Chapter Nine

Cause it's time, it's time in time with your time and its news is captured
For the queen to use.
Move me on to any black square,
Use me any time you want,
I’ve Seen All Good People
Yes

Daniel Jackson, tired, sweating and dehydrated, trudged up the steps of Hades’ Black Palace following that strand of green cloth. What he wouldn’t give for just one sip of water! Wiping the sweat from his brow Daniel walked into the cool shade of Hades’ home and was met by a great fountain of dark water that glistened and gleamed with an inner light as it flowed from the top of a rock down to the pool below.

Probably shouldn’t drink that. Still it was good to be out of the ‘sun’, his torso was passing brown and well on its way to red and Daniel swore he saw steam rising from it as he walked further into the ancient temple. The cloth ended here in the big front room of Hades’ Palace. “Calla?”

“Daniel Jackson.”

Daniel turned around to see who had called his name and saw Eros standing behind him. Then there was a loud noise, people yelling his name and then he was on the ground. Above him he saw Eros, Psyche, Kanan and Andrew F. Hartley all smiling with utter glee while they punched, kicked and bit him. The ambush a success Daniel was too surprised to fight back and they soon overpowered him while they pummeled him over and over.

Curling up into a ball in a feeble attempt to avoid their blows he called out “Stop it! Stop!”

But his cries went unheeded.

Naveen and Orion neared them and then got in a few good licks but soon backed away. In the ensuing din and frenzy the brothers snuck away from the scene.

From his throne room and through his two crystal balls Lord Hades’ watched Daniel Jackson take the beating of his life—or death rather—while his wife raised David’s cup to her lips. “Too late, boy.”

With shaking hands Calla took the cup and looked down at its contents with surprise in her eyes she looked back up at David. “Drink it gurl,” he demanded. Raising the empty cup she pretended to take a drink. “Gud, now you’se mine.” David looked over at Aphrodite across the room and the little girl still standing next to her. “Ain’t she?”

“So she is,” Aphrodite agreed. “Do what you want with her, David.” With that Lady Aphrodite and the little girl by her side left the room.

Calla and David were alone in the open air bedroom. “Daniel?” She asked.

“Nah, Callie, yew know bet’a.” David smiled.

“The cup….,” she whispered but David covered her mouth with his hand.

“I dun know wot woulda hap’en if yew did’t pick me. I knew yew wud,” he winked at her, “with dis face, how could I lose?” David reached out and picked her up he turned around and put her down on the bed.

**

Bloody, broken and battered, a large gaping wound above his right eye, the left punched shut, his lip split open and the rest of him feeling as though he’d been hit by a train, Daniel Jackson was hauled into a large room in which there was a narrow catwalk leading to a rather ordinary looking wooden chair. Heaved over Kanan’s shoulder he was taken across the catwalk and dumped into the chair, his hands tied behind his back. “This is the Chair of Oblivion,” Kanan told him with much dark delight. “You will stay here until her time runs out.” Kanan made his way back across the narrow walkway, Eros clapped his hands and great fires roared up from the pit below the walk to engulf both sides of the narrow path. From no where a pile of glittering broken glass littered the path between him and the other side of the room.

“What are you gonna do with her?” Daniel asked weakly knowing he’d failed his wife yet again. He’d come here to rescue her and instead was taken by surprise, the hero became the conquered and Calla would suffer the consequences of ineptness one more time.

“Keep her,” Eros returned. “You’ll never see her again, Daniel.”

Psyche screeched. “You were a lousy fuck!”

Before he didn’t know who the lone woman in the group was, she didn’t look like Rowan but that was because she’d only borrowed Rowan’s body. The real Psyche was a short woman with blonde hair and hazel eyes. “So were you.” Daniel shot back with as much defiance as he could muster.

“How dare you say such a thing to me?” She hissed. “Turn it on!”

Under him the wood of the chair seemed to move and come to life. There was the sensation of a great suction beneath him as though the chair were sucking him into it. “What is this?”

Kanan chuckled with delight. “That chair’ll suck your memories right out of you make you live them over and over until you can’t take it anymore. Then it’ll erase them all and you’ll wander the Fields a blithering idiot for all Eternity.”

“I hear the process is quite painful,” Eros intoned with false sympathy.

“Let’s start with those women in Bacchus’ Kingdom,” Kanan suggested with a happy smile.

“Oh, yes, let’s.” Psyche agreed.

Eros laughed. The chair which had only been warming up now pulled on Daniel’s skin with such force he thought he’d go right through it. Sinking, down, down, down. Sinking into Oblivion.

All the women he’d fucked danced before his eyes and then descended on him in his mind. Somewhere, off in the distance, someone was trying to remind him of his love of chocolate and his wife was crying. He just kept screwing them and drinking Bacchus’ wine.

“No! God! Stop it!” Daniel screamed out in pain and shame. A great roar of laughter greeted his plea. The more he fought the more vivid the memory became and the harder the chair sucked at his skin. There were voices in the room more than before. Mirages all of them and nothing more he thought as he watched the women in his head dance, drink, touch themselves, each other, him and more. He saw all of them as though they really were right across the room and more than that he saw himself over there as well indulging in every decadence he could think of.

“I like that one,” Eros said and pointed to one of the women.

“Oooh, look at him go,” Psyche cooed, “not much style but have to give him points for stamina.”

“Shut up!” Daniel grumbled with as much force as he could muster.

“You never did have much of a sense of humor.” Kanan spat.

Andrew Hartley just stayed in the back of the room. He hadn’t had enough time to build up a real head of steam at Daniel Jackson, not like the other three and he didn’t understand what he was seeing. Oh he knew WHAT it was he just didn’t know HOW he was seeing it. All in all the newly dead man found he was wishing he’d never even been to calliendanny.com

End Chapter Nine
Tarnished Heroes:Something Happened on the way to Heaven
Continue to
Chapter Ten