by James Hunter
“This is a free establishment, friend,” replied the axe-wielding Quintus, fingers curling around the shaft of his weapon. “So, I’ll give you one chance to tuck your tails between your legs and go. If you refuse? Then …” He glanced at the weapon in his meaty mitts. “Then I get to chopping.”
“There,” one of the Flesh Eaters hissed as a claw-tipped finger darted out, fixing on me and Levi, mostly hidden in the back. “There,” it said again, tongue unfurling, salivating, its finger quivering in anticipation. The freak looked like a junkie jonesing for a fix, all shaky hands and overtight nerves.
“Give us what we seek, Quintus,” Melon-Head stated flatly, staring at us, “and we will go. We’ll leave you filth-fuckers to drink your piss and mutter your conspiracies. Or”—he paused, letting the tension mount—“we come back with an army and raze this free establishment to the ground. We’ll see that each of your customers ends up bound to a Catharine wheel or split on a Judas cradle. Maybe even in the colosseum. Whatever fate you receive, I’ll personally ensure the Dread Ravens pick the eyes from your head, Quintus, then I’ll throw your corpse to the Great Wyrms.”
The troll stood his ground, but his customers seemed to shrink back at the threat—this bunch was eager to talk, apparently, but not quite so eager to put their own asses on the line.
“I have another solution,” Levi said, his stool letting out a groan of relief as he stood.
SEVEN:
Blood Pit
Every eye in the joint turned on the golem, scrutinizing his humble appearance, his strange and out of place clothes, and his docile demeanor. I knew there was something off about the guy, but from a casual once-over, he certainly didn’t look like much of a threat. Quintus glowered at us, face darkening as he bared enormous yellow fangs. “You brought this ill luck into my establishment, outsider?” The wooden axe handle creaked under his crushing grip. “Maybe I should turn you over to these lick-spits and be done with it.”
Levi grimaced and spread his hands. “You could do that,” he acknowledged with a noncommittal nod. “Just cut your losses before things get out of hand. That would be understandable. Prudent.” He folded his arms, face implacable and hard to read.
“But what’s to stop this loyalist gestapo”—Levi imbued the word with so much hate and scorn it seemed to scorch the air—“from coming back here even if you hand us over? When have these murderous dogs”—he waved a hand at the assembled Flesh Eaters, who were now shuffling on anxious feet—“ever shown leniency? Mercy? Hand us over and Asmodeus will still have you hanging by your heels from the Flesh Palace rafters.”
The troll squinted, sizing Levi up, trying to figure out what angle he was working. I knew very little about the Inferno, but I’m pretty sure everyone was always working an angle. Always. After a time, the troll edged to the side and slid a heavy wooden beam across the door, barring the exit. “Got my attention, outsider. What’ve you got in mind?”
“Pax per sanguinem,” Levi replied coolly. Peace through blood. “These ten Flesh Eaters are the only ones that know we’re here. The only ones that know you’ve sheltered us. If they vanished here and now, then my friend and I could slip away, and Asmodeus will be none the wiser.”
“You want me and my folk to fight your battle for you, stranger?” Quintus asked, his voice dropping dangerously low, promising sudden and terrible violence if Levi answered incorrectly.
“Not at all,” Levi said, ambling over and clapping a hand on my shoulder. “My acquaintance and I brought you this trouble. We’ll fix it. Put us in the pit with the Flesh Eaters, and we’ll take care of them. All of them. You and yours can watch. Gamble. Drink. It’ll be free entertainment with plenty of blood to feed your hungry sands. If we win, we prove our hatred for the Loyalists, our fitness to live, and then we go on our way. If not?” His frowned deepened, then he shrugged, unconcerned. “Well, then you mop up these thugs after we’ve proven our weakness with spilt blood.”
“Haven’t had a proper battle in a fortnight,” the troll replied, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. He considered the proposal for all of about two seconds, then eyed his bar-goers, dipping his head in consent. The Flesh Eaters let out a chorus of howls as the patrons converged on ’em like a pack of feral wolves bringing down prey, fists smashing into leather-clad bodies, hands grabbing at too-long limbs. The Flesh Eaters might have been powerful, but the bar-goers were numerous and determined.
“You’ll pay for this. All of you!” Melon-Head roared as a pair of men with blistered skin, both built like silverback gorillas, hoisted him into the air and carted him through the crowd to the pit.
I shed a false smile as I watched the spectacle. “Did you just commit us to a royal-rumble cage match against all ten of those assholes?” I asked Levi in a conspiratorial whisper.
He nodded, stoic as ever.
“I thought you said these guys were tough?”
“They are,” he replied, watching as the last Flesh Eater was carted off to the pit and tossed, unceremoniously, over the stone retaining wall.
“So why are we fighting ’em?”
“Because that’s the only way we walk out of here. We couldn’t do it on the street,” Levi said. “Too many subjects loyal to Asmodeus—either loyal or afraid, which amounts to the same thing in the end. If we’d tried to fight off the Flesh Eaters out there it would’ve brought an army down on our heads. Here, though? No loyalists here. No one to report us. And Blood Pits are warded, so you’ll be able to use your powers down in the sands without fear. It’ll be tough, but if we can survive, we’ll be in good shape. We’ll get to the safe house in no time. Meet our contact.”
The last Flesh Eater landed with a thump.
Quintus turned his rheumy gaze on us. “You gonna get in of your own accord, or am I gonna need to assist you along like these loyalist Dick-Eaters?” That comment coaxed a muted chuckle from the bar-goers.
I was about to protest, maybe try to make a break for it, but Levi’s fingers clamped down into the meat of my shoulder, and before I knew it, he was steering me toward the center of the room. “No running from this,” he whispered into my ear. “This lot is dangerous. Bad, bad men. The longer you survive in Hell, the more its infernal energies distort you. Corrupt you. Empower you. This is an old-timers’ bar, and there’s a reason even the Flesh Eaters give this lot a wide berth. Quintus, there”—he dipped his head at the troll—“has probably been here since before Caesar. And most of the others are as bad or worse. Better to fight the Flesh Eaters.”
The crowd of assorted nightmares—cloven hooves here, webbed hands there, horns in all shapes and sizes jutting into the air—parted for us like the Red Sea opening for Moses, and suddenly the waist-high retaining wall encircling the pit was before me.
Levi’s fingers eased up, and he patted me on the back, then he vaulted over the wall, dropping like a stone. Guy didn’t look like much, maybe a buck fifty soaking wet, but he landed like a Mack truck. For a heartbeat, I thought about abandoning the mustached creeper. Maybe I could blast my way past the troll and his pals, batter down the door, and make a break for freedom. I dismissed the notion almost as quickly as it’d come, though.
If these bar-going freaks were dead set against me, I wouldn’t leave alive.
No way in hell, pardon the pun.
So instead, I gave a disgruntled sigh and sat on the wall, letting my legs dangle over the far side. Whew, boy. I’d thought the drop was maybe ten feet, but from the thin ledge of stone, it looked a helluva lot farther down. Fifteen or twenty feet, maybe. Only having one eye wreaks havoc on depth perception. I steeled myself, preparing to jump, when some douchehole from the crowd made the decision for me by slamming an elbow into my back. My feet hit the ground a second later, a wave of shock running through my boots and up into my legs.
Luckily, I angled my fall, turning my momentum into a forward roll, which brought me upright in a blink.
Levi’s hand fell on my back, fingers clutching the fabric of my s
hirt and drawing me away from the open center of the pit.
I turned and slapped his meaty paw away as a wave of annoyance flashed through me. “Hey, grabby-hands McGee, I thought we talked about this. No more touchy-feely, alright? I don’t wanna say it again.”
“You’ll thank me later,” he replied, glancing toward the center of the sandy pit as though it might actually be a pool of red-hot magma. Strangely, the Flesh Eaters were also avoiding the center—each of them was pressed up against the far wall, staring at the sandy floor with intense scrutiny. Obviously, I was missing something. Missing it badly. I gave the ground a once-over. Other than a few questionable stains, it looked like your typical fighting pit to me. Not that I’ve seen a ton of fight pits—but the way I figure it, once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all.
But then, the chanting started. “Blood, blood, blood, blood!” Slow at first, almost tentative, then gaining momentum and intensity as the apparent fear and apprehension in the crowd melted away, forgotten in the face of entertainment. “Blood! Blood! Blood! Blood!” Louder and louder it came, crashing down on us like a tsunami of sound, amplified by the stone walls. “BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOD, BLOOD!” Louder still, until the noise morphed into an unintelligible roar of gurgled voices, and the sand in the pit began to vibrate.
The noise above cut off as though sliced by a razor.
The floor beneath my feet, however, continued its frantic dance—roiling, bubbling up, then dropping away in the center, revealing a monstrous set of jaws, six feet wide, ringed with gleaming spikes and saw-edged teeth. Fleshy tentacles as thick as my wrist, the color of a vein-riddled earthworm, sprouted from the otherworldly throat. Each fleshy appendage was capped by an otherworldly snake head. The tongues, or whatever the hell they actually were, flapped and waved manically through the air before the creature in the floor ushered an ear-shattering roar like a bunker-buster exploding next to my head.
One of the Flesh Eaters was just a little too close to one of those swaying snake-tongues. The serpentine appendage lashed out like a cobra, its hooked jaws sinking into the Flesh Eater’s throat, clamping down like a vice, jerking him from his feet and into the yawning maw. The other tentacles converged on the unlucky bastard in turn, latching on to various body parts like overgrown leeches, before tearing away gobs of pale meat and dragging the son of a bitch down its monstrous throat.
Those tentacle tongues, slick with gore, continued to sway in the air while the mouth undulated, leaving us a rough ring of sand, six feet wide, around the edges of the pit. The Flesh Eaters squeaked and hissed, eyes fixed on the yawning jaws as the crowd above cheered in bloodlust.
Holy shit balls. This was Hell’s version of the friggin’ Sarlacc Pit. Perfect.
“Screw me sideways,” I muttered, feeling even more uncertain about this whole pit-fighting thing. “What is that?”
“Lesser Fiend,” Levi replied stoically, as though he faced down monstrous sand-wyrms on the daily. “Hell is filled with the damned, but even the damned can die—sort of. Lesser Fiends and the Greater Wyrms of the Deep Below eat souls, then burn ’em for all eternity. Hellions use the pits for sport and conflict resolution. Victory through bloodshed.”
“All hail the Pit Fiend,” boomed the troll from above. “It has been summoned and so shall it be fed. Let the losers adorn the Phlegethon. Let the betting commence!”
“Get ready,” Levi said, a feral smile forming on his lips. It was the first real smile I’d seen out of the man. Was this whack job actually enjoying this? “Time for a little fun,” Levi said as a gong crashed overhead.
Horrendous shrieks split the air, faintly muted by cheering from the crowd above, as a wave of Flesh Eaters came at us, tongues waggling, hands clawing the air. Levi, though, didn’t miss a beat. He barreled forward like a mudslide, an avalanche—no fear or hesitation marking his movements—and leaped high into the air, arching over the top of the Lesser Fiend. And as he flew, he changed. His small frame, covered in denim and flannel, melted away, replaced by gray flesh, which bubbled up and out like a muddy spring.
His Carhartt jacket gave way to a thick gut and a beer-keg chest with a golden, glowing brand—a crude sword with Hebrew script running along the blade—carved across his sternum. His arms elongated and swelled, turning into powerful things with hands like dinner plates and fingers like bratwursts.
His face—pale, balding, mustached, and bespectacled—morphed into an irregular, uneven dome with a sloping Cro-Magnon brow and the square jaw of a gorilla. In a few heartbeats, the mousy DMV worker was gone and only the ass-ugly love child of the Incredible Hulk and Clay Face remained.
The guy, or golem, I suppose, was uglier than a dried-out dog turd, but boy did he hit hard. Levi landed like a meteor and slammed into the front-line of Flesh Eaters like a tractor-trailer made out of clay, fat, and gristle. One ham-hock fist caught ol’ Melon-Head on the jaw and sent him spinning head over heels into the wall. His other hand blurred and changed into the familiar meat cleaver I’d seen from before. He sunk that bad boy right through another Flesh Eater’s shoulder, driving the blade down almost to the creature’s sternum.
Wow.
Suddenly, I was very glad I hadn’t tried to tangle with him back in the alleyway.
Still, even with his size and speed, the Flesh Eaters swarmed him with their superior numbers, throwing themselves around his legs or onto his broad back. Their fleshy tongues dug into his skin while assorted blades and hooks gouged out pieces of clay and splattered golden blood across the dull sand. Part of me wanted to just sit back and enjoy the shitshow, but it was high time I pulled my weight. I tore my gaze from the carnage and called up power as four of the Flesh Eaters broke away from the group and charged me—two circling left, another pair skirting the Lesser Fiend on the right.
EIGHT:
Shit-Kickery
The leather-fetish assholes were trying to flank me, but I had a few nasty tricks up my sleeve.
I opened myself to the Vis, feeling the trickle of magma-hot energy ebb into my veins, then pulled on the Nox, letting foul ice water splash over my soul. The opposing powers—sweet life and bitter death—swirled against each other; a high- and low-pressure system colliding and churning in a jumbled tornado of raw force. In a blink, I wreathed myself in cold purple flame, letting it spread and dance over my hands and arms until I glowed with an otherworldly light.
With a grin, I threw one hand out, calling up a gout of dirty yellow flame, which washed over the two Flesh Eaters charging me on the left. I watched in numb detachment as the conjured fire doused their bondage-clad bodies, lapping at pale skin and red muscle. In seconds, the two vanished beneath a wall of burning death … but then, much to my surprise, they burst through the red-and-gold blaze, trailing plumes of smoke into the air, but otherwise unfazed by the terrible heat. Which is when it occurred to me: we were in Hell.
This place was as hot as the sun’s asshole, so tossing around a fistful of fire probably wasn’t going to be the smartest play.
I changed tactics, dismissing the flames and calling up a javelin of raw force, reinforced with braids of air and oily Nox. The construct smashed into the pair like an industrial-sized lead pipe, and they went spinning into the air, bones snapping like gunfire. One went left, landing in a heap of twisted limbs, while the other fell just a hair too close to the Pit Fiend. A dancing snake-headed tentacle wrapped around a busted leg and pulled the creature into the massive gullet. My grin widened a touch. These assholes weren’t so tough after all. The pair of shitheads flanking me on the right were close now, but I was feeling cocky.
Confident for the first time in a long time.
I tossed my left hand out, summoning a shimmering blue defensive construct, perfect for stopping a hail of gunfire or pesky demonic bounty hunters dead in their tracks.
One skinless idiot ran full-bore into the shield and bounced off like a basketball hitting the rim. Denied. The other—and obviously the smarter of the two—leaped over the flick
ering half-dome, but I had something waiting for him. I flicked my right wrist out, summoning a churning ground fog, which rolled forward like the incoming tide. The Flesh Eater touched down, completely oblivious to the danger, and blundered headlong into the low-clinging mist, his goggle-covered eyes fixated on me with hungry fury. That was a big mistake—his last big mistake, in fact.
Silver tentacles, almost alive, slithered around the Flesh Eater’s arms, legs, and torso. With an Eat-a-Dick smile, I clenched my fist, exerting my will.
The cloud of pure, primal destruction eagerly responded.
The tentacles flexed and contracted, pulling away with a violent spasm of force. The Flesh Eater never stood a chance; a metallic squee tore at my ears as the gangly creature came apart at the seams, body pieces arcing through the air, accompanied by a spray of sludgy gore.
With another flick of my wrist, I dismissed the costly force construct, then took a quick scan of the pit: somehow, Levi had dislodged most of the Flesh Eaters—though one still clung to his back like a wild chimp. The MudMan was busy dispensing justice with one meat-cleaver limb and one that resembled a medieval mace on ’roids.
One of the two Flesh Eaters I’d dispatched earlier—a rusty pickax jutting from an amputated wrist—clambered back to its feet even though its neck was twisted at an unnatural angle. I looked right and found most of my force shield was simply gone. The Flesh Eater I’d bounced away was crouched before the flickering blue construct, its black tongue caressing the barrier, licking away chunks of raw power with every pass like someone working over a Tootsie Pop.
As it stood now, my defensive barrier was little more than a tattered patchwork of Nox: all of the Vis I’d imbued the shield with had vanished.
