China

by Scott M. Baker

  Jeanette sneered. “I’m afraid to ask what you do for her.”

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Those who can’t comprehend the significance of this event or refuse to join us are brought before Bai and sacrificed for the glory of Satan.”

  “You murder them?”

  “We’re not like those soulless, mindless creatures from the Underworld. We’re human. Killing without purpose is a sin. What we do is for the benefit of humanity. Their deaths are required for a greater cause.”

  The nonchalant way in which Mei described mass slaughter terrified Jeanette. “What cause would that be?”

  “That’s what you’re here to witness. I have to insist that you dismount and join your friends.” Mei nodded, and the two soldiers moved in.

  Jeanette thought about making a break for it but realized that, with a dozen mounted soldiers carrying Type 63s, she had little chance of getting away. Even if lucky enough to make it out, she would be leaving the others behind to certain death. She could not do that. Instead, she decided to comply and hopefully figure a way out later. Climbing down from her horse, Jeanette allowed herself to be disarmed and bound by the wrists.

  Mei’s people descended the hill. Most continued into the village. A dozen stayed on the outskirts, eight of them tending to the horses, the remaining four guarding Jeanette’s group who were forced to kneel in the dirt and cross their ankles. They could only watch as events unfolded.

  Commotion came from within the village, mostly yelling and crying, as the locals were removed from their homes. Most came along after being coaxed by Mei’s people. Some had to be forced. The villagers were brought out in small groups and told to gather in a clearing. They complied, too scared to do anything else. Mothers hugged children. Elderly couples clasped hands, resigned to whatever fate awaited them. A few of the men talked quietly amongst themselves, their eyes scanning their captors. One teenage boy bolted from the crowd and headed for the road. He made it a hundred feet before two of Mei’s guards caught up with him. The teenager resisted. Instead of shooting him, they broke his leg with the stocks of their Type 63s and dragged him back. The minor act of violence had the desired effect. The remaining villagers became compliant as more of their folk were rounded up. Jeanette wished she could do something to help, yet she was in no position to resist. Whatever happened to her team would hopefully be better than the fate that awaited the villagers.

  * * *

  The Demon Hunters and the Xiongnu had been traveling for an hour when one of the horse-mounted scouts approached the column. Qiang ordered everyone to halt. A minute later, the scout rode up, and the two talked animatedly for several seconds. Qiang came over to Jason.

  “The Sataners have already reached Doujiatun and are rounding up the villagers. We need to get there before the Seamstress if we hope to save them. Let’s move.”

  Twenty minutes later, they stopped at the base of a hill half a mile from Doujiatun on the slope opposite the village. Qiang and two of his deputies climbed to the top. Jason, Haneef, Father Belsario, and Sasha joined them. They crouched and cautiously approached the crest. Below them, the Sataners had gathered the villagers into a cluster in the middle of a nearby field. Close to seventy-five soldiers stood in a circle around them.

  Qiang leaned over, nudged Jason, and pointed to the area around the horses. “There are your people.”

  Jason’s heart jumped at the sight of Jeanette. His anger seethed when he saw her bound by the wrists and surrounded by armed guards. “Are you going to rescue the villagers?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll help. We can save our people and take out the Sataners guarding the horses.”

  “Good. Just keep Mei alive. She needs to be dealt with—”

  One of the deputies interrupted Qiang and pointed west. Three horses approached the camp, one in front and two slightly to the rear and on either side.

  “We’re too late,” said Qiang. “The Seamstress is here.”

  “It’s not over,” argued Jason. “We have the same numbers as they do, plus we have the element of surprise.”

  “Not against the Seamstress.” Qiang began to climb down the slope. “We should get going before they find us, or we’ll be dead, too.”

  Jason grabbed Qiang’s arm. “I need to see this.”

  “You really don’t.”

  “Go if you want.” Jason released Qiang’s arm. “We’re staying.”

  Qiang sighed and lay down on the crest beside Jason. “You’ll regret this.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “This looks like trouble,” Antoine whispered to Jeanette.

  “What does?”

  “That.” He motioned with his head toward the west.

  Three horses approached, one in front and two slightly behind on either side. The figures riding the rearmost horses wore black cloaks that covered their heads and hands and extended below the stirrups. The rider of the lead horse wore a similar cloak, only crimson in color. All three leaned forward in their saddles so that the cloaks draped over their faces. Even the horses lowered their heads, their gait slow and menacing. The animals stopped fifty feet from the villagers. Their riders did not move.

  “This is Bai.” Mei’s voice tingled with excitement. Before Jeanette could respond, Mei rushed over to greet the riders. When she reached the lead, she dropped to her knees and bowed her head.

  “It’s pleasurable to see you again,” said a female voice from under the cowl, the voice unnerving yet somehow sensuous at the same time.

  “The pleasure is mine, my Mistress.” Mei rose to her feet and held out her left hand. The cloaked figure took it and slid out of the saddle. The other two figures did the same, standing by their horses with their heads lowered.

  “They’re waiting for you, my Mistress.” Mei gestured to the villagers. Bai strolled toward them, her movement undiscernible beneath the folds, giving her motion a spectral appearance. She stopped several yards from the villagers, oblivious to the panic her presence caused. After a few seconds, the cloaked head nodded.

  “As always, my child, you’ve done well. I am satisfied.”

  Mei’s expression beamed, and her body stiffened with pride. “Thank you, my Mistress.”

  “Proceed.”

  Mei approached the villagers and extended her arms in greeting. “Brothers and sisters, allow me to introduce you to Bai. She is about to bestow upon you the greatest gift that can be offered—the gift of salvation.”

  “What if we don’t want to be saved?” yelled an elderly man from amongst the villagers.

  Mei began to respond when Bai interrupted. Her rough voice took on a tone that was soft and reassuring, unsettling yet mesmerizing. “Then consider it the gift of freedom.”

  “Freedom from what?”

  “Freedom from fear. Freedom from uncertainty. Freedom from eternal damnation.”

  Bai reached up and pulled the cloak back over her body and down her shoulders, allowing it to fall to the ground. Mei rushed forward to pick up the garment. A gasp shot through the villagers. Despite all the horrors Jeanette had seen these past months, even she was shocked by the sight.

  Bai had been stitched together from various human body parts, giving her a Frankenstein-like appearance; yet somehow, she remained enticingly beautiful. Long brunette hair cascaded down her back. A scar ran from her hairline, down the center of her forehead, veered right of her nose and mouth, and then cut back to the center of her chin and down her neck. The skin to the right was Caucasian, that to the left Mediterranean. One eye was azure blue and the other dark green. Another scar ran around the circumference of her neck, the skin below Asian in tone. A bikini-sized leather bra covered her breasts, not enough to conceal the fact that each possessed a different shape and size. A third scar circled Bai’s left arm just above the shoulder, with the arm below it tanned and feminine. A fourth scar appeared just below her right shoulder, the arm beneath longer by a few inches and more masculine, with a light African coloration. Ba
i wore leather pants and knee-high boots. Jeanette felt certain that if Bai’s legs were visible, they would be as patchwork as the rest of her body. Bai spread her arms wide.

  “When you give yourselves unto My Lord Satan and me, we are granting you freedom from the uselessness of your mortal existence to serve a much greater cause.”

  “We will never serve you or Satan willingly,” yelled the elderly man.

  “Your willingness is not necessary for your servitude.”

  Bai snapped her fingers. Her two companions surged forward. They stopped beside Bai and shed their cloaks. Panic spread through the villagers. The creatures were humanoid in shape, only slimmer and taller than any man. They had no distinctive features other than blood red eyes that glowed sunk deep into their skulls. The creatures were more shadow than corporeal, and their bodies flickered like the image on a television with bad reception. When they stood erect to their full height of seven feet, the demons raised their hands in front of them. They were elongated, with palms almost a foot in length and a pair of pointed, thumb-like appendages jutting out from the base. Three sets of fingers on each hand, each six inches long, curled and uncurled. The fingers ended in eight-inch talons shaped like curved knives, each glistening in the sunlight.

  Bai lifted her masculine arm and held it with the palm out perpendicular to the ground. “It’s time, my lovelies.”

  Slits appeared along the lower faces of the demons, forming into mouths filled with rows of fangs of various sizes.

  The next few moments played out in such a frenzy Jeanette barely registered them. The demons crouched and hissed, an unearthly sound that emanated from deep in their throats, sending a wave of terror through the villagers. Some cried or screamed; others dropped to their knees, too scared to react. A few attempted to run. Bai stiffened her outstretched hand. Ice blue light flowed from her palm and washed over the villagers, freezing them in mid-stance. A moment later, the twin demons lunged. They moved so rapidly Jeanette could not distinguish their actions. She focused on a young woman clutching her seven-year-old child. A demon raced up, its motions highly accelerated and blurred, momentarily blocking the two from view. When it moved on to its next victim, the mother and child had been sliced apart. Blood flowed from hundreds of slashes. All the villagers suffered the same fate, soaking the grass red. When the demons finished their massacre they retreated, taking up position on either side of Bai. Gore stained their bodies and dripped from their talons, pooling in a crimson puddle beneath them.

  Bai lowered her arm, extinguishing the ice blue light. At that point, the bodies of the villagers, no longer frozen in place, fell to pieces. The severed portions of limbs and organs slid to the ground, creating huge piles of human detritus onto which their skeletons collapsed. They had not been slaughtered so much as methodically and precisely dissected, with muscles and flesh sliced from the bones as if they were cuts of meat and organs eviscerated completely intact. The butchery had ended almost as soon as it had begun.

  Four of the Sataners stepped forward, picked up the discarded cloaks, and draped them back over the demons. Within seconds, the material became soaked with blood.

  Only then did Jeanette realize that Vicky knelt beside her, sobbing uncontrollably. Tears and snot flowed down her cheeks as she snorted back phlegm. Ian bent over and retched. Antoine stood to Jeanette’s left, his expression stoic, fury burning in his eyes. Jeanette stood in front of Mei.

  “You’ve made your point. You’re in charge.”

  “You don’t understand.” Mei met her gaze. Her tone was not sarcastic or cruel, but filled with love and adoration, which made it even more menacing. “This is not to make a point. This is the first stage in Satan’s miracle.”

  Jason and the others watched as the Sataners rounded up the villagers. When Mei summoned the three cloaked figures, Jason closed his eyes and attempted to sense their aura. Although he picked up nothing from the one in front, he detected malevolence from the two in the rear, greater and darker than anything he had experienced before, which meant they were most likely demons. He felt something familiar emanating off them, what could best be described as a lingering imprint of tormented, like those of the Golem. Switching his attention to the figure cloaked in crimson, this time he sensed a soul, but not a human one, or, more precisely, not a modern one. This soul was ancient.

  “My God,” mumbled Sasha when the Seamstress disrobed. “She’s hideous.”

  “That’s nothing.” Qiang pointed to the two cloaked figures behind her. “Those are the demons the Seamstress uses to help create her monstrosities. We call them decimators.”

  “Why do you call them that?” Haneef asked.

  “You’re about to find out.”

  The decimators shed their cloaks and tore into the villagers. Jason’s sixth sense spiked, overriding his emotions. He felt the anguish of every soul being butchered, their agony and terror. Each death intensified the sensation until Jason feared he would go insane. He shoved his right wrist into his mouth and bit, stifling the scream that roared inside of him. When a pair of hands clasped his shoulders, he lashed out, fearing a decimator had latched onto him. It took several moments to realize it was Sasha comforting him.

  “We have to get him out of here now,” she said to Qiang.

  “No.” Jason forced himself to sit up. His body shivered and sweat covered his forehead and back, drenching his flightsuit and winter coat. He struggled to tamp down the tormented auras and regain control of his thoughts and emotions, barely able to do either. Only after the villagers were dead was he able to manage the sensations. “It’s okay. The worst is over.”

  Qiang shook his head. “You have no idea how wrong you are.”

  Bai stepped toward the scene of the massacre, stopping fifteen feet away. She extended her feminine arm toward the decimation field, the palm down and the fingers spread wide. With a flick of the wrist, she spun the palm upward. The villagers’ remains pulsated. Bai manipulated her fingers and twitched her hand. Muscles and skin slid along the ground toward the center of the field, merging. As one set of muscles attached to another, the seam between them melded and joined with the next, until the legs of all the slaughtered villagers had formed a pair of Golem legs. One by one, each set of organs was pulled from the field and coalesced to create a single, larger version belonging to the creature. Over one hundred human stomachs, kidneys, livers, intestines, and more blended into their monstrous demonic counterparts. As the hearts combined, each began beating until they did so in unison. When the internal organs were in place, layers of skin and muscles slid up the legs and wrapped around the body cavity, creating a protective covering. The arms came together in the same manner, followed by the head. Human brains cascaded up the body and gathered around the top of the head. With each pulsation of the mass, the brains melded together and became one. Skin and muscles stretched over the upper torso and shoulders, shaping the creature’s bulbous head. The eyes developed last, hundreds of human pairs melting and mixing into twin milky orbs. When finished, the monstrosity stood over thirty feet tall with a massive torso, thick and muscular legs, bulky arms as long as the demon’s body, and dark red skin. Bai brought her hand in front of her face and shoved it forward, palm facing the Golem. A bolt of whitish-yellow light shot out, engulfing the demon. The body crackled and smoked. Finally, the eyes opened and a spark of life glowed in them. The Golem stretched its limbs and twisted its neck from side to side. A moment later, it stood erect and lumbered over to Bai. She issued a command in an ancient language. The Golem turned south and shambled toward Shenyang.

  Bai hunched forward from exhaustion. Mei went to her assistance. Bai waved her off. It took several seconds for her to recover enough strength to stand and stroll over to Jeanette.

  “What do you think of my talents?” Bai asked.

  “You’re even more monstrous than that thing you created.”

  Mei seethed and stepped forward, raising her hand to strike Jeanette. Bai warned off her minion. When Mei
backed down, Bai focused her attention on Jeanette.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way. It’ll make things that much worse for you.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you and your friends are going to become part of a Golem once we’ve reached the Gate to Salvation.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Back at the factory, Jason rested inside the corrugated steel building on a stack of pillows piled in one corner. Sasha lie beside him, stroking his forehead. Lucifer was on the other side, using Jason’s leg as a pillow; every few minutes the werehound would lift his head to check on him. Lilith sat on her haunches at his feet, her head raised, and her eyes locked on her master.

  When the Seamstress had pulled together the villagers’ body parts into a Golem, Jason’s sixth sense spiked. The anguish from the tormented souls being spliced into that monstrosity overwhelmed him. He felt the individual suffering of each victim and could not handle it. As much as Jason tried to block them, every second of the Golem’s transformation drained him of his physical and emotional endurance, and his other senses shut down. He had a vague memory of indistinguishable and panicked voices around him, followed by hands grasping him, helping him to stand, and lifting him onto his horse. Only after several minutes had passed and the group had retreated far enough from the decimation field did the overpowering feeling of suffering subside. Even then, his other senses remained clouded. Sasha had ridden beside him the entire way back to the factory, keeping him propped up in his saddle, and she and Father Belsario had carried him from the horse into the building. Jason only remembered snippets of the trip. Everything gradually returned to normal after he had been able to sleep for a while. Now he relaed on the pillows, listening to the others around the fire in the middle of the building discuss what had happened earlier.