Dreamscape

Dreamscape

A Story By

Philip R Benge

Smashwords Edition

***************

Published by

Philip R Benge on Smashwords

Dreamscape

Copyright Philip R Benge 2016

Cover Art Copyright Philip R Benge 2016

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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author`s imagination and used fictitiously.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One: Moira Bourbon

Chapter Two: Another Black Magic Case

Chapter Three: The Haunted House

Chapter Four: More Deaths at the Haunted House

Chapter Five: Back to Tartarus

Chapter Six: Out of the Abyss

Chapter Seven: The Final battle

Other Books by the Author:

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author`s imagination and used fictitiously.

Dreamscape

Prologue

The land known by many as the Dreamscape, but actually called the Netherworld, is one of the many Hell dimensions that abound but it is unknown to the mortal world. It is a hot arid desert world filled with nothing except sand, rock and its pathetic inmates, except that is for a foul grey liquid that looks to be a river, a river that seemed to ooze along rather than to flow, but it is not made up of water, for it has never rained in this dimension. The liquid is in fact the very essence of the evil that pervades this dry land, secreted by the inmates sent to suffer in this Hell for their sins. The Netherworld was thought by those who knew of its existence to have derived its incorrect name, the Dreamscape, from the many people who travel there in their dreams, or their nightmares to be precise, however when they awake, they are always back in their mortal world, unlike the inhabitants of this terrible place. Time does not exist as we know it, for the inhabitants, they will exist there for eternity and nothing would change for them, their souls drained of their essence, or life-force, until they are not much more than flotsam blown around in the wind, and quickly going mad from the sheer eternal boredom of their almost nonexistence They look exactly like pale tragic ghosts, but these ghosts were very hungry and so very evil.

The ruler of this world was the demon Lord Asbaritch, one of the major demons of Hell, who had until recently ruled alone, however he had just taken a lady into his domain, the beautiful Moira Bourbon, a human, who now resided as his consort in the Netherworld. She had been killed by Rob Hinds, a government agent of the Special Intelligence Services, but prior to that Moira had been the most powerful Satanist ever, and Rob had killed her to prevent her from using her powers to shape the world to suit her own evil ends.

For some time prior to her death Lord Asbaritch had kept a close watch on both Moira and Rob, but for very different reasons, on seeing Rob about to kill Moira Bourbon he did not intervene, for it suited him admirably if Moira died. After Rob had left her lifeless body laying upon a cold hard floor, hidden in her own secret satanic temple, and he had departed the scene, Lord Asbaritch had appeared by the side of her dead body. He looked down at her still body, at the two bullet wounds that marred her beauty, and although he had been besotted with Moira, he smiled, then as her dark soul attempted to leave her body he spoke.

Dark soul of Moira Bourbon, I, Lord Asbaritch, command you to stay within your body, soon I will give your poor shell a new eternal life.

Moira`s soul, which had been about to leave her body, was forced back within her body by his dark power and Lord Asbaritch then took her body, with its dark soul locked within it, back to his fortress, back to his terrible world. Once there he took her into a small room that resembled the laboratory that Moira had once possessed in her family chateau. Here he removed her clothing, and after taking another moment to look at her horrendous wounds, he extracted the bullets and then spread an ointment upon the wounds, and moments later all traces of the horrific bullet wounds to her head and her body were gone. Once more she was the beautiful Satanist whose beauty and fearlessness had won his heart. Lord Asbaritch then looked at her in all her beauty, and when he was sated, he went to a cupboard and took out six glass bottles, each of them held a different liquid or powder. He mixed their contents together in a large glass bowl, stirring the potion until a yellow smoke began to rise from it. With the potion ready he poured all of it into Moira`s mouth, ten seconds he waited and finally he saw her chest move, she had begun to breathe again, then her fingers began to move, then her toes and finally she opened her eyes, sat up and took a deep breath. Looking up at the dark lord she spoke to him.

Lord Asbaritch, please explain to me what this wondrous thing is that you have done to me. She asked.

Lord Asbaritch explained all that had happened, but not until he had told her of his undying love for her, that she was no longer a mortal, no, she was now of demon kind and would reside for ever more within his realm as his consort, that thanks to him, her new lord and master, she had a body as well as a soul, just as he had.

Moira got off the bench and stood before the demon. I thank you My Lord, and I swear by the mighty Lucifer that because of what you have done for me, that I will be yours until Hell freezes over. Moira promised, not in the least embarrassed to be standing before Lord Asbaritch without any clothing upon her young body.

Chapter One

Moira Bourbon

The night was just falling and a cool breeze had sprung up in the state of New York, but all was not quiet, gun shots shattered the darkening streets of the small village of Morrisville. Hidden behind an aging Buick, Brad Stirling stood up to return the fire coming towards him from the agents of the FBI, it was now that he felt the bullets enter his body, pushing deep into his vitals, he felt his legs buckling under him, he knew that death was very close, in fact he died before his body hit the ground. An FBI agent walked towards Stirling`s still body, his gun still in his hand and aimed at the fallen man.

‘Finally,’ the agent thought. ‘They had nailed the serial killer who had taken so many innocent lives.’

In the land known as the Dreamscape, a dark swirling mass of smoke appeared on the cold hard floor, the being known as Brad Stirling formed within the smoke. He was amazed to wake up, for he had been sure that the bullets that he had felt tear into his body would have killed him, he was even more amazed to find himself lying on the stone floor of a large hall. He sat up and looked around him, he saw a massive throne in the middle of the equally massive grand hall. He slowly stood up, he felt no pain whatsoever, not even a dull ache, he looked around him and saw that the walls of the room were built of very large cut stones, Cyclopean walls, he thought, such as those spoken of by Homer, for he was not uneducated, merely evil. Tall narrow windows pierced the walls to allow light to enter the Cyclopean room, one shaft of light lighting up a beautiful woman with red flowing hair who was standing silently in a doorway, seeing him notice her she walked towards him. Stirling smiled, for he liked redheads, and this one only stopped walking when her body was touching his.

Welcome to my fortress. Moira Bourbon said in a deep husky voice that sent tremors down Stirling`s spine.

Then he heard heavy footsteps approaching from behind him, he spun round ready to greet whoever it was, his hand reaching for his sharp hunting knife and pulling it free from its sheath, standing before him was Lord Asbaritch. He was olive green in colour, very tall and well-muscled, and with eyes that were large brilliant yellow glowing orbs and that were boring into those of Stirling. Stirling was stunned to see such a creature, he could not even think about pushing his knife into the giant facing him, it was then that he felt a pain shoot from his head and rush down through his body and he screamed. Moira Bourbon had just sunk her fingers deep inside the side of Stirling`s head, her beautiful face marred by the evil gleam in her eyes. Lord Asbaritch reached out and crushed the wrist that held the knife, which in any case had only been an image of the real thing, the ghostly weapon dropped slowly to the floor, it faded away as it fell until finally it disappeared just inches away from the floor.

Did no one ever tell you fool, the dead cannot bring anything with them, except their memories, and maybe a few unrealistic hopes? Lord Asbaritch whispered into Stirling`s ear.

The demon lord then joined Moira in draining Stirling`s evil soul, their victim screamed so very loudly as the very essence that powered his soul was taken from him. His evil soul quickly shrunk and became translucent, no longer did he have the allusion of clothing, now he looked very much like Casper the ghost, but with legs, a being in a white bedsheet with cut outs where his facial features were. Stirling looked up at the grinning beings who now appeared as giants to him, for what remained of his malignant soul had shrunk to resemble a two feet high ghost-like figure. Stirling ran for the open doorway and into the outer hall and then out through the courtyard to the desert land that was incorrectly named the Dreamscape, for the real Dreamscape was within this cold and forbidding fortress. Even then Stirling did not realise that he had no real body, just what was left of his black soul, for he was a Shade, the only other inhabitants of this terrible land. Shades had once been human beings, but evil ones such as Satanists, or in his case a serial killer, who were being punished for their sins. They may have enjoyed their lives as mortals, but with their deaths they had been sent to this land for eternity, there to be preyed upon by its ruler or left to slowly fade away as they went insane.

Lord Asbaritch felt much better after finishing his meal of Stirling`s life-force, far more sated than he did when he partook of food in the traditional way. As usual, after consuming the life-force of one of his guests, as he liked to call them, he needed a drink, he particularly liked the green coloured Rakiremanin, however he had consumed his last keg, instead he had to make do with the rather tame drink known by the Cretans as Raki.

When Moira had first come to the Netherworld, Lord Asbaritch had shown her how to acquire nourishment in another way to one that she had just enjoyed. He had taken her through to the heart of his fortress, into the land of dreams, the actual Dreamscape. They walked together through a misty veil, a force field that only they could pass through, and in doing so Moira had felt a tingle travel throughout her body, it had refreshed her much like a cool shower would have done had she been a mere mortal. Moira had looked in awe at what she had seen before her, and where she was, for she was literally floating above the Earth in the dream dimension. Beneath them stretched the night side of the Earth, and she could see anyone and everyone who was dreaming, their astral forms lit up by an incandescent light that left a slight trail behind them as they moved through the Dreamscape. Lord Asbaritch had taken her down to visit the dreamers, and he had showed her how to turn their dreams into the most frightening of nightmares; they could then draw energy from their victims, energy in the form of fear. Sometimes the dreamer was brought back to their own dry world to feast upon, they could then draw even more of their victim`s energy from them, but the dreamer was always released before death overtook them. If they continued to feed off a single victim`s nightmare, the person would finally die, being too exhausted to live, however, Lord Asbaritch had never been known to do such a thing, and he now forbid Moira to do so. The reason he gave her was that while the Christian god allowed them to dine off the mortals` nightmares, for god realised that all things must eat, if they began killing the mortals in this fashion there was every chance that god would react in a way not very beneficial to the rulers of the Dreamscape.

If Lord Asbaritch chose to bring the dreamer to the Netherworld, then the Shades were also able to drain a little of the dreamers` life-force, if they caught the dreamers in their terrible world, but the dreamers soon awoke, their hearts racing, and feeling totally drained. Another Shade might then drain this life-force from the first evil soul, for they were never allowed to keep it for long. At the top of this weird food chain was Lord Asbaritch himself, who would feast upon whichever Shade had any life-giving energy at the time, much as a vampire is said to feed upon its victims, except Lord Asbaritch`s victims did not possess any blood.

On the second day of her life within the Netherworld, Moira Bourbon, its new first lady, had asked a question of her lord and master.

My Lord, I want to drag Rob Hinds through into our world, along with a few other people who assisted him, so that I can torture them for all eternity, will you assist me in this task?

My love, it is simply not allowed to drag people from the mortal world, just to satisfy oneself. Lord Asbaritch replied. We are allowed to join them in their dreams where we can feed off their fears. Apart from that succulent meal Moira, if a living Satanist requests that we visit a particular person, or asks us to transport them somewhere, the Satanist may allow us to feed upon their victim, but only to the extent that they allow, as a Satanist in your old life surely you know this? Lord Asbaritch asked but then carried on speaking without waiting for an