Hell's Gifts - Complete Series Boxset

by Mark Russo

  While browsing through the thoughts of the person by my side, I found both positive and negative things. On the bright side, it looked like I was on the good path. This lady knew a consultant from EIBM worked there. I was sure he was not exactly helping them find fresh business opportunities. The bad part was she had no clue where this so-called consultant would work, but she knew who might have.

  “Fair enough, now bring me to HR. They should know where this person is.”

  We entered the corridor again. I went after her like a baby duck would follow her mom. We took an elevator up only one floor. I heard they had around two hundred employees here in Zurich’s head offices. When the doors opened, another open space appeared before our eyes. I would have said it was the one we had just left, since it was basically identical. We trod forward rhythmically.

  “Now go to the HR person and ask for a list of all consultants here. Stick with the internal audit thing. Act natural.”

  It was the first time I thought that short lady might already be a proxy. Somehow, what I was doing felt less wrong. An email notification popped up in my haptic lens interface. The manager talking with that HR administration robot was already proving useful. The email had a document attached of the list of names I was looking for.

  “Now go back to your desk and resume your normal working duties. Complain to your colleagues about the level of detail of my investigation.”

  The manager left, not even saying goodbye. Maybe I shouldn’t expect it from someone whose mind I had taken over.

  While scrolling down the holographic list, it took me less than thirty seconds to find that name. The table read, Eric Schweinfurt, EIBM Business Consultant. Nice name, they put some effort in making that up. The manager had said I would meet him in a room on the same floor—that was lucky; I didn’t need any special badges or chips implanted in my skin to go there.

  I saw a young man looking very serious in his gray tie not fifty steps ahead. He was busy in a one-to-one meeting inside one of those glass cubicles that infested the building. The person he was talking to seemed passively listening; probably, they taught that proxy some business mumbo-jumbo. He talked for another few minutes.

  A few people passed me, but I kept my cool. They wouldn’t talk to me; it’s inappropriate to talk to strangers.

  I waited for another minute then saw the other person leave the meeting room; it was finally my moment.

  The EIBM guy moved his left hand like he was in the middle of some augmented-reality session when I walked through the door. “Eric, right?” was my opening line.

  “Yes. I’m sorry, but I’m very busy at the moment. Can you please schedule a meeting in my calendar?”

  “How many of them do you still have to process?”

  He stopped whatever he was doing and scrutinized me. “Come again?”

  “You got it right. Are any humans left in this building?”

  He tried to reach for one of his jacket’s pockets, but I halted him.

  “I think you know what a mindblast is, right?”

  He couldn’t talk anymore, since all his muscles were stiff as wood.

  “Let’s make it easier for you, my dear proxy. Nod once for yes, twice for no. Try to do anything else, your neck goes crack.”

  It didn’t feel like he would, but I’d better be clear from the start.

  “The Great Communion guys sent you here to convert people. By that, I mean killing them and turning them into proxies.”

  He complied with my instructions and nodded just once.

  “I knew it already, just double checking,”

  My new friend didn’t seem to like my jokes.

  “Did you start already doing this?”

  His head bobbed up and down.

  “Okay. Can we easily identify those you already processed?”

  Again, he replied with an affirmative gesture.

  I could perceive an internal effort in that proxy, as he was mentally trying to reach out to someone else.

  “Is someone from the Communion around?”

  His face moved left and right.

  “So maybe another fake human like you are.”

  Another yes; apparently, they could communicate through their minds.

  “Okay, let’s gather all those who are no longer people in one room. It will make this easier.”

  “I can plan a staff meeting fifteen minutes from now. We can meet somewhere away from all the others.” His tone was so far beyond the maximum level of compliance.

  “Just do it.”

  *****

  A few minutes later, I was in a sizable meeting room with black metal walls. Two lines of neon lights brightened the space in a peaceful shade of blue. I had controlled Eric for almost thirty minutes, and I was not tired of it.

  The small group of proxies entered the underground level room, all wearing the same type of tuxedos, and took place around the table. I was on the other side of it with my back against the wall; they surrounded me.

  “You can control Eric, but you can’t control all of us at the same time,” one said who looked vaguely familiar.

  Eric remained still as that same person stabbed him in the throat with a paper cutter. The guy I had talked to for almost an hour was now a lifeless human lookalike; his eyes remained open and looking in front of him.

  “Now, we have one less problem.”

  All proxies jumped at me.

  I became invisible, and they stopped for a split second before keeping up with their attack. Then I pulled another cheap trick; one of my doubles appeared behind them and said, “Hey, guys. I think you’re going in the wrong direction.”

  But they didn’t buy it.

  It was time for something more serious. I exchanged my position with my double.

  They didn’t seem to notice, as they all bolted toward it, punching the air it was made of.

  “I told you I was here,” I said and used my now well-established mind blast skill on the guy dressed to the nines in the middle of the fake human group. As I lifted him, I expected his fellas to have some reaction, but they didn’t. I used him as a fan, spinning way too far from the ceiling. I punched and kicked all the other guys multiple times. When I stopped my human tornado, I noticed I had toppled chairs all around the room. I wondered how long it would have been for someone to notice.

  One proxy slowly emerged from the midst of the sea of scattered objects; his face was livid and one of his eyes completely closed.

  “Do I really have to do this?”

  “Whoever you are, they know you are here. They will find you.”

  “I very much hope so, my dear proxy friend. Now shall we?”

  He looked away, and I did what I had to do.

  Those were not people, I repeated in my head.

  16

  Aaragul

  “Where are we now?” Vere, the marcher from Path of Matter, asked.

  “I don’t remember the name of this town, but they call this area Mexico. That is why we changed our suits. Apparently, humans make a great deal out of skin color.”

  “I find it only slightly darker than the one I had before, the Sneider one. Do they really see a difference between this and the one I had before?”

  “Yes, as I told you, we are doing this, so we keep a low profile. We look like Mexicans. No one will notice us here.”

  Vere’s suit, Antonio, looked at me as if I was saying something that made little to no sense.

  I just shrugged. We had much more to worry about.

  “What is it we do now?” he asked.

  “We’ll have some fun.”

  We hid behind an old car just outside a bar. Lots of local people were drinking and talking very loudly. They played that thing they call music on some huge speakers; those were loud too.

  “Look, this is how weak human minds are.”

  I used a simple override skill on one of those people at random. As soon as I took a grasp on that person’s mind, I heard lots of voices talking in that languag
e they call Spanish.

  A younger guy was in front of me, shouting words and pointing at someone else; they called that a conversation.

  I had always enjoyed controlling humans using a first-person perspective; it was so much more fun.

  When the fist of the guy I was controlling hit the face of the person before me, his facial bones creaked, and the skin covering them folded irregularly.

  A small, much older man jumped between us.

  I headbutted him straight on his pointy nose and released my minion’s mind. “See? This is how you start a fight among humans. It’s enough one of them hits another. More will join the brawl,” I said to Vere in her poorly matched male human suit.

  “Why do they hit each other? It’s painful for them, I assume.”

  “Oh, yes, very painful. They are very simple creatures. They always let their feelings get in the way.”

  We walked away as the wind lifted a wide cloud of dust all around us. We moved among the tiny houses toward our next target.

  “Do you want chaos to spread? What do we get out of it?” Vere asked, becoming more interested in our plan’s details.

  “The more we confuse them, the more we could act undisturbed.”

  We reached the town’s small church, the place our rift would open in the next minutes. I pushed the heavy wooden door, and we entered the small building. No one was inside, so it would have even been easier. From below the altar, I saw the green light that typically emanates from Plane K.

  “It’s almost ready.”

  “Yes, Vere. Soon, more demons, as those kids call us, will join us.”

  The short Mexican guy by my side nodded, a smug expression on his face.

  The pavement cracked, and the altar fell inside the enlarging pit. The light earthquake propagated more, swallowing chairs, carpets, and everything else that stood in its way. Itchlings escaped in large numbers and crowded the rest of the space. Some of them piled on one another.

  I raised my left hand. When I lowered it, they went for the door, trampling it and eventually unhinging it and tearing into pieces.

  “What will they do?”

  “Nothing special, Vere. They might end up killing some people. But we should not worry about that.”

  “What is it then?”

  I grabbed his throat and lifted him. “You don’t have to think about anything.” The entrapping knife he had given me was already in his belly, and I twisted the hilt. “Yes, this is painful. You will serve a much better purpose than feeding me with your energy. Thanks a lot, Vere.”

  Life slipped away from that body, together with lots of blood.

  I dropped it to the ground, and itchlings attacked it, eventually dismembering it.

  “Having fun killing humans?” a voice asked behind me.

  I turned to see another member of the Communion wearing a male Mexican suit much taller than mine. “A little guilty pleasure. Why are you here?”

  “We have a problem, as humans say.”

  “Does it have to do with me killing people?” I looked straight into Kelm’s eyes.

  “No, that rift. The big one in Switzerland.”

  “Yes, that one is open. It is the biggest one.”

  He shook his head, and some drops of sweat flew all around his curly head. “Nothing is coming out of there. We should have a look.”

  I exhaled. “Sure. Will you do the honors?”

  He extended an arm and opened a portal. The surrounding air moved. “Now that we are here, moving around this planet will no longer be a problem.” His voice was as smug as it gets.

  We walked through the crack without talking. I heard distant people screaming and police sirens wailing. Not a second later, we were in Langren under a deep night sky. The woods and everything around what once was a human business school was completely silent.

  “I needed some quiet. People are so loud,” I said while walking behind Kelm toward the rift. “Itchlings should sprawl in all directions together with some other lesser creatures around here. What is going on?”

  “Humans would say it’s cold around here, I guess. Well, I do not know yet. That’s what we came here for.”

  I bent my head forward and looked in the hole. “Something’s down there.”

  “Let me check.” Kelm conjured a double near the gleaming object meters below us. “I see an enormous ball, like made of water. It floats in the air. I guess that is our problem. Someone corked our rift.”

  “I don’t recall this happening before.”

  We stopped talking. I perceived three lesser Plane K creatures climbing from the depth of the crater. Three scouts jumped into the air and landed behind us. When we turned, they were kneeling, their heads bound forward. We read their minds at once; we dismissed them right after that. When I looked at Kelm again, I saw the face of his suit was way beyond furrowed.

  “What the heck did they see?”

  I exhaled as my fists closed tight. “Someone is getting in our way.”

  He fidgeted, playing with his fingers. “Who can it be? Who would be capable of doing that?”

  I took a moment to search through the scouts’ mental report. “They saw a human being, stone skinned, and some other creature,”

  The other member of the Communion interrupted me. “They saw a stone serpent? How? That must have been an illusion.”

  My fists clenched even more. “It has to be James. Only he could have done all that.”

  Kelm’s jaw dropped. “We thought the kid was dead.”

  “I’ll return to Plane K, down the rift. I’ll mobilize all mind creatures. We have to find him if he’s there.”

  “I’ll search this planet, other worlds in Plane R if needed. That kid caused too much trouble.”

  The other Grand Master of the Path of Mind pushed forward his hand. We had learned how to shake hands quite well.

  I took the stairs, descending into the rift, and invaded the minds of all the creatures within my reach. The steps were tinier than I remembered. Mostly lesser beasts were at the bottom of the pit.

  Around fifty itchlings answered my call; the weird thing was their reaction. The moment I ordered them to look for James, they all scattered and ran from me. No point in even punishing them, they would come back by the ponds. It was time for something more convincing. I called upon all forms of creatures belonging to our Communion. Those would handle James.

  After yet another set of those tiny steps leading to the depths of my homeland, I found myself before that giant ball of liquid resembling water. I moved closer; it was like looking into a spherical ocean. Something was weird about it. I had to touch it. The fingers of my suit touched the warm surface of the object, and it reacted immediately.

  First, it became brighter, like lit from the inside. Then it widened, surrounding me. It pulled me to its center with an invisible force. Moving was not possible. The water became heavy and compact but still allowed the human suit I was wearing to breathe. Then it slowly moved down, like plummeting at a controlled speed, deeper in the rift.

  Conjuring a double from it and exchanging my position with my clone proved impossible. That thing dragged me deeper and deeper. All my attempts to do anything failed miserably. Then the ball entered a portal, and I was not the one who opened it. I could see through it, so at least I knew I was still moving. In the distance, I saw a building I never thought I’d see again—the Red Vault, the house of the few members of the Communion known as Reds.

  I slipped forward and through the structure’s main doors; it really resembled a human Catholic cathedral. Inside the main nave, I saw frescos and drapes, columns, and many other decorations they must have stolen who knows where or when. When the ball stopped moving, I was before Valu. Path of Space marchers always had bizarre shapes; their figures were all less defined, almost aethereal.

  “We meet again, Aaragul. Nice human suit.”

  I was not sure I could talk, but when I tried, vocal sounds came from my mouth. “I would have preferred a more formal i
nvite than this, but here we are.”

  He floated closer to the water sphere he had me trapped in. “I apologize for all this, but the situation is delicate. I would never let you destroy the human world.”

  “We cannot invade it, but you can pillage it. I like your perspective.”

  Valu laughed somewhere in his body, a very poor imitation of what a person would do. “Those are very different things, but there’s no point in explaining them now. We shall wait, possibly in silence.”

  The water sphere moved on top of a pedestal then stopped again.

  “Can you at least tell me what am I doing here? I do not think you needed more trinkets or knickknacks.”

  Valu had moved to the other side of the room to rummage in an ample chest. There must be a lot of stuff in there by the noise he was making. “No, I brought you here with a very specific purpose. Those humans might need a little help if they want to fight the Great Communion.”

  This time he made me laugh; that was a good one.

  “Save your laughs for later. It will be fun, I promise.”

  “So, you teamed up with the humans. Nice move.”

  “It’s not that simple, Aaragul. You will see. I told you, it will be fun.” He kept bustling with his toys and lost interest in me.

  I wanted to ask him another question, but I refrained.

  17

  Laura

  We reached the bottom of the rift, and Plane K’s desert surrounded us. Ash, dirt, and pine needles still covered my clothes. I also had an enormous bruise on my forehead.

  James was walking in front of me, fast paced. Pavel was behind me, and never raised his head anymore after using that peculiar power.

  “Will you tell me where we are going at some point?” My voice was rough, but I didn’t mean it.

  “I didn’t get why you are even following me. No more walking, we’ll use something else now.” He used another of his skills those mind people had created especially for him. A large board emerged from the ground, like almost two meters wide and four long. “Get in, guys. We got some ground to cover. What are you waiting for?”