Hellbound

by Matt Turner

  “You bitch,” he wheezed, and he raised the pistol that he had somehow managed to keep a hold of. “No one fucks with Richard the—”

  CRUNCH went his rib cage as the mechanical door came down. Signy did not even break her stride; she rolled forward, bow in hand, and easily slid under the gap that his body had left for her. As soon as she was through, she bounced up to the balls of her feet and whipped up her bow, ready to fire.

  At least two dozen more of the bastards were in this compartment, and this time they were prepared. Her eyes flickered across them, calculating, as they raised their weapons. Pistols. These fools were meant to be gunners for the War Train’s turrets, she realized. Too easy.

  “That’s her!” the one named Babin screamed from the back of the compartment. He was already frantically smashing his fingers against the keypad of the next door, trying to get away. “Kill her! Kill her!”

  Signy knelt and tore out the arrow that she had left embedded in the crushed soldier’s shoulder. He let out a weak little groan when the arrowhead tore out of his skin. “Quit whining,” she snapped. As fast as lightning, she snapped the arrow up to her bowstring and fired it off just as the guns began to roar.

  Her arrow crashed into the first set of electrical lights that lined the roof of the compartment. Shattered glass rained down on her enemies as a dim twilight engulfed them all. There were still a few shards of light that poked in from the handful of machine gun turrets built into the wall, but all of the humans trapped inside with her faded to nothing but dark silhouettes.

  “Stop firing!” Babin howled at the others. “We need to find her—”

  Only the very tips of Signy’s toes brushed against the steel floor as she sprinted toward the closest shadow. It spun toward her, perhaps aware of her presence, but it was far too late. Without missing a beat, she smashed the tip of her bow into the base of his head where skull met neck. The soldier tumbled forward, allowing her to snatch the pistol from his limp grip.

  “What’s going on in there?” a stern voice demanded over the intercom.

  The first man’s head crashed against the floor, producing a nasty bong that echoed throughout the entire compartment. “She’s over there!” someone called out, and the compartment became illuminated with blinding flashes of light as the idiots wasted their ammunition. The thunderous claps and flashes of light only served to disorient them even more.

  “No guns!” Babin shouted over the commotion. Much to Signy’s disappointment, his voice seemed to have steadied—he wasn’t nearly as afraid as she wanted him to be. “Use blades! No guns!”

  Signy hurled the pistol into the darkness, grinned when someone let out a yelp of pain—the others turned toward him, leaving themselves exposed—and then she leapt forward again. The time for stealth was over, she decided, and so she plunged the sharpened end of her bow directly into a soldier’s flank. He was still halfway through the process of turning around, so instead of being completely impaled, the steel-tipped wood tore a horrific gash from his kidney to his groin. In the flickering light, she was just able to see his mouth form an O of surprise.

  Signy wrenched the bow up with all her strength and chuckled in satisfaction as the steel ripped upward to the man’s throat, spilling his intestines and the contents of his stomach across the ground. His companions barely noticed; they were too intent on frantically calling out to one another as the intercom continued to scream with the voice demanding answers. The edge of her bow became so wedged in the man’s upper ribs that the steel head tore away from the wood, leaving a ragged end. It was still more than enough; she jabbed the end of it into the shadows of his face, shattering his nose and leaving a great splinter of wood embedded in one of his eyes.

  And it was only then that the bastard began to scream. She kicked him forward into his comrades, knocking a handful of the shadows down. One of them tried to flank her; she shoved him aside with the end of her bow and stabbed the ragged edge of it down where she guessed his Achilles tendon would be. Even through the wood, she felt a nasty jerk as the tendon shot up into the man’s leg like a severed spring.

  “Better run, boys,” Signy screamed into the shadows. By God, this was what it meant to be alive! She could feel the blood coursing through her veins as the old excitement of the hunt filled her up. She tossed aside her bow and clashed her sharpened teeth together. “There’s some crazy bitches on this train.”

  “Kill her!” someone screamed. “For fuck’s sake, just kill this fucking bitch!”

  She hurled herself into their ranks, eager to rip and tear.

  Her hand wrapped itself around someone’s face; she buried her fingers where the eye sockets should be, threw the howling soldier back on the floor, and smashed her foot down on his throat. His windpipe cracked and shattered, and a pair of hands reached for her from the darkness—she bit at them, feeling the fingers sever under her sharpened teeth, and the taste of blood was so thrilling that it completely overwhelmed the rest of her senses.

  She danced forward, dimly aware of a bullet whizzing past her skull and a spray of warm liquid across her face. But that didn’t matter; all that mattered was her next kill, and so she tore out another man’s throat, and as he fell back, she leapt over his shoulders and crashed down into another soldier. He frantically screamed and blindly fired his pistol as she clawed away at him like a banshee, and soon enough the world became blood and pulp. She bit and twisted and snapped and through it all, the screaming around her grew louder and louder and louder until she at last realized that it was coming from her own throat.

  BRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTT—scores of rounds slashed the air above her, punching fist-sized holes in the compartment. Blood and meat sprayed around her as the few men who remained standing were cut to pieces by the machine gun. Some instinct kept Signy pinned down to the floor as the bullets slashed overhead. She grew dimly aware that the pool of spilled blood was so deep that it splashed over the backs of her hands.

  “There,” Babin said calmly. He raised the machine gun and blasted a dozen more holes in the ceiling. Light poured in, allowing him to survey the slaughterhouse carnage of the compartment. Signy pressed her head farther down, gambling that he wouldn’t be able to notice her amid the gore. “Now,” the backward-headed man muttered, “where are you?”

  “Babin, what the hell is going on down there?” the intercom demanded.

  Babin kept his eyes and the machine gun firmly pointed at the rest of the compartment. “Intruder, Imperator,” he said. He quickly added: “I think I got her, though.”

  “I promise you didn’t,” the voice on the other end said drily. “Grief will handle this. Get back here, Babin, and for Satan’s sake, wipe your feet.”

  “Y-yes, Imperator.” Babin nodded. He reached for the keypad, and Signy tensed, ready to strike—but just as he slightly turned his head to punch in the numbers, the mechanical doorway slid open, and the Eighteenth Legion’s Praetorian Guard stepped through.

  A knight? Signy wondered when she saw the first of the figures. The armor was similar to what knights had worn in her time, but she doubted that any knight had worn such blackened and twisted metal, or held a flamethrower nozzle that dripped liquid fire. Come to think of it…even over the spilled entrails that surrounded her, she could make out the stench of burnt flesh and hair wafting over her. Even by the standards of Hell, the smell that emanated from the scorched armor was appalling.

  My bow, she thought as the armor-clad figure stepped into the compartment, spreading out a ripple in the blood with every step. Shouldn’t have thrown it away. She moved her head as much as she dared, trying to make out where she had placed her precious weapon.

  “What’s the sitch, Anger?” a perky female voice asked.

  What? Signy ever-so-slightly raised her eyes to make out the other figures filing into the apartment. You can’t be serious.

  “She’s in here,” the armor-clad man hissed. His gloved hands lovingly caressed the flamethrower’s nozzle. “Gonna make her
cook.”

  “Look at this mess,” a second male voice said in disgust. “I do not envy whoever has to clean this up.”

  “She did all this,” a tiny voice whispered. “She did this and she’s gonna do it to us!”

  This is their Praetorian Guard? Signy had to actively suppress a laugh. Of the four figures that had entered, the only one that looked remotely threatening was the armored flamethrower-wielding man. Next to him was a weaselly faced man whose rolls of fat bulged out from his gold-trimmed tunic. Then there was a scrawny, long-haired thing that trembled and shivered in the light—Signy couldn’t tell whether it was male or female, as its features were too thin to be sure. And last but certainly not fucking least, there was the woman standing next to the armored man—a pretty dark-skinned woman dressed in the most garish, ridiculous garb that Signy had ever seen. Her clothes were a patchwork of bright colors and sparkling stones, all arranged to make a dizzying and rather nauseating sight. Even her face was studded with a spider’s web of golden rings and glittering jewels that harshly reflected the dim light.

  I just hacked apart twenty men and they send clowns to fight me, Signy thought in utter disbelief. Is this some sort of joke?

  “Are you in there, intruder?” the fat man called out. He made a great show of peering over the carnage that covered every inch of the engine’s compartment. “C’mon, just show yourself—I promise we won’t hurt you.”

  Well, I’m going to hurt you. Signy’s fingers brushed up against one of the pistols scattered among the gore. She personally hated to use guns—they had come long after her time on Earth, and were just so impersonal—but the flamethrower had to go. The rest of the clowns would be easy to take apart after that. I’m going to hurt you so very much.

  “That won’t work, Bargaining,” the woman in the ridiculous outfit said. Her voice was so bright and perky that it made Signy feel physically ill. “Our friend is too smart for that.”

  “She’s watching us,” the emaciated thing moaned. It curled up in a corner and wrapped its arms around its legs, ignoring the blood that quickly stained the ragged tunic it wore. “I can feel her. She’s here…”

  “Let me smoke her out.” The armor-clad man raised the flamethrower nozzle and Signy tensed, ready to fire her pistol—

  “No,” the woman said. Her voice retained its cheerfulness, but there was a hint of something sharp and angry beneath her words. “Put it down, Anger. I want to talk to her.”

  The man called Anger—what a stupid fucking name, Signy thought—reluctantly lowered his flamethrower as the woman stepped forward. “We really don’t want to hurt you, you know,” she announced to the compartment. “If the imperator wanted, he could flood this with poison gas…send a whole platoon in…or just let Anger burn you to a crisp.” Her voice brightened with admiration. “But getting aboard a War Train, tearing apart twenty men with just a bow and arrow…”

  She giggled a high-pitched chortle that grated against Signy’s ears like steel on bone. “Sweetie, we want to offer you a job!”

  Fuck it, Signy thought. If these four freaks could take her down, she didn’t deserve to exist in the first place. She rose to her feet, eliciting a gasp of surprise from the fat man as blood and meat dripped from her clothes. “I already have a job,” she said, deliberately making her voice even more rasping and harsh than usual. “Take this fucking train and kill any fucking freak that gets in my way.”

  The four clowns stared at her in disbelief, then at one another, and then broke out into laughter. Even the skinny one weakly joined in.

  “She’s even crazier than you, Denial.” The fat man chuckled.

  The rings embedded in Denial’s lips slightly warped and pried apart her skin as she contorted her face into a false smile. “That’s enough,” she quietly said. The others immediately went silent as she turned her attention back to Signy. “What’s your name, friend?”

  Signy slid the pistol into the back of her trousers and made a great show out of cracking her knuckles. “Get the hell out of my way and I might tell you, freak,” she growled. “Where’s your boss?”

  “He’s back there with Acceptance,” the skinny thing whispered. “He likes to watch us work.”

  Sisera likes his toys, Salome had warned Signy. At the time, Signy had taken that to mean weapons—not the fucking circus carnival that was before her. First that backward-headed freak—still need to tear him apart; need to remember that—and now these clowns. What the fuck is wrong with the Eighteenth Legion?

  “Well, you can call me Denial,” the bejeweled woman said. Her voice was like a bird’s—high and full of song. Signy hated birds. “This is Anger—” She tapped the scorched armor’s shoulder. “Bargaining—”

  “Charmed.” The fat man dipped his head.

  Denial’s false smile became even more forced. “And Despair,” she said with the barest of nods to the thing that shuddered and tried to hide itself in the corner. “It is such a pleasure to meet you.”

  Bunch of bullshit names. I don’t have time for this stupid game. “I don’t give a shit,” Signy snapped. She took another step forward, keeping her eyes locked on Anger’s flamethrower. The others were nothing but distractions. If that flamethrower started spewing out its liquid fire, the entire compartment would cook.

  “Oh, but you will,” Denial promised. Her voice rose in a feverish pitch. “Together, we are something more. And if anything’s true in Hell, it’s that everyone tastes the pain of Grief!”

  “Get fucked,” Signy sneered. And with that, she whipped up her pistol and emptied the entire clip at the freaks. Less than ten seconds later, she found it was a decision that she would dearly regret.

  24

  Where am I? Lao wondered. His eyes flickered open, but he could see nothing in the absolute darkness around him. He sat up, trying to get his bearings, and slammed his forehead against something cold and pulpy. The flesh-like surface slightly rebounded from his touch, and he jerked away from it with a cry of disgust, only to find that he was sitting on it as well. Something slithered across his hand, though whether it was a worm or some extension of the surface he didn’t know, for he scrambled on all fours away from it. A pool of burning liquid nearly swallowed up his entire calf, and he let out a scream as something burned and spat at his flesh.

  Within a few seconds, his leg was nearly whittled down to bone, but he was just able to wrench it out before he lost the entire limb. He sat for a moment in the darkness, gasping and trying to find the courage to continue, as the muscles on his leg re-grew.

  “Hello?” he finally dared to hiss. “Anyone?”

  A rope-like tendril dropped from the air above him, directly on his shoulder. He screamed and tried to pull away from it, but the hideous thing felt as though it had a thousand biting mouths built into it—their teeth tore deep into his flesh as the tendril wrapped around his throat. Muscles contracted, and it pulled him back against the wall. Sponginess enveloped him as another tendril wrapped around his arms and legs, then another. Cold fluids dribbled down his back as the wall further enveloped him, and he suddenly realized where he was. Lao was in the belly of the Beast, and he was being digested. Strangely enough, the realization did not terrify him so much as make him angry.

  “Salome, you BITCH,” he snarled, and he opened his mouth and savagely bit down into one of the tendrils. Warm meat exploded beneath his bite, and he could have sworn he heard a thin scream as the thing whipped itself away. With that, he savagely bit and clawed at the wall in complete fury. For hours, he thrashed and screamed at the darkness. It did no good; his rage only increased in the rancid darkness, until at last there was a sudden burst of light—

  He crashed on the hard ground with enough force to knock the wind completely out of his lungs. The Beast landed just over him, so close that the cold saliva that dribbled from its two mouths completely drenched him with every one of its ragged exhalations. He groaned and tried to roll away from it, but one of its great talons reached out and easily pi
nned him against the ground.

  “The whore,” Eve’s voice croaked. “Returned at last.”

  “Where—” Lao started to ask. He turned his head around, trying to make out his surroundings. It was immediately obvious from the lack of ice and fog that the Beast hadn’t taken him back to the Ninth Circle. The Fourth Rebellion was already on the march, then. He had hardly any time to revel in this awe-inspiring fact before he saw the Master.

  He leaned against the side of a captured stiltwalker, his arms crossed across his chest. Lamech sat at Cain’s feet, along with the unmoving body of Prophet ELIE, but other than that, they seemed to be completely alone. Cain now wore a red tunic—no, cloth didn’t dribble; that was blood that dripped and steamed from his bare chest. His golden eyes were mere slits in the dark crevices of his red-stained face.

  Oh shit, Lao thought in absolute horror. He’s pissed.

  Eve came from behind the Master like a banshee out of a sailor’s nightmare, bringing her hideous hunchbacked form into Lao’s line of sight. She stretched a single arthritic finger to the skies above. “One,” she said. “The Master required just one of the Horsemen’s Marks. And yet that simple task was too much for you, it seems.”

  You are not my Master, Lao wanted to shout, but terror kept him silent.

  “A punishment is in order,” Eve hissed. She scampered forward, far more swiftly than should be possible for such an old crone. She leaned over the Beast’s talon, bringing her wrinkled face to within an inch of Lao’s. He could make out the dirt and grime engrained into every one of her ancient pores. “A remedy for your faults,” she whispered in a voice so low that Lao could barely hear it.

  She reached into the thick leather robes that she wore and slowly began to withdraw something. “Fear not, whore,” she cooed. “I have the perfect treatment for you.”