by HP Mallory
I looked at my prisoner. “Care to explain what this battle is about?”
The captain had a sad, wistful look on his face as he glanced down at the violence. “Some time ago, a number of the local condemned souls broke free of their bonds. Together with the support of discontented demons who once were their tormentors, they rose up in rebellion against the Malebranche. What you see below are the ongoing results of that rebellion.”
I did my best to ignore the fighting while I responded. “The Malebranche?”
“Yes.”
“What, exactly, is that?”
His eyes stayed fixed on the combat. “The Malebranche refers to the thirteen demon dukes who dominate this Circle. After losing their third Bolgia to the rebels, the demon dukes began pressing some of the other condemned prisoners into service.”
“You mean, people like you?”
“Jawohl… myself and many, many others. We have been bleeding for them ever since.”
I had a hard time understanding such an arrangement. “Okay, why would any of you fight for the guys who kept you locked up and tortured all those years?”
“Do not underestimate the power of freedom from pain,” he answered sadly. “Even though we still inhabit the Underground City, we now do so as a somewhat free people.” A shadow darkened his face. “But we also know that such freedom will not be ours forever. When the struggle is over and we are no longer needed, we shall return to our previous indentured state.”
I frowned at him. “There’s another thing I don’t get… you’re probably the most honorable person I’ve met down here.” Actually, I thought Tallis had the edge on Manfred in that department but no point in hurting his feelings.
“Danke schoen… for your kind words.”
“Well… you just don’t seem like the type who belongs down here.” Of course, if my memory served me correctly, the Red Baron had been a fighter pilot in World War 1 and he’d been an enemy to the U.S.
He pointed to his collar. “If I may direct your attention to the clothing underneath my jacket, it will prove how mistaken you are.”
Donnchadh acted up again, screaming internally that this was a trick. I ignored him—as best I could—and pulled down the collar of Manfred’s coat. What I saw underneath made no sense to me. It looked like a glittering, gold robe that reflected the very faint light around us.
I ran my fingertips over it. It felt hard, made from a heavy material that could have been used as armor plating on a tank. It didn’t feel at all like the gold weave it appeared to be.
The flying ace gave me a rueful look as I pulled my fingers away. “Do you see now, fraulein?”
“I see a gold-painted, heavy robe of some kind. But I still have no idea what it is or why you’re wearing it.”
He hummed and told me, “It is the mark of the hypocrite, a stigma for those who dare to compare themselves to gold when they are actually nothing but lead beneath.”
I glanced down at my gun dubiously. “So… is your robe thick enough to stop a bullet?”
Disgust crossed Manfred’s face. “Would that the Malebranche were so considerate. Nein, fraulein…”
“Look… I know you’re being respectful because you’re my prisoner, but could you just call me ‘Lily’ instead of fraulein from now on?”
He raised his eyebrows in genuine surprise. “The term is the German way of addressing young, unmarried ladies such as yourself. Under the circumstances, I cannot, in good conscience, call you by your Christian name.” He didn’t wait for me to argue but continued talking. “To return to your previous question… the heavy weight is the only resemblance to lead this clothing possesses. Were you to shoot me directly in the back, it would do nothing to reduce the momentum of the bullet by so much as a mere nanosecond.”
A big explosion suddenly burst out of nowhere beside us. One of my Furies was annihilated in the blast, leaving nothing but a trail of feathers. I glanced down and watched her body as it plummeted down to the ground. That was right before a series of booms started exploding all around us.
Not again, I thought as my Fury performed evasive maneuvers around the airborne bombs that rent the air.
Manfred spoke and the tension in his tone was as heavy as his robes. “Anti-aircraft cannons… not particularly accurate, but as you can see, one direct hit could end all of us.”
I ignored my lurching stomach and answered him. “Guess you’re not the only one who thinks my Furies are enemy combatants.” As if to underscore my point, another Fury flew right into one of the blasts. She didn’t even leave a feather in her wake.
I shook my head. “We’ve got to get on the ground fast!”
Manfred reacted like I’d just said we should jump off the fury’s back without any parachutes. “Nein! However terrible things may be in the skies, they are a hundred times worse below!”
“We’re dangerously close to getting shot down!” I screamed back at him. Then not waiting for further argument, I slapped the shoulder of my Fury twice. “Land!”
My not-so-trusty steed took a direct nosedive, heading straight for the ground. Her sisters followed her lead. The anti-aircraft guns kept shooting but we were too fast for any of them to touch us. The bursts followed, popping up wherever we’d just been two seconds before. You’d think that a place with access to that kind of hardware could have used more accurate guns. That was one oversight I couldn’t complain about.
We landed in the middle of one of the columns of soldiers, comprised mostly of humans with a few demons mixed in. Considering the enemy was at their backs, I guessed they were in retreat. Nobody wore anything even close to a consistent uniform, so I wondered if maybe these were the rebels? But, rebels or not, we had bigger fish to fry.
The nearest human shouted at the other soldiers before he came running towards us, his sword brandished high in the air as if to cut off my Fury’s head.
My bird woman leapt off the ground, knocking Manfred and me off her in the process. When I looked up again, she’d already torn the human into pieces, pieces that were scattered on the ground, looking like beef jerky. The rest of the furies surrounded us in a protective circle while they hissed and squawked at anyone who came too close. After a minute, the rest of the troops had the good sense to retreat, this time from us.
For the duration of the battle, I kept my gun out in case any of them tried to make a play for us. Manfred got down on his knees while the Furies launched their victory squawks at the fleeing idiots who tried to kill them.
I looked over at the flying ace. “You were saying something about the ground being worse, Captain?”
He shrugged. “You have yet to see the worst this place has to offer.”
A plane, possibly the one we’d heard earlier, returned to hearing range. Even with my utter lack of aeronautical experience, I knew something was wrong. The engine was sputtering and could barely keep going. When the plane emerged from the clouds, I could see the nose was on a direct collision course with the ground. A cloud of black smoke was trailing directly behind it, and devouring everything from the tail forward. Then I realized the smoke wasn’t drifting away from the plane like it should have been. No, it was fastened onto the plane like an oil slick or a sticky blob.
The sight of that black stuff caused my Fury flock to cry out their dismay. Likewise, Manfred threw himself flat on the ground from which he’d just picked himself up.
“Down, fraulein, schnell, schnell!”
I didn’t have any idea what a “schnell” was but the terror in his tone made me dive for the ground and hug it for all it was worth. I didn’t dare lift my head even when I raised my eyes to see our incoming aerial visitors. The misty, black cloud blob managed to cover half the plane by the time both passed over our heads. Judging by their trajectory and speed, there was no way the pilot could manage even the rough landing we’d experienced earlier.
I heard a crash in the distance, followed by a strange, buzzing noise. It reminded me of the sound of a beehive full of
angry bees. A chorus of shouts and screams, probably from the victorious army, was audible above the buzzing. While I’d seen and heard a lot of ugly things when I was in the Underground City, that cacophony definitely qualified as one of the worst.
I expected Donnchadh to get so hot and bothered by the incoming hoard of soldiers that I’d have a hard time subduing him. Instead, he seemed unusually chill in the face of this latest horror. I could sense his approval of the wholesale slaughter we thankfully couldn’t see, laced with a little regret that he wasn’t participating in it. That reaction scared me more than his usual angry outbursts.
The brutality was over as quickly as it started. The black, misty cloud suddenly detached itself from the plane and flew back up into the air, disappearing into the true cloud cover above. I didn’t move for several long minutes before picking myself up. Only then did Manfred and the Furies follow suit.
“Quite wise, fraulein. Many have been slain by foolishly assuming safety where it was absent.”
While I helped him back to his feet, I looked across at the now quiet battlefield. A lot of bleached white bones lay on the other side. Most of them were still clutching the weapons that failed to save them. I gestured at my Furies and then towards the newly dead. They flew ahead of Manfred and me while we proceeded on foot.
We walked down to the line of anti-aircraft guns, my heart in my throat the entire time. Not a single fighter on the field had survived. Humans and demons alike were picked clean, leaving their equipment in virtually pristine condition. Beside one of the guns, a sat phone lay next to a human skeleton. The voice on the other end was yelling loud enough to blow out the receiver.
“By the Eternal Flame, you will give me a sit rep, soldier, or be immediately re-imprisoned for insubordination!”
Yeah, insubordination was no longer a concern for whoever had been manning the phone. I hung it up and went back to looking around. Some of my Furies scavenged the bones but ultimately, there wasn’t enough meat on them to be interesting.
And that was when it struck me that whatever I’d just witnessed didn’t make any sense. “What the hell just happened?”
Manfred took a slow breath before answering. “The Spites happened, fraulein…”
“The Spites?” I repeated, clearly lost.
The Red Baron nodded. “In other words, the worst possible thing this Circle has to offer.”
“Resounding like the hum of swarming bees…”
- Dante’s Inferno
SEVEN
TALLIS
The scarcity of food was affecting me worse than I dared admit.
Of course, seeing how badly the morgue had been wrecked and ruined in sae short a time didnae help. I had nae idea how long it had been since me last visit here. It had to have been before Besom took her first swordplay lesson from me. But not very long before, which made the destruction of the familiar buildings that much more shocking.
The angel prattled on and on about the destruction, calling it “a Disneyland version of Dresden.” Talking out his arse as usual. I could understand why he felt such a way. In the midst of such obliteration, what hope did either of us have of finding Lily?
I wish I could say ‘twas the angel’s nonstop blathering that caused me nae to hear what was waiting for us. But between the wreckage of the Morgue and me belly moaning its emptiness, there was nae way I could have prepared meself for the ambush.
A pack of lesser imps emerged from between the building cracks, coming at us like a horde of land piranha. The memory of one of those little bastards lifting me sword made me see red. In two breaths, I cleaved three of the bastards in half and was ready to kill the rest. The angel had taken it upon himself to fight against them too though his tactics left much to be desired.
I ran toward the thickest cluster of the imps, thrusting me sword straight into them. Half a dozen of the infernal pests were speared on me blade like a shish kabob. The rest returned to the tight places from whence they’d come.
I waved me blade through the air to shake their dead passengers free, causing the angel to smirk.
“Need a hand with that, Tido?”
Before I could answer, a pack of dogs suddenly scrambled around the corner, barking at the top of their lungs. They moved sae fast, I couldnae get a good look at them. What I was able to see, though, was that they were grey, and roughly the size of horses. Horses with gleaming fangs that longed to bite.
“Oh, no! Not this shit again,” the stookie angel muttered right before one of them snatched him off the ground as though to make a fast snack of him.
I swung me sword at the ones what were coming at me, imps and all. ‘Twas enough to knock the mutts backwards but the imps stuck to the blade, giving me no edge to cut them with. One of the dogs snapped at me blade, taking a couple of the imps into its mouth.
I yanked the sword sideways, cutting the fellow beside him. A heavy weight hit me from behind, pushing me to the ground. The barking in me ear moved left to right, telling me that one of the pack was circling me. One look at the snarling faces staring down at me revealed my error. These grey canines were nae dogs at all, but savage wolves.
The pack suddenly all looked up as one. I heard the sound of a bullet being chambered. The sound appeared to come from the top of one of the destroyed buildings surrounding us. Then a gleaming rifle came into me view and I stared down the barrel of it. I could make out a duster coat and heavy boots before a deep voice spake to me.
“Hand off the sword.”
I released me blade and he kicked it behind him. The barrel aimed at me head never wavered. One of the wolves walked over, dragging the angel by his shirt. He looked up at our captor with clear defiance stamped about his face.
“Who the fuck are you? Head o’ the local hell-spitality committee?”
The boot found a new home on the back of the angel’s neck which caused a snapping noise and the angel screamed.
“One more word, little man, and I will bury a bullet in you.”
I looked at the stookie angel with a quick shake of me head. When a man talks like that, he’s beyond idle threats. I peeked up at the stranger and could barely make out his face: broad, flat features framed by a square haircut. His face was dark olive, as though he’d been left out in the sun too long. His eyes were as flat and pitiless as the rifle he held.
“Found ye,” he said in a deep, accented voice as though he hailed from the American Deep South.
I growled at him. “Ye know who Ah am?”
The barrel moved a bit to the left and the man fired. The heavy round entered me left arm, causing me to bite my lip from the searing pain. He flicked the lever on the rifle back and forth before aiming it at me head again.
“You are my bounty, Tallis Black, no different from the slaves I used to hunt in my former life.” He pressed the now-hot barrel into me forehead, and it seared me skin. “And if you give me reason, I’ll gladly plant a round straight through your head, bounty or no bounty.”
His point made, he stepped back and whistled. His pack peeled away from us, one picking up me blade in its jaws. They surrounded all three of us like a protective guard. He stepped back and gestured upward with the rifle. “Both of you, on your feet.”
We rose as best we could. I was lightheaded from the blood loss caused by the bounty hunter’s bullet. He gestured with the barrel again towards the rubble ahead of us. I put me hands up and started walking in that direction. I could hear the steps of the stookie angel behind me while the pack scattered to encircle us on all sides. The one in the lead continued carrying me sword.
I got me a chance to look at the bullet wound in me left arm. The bullet had gone clean through but not without tearing a nasty gash through me bicep. I had little strength left and nae food. But none of that mattered if I died of blood loss. I focused the last of me magic on the task of staunching me wound. The flesh quietly mended, and the unrestrained bleeding ended. A bandage would have been nice but such had to wait for now. If I healed too qu
ickly, this bounty hunter might decide to test the limits of me abilities.
The bastard gunman’s pack finally steered us to a building that was mostly intact. Judging from the outside, it could have been an office building. But I knew better. Nothing in the Underground City was ever as benign as it might appear.
The presence of the two door guards only furthered me discomfort. These particular demons had pale, hairless skin, mostly covered by fancy three-piece suits. Their beady eyes refused to blink, their noses merely a couple of slits above their mouths, and their mouths were nae more than round holes ringed from the outer edge to the inner with sharp teeth. They resembled snakes with their leathery skin and oblong heads. This breed could only have originated from the morgue, pasty nightmares that fed off both living and dead flesh. They were called Mephits.
The one on the left saw our caravan first. “Returned.”
The hunter stepped in front of us to acknowledge the greeting with a nod. “Has the cardinal returned as well?”
Both guards shook their heads.
“What about Avernus?”
The monster on the right pointed toward the open doorway. “Waiting.”
A flick of the rifle towards the door got us moving again. The entrance hallway was so tight, all of our captor’s beasties could barely fit two-by-two. The walls were made of some sort of heavy metal—steel or lead mayhap. The only other doorway was the open one ahead.
The room beyond was roughly the size of Fergus Castle’s main hall, and the fluorescent lights dimly flickered over our heads. More of the Mephits were walking about with the look of an army prepping for battle. That image didnae exactly fit with the maze of cubicles they wound through.
I noticed humans chained to the desks inside the cubicles, all of them working at the computers on their desks at a furious pace. Whenever they slowed down, one of the monsters would pull a whip from under its coat and strike their backs. In the far left corner, I heard the heavy rumble of an engine, mayhap a generator to supply power.
