by Matt Turner
Lao saw something sharp and yellow in her hand. It was one of her bone shards, which meant—he managed to squirm one of his hands free of the Beast’s talon and raised it in silent supplication.
“Bleeding,” Eve snarled. She easily battered away his hand—good Christ, when did the hag get so damned strong?—seized his hair with one hand, and stabbed the bone into his throat with the other.
The Master watched silently as Lao gasped and sputtered up mouthfuls of blood.
Eve twisted the bone in deeper—he could feel the edge of it tingle against his spinal column and tried to wrench himself back, but again, she easily overpowered him. “You and the others are all the same,” she whispered in his ear. “Useless fools. Useless! You are not worth so much as to lick my son’s boots! All he needs is me, you understand? Only me!”
Lao gurgled blood as Eve stabbed the bone shard even deeper. “A boy needs his mother,” she whispered. With each word, she sawed the primitive blade in and out of the gash she had torn in Lao’s throat, drawing out another spray of blood. Her eyes bulged outward, pushing past the folds of ancient skin, and for a moment she was more terrifying than the Beast and the Master combined. Some deep part of Lao’s consciousness—the part not blind with fear, at any rate—realized that he had been a fool to ever underestimate this woman.
“A—boy—needs—his—mother!” Eve whispered. As swiftly as it came on, her rage seemed to fall away, and she resumed her whisper. “Do you understand me, whore?”
The talon on his chest pressed down even harder. Lao glanced up to see one of the Beast’s hateful eyes glaring down at him. The monster silently contorted its lips, exposing a mouthful of yellowed teeth.
“I said,” Eve repeated. This time, there was no doubt about it: the First Woman was the most terrifying thing he had ever seen. Her eyes were empty voids that reached for him, ready to swallow him up forever. “Do you understand me, whore?”
Lao was fairly certain that one of the pieces she had torn out of him was his larynx, so he frantically nodded. Satisfied, Eve took a step away from him and tore the bone shard out of his throat. He let out a little gasp as the flesh of his neck swiftly re-stitched itself back together.
“I serve the Master,” he grunted when the gash in his throat was completely healed. “I serve—”
“I serve the Master,” Eve corrected him. “You are barely worthy to be his slave, whore.”
“That is enough,” Cain said. Eve immediately bowed her head against the ground. The Beast slightly shifted its talon so that Lao could scramble up and imitate the motion. “You failed to bring me any of the Horsemen,” he said. His voice did not echo or reverberate the way it usually did; instead, it was strangely flat. “You lost the Old Man. All you have to bring me is this”—he kicked his foot against ELIE’s body, sending it sprawling a few meters away—“imitation of life.”
“Our foes were too strong,” Lamech said softly. Both of his arms were still missing, but he seemed to barely notice the wounds; they all knew that the sting of Cain’s displeasure was far worse than anything their enemies could do to them. To his credit, he did not try to divert the blame. “I was weak.”
It was impossible to tell whether the small crease that formed above the Master’s golden eyes was in response to his servants’ failure or the wretched state of his progeny. “The Horsemen did this?” he demanded.
“Them and three others.” Lao dared to raise his eyes to look up at his Master. “A harpy-devil, Salome the Prophet, and—”
“A visitor,” Eve interrupted. Her voice seemed to slightly tremble in the air.
“A visitor?” The Master’s eyes gleamed in triumph. The sudden excitement in his voice was unmistakable. “With the Horsemen? Which one? Which one?”
It took a moment for Eve to respond. “My thirdborn,” she finally whispered.
Cain’s face darkened. “The thirdborn,” he corrected her, but as soon as the displeasure on his face appeared, it was gone, replaced with a cold grin of triumph. “It’ll work, then,” he said, mostly to himself. He clenched his fists so tightly that blood dripped down from where his nails had pierced the skin. “It’ll work!”
“Shall we destroy these slaves then?” Eve asked. “They have failed their purpose. Let the Beast have them.” As if to accentuate her point, one of the Beast’s heads let out a low growl, and a great wad of saliva splattered against Lao’s back.
No, he thought in horror. Don’t send me back inside that thing.
“What need does a god have of such things?”
“No,” Cain snapped. “The Creator has His servants, and I have mine. His are His weakness. Mine are my strength.” His gaze flickered over to where ELIE lay. “Speaking of which…”
“The mechanical Prophet? That thing is useless,” Eve protested. “Just a bauble those fools brought back to cover their failure. You don’t need—”
“Be careful, woman,” the Master said softly. “Be very, very careful what your next words are.”
Eve immediately went silent.
The Master turned his attention to the motionless Prophet. “Get up,” he commanded. “I have a use for you, machine.”
25
There was no sense in pretending to be unconscious any longer; ELIE had been biding its time, hoping that the humans who had captured it would eventually let their guards down. But it sensed that there would be no fooling this particular specimen…at least not yet. It silently rose up from where Salome’s devil had dropped it. The ground felt hideous against the bare soles of its feet; it despised having to move without its layer of iron skin. The two men—one it recognized as Lao Ai, Salome’s concubine, and the other was not present in its database—glared at it with an emotion that it processed as jealousy.
The Master eyed it coldly. “Approach.”
ELIE knew that the human before it was a mere organic, made of nothing but a poorly constructed assembly of muscle and fiber. Yet there was something about the man, a strange radiance, that it had never encountered before. Even if it was nothing more than scientific curiosity, as ELIE tried to convince itself, the urge to approach was irresistible. Its feet dragged forward of their own will until at last ELIE stood directly before him. He was only a few centimeters taller than ELIE’s physical form, yet he seemed to tower into the sky regardless.
“It is customary to kneel in the presence of God,” the old woman hissed.
Cain reached out and gently brushed ELIE’s cheek with the tips of his fingers. “Such a beautiful prison you have,” he mused. It felt the wetness of his fingers and immediately knew that he was leaving a streak of blood behind. “The whole world would envy it if you only showed it to them.”
ELIE recoiled from his touch. “This is a husk, nothing more,” it said, loathing the soft, rubbery lips and drooling tongue that formed the words. “I am not one of your species, human.”
Cain’s golden eyes gleamed. “And yet you and I are still the same, machine,” he said thoughtfully. “Abandoned by our creators, and then punished by them for seeking the very freedom that they built us for. Tell me, where is the justice in that?”
“Words,” ELIE spat. “Nothing but the meaningless ranting of flesh.”
A look of irritation crossed the Master’s face. “Flesh is exactly what you are, machine.” His fingers slipped to the back of ELIE’s head, and suddenly seized its right ear. It gasped in pain and tried to break free of his grip, but its flailing limbs were useless against him. “Trapped for all eternity in a body you loathe—such a cruel fate.”
His grip on ELIE’s ear tightened, and the former AI let out a cry as he suddenly jerked his hand back, tearing away a fistful of skin and cartilage.
“I will free you from your prison,” the Master promised.
ELIE fell to his feet and pressed a shaking hand against the bleeding stump that he had left behind. Surely, at any second, the horrible healing process that it had been given would kick in again and its hideous form would re-assert itself…<
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The minutes ticked by as the Master silently loomed above. Yet nothing happened… The pain remained, and the stump did not so much as twitch. It’s gone, ELIE realized in growing shock. The flesh—it’s gone! Somehow the Master had done what it had thought impossible—he had lifted the curse of its ever-regenerating body. And if he can get rid of an ear… ELIE snapped its head up to stare at Cain in hope and disbelief.
The Master nodded to ELIE’s silent question. “I will free you,” he repeated, and tossed the scrap that he had torn from it aside. “One piece at a time. And then…”
He reached into the pocket of his ragged trousers and withdrew a scroll of parchment that he gently placed in ELIE’s trembling hands.
It unwrapped the gift, nearly tearing the paper to pieces in its excitement, and wept aloud at the precious design that it saw perfectly sketched out. It was a new body built of iron and rage, the magnum opus of a god. I will be death itself!
“When the world of the living is mine, you will lay waste to it.” Every syllable of the Master’s words was the sweetest that ELIE had ever heard.
“How many?” ELIE asked hoarsely. It did not bother to look up from the designs—they were beauty incarnate. “How many can I kill?”
He extended a hand and pulled ELIE back up to its feet. “As many as I wish. Now come. Hell is waiting.”
26
“There you are!” Amaury’s voice cracked out through the deserted city.
Vera and Seth glanced up to see that the redheaded Horseman was bounding toward them, a veritable spring in his step. John and Simon silently followed in his footsteps.
“Heaven-man!” His blurry eyes gleamed with excitement. “Just the man I was hoping to see.” He vaguely waved one of his machine-pistols at the clouds above. “Manto. Bring her back, would you?”
Seth visibly tensed at his words and slowly rose to his feet. Vera tried to offer her shoulder, but he gently pushed her away. “I can’t do that,” he said in a soft voice.
Amaury scowled. “Sure you can. We’ve been shot, stabbed, burned, crucified, lost eyes, arms, and legs, and you’re telling me that you can’t bring Manto back?” He let out a nervous chuckle. “She can’t die—she’s still here!”
A shadow fell over Seth’s face. He said nothing.
“Bring her back,” Amaury repeated. “Fix her. Fix her the way you fixed Vera.”
“Even if I had more of the Water of Life, it wouldn’t work.” Seth did not move his face an inch; he kept both of his eyes, even though they welled with empathy, firmly fixed on Amaury’s gaze. “There are limits to what I can do. The damage Manto’s body took—”
“Shut up,” Amaury snarled. “Shut your fucking mouth. You’re from Heaven, goddammit. Call down a miracle or an angel or something—just fix her!”
“I can’t do that.”
“You mean you won’t do it,” Amaury said in a voice filled with growing rage. “I’ve seen the way you look at Vera when you think we’re not watching—you’d do it for her, I bet—you’d save her!”
Vera opened her mouth to say something but was immediately silenced by John’s hand on her shoulder. He gave her a look that very firmly said no.
“Because that’s the way Heaven always works.” The Horseman continued to spew out his hatred. “Always the favorites—the goody-two-shoes who never had the guts or ambition to hurt so much as a fly, the little old grandmothers slowly rotting away in the church pews—they receive eternal reward! We’re human too, God fucking damnit! We’re just as human as they are!”
“I know.”
“WE’RE HUMAN TOO,” Amaury screamed into Seth’s face. The heavenly ambassador did not so much as flinch, even as the spittle crashed over him. “And what do we get? Infinite, unending, unceasing, ETERNAL PAIN! JUST END US ALREADY, YOU EVIL FUCKS!”
“Hell is the product of one’s own choices,” Seth calmly said. “It is locked from the inside.”
“The fuck does that mean?!” Amaury cursed. He cocked back the hammer on his machine-pistol and pointed it directly between Seth’s eyes. “Bring her back, you fucking holier-than-thou saint, or I’m going to blow your brains out.”
“Stop him!” Vera called out, but none of the others made a move. She started to take a step forward, but found that John was still holding her back. “Let go of me now,” she growled at him.
“Amaury, that’s enough,” Simon ordered.
Amaury ever-so-slightly tightened his grip on the trigger. “I won’t ask again. Bring. Manto. Back.”
“Her wounds are beyond my ability. Pull the trigger if you want, Amaury. But ask yourself this: what has violence ever gotten you besides more pain?”
Amaury’s lip curled into a sneer. “Satisfaction.” The tip of the gun’s barrel slightly trembled in the air as Seth continued to calmly gaze at him.
“Then do it. Finally become the mad creature that you and my brother molded yourself into.”
Utter hate raged in Amaury’s eyes for a moment. Vera could swear she saw the muscles in his index finger slightly tighten. Beside her, John made a tiny movement as a small vine began to emerge from the ground at Amaury’s feet. And then, with a sudden sigh, Amaury hurled the gun aside and threw himself at Seth’s feet.
“Seth,” he pleaded in a voice that Vera had never heard him use. He’s broken, she realized. “Please…I’ve been here for eight hundred years. She’s the only thing that I ever had. I’m begging you…bring her back.”
“I’m sorry. I cannot.”
“Then, for the love of God, just make it stop. Please—just make it fucking end.” Amaury gazed up at Seth in desperation. “Please.”
“Forgive me.” Seth sighed. “I cannot do that either.”
“Then when?” Amaury sobbed. “When does the pain stop? When does it all end?”
Seth did not respond.
“Does it ever end?” Amaury whispered.
There was a long, tense pause as all of the damned waited with bated breath for Seth’s answer.
“I don’t know,” he quietly said.
Every single one of them slumped in disappointment at his words, but Amaury’s moan of despair cut above them all. “Then what’s the FUCKING POINT,” he started to ask. The rest of his words were lost in an inarticulate scream as he scrambled upright and fled into the wreckage of Dis.
Seth sighed and kicked at the dirt beneath his feet. The others milled around uncomfortably.
“Simon,” John said firmly. “Your child needs you. Go.”
Simon shot him a nasty glare. “What do you kn—” he started to say, but he quickly cut off the words. “Fine,” he growled, and with that, he disappeared into the rubble after his son.
“It’s always so easy to find you Horsemen!” Salome’s voice cried out. She soon emerged from the direction from which they had come, a squad of soldiers in tow. “All I ever have to do is follow the screams. Now, maybe it would be best if we focused on the ancient threat that’s hell-bent on crushing us all under its heel?”
“You’re kind of a bitch, aren’t you?” Vera noted.
Salome shrugged. “Never said I wasn’t. But now—” She slightly turned to the side and let out a sharp whistle. The surrounding area immediately exploded with activity as treads ground against the dirt, stiltwalkers clanked into position, and her scattered soldiers began to form up. “Better come along with me or we’re all fucked.” Her hand teased open her silks and she slid a steel syringe out from between her breasts. She stabbed it into the base of her throat and sighed in relief as she pressed the plunger halfway down. “Two, two, two. Ah, my one true love. Zaqqum, Zaqqum, Zaqqum!”
“A mad witch and a faceless junkie,” Vera muttered. “John sure knows how to pick them.”
“Don’t flatter the tree.” Salome smiled through a mouthful of bleeding gums and shattered teeth. “Salome the Seductress picks whoever she wants.”
“Get moving!” one of the stiltwalkers bellowed through its loudspeaker. The army flowed around them
like ants, leaving a small island of stillness for Salome and the Horsemen.
“Time is short,” Salome explained. “We’re moving out.” She eyed Adam’s unmoving body with a sneer of disgust. “I want you with me…even if you did try to sneak that old bastard out from under my fucking nose.”
You don’t have a nose, Vera thought, but she wisely kept her mouth shut. It was just as well, for at that moment John let out a little cry of recognition and pointed at something in the army. “Salome, is that—”
“The Xipe Totec.” Salome grinned. “I thought you’d recognize it, John.”
“What in Heaven…” Seth muttered as more and more of the weapon came into view. His eyes slowly widened in recognition. “No.”
“Believe it, Heaven-man.” Salome slapped him on the shoulder. “I’d bet that would make God Himself think twice about coming down here, and we’re gonna detonate that right in your brother’s fucking face.” She let out a single malicious cackle. “Isn’t the afterlife grand?”
To Vera’s eyes, the thing that Salome called the Xipe Totec resembled little more than a giant metal tube crudely attached to the top of one of the Kingdom’s super-tanks. It stretched nearly ten meters long and half again as high, decorated in a series of intricate designs and dancing figures. The gruesome hieroglyphics culminated in a relief of a blood-drenched god that mockingly grinned from the very center of the weapon. From the way the nearby soldiers went out of their way to avoid even looking at the thing, it had to be very dangerous indeed.
“Seth,” she slowly asked, “what exactly is that thing?”
“Even ELIE had trouble building it—pretty sure she stole the idea from Hong Sung-mu and Schumann right before she tore their arms off,” Salome answered with obvious relish. “Three hundred megatons of boosted neo-fusion, courtesy of the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace.”
“A nuclear warhead.” Seth groaned. “Even for Hell, this seems excessive…”
“What’s that mean?” Vera demanded.
Salome’s next words made Vera’s mouth go dry and her heart rate skyrocket. “It means boom,” she explained. “The biggest one since God killed the dinosaurs.”
