Hell's Gifts - Complete Series Boxset

by Mark Russo

  “Oh, believe me. I’m the one who needs that the most.”

  He made me smile. The road ascended again; I bit my tongue and followed James’s butt shaking before me. We stopped to catch our breath.

  “The view from here is amazing. Look,” my friend suggested.

  From this height, the mountains below looked even better. I recalled my country, even if it did not exist anymore.

  “And look. There are the tents!”

  A small fire burned at the center with a typical rotisserie; I couldn’t discern what they were cooking. A crowd stood behind the guy we had met earlier, murmuring to each.

  “Welcome to our village,” he said. “I told my people you guys have powers too. But let me introduce myself. My name is Andrew. I was a process outline reviewer in my past life. Now I can fly. We all can.”

  The people behind him nodded while scrutinizing us.

  “We do. They taught us to do stuff, let’s say,” I explained.

  Steps from a woman with a face curled into a grimace rustled before us. “Maybe they’re just like that other one. Why did you bring them here?” Her tone confirmed she was not exactly looking for new friends.

  “What do you mean?” I asked her.

  “Why don’t you ask the guy who brought you here, uh?” She turned and returned to her tent.

  “Can you please tell us what she was talking about?” James retorted.

  “Someone came here, someone as young as you look,” Andrew said.

  Three people moved from behind him to his side, forming a half circle around us.

  “What was her name? Did you talk to her?”

  A slender man grinned. “Why do you want to know?”

  We squared off with each other for a moment, then Andrew extended his arms, placing them between us. “The person who came here attacked us. She killed one of us.”

  James and I could not help but make eye contact with each other.

  I raised my hands. “We are very sorry for that. We did not come here to harm you.”

  “Why did you come up here then?” the guy next to Andrew asked.

  “They helped me!” the flying man exclaimed. “Why don’t we leave these guys alone?”

  The other two scoffed then left.

  “Please forgive them. We’re facing troublesome times around here.”

  “We understand. Can you tell us more about this girl who attacked you?”

  “She did not attack us, but a … rock nearby. I’ll show you. Again, follow me. No need to fly this time.”

  We passed the tents. One of the flying men sat by the fire, eating some of the roast, and I still could not figure out what animal it had once been.

  Andrew escorted us into an area where crude rocks replaced the camp so we could see an enormous boulder someone had sliced in half. Under the typical grayish crust lay a purple crystal.

  “What is this?” James asked before I could.

  “I do not know, and neither do the others. When that girl came here, she used her sword to crack this open, carved off a piece of the mineral and attempted to leave, using a sci-fi-like portal.”

  “Attempted to leave?” I asked.

  “One of us saw and tried to approach her, just to ask what she was doing. She chopped off his head.”

  Both James and I lowered our heads.

  He spied our unusual posture. “Do you know anything about any of this?”

  “No, but we’ll help you. We’ll search for this killer on the loose. She’s a threat to everyone, not just you,” I spurted.

  He thanked us multiple times; his eyes reddened the whole time. When we returned to the tents, he said, “Guys, I don’t mean to be rude, but I guess it would be better if I go to my rooms now.”

  “Sure, no worries,” James said. “We were just leaving.”

  James and I trod away, and, as soon as we were far enough from the flying men’s base camp, I jumped in front of him, grabbed his arms and cried for an entire minute. “What the hell was that?”

  He held me in his arms. “You said you wanted to pay a Vihkan a visit, right? Let’s go there now.”

  I nodded as my eyes poured abundantly.

  “Let’s go. We’ll use a portal.”

  We opened one, and he would not stop patting my back. I didn’t mind. When we stepped through the light, he let go of me.

  *****

  We reached the area where Plane K preserved its qualities the most—a place so inhospitable no human beings dared to wander. The green soil and rocks conjured lots of memories, but I repressed them all.

  “I really feel like eating that soup the chef prepares. That’s what I’ll ask this evening when we get back,” James said.

  “I appreciate you trying to make me think about something else. Let’s just find Vihkan and go home. I’ll have some of that soup too, now that I think about it.”

  James conjured a stone board, and we surfed across the flat, desolate area at high speed.

  I searched for something to look at but came up empty. I recalled more memories, but I suppressed those too. “Do you remember where she used to hang out?” My voice sounded as flat as this place.

  “Yes, we’ll be there soon. I took a brief detour to check how things looked around here.”

  That would have been enough of an answer, if I could keep my body from fidgeting. My hair was out of place, my face was itchy, and my arms were heavier than usual.

  James slowed to a stop.

  I looked around but could not see why we had halted. “What are we doing here? Found a rock you’d like to take home?”

  James dismounted the board, and it pulverized. “It’s not that. Something’s there. Look.” He pointed toward nothing in particular.

  “James, stones and sand are all I see around here.”

  “I agree, but I think I spotted something.” He walked away, not asking me to follow.

  I hesitated. My body sweated more than it had so far. I needed water; my throat was the driest.

  He had walked maybe fifty meters before he raised his hand, signaling me to come to him.

  So, I did. A bunch of slightly bigger rocks covered my line of sight. I could not see what lay on the ground next to him. I just hoped this day would end, that I would wake up to find it had all been a dream. Then I got close enough to decipher what James wanted me to see. “I’ve enough of this today.” My voice was as dull as a robot.

  “She might have just changed her suit. That is what demons do, right?”

  “I don’t know how it works after the merger. We’ll talk to Akko once we return.” I exhaled loudly.

  “There has to be an explanation to all this, Emma. We’ll sort this out.”

  “All I know is that when we left, we were looking for our friend. Now someone who fits her description attacked a village of flying men, killed one, and sliced a purple rock while at it. We’re standing by the dead body of a demon. We got ourselves more questions but not any answers.”

  He hugged me again.

  I held him so tight his scrawny body felt even smaller than it looked.

  “Let’s go home, Emma. We could really use a break.”

  “Yes,” I whispered from within his arms. “I can’t think of a better idea.”

  7

  Vaim

  “We would like to apologize once again,” the Marcovian officer said, bowing again. “We had no idea it was you.”

  I thought he had entered a moral encompass loop, but then I realized only androids might face that issue.

  “We accept your apologies, Meerkat. Can we now please leave your vessel? We must return to our school. It’s urgent,” Laura said.

  “Sure. No one is keeping you here. But given you already are, I thought you might be interested in joining my expedition. It won’t take long.”

  “As we said, we’re in a rush. We really appreciate your offer, but we really have to go.” I had to stress that point.

  “Sure, I understand. I just assumed you’d be intere
sted in another location where humans had been slaughtered. My bad.” The Marcovian brought his hands together while bowing.

  “Wait a minute. Are there other places like the one we just left?”

  The tiny Marcovian officer walked to one of their oversized wall computers and turned it on. A large map of Europe materialized on the smooth surface. Our kidnapper’s stumpy arm extended to support the impending lecture. “Our fleet have reported ten of these incidents—cities or small towns where someone had exterminated the local population.”

  “Do you know the reasons for these incidents, as you called them?” I asked.

  “We don’t know for sure. One interesting fact though, all these events happened near volfram fields.” He looked me straight in the eyes, as if I would grasp all his ideas with that simple gesture.

  Laura brought a finger to her lips. “What is volfram?”

  “Volfram is a mineral Marcovians use to power most of their devices and vehicles. It was not present on this plane. When did that change?” I asked the military officer.

  “Ever since the planes’ merger, volfram is here too. We’re currently harvesting it in many locations in this solar system and in a few others.” He smiled, but I wasn’t sure if I should return the smile.

  “Let me see if I got this correctly,” Laura said. “This mineral is a source of energy. Someone is gathering it and kills some people in the meantime. Do you have any idea who it might be?”

  The wrinkled man touched a series of buttons on the screen, and a few aerial photos sprawled across the large map. “This girl. You call these girls, right?” His face furrowed.

  Laura and I confirmed.

  “This girl seems connected with all this somehow. Our drones spotted her in different locations. In all of those, she killed people and mined volfram, using rudimentary tools.”

  “Mined? How could this person do all that?” Laura asked.

  “We don’t know. It looks like she uses something to carve it from inside some small rocks.”

  “Did you gather any samples? I’d like to examine those. Maybe I can help identify the tool.”

  By the Marcovian’s expression, he did not get what I was thinking. “We did. If you want to see those, I assume you’ve decided to join me, right?”

  Laura and I exchanged an acknowledging glance.

  “Good, then follow me. We’ll be departing soon. It’ll take us only a few minutes.” He turned and rushed through a sliding metal panel, inviting us to follow.

  Numerous devices hung on the ship’s narrow corridor walls. Digital figures crowded dozens of monitors in various sizes.

  Laura was ambling, so I slowed to match her pace. She whispered, “We don’t know it’s her.”

  I shook my head, signaling this was not the time nor the place.

  The military officer checked on us.

  “Sorry. We were just amazed by all of this,” Laura said.

  He grinned then resumed leading the way.

  We turned right and silently descended a steep flight of stairs.

  Our host opened a small door to reveal a tiny lab. Vertical lights embedded in the walls warmed the room. He escorted us to a slim and long table where a few rocks lay in a seemingly random order.

  “So, what are we looking at?” my long-term colleague asked.

  “A few rocks. Nothing special with their shapes or sizes, what is relevant is what’s inside them. Those are parts of a bigger boulder. This purple section inside is volfram.”

  “It looks like this mysterious girl cut them with some carving tool. Judging by the rough edges, it was something rudimental, probably a pickax or a shovel,” I commented.

  “I had no clue you were such an expert in mining technologies,” Laura said in an ascending tone.

  I touched her forearm. “I’ll tell you about that another time.”

  “Let’s get to this other event site, if you call them that. If we find more carved rocks like these, it means we’re onto something.”

  Both Laura and the Marcovian officer said that was a great idea.

  *****

  We moved to the cockpit next. The self-piloted ship cruised at low altitude over an unfamiliar flatland. Prairies and low trees sprawled in all directions. No one shared with me our exact location.

  “We’ll be there in a few minutes,” our host assured.

  “Thanks. I’m as curious as you about this,” I revealed.

  “Let’s see if we can get anything out of this expedition. Would you care about joining the scouts in the field?”

  “I remember the last time I did that. Yes, with pleasure.”

  His eyes shined while he patted my shoulder. He turned his hunched back, went to a radio embedded in the walls and said something I couldn’t hear.

  “What is it with you and these people? How much do you know about them?” Laura popped up by my side, clinging on my elbow.

  “I’ll tell you once we’re out of here, trust me,” I whispered too close to her face.

  The sound of the propellers inverting their thrust to slow down then land made her refrain from asking more questions.

  Meerkat gave a quick look to imply we did not need to talk.

  “It’ll be fast. If he asks you a question, be very vague,” I told Laura in the lowest voice I could do. I exited the cockpit, ran down another flight of stairs and exited the vessel.

  A platoon of Marcovian scouts were there already.

  “Follow us. We’ll be there in no time,” the squad leader said to me.

  The scouts turned their backs to me in unison.

  We explored a remote area in a barren plateau. A few scattered houses lay strewn in what once had to be a village. The long Marcovian phase guns shined in a sick shade of green under the pale sky. We passed the ruined buildings into an even drier patch of land. The wind blustered, bringing with it some light rain. Not a hundred meters ahead, we found the rocks we were looking for. They sprung from the ground like someone had worked to pull them out. Someone had cracked some of them open; it was not a surprise they contained volfram.

  “There’s a shed!” one scout said.

  “The door is semi opened. Let’s see what’s inside,” another said.

  We encircled the shanty in no time. While a Marcovian explorer slowly approached its wooden door—his gun extended at full length, ready to fire—the others pointed their weapons at it. The wild grass muffled his footsteps. Everything else was silent; I could hear the scouts breathing.

  When he grazed the hatch, something fell from the small space onto him.

  A couple phase guns fired, pulverizing the shed and its contents. Two small explosions forced me to bring my hands to my face. Human limbs and body parts flew into the air. Clotted blood spattered what remained of the shed and the Marcovian scout.

  “I confirm the presence of dead human bodies in this location as well,” the squad leader said into his mic.

  We helped the poor guys get up from the ground.

  I glanced at the head of one body we had inadvertently hit with our weapons and noticed her neck. “Guys, look.”

  They gathered around me.

  “This person has strangulation marks. Can we check the other corpses?”

  They nodded and scattered to search the area.

  I inspected her neck again; if someone had strangled her, they had done it with something other than bare hands.

  A Marcovian soldier shouted in my direction that he had found something, and I ran to him. “This one has them too. Strangulation marks.”

  “This is the first time you can clearly determine the cause of death while investigating these incidents, right?” I asked the squad leader.

  “You’re correct. We need to report this immediately.”

  *****

  On the ship, I parted ways with the scouting team without exchanging too many pleasantries. I met Meerkat and Laura in the cockpit.

  “Thanks for helping us, Vaim. I already set the school coordinates in the self-pil
ot. You’ll be home soon.”

  “Thanks. You’re probably interested in hearing about our findings. I won’t waste your time. Go talk to your team. We’ll catch up later.”

  “I agree. I’ll leave you with your friend.”

  He left us, and we were finally alone.

  “Can you please tell me what’s going on?” Laura kept her voice low.

  “Wait,” I whispered. I grabbed my notebook from the inner pocket in my jacket and wrote a message for her. With the main camera monitoring the room on my back, I showed it to her: They might be listening.

  She grabbed the paper and wrote. My pencil broke in her hand. Her message read, Fine, but as soon as we get back, you have a lot of things to explain to me.

  I nodded as she gave me my things back. “Let’s sit. It won’t take long,” I said in my normal voice.

  “You go ahead. I have some walking around to do.”

  The buzzing sound of the reactors was the only sound I heard until we landed on the school’s front yard.

  8

  James

  “Let me see if I can recap the latest events a little,” Emma said and took a long breath. “Someone is gathering this mineral—what was its name?”

  “Volfram. It comes from Plane Marcov, but after the planes’ merger, it’s here too,” Vaim said, sitting on her left.

  “Okay, and they use it to power their spacecraft fleet,” she said in an ascending tone.

  “Not only. It powers all devices they have,” Vaim added.

  She nodded. “If we get some of it ourselves, could we maybe use it to power our electricity generator?” Emma’s eyes brightened a little.

  “We would need Valu for that. I’m not an expert in that area,” Vaim said.

  “Did any of you hear from him or Vagras?” Emma asked.

  We shook our heads. Laura mumbled something that resembled a no.

  “Maybe we should try to check the Red Vault. Who knows? They might be busy handling some of their inventions.” Emma slightly opened her arms.

  “I can go there. I can browse the library. We might get more information about this volfram,” Akko interjected, sitting on his beanbag chair. His legs were too short for regular chairs.