by Chloe Garner
They stood at the posts as they lay on the ground.
“You know what you’re doing?” he asked.
“I’ve read descriptions,” she said. “I think I understand the importance of the intervals. I would do a thirteen by sevens and fives.”
He nodded.
“I’ll let him know.”
He pulled a large hunk of charcoal out of his pocket. It was steeped in a doped oil that would make it burn green, if it had caught fire, though there was no reason he could think of that it would come to that.
“That’s your tool,” he said. “Once we do this, things are going to move fast.”
She shook her head, still looking down at the posts.
“You have no idea.”
In point of fact, he probably had less idea than she did. She might have actually read about someone doing this.
He hadn’t told her what he was doing hellside yet. She might have staged a full rebellion and let him lock her in her room, if he had.
That would be a surprise.
She was going to be livid.
And not the fun kind of livid.
This was going to be one of those things he didn’t get her to stop harping on for weeks.
It was going to be a long fallout.
If he survived.
And didn’t de-exist the moment he walked through the gate.
But he hadn’t gotten here worrying about things like de-existing or dying.
“I’m going to check your bag,” he said. “You get started.”
“You’ll tell him,” Samantha warned. “Thirteen by sevens and fives.”
“I’ll tell him,” Carter said. “But he can count to thirteen by himself.”
She shook her head.
“You’re insane.”
He gave her a mirthless smile and dropped across the boundary. Swordmaker was standing there with his arms crossed, still in that way that only demons understood, letting years pass him unmarked.
“You know she has parasites?” Swordmaker asked.
“I didn’t,” Carter said.
“I took care of them,” Swordmaker said. “She’s pretty.”
“And now you’ll be able to see her in the range,” Carter said patronizingly. Until a demon laid eyes on a human as they stood, out here in the range, they couldn’t identify them from Hellcity. They just looked like another shape.
“What’s the gate?” Swordmaker asked.
“How many of these have you done?” Carter asked.
“Second thoughts, mortal?” Swordmaker asked.
“Just asking,” Carter said. “She said thirteen by sevens and fives.”
“Sixes,” Swordmaker said. Carter grinned. Oh, yeah. Seven was redundant. It was paired with six, but she wasn’t willing to use six because she was a prude.
“She’s a prude,” he said. Swordmaker nodded.
“I’m ready,” he said.
Carter re-crossed and dug through Samantha’s bag as she started lifting posts and placing them.
Lots and lots of bottled water. That was what he needed to see. He hid the balance under about half of the water, and the rest of his things, then went to double check the blood in the tub to ensure it was actually pig’s blood. Pig’s blood and human blood were the only thing that would close a hellsgate, and you really didn’t want to let one of these things get stuck open. Caused all kinds of problems.
She was placing the last of the posts, the one with the angel of death atop it, as he came to watch.
She looked at the charcoal in her hand.
“You’ve got it,” Carter said.
“I know,” she said. “I just think it’s a bad idea.”
“But you can’t resist the idea of doing it anyway,” he said. She laughed, no humor at all, and nodded.
“Shaman.”
“Shaman.”
She hesitated one more moment, then started drawing.
The outer circle was the easy part because it followed the iron ring on the ground. After that, she squatted at the angel post and looked hard at the post she was going to, seven around the circle. She needed a straight line. The further it was from straight, the less focus the gate would have, and if the focus of the gate was poor enough, as she tried to finish it, the energy from tearing at the barrier, rather than puncturing it, would result in an explosion that would level the block.
Well, not his building, but for some strange reason, he wasn’t in it.
She started drawing, point by point by point. Slow, purposeful, maybe fearful, he couldn’t be certain.
He drew a breath and closed his eyes, focusing power into his skin. It would be the only protection he had against the heat hellside. Without it, he’d bake in minutes.
The tattoos sopped up power like sponges, like breathing. He took deep breaths, feeling his body. His body. He owned it again. Didn’t just possess it.
He waited, settling over his feet, feeling the power of his body, feeling the magic in his skin, his hands, his chest, his mind. He had power that demons feared. They did fear him. They would fear him.
Samantha was watching him when he opened his eyes.
“It’s done,” she said. “What’s supposed to happen now?”
“You close it,” he said. She shook her head.
“It needs a human with freewill to close it,” he told her. “Get your backpack and come here.”
He’d felt this power before. Been to see other hellsgates that other people had built, closed them and held them closed while someone else adventured hellside. He’d never been across himself because, before he’d been much too soft a target for a risk like that and, after, he was too rich a target.
Samantha wasn’t going to like it. The way the gate hummed like an electric thing in your hands, just waiting for you to close that power circuit, to flick it shut with an act of free will.
“If you let go after you close it,” he said, “a demon can walk across from that side to this side. As long as you hold it closed, they’re stuck in there and they can’t touch you. Do you understand?”
She shook her head. He nodded to the main post.
“That one and the one to your left,” he said. “Go get your bag, and let me in, and then you put your hands on both of them.”
He walked through, respectfully, and turned to watch her.
She put her hands on them, and he watched the realization of the power she was harnessed to sink in.
He nodded.
“Close it.”
He felt the space behind him open up, and he turned to see Swordmaker standing across the gate from him.
Hell was open.
“Neatly done,” the demon said. “Is she coming?”
He turned to face Samantha again.
“You comfortable?”
She didn’t appear to hear him. He walked closer.
“Samantha,” he said. Her eyes flew open.
“Did I do it wrong?” she asked. “Why are you doing this?” She peered around him. “This is so dangerous, Aspen. I don’t know why I agreed to even build it.”
“Because you want to know,” he said gently. “Get yourself comfortable, so that your body will stay up after you cross, and then I need you to come with me.”
She squared her shoulders and raised her arms up higher over her head, looking for a way to shift her weight, then landed on something that would work and nodded.
“I’m with you,” she said. He nodded at her closed eyes and turned to face Swordmaker again.
“Let’s do this.”
He crossed the gate into hell.
The heat knocked him back. Somehow, he was still unprepared. He shook his head, regaining focus, then looked at Samantha. Her image was holding the gate closed, turning the thirteen posts into just two solid iron posts on this side. No demon could walk through her image while she held the gate to those two posts. That was the other half of the gate.
Carter could walk through freely, and did, coming to stand next to Swordmaker and Samantha as they looked at the gate. He shook hands wordlessly with Swordmaker.
“You’ll take an elongated route, I assume?” the demon asked.
“Not much,” Carter said, “but you should have time to beat us back.”
The demon nodded and headed off at a brisk pace directly toward hellcity at the center of the hellplane.
“What happens now?” Samantha asked. “Who is he?”
“I’ll get to that when it’s important,” Carter said. “Water.”
“Already?” she asked.
“It’s important,” he said, putting out his hand. She drew a water from her backpack and handed it to him, and he downed it all before throwing the bottle on the ground, where it melted.
She looked at it with a wince.
“Littering, Sam?” he asked. “Is that really going to bother you?”
“No one can even pick it up,” she said. “Why did it melt?”
“Because I touched it and made it real, here. It won’t happen with everything, but with some things it will. When you leave, it will leave with you. It’ll be in your backpack when you cross.”
“What about the water?” she asked. Clever girl.
“That will go, too,” he said. “You need to wait until I cross to leave, if that’s possible. Depending on how things go, it might be the difference between life and death for me.”
“What are we doing here?” she asked, hanging back as he started walking. She followed, but like a dog on a leash, looking back at the gate.
“We’re here because I decided it’s important,” he said. “That’s all that matters.”
She frowned at him, but let him drag her along behind him as he started off at an angle to the radius he was on, letting the active mountains around him spin as he walked. It was going to be hell, trying to figure his way back out of here, he realized.
Samantha would be his path out. Maybe not all of the demons would work that out.
“What are we doing?” she asked. “I’m here, I’m doing what you need me to do. Please, just tell me.”
He glanced at her.
“If I get in a fight, you can’t sacrifice yourself to keep me alive,” he said. “I’m just flesh and blood here, and a lot of my magic is muted because hellside, dark magic is kind of like… normal, everyday stuff, to them, but I’m still able to take care of myself, and if you get yourself knocked back into your form…”
“I get it,” she said. “I have your back, Aspen.”
He nodded.
“Besides,” she said. “If dark magic is damped, light magic is amplified.”
He looked at her.
That might actually be true.
“Take a more direct route,” she said. “Dehydration is more of a risk than demons. We’ve got this.”
He nodded and altered his course slightly.
It was going to be a long walk.
At least Samantha was on his side.
He shook his head, marveling that he should think such a thing.
It was a weird world.
They’d ashed a dozen demons, mostly opportunists hoping to catch him bleeding, between the range and hellcity. The real challenge would be on the way out, and he was only beginning to realize it. The demons knew this game better than he did.
Samantha had held her own admirably, not the same manic intensity she’d had after Justin had died, but neither the more tentative fights she’d had since then. Being hellside made her confident in a way he wouldn’t have guessed.
They stood atop the rim of the bowl that Hellcity sat in and paused for a minute.
“It’s time,” she said. “You need to tell me what we’re here for, now.”
“A sword,” he said.
There was a silence.
“A what?” she asked.
They were here. He couldn’t shortcut his way out for anything, so there wasn’t much she could do about it. Especially without knowing what would come next.
“A sword,” he said. “One that Tiber isn’t going to break. A better one than anyone could sell me Earthside.”
“All of this for a piece of metal,” she said. “You’re risking your life.”
“I risk my life every time I leave my apartment,” he said. “What’s new?”
“You’re in hell,” she said.
“I’m going to end up here after I die, one way or another,” he told her. “This way I don’t have to deal with your angel of death on the way.”
“Shut up,” she said with genuine anger.
“Sam,” he said. “Do you suddenly care what happens to me?”
“Carter, I left heaven behind to save you,” she said. “Will you stop being so…” she growled through her teeth and threw her hands up.
“So that’s still going on, then,” he said.
“It is,” she said. “Putting you back together wasn’t it.”
He shook his head.
“Too bad.”
“I know,” she agreed.
They started down the hill.
Demons approached and fell away. Samantha was whispering under her breath in angeltongue, and Lahn cut a wicked pattern through the air around her, like a cat swishing its tail. She was agitated and angry, and Carter was pretty sure both of those worked out in his favor.
At the bottom of the hill, they hit crowd.
Someone launched a projectile at him, which fell to ash a few feet away.
He didn’t thank Samantha because he thought it would give her a big head.
Mostly, though, they continued to hold back. Samantha was armed, and so was Samantha, and they were both fearsome. The demons knew what he was here for, and they knew their real advantage was after.
So they waited.
He got to the sect house and someone opened the door for him without his having to knock.
It was in Swordmaker’s best interest that he make it here alive, so they could at least have the decency to watch for him.
He walked down the hallways unescorted to Swordmaker’s workshop, and then he put Peon away.
“Sam, this is Mha’Shing. Swordmaker, this is Sam.”
“I wasn’t sure you would come,” Swordmaker said.
“Mha’Shing,” Samantha said. “Are you really the sword-maker?”
“There is none better,” he said. “Would you like to see the blade Carter chose?”
“Hey,” Carter complained, sitting down at the table and taking off his jacket. “It’s mine.”
“Not until you pay for it,” Swordmaker said, going to where the sword was hanging, alone, on a wall.
“I’d love that,” Samantha said. Swordmaker presented the sword to her and Carter kicked over her bag, dragging the balance out. He put the sand he’d measured out into a cup and put it on one side of the balance, an empty stone bowl on the other. Swordmaker returned to the table with several metal blocks in various sizes and added them to the side with the empty bowl, then nodded.
“As contracted,” he said. He pulled the metal blocks out and Carter went into Samantha’s backpack again for the cloth bag underneath the balance, making sure that the tubing was holding up in the heat. His blood would keep it cool long enough for the blood draw, and being with Samantha’s things had kept it cool up to now. He was on the clock.
“Carter, what’s going on?” Samantha asked, returning the sword to the table.
“His payment,” Swordmaker said, putting an arm out to keep her from approaching. Carter gritted his teeth and stuck the needle into his arm.
The metal was hot enough that the flesh of his arm started to cook. He could feel the entire length of metal under his flesh, the potent nature of his own blood only just keeping it from boiling.
“It’s an interesting strategy,” Swordmaker said.
“What?” Samantha asked, still trying to push past him.
“You
know that he doesn’t heal, don’t you?” Swordmaker asked. “Blood doesn’t die here. He isn’t going to clot. Any wound he takes while he’s physically manifest on the hell plane is going with him back out. Most men just slash themselves open and hope they can make the run out, but… This has potential, if he can live with it.”
“Carter,” she barked. “What are you doing?”
He held his teeth firm, watching the flow of blood out the tube and into the bowl on the balance.
Seconds. It was a finite number of seconds.
Pain shot from his elbow out to his palm, rebounding and intensifying, and he struggled to keep his fingers from clutching.
Drip by drip, he bled into the bowl, first just in shrieking pain and impatient, but then feeling increasingly woolen-headed. He closed his eyes, drawing on focus and determination that had always been there for him.
“Carter,” Samantha said.
“He can’t talk to you,” Swordmaker said.
“For this?” Samantha asked, picking up the sword again.
“It’s mine,” Carter growled.
“You can’t even touch it,” Samantha said.
“Neither can you, once he pays for it,” Swordmaker said. “He has to carry it out, himself.”
“Why?” Samantha asked.
“The cost,” Swordmaker said.
The world was beginning to show electric purple around the edges, and Carter gripped the table with his free hand, pain up through his shoulder, and heated blood hitting his heart, causing an adrenalin spike. His heart rate rose higher and higher, and he felt a lump in his chest that might have been panic.
“How much more?” Samantha asked.
“He’s about halfway done,” Swordmaker said.
That wasn’t helping.
He hung his head over the table and counted seconds. His entire arm was hot, and the flesh around the needle was cooked through and going numb.
He would walk out of this. They would never forget it.
“Carter,” Samantha said more quietly. “Are you okay?”
“Plug it and empty the tubing,” Swordmaker said. “That should be close.”
Something jostled him gently, but he didn’t lift his head.
“I’d call that balanced,” Samantha said.
“Agreed,” Swordmaker said. “As contracted.”
