On the other side of the universe, Zeph plunged into a thick, murky fluid. What was once "sideways" was the new "down," and he fell downwards only as fast as the fluid permitted him. A slow descent through the begrudging gel-like substance.

  It was dim and hazy in a way that made it difficult to see more than a few feet away, especially so for Zeph, whose weary eyes would struggle to define shapes under the best of conditions. What's worse, he couldn't see Dylan. He was no longer clutching the boy, they must have been separated somehow. Zeph was upside-down, slowly succumbing to the depths and death itself, but Dylan was nowhere to be seen.

  He tilted his head back and looked further down, down, into the murky abyss. At the end of his vision he could see the familiar albeit blurry shape of the boy, but now, he had a glow to him. He was emanating light. Zeph attempted a one handed, frog-like swimming motion downward– or upward, maybe. He wasn't sure. He didn't care. But he didn't even complete a stroke when his leg was caught in a bear trap.

  It was the witch.

  She dug razor sharp claws deep into the flesh of his calves and furiously climbed him, clawing his thighs and hip. He didn't feel it. The only thing he noticed was that he wasn't moving any closer to Dylan. He ignored the witch for a moment to get a truly good look at the boy.

  In that brief glance, he could see that Dylan's light glinted off what he was descending into. It was an enormous– truly maelstrom– set of lamprey teeth that circled him. Each tooth looked to be the size of a sedan, slowly emerging from shadow and eager to consume.

  Zeph's heart lurched and he struggled to swim faster but the witch had already clawed her way up his body.

  They were face-to-wretched-demonic-face.

  He finally looked at her just in time to see her razor sharp teeth wrap around the side of his face. She thrashed at flesh, scraping skull, and ripped chunks of Zephaniah's face free.

  She took his eye. He didn't feel it.

  He knew he should have felt it. He didn't.

  She was keeping him from saving Dylan.

  He felt that much.

  He felt no pain. Only emotion. Only rage.

  He watched with his good eye as she pulled away, spitting out the meat and bone into the thick fluid around them. He could see his mangled, missing eye float away in the mess, slightly faster than the other chunks just before he took action.

  He grabbed her by the throat with his good hand.

  She struggled, clawing at his wrist, cutting deep but this time he was the unmoving one. He was unbridled rage. The vice tightened around her neck, crushing vessels and airways. He pulled her toward him and in the same motion, he shoved the jagged bone of his dismembered arm through her own eye.

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  She screamed out but her cries didn't reach his ears in the void. She flailed and slashed, ripping his chest and intestine. She pulled and cut through organs but Zephaniah did not recoil. He just let them float away through her thrashings.

  He pursed his lip, pushing his arm deeper into her eye. His face pinched as his arm overcame the resistance with a crunch he could feel. Looking down his nose, he met her remaining eye.

  To him, she wasn't the vile she-demon. She was a threat to Dylan. His single-minded rage sank his arm deeper into her eye as her rage melted to pain and terror.

  That wasn't good enough.

  He traded the grip on her throat to cup the back of her head. He squeezed his fist around a handful of hair which pulled at her scalp. With a final push, his wrist bones found her brain and easily cut through it like meat loaf. He kept going until his bones would go no further. He wore her head like a glove, his bones scraping the back of her skull.

  Her expression loosened. Zeph's mangled face was the last thing she saw when she died.

  Retracting his arm, he tucked his torn legs inward between him and her. He positioned the demonic cadaver so his feet were on her shoulders. Looking back to Dylan once again, he kicked off the deceased witch, launching deeper into the unknown.

  The thrust off the witch turned out to boon, finally approaching the boy. Dylan was still unconscious. That was good. He wouldn't want to see his not-uncle like this anyway. A torn face, entrails float around them, missing hand and most of all, certainly dead.

  Even death wouldn't stop Zeph from reaching him, though he didn't know what he would do when he did reach him. It didn't matter. His final purpose was to reach that boy.

  As he approached, the boy's light cast a soft glow on what was left of Zephaniah.

  Zeph could feel this. It was light. It was warm.

  When he reached him, all he could do was simply clutch him with the one good arm. Dylan seemed to reflexively clutch back.

  They floated deeper into the mouth of this other universe. As they drew closer, he could see that the mouth was much more than a few rows of car sized teeth. It was more like a wall that covered this half of the universe, stretching further than even good eyes could see.

  This was finally it. Zeph knew his life was fading away. He was dying. Actually dying, this time. He could feel it. Life draining from his body, seeping away to nothingness.

  His final moments were memories of him and Dylan. During nights when his mom worked late, Dylan convinced Zeph to let him stay up. He insisted that he wouldn't get scared or have nightmares if they could just watch "one more movie" late into the evening. Dylan would cover his eyes at any sign of violence or horror. Those nights, Jodie would call Zeph long after he went home. It was sometimes two or three in the morning.

  "I told you he can't watch those movies." She would say, trying to console a restless Dylan. "if I have to suffer, so do you! Stay awake until he falls to sleep."

  Zeph would be lying if he said he didn't like those calls. He would sometimes stay up so he didn't miss it. Not that she would let him ignore her. She would keep calling until he inevitably picked up.

  He wished he could hear her voice again.

  As they drifted into the mouth of the beast, Zeph felt somehow that he saved Dylan. As soon as that thought occurred to him, so did all the pain.

  The hole in his chest. His missing eye. His missing hand. All the rips, cuts and mangled organs came to him at once, all protesting for his attention. He convulsed and blood diffused into the thick clear fluid around them. His only eye closed on the visage of Dylan's light bathing a tunnel of encroaching l teeth.

  **

  It was called the Soul Cauldron. It swallowed all three of them whole:

  Dylan, the living boy.

  Zeph, a dead man.

  And Vermille, a demon witch who lay dormant in her deceased vessel.

  Back in Dylan's room, Pohr stood in Jodie's body. All her plans, efforts and preparations disappeared before her eyes as the portal closed. Zepha-fuckin-niah managed to interfere while clinically dead. No matter. All she has to do is figure out where the Sacrifice ended up and she can finally open the True Gate.

  First thing is first, she needed the scepter.

  She slowly descended to the floor again.

  She hung her head in exhaustion, standing alone in the room.

  "Shit."