucien reassuringly. 'I promise!'

'Don't bother!' called out a familiar third voice, and Grace and Lucien turned eagerly and looked into the hole.

'Kuro, is that you?!!' said Lucien in delight.

'No, it's your father's ghost!'

'Oh, I love you, Kuro!' said Lucien with a wide grin as he spotted the pair of golden eyes and pulled the cat out happily.

'Are you all right, Kuro? What did you see? It wasn't too cold, was it? What took you so long?' asked Grace anxiously, and the cat chuckled.

'One thing at a time, please!' he said, glancing at the stove fire and drawing closer. 'And I'd rather talk about this over a hot, creamy coffee by the parlour fire!'

'Coffee?! Seriously?' said Lucien.

Kuro nodded. 'Yep. I'm freezing, and this is the first of many treats you two are going to have to give me for what you put me through!'

'Okay, but at least tell us what happened first!' said Lucien impatiently.

Kuro gave him a side look of finality. 'No.'

Lucien clicked his tongue. 'Oh come on, who drinks coffee this late, anyway?'

'Well, it's not any more unusual than navigating cold and wet underground passages, I think,' said Kuro solemnly. 'Please dispense it immediately before I diverge the information I've gathered!'

'Very well,' resigned Lucien with a laugh, as the cat walked out of the kitchen on the way to the parlour. 'Good to see he's still himself! Grace, where did you put the milk?'

*  *  *

Kuro put his second cup of coffee down and blinked at his companions. He had told them everything as he had drunk, and now, he was waiting for their reaction.

Lucien's expression was completely blank, and he still seemed to be processing the new information.

'You... ended up in the Assistant's mansion?' said Grace at last. 'That's terrifying!'

'It was,' agreed Kuro. 'The moment I realised it, I jumped out of there and ran back down the passage as fast as I could! I'm so glad they didn't notice me!'

'That portal, I wonder where it leads to,' said Grace. 'And to think there was a way to these two things from these very walls!"

Lucien nodded silently.

'What are you thinking, comrade?' said Kuro curiously, looking at him closely.

'You look a little upset,' said Grace in concern.

'I'm wondering what my father was doing there that night,' confessed Lucien. 'And it's quite disturbing for me, honestly. I find the Assistant to be one of the most despicable people in all of Hell, and my father built a secret pathway just to meet him?!'

'Maybe it was already there, built by someone else; and he only found it,' said Grace carefully. 'Or maybe he didn't know about it – Kuro did say it was blocked – and he used to go through the portal instead.'

'Where that portal leads to is all I can think about,' said Kuro. 'Do you have any idea, Lucien? From that book I saw you reading once?'

'That's the trouble,' said Lucien with a heavy sigh, getting up. 'If that portal is what I think it is, I'm so glad you didn't go through it!'

Grace looked at him worriedly. 'What is it?'

'I'd better confirm it,' said Lucien, walking slowly towards the door. 'I'll fetch the book from the library and we'll have a look here. Maybe I'm mixing it up...'

Kuro and Grace looked at each other uncomfortably while Lucien was away.

'He's kind of touchy about his father, so it makes sense that he's not very happy about these discoveries,' said Kuro.

'No wonder. They're nothing like each other!' said Grace. 'Do you really think his father is the one who built that passage?'

'Probably,' said Kuro.

The door opened, and Lucien walked in with two books in his hands. One was the guide to shadowed realm transits she had seen earlier, and the other was a slimmer book with a hard cover and gilt lettering that looked rather pretty, but she couldn't read it.

Lucien placed them both on the table and began flipping through the pages of the slim book. After a while, he frowned and opened the other one.

'Well?' said Kuro, trying to gauge his expression. 'Are you going to tell us or what?'

'I'm afraid it was the one I suspected,' said Lucien looking up at them with a rare seriousness on his face. 'It's commonly known as the "shadow of the shadowed realms". It's a land of misery and suffering. It's NOT a nice place!'

'Why would anyone want to go there?' said Grace, paling slightly at the thought of a place like that existing.

'Are you sure you identified it correctly?' said Kuro. 'It would be a shame if the one portal we have access to is something that awful!'

'Have a look yourself,' said Lucien.

'I can't read for my life,' said Kuro indignantly. 'You know that!'

'Well, you can see pictures,' said the demon, and he gestured Grace to look too.

They both pored over the open slim book, which had a full-page illustration on its right page: a blue ring with four equally distributed red lines, just like Kuro had described.

'This was it!' confirmed the cat. 'Spot on!'

'Then it was, indeed, the portal to the Blue Wasteland,' said Lucien, turning to the left page, which was full of a beautiful, unknown script. 'There's a short description here, which says... it's a very beautiful place, per se, but it shortly begins to weigh upon you; until, if you stay long enough, you can literally die of grief and despair. Hopelessness and depression abound there like trees and grass do on Earth, or dry sand does in Hell... and the lakes there are made of tears! Also, if you die there, you evaporate away, leaving behind only a vapour of your saddest emotions and memories, that become a part of that world and "enrich" it,  according to this author.'

'More like impoverish it, in my opinion!' said Kuro with a shudder.

Lucien nodded, and turned towards him sadly. 'From the other book, I found out that to build a portal to this place, you need to sacrifice a soul in a particular fashion and drown them in a thousand tears. My father definitely did that along with the Assistant and built that portal we saw!'

Grace looked at him, appalled. 'He can't have, that's too awful!'

'Oh, but he could!' said Lucien bitterly. 'When he was finally killed at the gates, he was found with large vessels of pure essence of misery which he intended to unleash upon the world – good thing he was caught on time! But everyone always wondered where he had gotten it from; now we know!'

'So that's why he made that portal,' said Kuro gloomily. 'It was part of his evil plans!'

'Yes,' said Lucien. 'And he definitely knew about that cellar passage, too. The Assistant probably had it bricked up when he died. Or maybe they both did it because he never intended to return after that great failed escape. I remember now that he had that wallpaper placed in the kitchen just a few days before the break-out!'

Grace looked absent-mindedly at the fire and let her eyes glaze over. That passage had gotten their hopes up, but it had turned out to be a forgotten dark chapter that ought not to have been opened. Lucien was upset now, and so was she. A pathway that led to evil and eviler, leading from this merry home was jarring and uncomfortable.

'We'll place some new wallpaper on it tomorrow,' she said at last, turning to Lucien, whose eyes softened as he nodded without saying a word.

'Yep,' said Kuro. 'There's nothing there of our interest, anyway!'

'What a dud it was!' exclaimed Lucien in a loud, frustrated sigh, before he burst out laughing suddenly. 'What a dud!'

'So much for discovering a way out!' chuckled Kuro.

'We got as excited as though we'd just found a freeway to the Milky Way in our own house!' laughed Lucien.

'And it turned out to be a cellar of a maniac and a gateway to tears!' said Kuro, rolling about in laughter at the absurdity of it all.

'HAHAHAHA!' roared Lucien, thumping the table. 'What were we expecting, anyway?'

'An angel saying, "Welcome to the Pearly Gates!" I suppose!' guffawed the cat.

'"You've unlocked the secret route"',' said Lucien, mimicking Azel's voice with tears in his eyes, making the cat roll about again.

Grace looked at them in half surprise, half amusement. Laughing so suddenly after the disappointment was something she couldn't bring herself to do, but she could tell it was easy for them; they had been let down enough times for it to be a running joke they could take and even enjoy.

The mood had gotten significantly lighter, and suddenly, it was as though they were just three friends having a typical evening. Perhaps, this was the mode of life here in Sheltered Hell; or at least, in this house. Grace had faced more than her share of disappointments both on Earth and after coming here, but while bearing them patiently was something she had always done, laughing at them was new for her. A part of her found it rather careless, even inappropriate. But then—

'Hey, Grace, won't you laugh with us?' said Lucien gently. 'I know you're worried about me. But don't worry; my father was like that and it's no surprise, really. You know, I'm used to getting my plans dashed to pieces all the time; but it's really no big deal. Because I always have a better one ready the next day! So just laugh at the hilarity of these things! Look, even the voodoo doll is grinning at us blundering around in useless passages, expecting a huge "congratulations" at the end!'

Grace looked at the cute clay figure on the mantlepiece, the silly expression on its face so appropriate for the moment that despite herself, she burst out laughing. The pleasant sound rang out into the night, and as Kuro and Lucien joined in, the dark and heavy feeling of before vanished completely and was replaced by the usual merry cheer that filled the parlour and made it feel like a dear home and anchor in the chaos of the world.