by James Hunter
I knew I needed to run.
Instead, I stood there, paralyzed by the sight of the strange creatures.
The one closest to me—Stringy Hair—stopped, its ventilator opening wide like a set of mechanical jaws while a black tongue, two feet long, slipped free and probed at the air. Tasting the foul heat. Stringy Hair swiveled its face, left, right, left, right, the motions slow and sinuous before its gaze came to rest squarely on me. It canted its head to the side and raised one arm, its hand missing, replaced by a rusty meat hook screwed directly into a red, swollen, amputated wrist. For a second, I almost thought ol’ Stringy Hair was gonna wave at me, but then a nasty inarticulate screech broke through the air.
The noise was like a saw blade chewing into a metal pipe.
The Flesh Eater broke into a sprint, swatting passersby out of the way with contemptuous ease, utilizing a terrible strength masked by its emaciated body.
Yep. That was probably my cue to beat feet.
I spun and hauled ass, legs pumping as I ducked and dodged my way around slower moving Hellions, following in the wake of Levi’s lumbering passage. Thankfully, Levi had left a trail wide enough for a tractor-trailer to follow. I glanced back as I ran and saw the long-legged Flesh Eaters moving through the crowd a whole helluva lot faster than me. I slipped past a plodding cart loaded down with what looked like chunks of roasted squid and skittered into a connecting intersection.
There was a trail of carnage leading to the left, so I bolted that way.
I was shooting past a vendor stand when a rock-hard hand wrapped around my bicep and spun me sideways, slamming me into the wall of a building with a thunk. On instinct, I opened myself to the Vis, reaching for the power to protect myself, to punish my enemies … and came up short. There was a trickle of energy, true, but it was half-strength at best: like a gulp of the shitty, watered-down bourbon that cheap bars like to pass off to drunk suckers. I could still do some damage, but it would take a helluva lot of muscle.
“Let go of your power,” Levi grunted, his hand still clamped around my arm. He stood with his back against the wall, a disapproving scowl coating the lines of his plain face.
I bared my teeth at him as a flash flood of irrational anger swept through me, and drew in another kind of power: Nox. The force of death and destruction. Its oily presence was like rancid sewer water and an arctic blizzard—churning my stomach and freezing my insides all at once. A surge of vicious strength exploded in my limbs, urging me to crush and break and kill. I sunk the fingers of my free hand into Levi’s forearm, dimpling his unyielding flesh. “Don’t do that again,” I said, voice low and guttural. “We’re on good terms right now, but throw me around one more time and see what happens.”
He nodded and let go with a grunt, drawing his hand away. “Sorry. Got carried away. You still need to let go of that other power. The Vis. It draws them.” He hooked a thumb toward the street we’d just left behind. “They can smell that kinda power a mile off—that’s how they found us in the first place. How they track us. You reek of the stuff.”
Reluctantly, I let the thin trickle of Vis go, shutting myself off from the source. “What do we do?” I asked, drawing my hand cannon. “Do we fight? How tough are those things?”
“Tough,” he replied tersely. “We can’t fight. Not here. We do that and we’ll bring every Flesh Eater inside of three miles down on our heads.” He ran a hand over the wall, caressing it fondly, then nodded. “No. We run,” he said. “I’ll clear the way, you keep close and try to stay out of trouble.” Before I could reply, he broke into a shuffling gait. Not a sprint, but more of a slow lumber, like a freight train building up steam with every step.
I slid over and glanced around the Hellion vendor’s table—Stringy Hair and his Hellraiser-reject pal were maybe twenty feet away. Even worse, I saw more of the pale ventilator-faced assclowns shoving through the crowd, throwing people out of the way as they beelined for me. Asstastic.
FOUR:
Flesh Eaters
I slipped my pistol back into its holster and sprinted after Levi, who’d vanished around a sharp bend in the road not far ahead. The street ran straight for twenty or so feet before snaking left, giving way to some sort of cramped open-air market packed full of claustrophobic shops, all covered by colorful awnings. Levi was already lost to the jumbled warren of tables and freaks, but the trail of destruction he left in his wake was easy enough to follow: items strewn across the floor while disgruntled patrons and angry shopkeepers hollered or shook fists in his direction.
True to his word, he’d cleared a trail for me.
I stole a look over my shoulder and watched the gangly limbed freaks come around the bend, flying toward me like a hail of gunfire. The street behind was mostly clear, save for my ugly pursuers, so I turned and called up a lance of pure Nox. I thrust my right hand out, palm up, fingers splayed, and unleashed a spear of brilliant purple flame. The ferocious blast slashed through the dust-laden air and broadsided ol’ Stringy Hair, who was loping along on all fours like some sort of perverse humanoid hound.
The beam carved through Stringy Hair’s chest, throwing the unlucky bastard into the air, flipping it ass over teakettle and shearing off its gangly hook-handed arm in the process.
More of the S and M turd-baskets rounded the corner, only to trip over the felled body of their leader, sprawled unceremoniously across the grubby street. Their spidery legs tangled in the limbs of their fallen friend and down the front line went, slamming gracelessly into the earth with horrific shrieks. I didn’t stay to watch the rest of the unfolding train wreck. Instead, I turned and hoofed it for the market, calling up more Nox in case I needed to blast any more of these shitheads en route to wherever Levi was taking us. Flickering purple fire bloomed in my palm and spread up my right arm as I ran, wreathing me in a halo of dark, dirty flame.
Some part of my mind screamed a warning, shouted that I shouldn’t be using the deadly, demonic power which came so readily to my call, but I couldn’t seem to remember why exactly. Besides, that heady power—dark, cold, and corrupt—felt too good to push away. Like a cigarette after a night of rockin’ sex.
A shopkeeper—a blue-skinned woman with petite nubby horns protruding from her forehead—was carefully collecting a bunch of brass trinkets and rune-carved charms from the ground. I blew past her, shouldering her out of the way, then barreled into the market’s heart, the purple Nox illuminating my way against the poor lighting. As unhappy as the market’s patrons were in the wake of Levi’s passing, they made way for me in a hurry. Their eyes fixed on the cold-burning fire engulfing my arm, and then they scampered away as though I might be contagious, which was just fine by me.
“Telal Xul, Telal Xul!” several market-goers cried out. The words weren’t English, but somehow, I understood them. The sounds twisted in my head, distorting, conjuring images of bat-eared jackals scouring the sprawling African plains, hungry for spoiled meat. Flesh Eaters, Flesh Eaters!
The call came again, “Flesh Eaters!” resounding from behind me, carried on a multitude of panicked voices, immediately followed by more of the buzz saw on metal screeches, which only motivated me to run faster. Surprisingly, I could. I’m not really a “gym guy” or a “health-food guy” or even really a “healthy guy.” I’m more of a prolific smoker in love with booze and artery-clogging Southern food—the deadlier the better: Pulled pork. Tangy savory ribs. Fried catfish. Fatty po’ boys, loaded down with meat curtains and slathered in mayo. But here I was, sprinting outright, moving better than I had in my Marine Corps days, and making it look easy.
Guess those fancy new muscles weren’t just for show.
The path twisted left then right, the trinket sellers giving way to some kind of fish market, though the things on display didn’t resemble any sea critter I’d ever seen. Metal trays littered tottering tables chock-full of creatures with withering tentacles, jagged teeth, or too many eyes. Sometimes all of those features at once. A pudgy man-creature with bulbous eyes
and grotesquely enlarged hands wasn’t quite quick enough to clear the way, so I shoulder checked him into a nearby tray of arachnoid looking shellfish with engorged scorpion tales and spiked shells.
The little buggers were so incredibly disgusting. They looked like the worst part of every nasty creepy-crawly on the planet all rolled into one, then pumped full of growth hormones and dipped in toxic waste.
The pudgy shopper stumbled from my blow and smashed face-first into the platter. Naturally, the table holding the nightmare shellfish buckled beneath his weight, spilling a handful of captive critters onto the unlucky shopper. He let out an agonized cry—one part terror, one part unimaginable pain—his stout body thrashing on the floor as the things swarmed him, stingers stabbing down, angry pincers gouging out chunks of fatty flesh. He swatted at the sea-terrors, but his bloated hands weren’t nimble enough to wrangle the suckers.
A pang of guilt clawed its way up from my gut … My steps faltered.
Sure, I was in the Inferno, and yes all of the residents of this far-flung shithole made me want to cannonball into a pool of hand sanitizer, but that poor bulbous-eyed schlub probably didn’t deserve to be mauled while grocery shopping. I mean, maybe he did deserve it-—he was in Hell after all—but then so was I. Given the bulk of my awful past choices, I wasn’t really in a position to cast a whole lot of stones. Against my better judgement, I slowed and turned back, surveying the market place behind me. I’d made pretty good time, but the Flesh Eaters were gaining on me despite their size and the tight quarters.
Dammit, I needed to go.
Instead, I rushed over to the downed shopper and started swatting off the fat otherworldly arachnoids, setting them ablaze with consuming Nox as I dislodged ’em. Each went up with a puff of acrid black smoke and an ear-bleeding hiss.
It only took a few seconds, but those were precious seconds I didn’t have to give—the lead Flesh Eater was within spitting distance now.
Shit.
I pulled my pistol and leveled the hand cannon, taking a deep breath as I sighted in on the creature’s sunken chest, buried beneath a layer of crude black leather. I squeezed the trigger on the exhale, the slight recoil kicking the barrel up as fire belched from the muzzle. Purple fire. That was new. The round punched into the Flesh Eater’s belly, tearing through skin and muscle, leaving a ragged, bloody-edged wound behind. The creature stopped, swaying dumbly on its over-long legs, poking at the injury with one spidery finger as though it wasn’t sure what exactly had just happened or how.
Then, in a flash, purple tendrils crept up and out from the wound, running through veins as the creature started to smolder and smoke.
I glanced at the pistol. That was one badass upgrade. Too bad I didn’t have any extra bullets.
The Flesh Eater burst into noxious flame a second later, its pale skin charring as it screamed and flailed, desperate to put out the fire.
I offered the downed shopper a perfunctory apology, then wheeled and bolted, brushing past one of the mantis-like doggos I’d seen earlier on, this one tethered to a tent pole like a cherished household pet. The market meandered right in a long graceful curve, which ended at a tight three-way intersection. Straight ahead, the market continued on, the tables filled with wicked knives and barbed hooks. A broad street shot off to the left and a cramped alleyway cut away on the right, shooting into blackness illuminated by sparse torchlight.
Levi’s mustached face poked out from a pocket of deep murk in the recessed alley. “Here, in here,” he hollered, waving at me, his expression surprisingly placid.
I shot past him, came to a clumsy halt, and spun, catching sight of a pair of Flesh Eaters breaking into the intersection at a sprint, their goggle-clad eyes scanning in every direction as black tongues whipped at the air. I half expected Levi to take off down the alley, but he didn’t. He must’ve come to the same realization I had: there was no way we were gonna shake these guys—they were too fast, and there wasn’t any place to go.
Nowhere to hide. No building that could offer us shelter. No taxi to slip into. No options, except fighting. I brought my pistol up with one hand while I prepared a nasty Nox-based working with the other. There were worse places to duke it out, I suppose. The alley behind us was clear and stretched off for a good long way, which meant we’d only have to hold ’em off as they tried to cram their way into the bottleneck. I squared my shoulders, ready to fire, and cracked my neck, left then right. Ready.
Levi, though, seemed remarkably unperturbed.
Instead of preparing for a good ol’ fashion knock-down-drag-out, my flannel-clad partner in crime scooted toward the center of the alley entryway and knelt. He lifted his right hand, examining the appendage as though we had all the time in the world. He turned his hand this way then that, and as he did, it changed. Shifted. His fingers elongated, stretched, and thinned until a gunmetal-gray butcher’s cleaver—gleaming and razor sharp—formed on the end of his wrist. I stared, mouth agape.
Now there was something you don’t see every day.
And that’s coming from a man who shoulder-checked an amorphous blob-man into a platter of Lovecraftian seafood.
I stole forward a few paces, turkey-peeked the corner, and immediately caught sight of more bondage-clad dicknoodles. They’d finally spotted us and were racing toward us like a pack of wolves running down wounded prey. “Don’t know what your plan is, pal, but you’ve got about twenty seconds before those bastards are elbow deep in our asses.”
“Get back,” Levi commanded, still examining his meat-cleaver hand. Carefully, he turned the blade on himself, running the razor’s edge along the inside of his opposite forearm. The skin parted, but instead of bright red blood welling to the surface, some kind of viscous golden liquid bubbled up. In a blink, the cleaver vanished, becoming a normal hand once more. And then—I shit you not—this dumb douche-hole started finger painting on the ground with his own … Well, whatever that golden shit was.
He splattered a line of the goopy crap all the way across the alleyway mouth, then began tracing out some kinda Hebrew scrawl on our side of the uneven line. His finger moved with deft agility, each stroke economical and precise, no sign of hesitation. He’d done this before, many times. The whole while he muttered under his breath, a prayer by the sound of it. I didn’t catch much, a few words here and there, none of ’em English—Barukh attah Adonai Eloheinu … ve’al tashlet banu yetzer … Utuk xul edin na’zu.
The work reminded me of the containment circle I’d seen on the bathroom floor, though far cruder. More hurried. The lines were the same, and the script was a dead ringer, however. Heck, even the golden liquid was the same. The thought was fleeting, though, as the yowling pack of Flesh Eaters drew into range, their black tongues whipping back and forth in a frenzy. I inched back and raised my pistol, finger curling around the trigger.
“No,” Levi hollered, rounding on me, hand outstretched in supplication, his fingers stained with gold. “Don’t break the seal …”
FIVE:
Wanted
I stayed my hand as the ass-ugly Flesh Eaters cannonballed toward us, sweat rolling down my face as I idly wondered whether I’d made a crucial and life-ending mistake. I flinched as a pair of the leather-clad goons smacked into a golden barrier with a dull thud: a shield, exactly like the one that’d stopped me cold in the bathroom, had appeared in the mouth of the alleyway.
One of the Flesh Eaters—this one covered in odd tattoos—hammered uselessly against the shimmering wall of light, his tongue trailing long strands of muddy-green saliva along the surface of the strange barrier. Probing. Searching. Examining it for some sign of weakness. From this close, I could see its tongue was studded with a host of circular suction cups, each with a barbed hook protruding from the middle. Looked like it could strip flesh right down to the bone.
“Not my best work,” Levi offered tersely, eyeing the barrier, then shifting his gaze to the hasty writing on the ground. “But it’ll hold for long enough. Come on, time to mov
e.”
He turned, only to find the barrel of my pistol leveled at his head.
“I’m game, but I think it’s time you give me a few answers. About who and what you are. About what’s going on here. So we’re gonna walk”—I flicked the barrel of my gun down the alley—“and you? Well, you’re gonna stay in front of me, you’re gonna keep your hands visible, and you’re gonna lead us to wherever we need to go. While you do that, you’re gonna answer every question I ask, and if I think you’re lying to me in any way, I’m gonna plant a couple of rounds in your kneecaps. Blast your legs clean off if I have to. Then I’ll ask again and see if we can’t get some honest answers out of you. How’s that sound, bub?”
The words sounded harsh in my head, but I was in Hell and I had next to no memory, so a little paranoia seemed justifiable at this point.
Levi regarded me coolly, a calculating look in his eyes—How fast could I shoot? How much damage would I do? Was I bluffing? Finally, he nodded and set off, leaving the Flesh Eaters to pound against the golden shield in impotent rage. I flipped that assorted crew of assholes the bird for good measure, then turned and trailed after Levi.
“So let’s start off with something simple,” I said as we headed deeper into the alley, passing by doorways, lit with more garish signs. “Like what in the hell you are. I’ve been around the block a time or two, and that back there”—I waved vaguely toward the glowing barrier—“isn’t normal. Neither is that whole meat-cleaver, shapeshifting hand thing. As a general life rule, I don’t trust someone until I know what they are. And you? I don’t have a friggin’ clue about you.”
“Nothing’s ever simple,” Levi replied, staring straight ahead, plodding along methodically, largely unconcerned about my monster-slaying pistol.
