The New Hero Volume 2

by ed. Robin D. Laws

  The face, though. The face still shone with beauty.

  “PROFESSOR,” the demon rumbled.

  “Go away.” He willed it. He willed it as hard as he could. He pushed.

  The demon just laughed. From its labyrinthine being emerged a darkness that knew no limits. It found that dense, tiny stone inside Maurice that was now utterly sealed, perfectly compressed, and the demon just squeezed until that stone shattered.

  All at once Maurice’s body went slack and slick. He began to pour onto the floor. Hell-bound.

  “Why?” Professor demanded. “What is this poor boy worth to Hell? Why?”

  The demon lowered his voice from a bellow to a whisper.

  “True, he’s no prize. Not like some. Some souls are worth more than the rest.”

  “That’s not for you to decide!”

  The demon gave a sly smile. “Well, we do rely on the counsel of others.”

  Professor nodded, stricken. “You’re talking about Jaclyn.”

  “What?” Jaclyn said, surprised. “That’s bullshit, Professor, and you know it!”

  “You didn’t last long in Limbo, did you? We never even met when you were here,” he said. “You succumbed and went to Hell. And then somehow … somehow, you came back.”

  The demon chuckled. Jaclyn’s essence shriveled into an irregular mass. Tears welled up in her eyes, her soul’s projection of the rush of emotion that overtook her.

  “You’ve suffered more than anyone I’ve ever known,” Professor continued. “I’ve seen your soul and it’s a library of misery. And yet now you’re working for your captors, betraying the poor souls of this place and consigning them to join you in eternal torment. How could you?”

  “You have no idea, Professor, no idea what it’s like.” Tears ran down her face. “You’d do anything to get out of there. Anything. I’d snuff out the sun for just an hour away from that place.”

  “Really, Jaclyn? You’d send these souls to Hell forever just for, just for, I don’t know what, a vacation?”

  “Yes! So would you. So would anyone. You put Jesus down there, he’d piss in God’s eye for relief, Professor. Why do you think they call it Hell?”

  Professor shook his head. “You did good things in your life, Jaclyn. Everyone does. You have to be strong. You have to let those things sustain you, even in the darkness.”

  Jaclyn shook her head, her tears slowing.

  “I tried.”

  The demon growled. “I’ve heard enough of these barking dogs. Open the door.”

  “Yes, master,” Jaclyn whispered. With a thought she sliced open a wound in the air. The demon snorted twin wisps of black smoke and stepped through it, a few final footsteps sounding before he vanished.

  Professor watched this thoughtfully. He looked at the remains of Maurice, slowly dissolving on the floor.

  “Well I’m very disappointed.”

  “You’re disappointed?” Jaclyn sniffled. “I’m the one that’s condemned to Hell, you arrogant son of a bitch! Did I hurt your feelings? After seeing you wallow in your misery like you were earlier I’m amazed you have any left!”

  Professor shook his head. “I’m not talking about you, Jaclyn.”

  “Well I’m talking about you! You talk such a good game about helping people find redemption but you’re just a goddamn leech. You’re addicted to human suffering!”

  “Is that what you think?” He looked genuinely sorry for her and how wrongly she saw the world. “Jaclyn, you’re right about one thing. I do need to suffer. I need to suffer because if I didn’t, I would have been lifted out of Limbo a long time ago.”

  Jaclyn was silent for a moment as this sank in.

  “I have to keep myself tethered here. Limbo is the land of unfinished business. I have to wallow in my sorrow now and then, keep coming back to the scene of my greatest mistake. Digging into it. Ripping off the scab every time it forms. Killing my pride. As long as I keep doing that I can stay here in Limbo and I can keep helping people. People like you. That’s what I was doing earlier.”

  “You mean you could just leave? You could ascend to Heaven? Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  “If you knew what I know of Hell, Professor, you wouldn’t wait another minute. You wouldn’t risk staying here and succumbing.”

  “I already know all about Hell I need to know, Jaclyn. Hell was my life. I built my Hell brick by brick, year on year. And I killed myself to escape it. I don’t deserve a single day in Heaven. Not yet.”

  Jaclyn’s being was turgid and shimmering. Something welled up within her, some great emotion. She wasn’t ready to release it, to feel it. It waited within her like a promise.

  “I didn’t know,” she finally said.

  “You didn’t ask.”

  His essence touched hers, barely, their souls verging for the slightest moment. She trembled.

  “Now Jaclyn, I need to ask you something. Something very important. You couldn’t just come to Limbo freely, could you? That demon needed a human soul here to open the way for it and in turn that means you needed someone else to get you in.”

  “Yes. You’re right.” She didn’t speak the name but they both knew it. If she spoke it he’d hear.

  Professor shook his head. “Your masters aren’t after suicides at all. The demon said some souls are worth more than others. They’re after bigger game, aren’t they?”

  Jaclyn said nothing.

  “Well, it’s not too late,” Professor said, resolute. “It’s never too late. I can stop this. Goodbye, Jaclyn.”

  Professor blinked and was gone.

  “Oh, Professor,” Jaclyn said hoarsely. “They said you’d say that.”

  Asphodel’s meadow was strewn with his namesake flowers. He spent almost all of his time here. Cut off from heaven except for the very occasional summons, he abided as lord of Limbo. He had all the time in the world and he spent it tending his garden. Today he sat in the grass, working his grudges like a tongue on a loose tooth.

  Then Professor was there, standing amidst the flowers. He stunk of brimstone and dead soul.

  “Asphodel,” he said. “It’s not too late.”

  “Too late for what, oh clay? / Be quick lest you spoil my day.”

  “I know,” Professor said, “you’ve been letting them in. They’re doing your dirty work. Purging the unworthy.”

  Asphodel rose to his feet. The wind picked up and all the flowers shuddered. Professor couldn’t perceive Asphodel’s essence—the angel was too different, too tremendous—but the meadow told him everything he needed to know.

  “Unworthy? Thus are you all. / You slay God’s greatest gift and fall. I would sooner save a flower’s stem than all the souls of suicide men. A good gardener knows to prune those shoots that too early swoon.”

  “Listen to me,” Professor said. “I know what you think you’re doing. But Hell doesn’t play your game. They don’t care about us. Our souls aren’t worth this transgression.”

  Asphodel cocked an eyebrow. For once he seemed to actually be considering what Professor was saying, the way a lion might see a hyena and pause. A gust of cold wind blew through the meadow and Professor shuddered.

  “Very well, what prize is worth striding this close to forbidden Earth? I thought my plan was crystal clear / but now it seems I need to hear.”

  “Asphodel, I said it’s not too late and I meant it,” Professor said. “You’ve done wrong here, terrible wrong. Repent now. Ask forgiveness.”

  The sky darkened with grey clouds. “You dare to lecture me / on matters of eternity? Why should I ever repent of the duty for which I was sent?”

  “You weren’t sent here to make deals with demons!” Professor barked. “Don’t you understand what you’ve put at risk? Ask forgiveness! Before it’s too late!”

  A bolt of lightning struck a nearby hill.

  Then Jaclyn was there, her cheeks still streaked with tears. Professor reached out and found her being a boiling mass, something insid
e fighting for release from the lattice of scars and sorrow.

  A shadow fell across Asphodel’s face. Jaclyn saw his expression and knew. The demons said it would happen like this.

  They wouldn’t need her to open the door this time.

  “Go, Professor!” she pleaded. “Get out of here!” The wind ripped flower petals from their stems and they tumbled in the air, then were lost. Rain began to fall.

  “I’m not going anywhere. There’s still time!” He struggled to keep his being resolute but at the same time, he was afraid.

  “Professor, go! They’re almost here and I can’t control them!” She had to shout now above the storm.

  “Your fellows … come?” Asphodel asked. “Why?” Then he heard his own words and looked startled.

  “LOOK HERE AND BEHOLD THE ANGEL WHO CANNOT RHYME,” bellowed the demon, stepping through a fresh tear in the world. With every step he took, the remaining white flowers at his feet wilted and died. “AND THE LITTLE SUICIDE WHO WOULD SAVE HIM.” It was the same emissary of wrath Professor had encountered in the basement. He moved aside and three more demons followed.

  “What is this?” Asphodel blurted, lost for a rhyme. The meadow stilled and grew listless, the trees shedding their leaves. Even the rain stopped.

  “Ask God’s forgiveness,” Professor pleaded, his portly face red from emotion. “Ask it now or never!” He tried to extend his spirit out to the angel but he couldn’t. Staggered by the effort, he took a half-step back, faltering slightly.

  “What has happened to my voice?” the angel pleaded—and then fell.

  The demons were on him the moment they sensed the change. They ripped his wings from his shoulders and golden blood sprayed across the trees. They snapped his spine and bent him crooked, broke his legs and made him hobble, scourged his flesh from his innards, and ground his armor into his gut. When they stood back, Asphodel, bloodied and broken, reached pathetically skyward.

  “My God,” he whimpered, “My God, forgive me!”

  “TOO LATE,” the demon growled. “THE PRIZE IS OURS.”

  The second demon eyed Professor and when he spoke it was quietly, not with brute force but with a cruel dispassion. “I know we play the long game with this one. But I am still hungry for triumph. He is the king of the suicides—let us take him now and Limbo shall be nothing but an unceasing engine of Hell to feed our hunger.”

  Professor blanched. He backed up slowly. Try as he might, he could not blink. Jaclyn looked on in horror and despair. Her soul roiled. Professor realized what was in there, in her.

  “YES,” the lead demon said. “TAKE HIM.”

  Professor felt the cold pressure of absolute loathing compress around his essence. He looked at Jaclyn, all but helpless. “Try,” he commanded. “Just try.”

  Jaclyn was terrified, and not just of the demons. She balled her hands into fists and closed her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Then again, louder: “I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”

  Deep within the lattice of pain that contained her there was a power. Something ancient. Something only she could let loose.

  Professor could not keep his eyes open. His skin grew pale. His features sagged. The demons were too strong for him. But he felt what was happening inside of Jaclyn and, half-crazed, his identity in tatters, he remembered a line from the first book he ever read. He spoke it aloud and when he did it was a scream.

  “HERE IS ANOTHER ENGINE COMING!”

  Jaclyn repented. Professor forgave her. She forgave herself. Something else did too. The pure fire of redemption scorched the lattice of scars and they fell away, threads and ashes. And with that Jaclyn freed herself from Hell—forever.

  She looked as surprised as anyone.

  Asphodel wept at the sight. The other demons stepped back, raising their claws before their faces. Their mighty wills collapsed.

  Professor cohered. He drew himself up. His soul filled with joy. He threw off the faltering weight of the demons.

  “IMPOSSIBLE,” cried the lead demon. He almost sounded hurt. “A LOST SOUL MAY NEVER RISE!”

  “Go,” Professor said, growing strong again. “Get out of here. Take your prize and go.”

  “YOU DO NOT ORDER US—” the demon started to shriek. Professor’s essence erupted with a confidence he’d never felt before. He beat them back, a man with a soul’s hammer, and they staggered with every blow. Then they turned, cowards all, and ran for the tear in the world, dragging Asphodel with them. Professor reached out and closed the hole.

  “Didn’t know I could do that,” he muttered.

  Jaclyn came to him and took his hand. The sky turned blue again but the flowers and trees were still bare. They would await a new master. At least the sun was warm.

  “All this time we thought Limbo was a net below Heaven,” Professor said. “I guess it’s more than that. It’s also a ladder out of Hell.”

  “Let’s go,” Jaclyn said. “It’s time. Come with me.” The radiance of the sun grew. It was a light and it beckoned. “Heaven is waiting.”

  Professor smiled sadly. “Only for you.”

  “That’s bullshit, Professor, and you know it.”

  “True. But I’m not leaving. Especially now. I’ve got a new mandate.”

  Jaclyn shook her head. “You’re the most stubborn man I’ve ever known.” She smiled. “Keep it up.”

  “Goodbye, Jaclyn.”

  “Goodbye, Professor. And thank you.”

  She became light. He watched her go. This was always his favorite part, the soul loosed and ascending into paradise. He thought of the paper airplanes he’d made as a child and how they always fell to the ground. This was the opposite.

  Then the meadow grew still. Pensive. He knew how it felt.

  Limbo was waiting. People there needed his help. And beyond that, maybe now within his reach, were all the souls of Hell, writhing at the bottom of a ladder they never knew existed.

  Could he really storm damnation and set them free? He suspected he’d need an army.

  Professor had work to do. He blinked, and was gone.

  Guns at the Hellroad

  James L. Sutter

  It started with screaming.

  The bar’s patrons stirred and muttered. Two got up to peer out through rips in oilskin windows. A third cracked the swinging door and poked his head out.

  Jacob took another drink, straining the sediment out with his teeth. He didn’t turn. A little commotion was nothing new from a whorehouse, and Miss Catherine had plenty of militia boys to handle any rough stuff.

  Then came the gunshots.

  The first muffled crack whipped Jacob’s head around. By the second, he was out the door.

  Kennet was no different from a dozen other flyspeck towns. Clapboard shacks and storefronts stood with sides bleached gray by alkaline dust. Most days, wagons rolled through carrying wilted crops, and men too old to work sat playing cards on covered porches.

  Nobody was playing now. Across the empty street, half a dozen militia men huddled just below window level on the bordello’s porch, wooden truncheons tiny and impotent in their hands.

  The man closest to the door looked up as Jacob approached. He tried to shoo the newcomer away, then stopped as he caught sight of the revolver on Jacob’s hip.

  “Inside?” Jacob asked.

  The soldier nodded.

  “Yet you’re out here.”

  The men crouched against the wall glared at him. The one in front said, “He’s got a gun.”

  “So I gathered. Where’s Alvarez?”

  A younger man, barely old enough to shave, spoke up from the back of the line. “Bryson went to get him. He—”

  Another shot cut him off. All six soldiers flattened themselves against the boards.

  “No time,” said Jacob, and pushed open the door.

  The place was much as he remembered it: round tables and walls hung with red curtains. Several chairs had been overturned in the customers’ rush to escape. Three terrified
prostitutes clutched each other in the shadow of the big staircase leading up to the working rooms.

  Miss Catherine sprawled in the centre of the floor, sightless eyes staring at the ceiling. A red stain stretched across her bodice, wet cloth clinging to weighty breasts.

  The shooter was a scrawny blond man, dirty as any outlands farmer, with a beard too big for his frame. He stood with one arm outstretched, gun still pointed at the dead woman.

  Jacob drew. The revolver flowed smoothly from its holster, and he thumbed back the hammer with a well-oiled click.

  “Put it down, friend.”

  The man didn’t even look at him. “Can’t.”

  “And why’s that?” Jacob strove to keep his voice conversational.

  The man turned, and Jacob saw tears running through the dust on his face. His expression was confused, uncertain.

  Jacob nodded for the man to go on. He kept his own face open, as if there wasn’t a dead woman lying on the floor. The man tentatively returned the nod.

  “Ghosts,” he whimpered. “At the hellroad. We were supposed to find others, for the guns. But the demons—” He bit his lip, clipping off a chunk of flesh and sending a trickle of blood down into the haystack of his beard. “Tommy couldn’t even scream.”

  Shit. Crazy men didn’t know when they were beat. Jacob began to circle around behind the man. “What’s your name, son?”

  Another tear welled and ran. “Clyde.”

  “Why’d you kill Miss Catherine, Clyde?”

  The gunman’s shoulders shook, spreading until his whole body shuddered.

  “She touched the gun. I had to protect her.”

  The man was really chewing now, blood pouring down his chin.

  Jacob made a decision. Clyde would still probably hang, but he wasn’t right in head, and Alvarez would want to know where he got the gun. He stepped forward.

  “We can help you, Clyde. But you need to put the gun down.”

  The man’s eyes were big and dull—cow eyes. He shook his head. “Can’t protect you. Can’t protect Tommy. You have to protect yourself.”