by James Hunter
Eaten.
Even more disconcerting, the creature was bigger. Noticeably so. Its scrawny arms were fuller, its body less emaciated, the leather stretched even tighter against growing muscle. I dismissed the construct with a wave before the asshole could munch down any more of my power, and lashed out at the stupid Flesh Eater with a lance of raw Nox—
The creature grinned and thrust out a hand in a crude imitation of yours truly. A blue force shield—my blue force shield, dammit—exploded to life, absorbing the javelin of Nox and dispersing it with ease. The shield flickered and burned for a moment before fading, leaving the Flesh Eater staring at me with smug satisfaction.
Well shit.
A flash of movement on the left caught my eye.
I turned as a spear of angry flame sliced toward me, courtesy of ol’ Pickax Hand. Panicked, I threw myself into a dive, the flames shooting past me as I rolled a few feet to safety, though precariously close to the Pit Fiend. I narrowly avoided having my skin melted off, which was good, but before I could gain my feet, a battering ram of force sideswiped me like a dump truck. The blow blasted me into one of the pit’s walls, knocking the air from my lungs and whipping my head into the worn stone wall with a crack.
I just sat there in a heap, leaning drunkenly against the wall, head spinning, black creeping in around the edges while I pressed my palms against the side of my head. In the few brief seconds it took to get my bearings, the skinless asshole that’d cast my force shield was lunging at me, its clawed fingers outstretched and slashing at the air.
I ducked left as a claw-tipped hand shot past my face and left a divot in the wall where my head had been a moment before. I didn’t have much room to maneuver, but I didn’t need it. I unleashed a brutal lance of Nox directly into one of its exposed legs; deathly purple flame sheared through the limb like a buzz saw, sending everything below the knee flopping to the floor. The Flesh Eater fought to remain upright, arms waving to compensate for the missing leg, but it was a useless battle.
Especially when I smashed its working leg in with a front kick.
My heavy boot landed squarely at the kneecap, folding the leg back in on itself, and down went the Flesh Eater like a felled tree, shrieking as it groped at its spurting stump. With a nasty grimace, I pulled my pistol free and put a round into the Flesh Eater’s head at close range. The shot rang out, oddly muted by the Vis constructs worked into the weapon, and the Flesh Eater’s head disappeared in a spray of bone and fetid blood, leaving only a jagged wound behind.
The force of the shot sent the body precariously close to the Pit Fiend. A fleshy tongue struck like a cobra, grabbing the body and hauling it away even as purple flames spread across the Flesh Eater’s corpse.
Another one down, but I couldn’t celebrate yet—Pickax Hand was closing in fast.
I stowed my hand cannon and hastily scrambled back to my feet as that rusted spike carved through the air, inbound for my skull.
With a new supernatural quickness, I feinted right, letting the clumsy weapon whistle past me, and ducked inside its guard. I pistoned the shithead in the gut with my fist, then wrapped one hand around the Flesh Eater’s pickax arm and used a burst of cold-burning Nox to sever the limb at the bicep. The creature fell back a step, staring at the cauterized nub where its arm used to be. Its mechanical jaws hung open, tongue lolling out, as though the disgusting moron couldn’t quite understand how this had happened.
Before the unfortunate Hellion could get its bearings, however, I twirled the amputated arm and sunk the pickax into the Flesh Eater’s pale neck. Blood spurted as the monstrous goon toppled, groping at its ruined throat. It was a losing battle, though, and its movements grew slower, more lethargic, with every passing second.
“That’s right, ass-face,” I called in victory, “screw around with me, and I’ll beat you to death with your own—” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
A black tongue slipped around my throat and contracted like a boa constrictor. I gagged in surprise and shock, then clawed at the fleshy garrote choking the life from my body. In a flash, serpentine limbs snaked around my chest, pinning my arms to my sides in a bear hug of incredible strength. I thrashed and fought, throwing my body left and right, but the Flesh Eater hoisted me into the air without a problem, my feet dangling a foot above the gritty sand.
My lungs burned from the lack of sweet air, my heart thudded away madly in my chest, and my throat screamed out in agony as the hooked barbs decorating the Flesh Eater’s tongue drilled into my skin, lapping up blood. But the creature was siphoning off more than just blood—the ugly bastard was eating my power, my life force. I could feel Vis and Vim flow out of me like a leaky faucet, and there was nothing I could do. I continued to fight, drumming my heels against the Hellion’s shins, my fingers digging at the damned tongue, but the Flesh Eater ignored me, savoring my neck like a delicious rack of ribs.
Just as my brain began to switch off, the pressure suddenly vanished, my feet hit the deck, and the tongue was gone. I wheeled around, blinking bleary eyes, only to find Levi crushing the Flesh Eater’s head in a beefy, pizza-sized hand.
“Thanks,” I croaked, rubbing at my tender throat, wincing as my fingers ran over raised, bloody welts—wounds from the tiny suction cups dotting the Flesh Eater’s black tongue.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he grunted, drawing me back a step, away from the Pit Fiend, before pointing toward a Flesh Eater scampering from one body to the next. “We’re not in the clear.”
The lone surviving Flesh Eater tore away its lower metal jaw, revealing a loose flap of skin and a cavernous gullet ringed with undulating bristles. It slid the jaw plate onto a holster adorning its side, pulled the skin flap down, and hastily began shoving body pieces into its throat hole. An arm here, a leg there, part of a skull, most of a foot. Right down the hatch they went, like a python eating bunny rabbit after bunny rabbit. Except instead of adorable bunny rabbits, which would’ve been awful enough, these were the grisly remains of its buddies.
The Flesh Eater was rail thin, but the corpse pieces disappeared with frightening speed, and as they did, the Flesh Eater grew. Its arms bulged, its chest swelled, its legs elongated, and shards of gleaming bone sprouted from its back, shoulders, and arms like cancerous thorns. Within moments—seconds, really—all that remained was the single, monstrous Flesh Eater, easily fifteen feet tall, half as wide, and ten times as ugly.
I gave Levi a sidelong what-in-the-holy-hell-is-that glance as the bottom of my stomach dropped out.
“Flesh Eaters,” he replied, as though the name said everything that needed to be said. “I’ll distract it,” he stated matter-of-factly. “You take out its head—the eyes are especially vulnerable. We need to feed it to the Pit Fiend, that’s the only way we win.”
The colossal Flesh Eater threw its head back and let out a bellow that sounded like a mountain of glass shattering. Levi, the colossal gray shit-kicker, dipped fat fingers into a gnarly gash running across one arm, scooped out a handful of golden blood, then lobbed the shit at the Franken-Flesh-Eater. The gore splattered across the dusty ground, forming a golden halo in the dirt around the creature. The ginormous monster glanced down, unimpressed with Levi’s handiwork. Honestly, I was sort of unimpressed, too. But then Levi slammed a fist into the earth, unleashing a seismic quake that knocked me off my feet.
The Hulk-sized Flesh Eater had no such problem, but a host of obsidian spikes exploded from the pit’s floor, sprouting from where Levi’s golden blood had fallen. The gleaming spears of ebony rock blasted through the creature’s feet, legs, and groin, pinning it in place as the golem lumbered forward, exploiting the brief opening.
I watched, transfixed and strangely horrified, as the MudMan changed and jumped once more: bony ridges of swirling rose quartz sprouted from his gray skin like thick scales, or maybe plate-mail. His hands likewise morphed into giant sledgehammer heads of purple quartzite, dotted with shards of black obsidian.
He careened through the fo
rest of obsidian quills littering the floor and laid into the uber Flesh Eater—at least twice his size—swinging his heavy fists with brutal efficiency. He worked the creature’s legs and torso, the only things he could reach, raining blow after brutal blow into flesh already broken and bleeding from the obsidian spears. The Flesh Eater responded in kind, though. Its giant bone-studded knuckles smashed into the golem, each impact accomplished by a thunderclap as bits of rosy rock and golden blood flew.
I had no clue how long Levi could withstand the bludgeoning, so I bolted right, sprinting along the pit’s wall, then slipped behind the monstrous Flesh Eater.
With a curse and a silent prayer, I scampered up the Flesh Eater’s back, using the bony nubs and rusted chains as hand and foot holds to hoist myself ever higher. The freak had to feel me clambering up his back, but apparently Levi was doing a damned-fine job of holding its attention. The tremendous body beneath me reeled from Levi’s devastating attacks, its legs swaying, its torso contorting, its arms pumping in ferocious attack. Before long, I crested the mountain of swaying meat and hooked one arm around a neck the size of a telephone pole.
I pressed my free palm into the side of its head and conjured a lance of concentrated Nox, unleashing the bolt of energy into its temple. The Flesh Eater was as big and beefy as a bull elephant, but the beam of deathly power didn’t give two shits about his size. Its skull fractured, skin sloughed away, and muscle simply vanished. The nasty bastard teetered—left, right, front, back—and I realized I’d made a terrible mistake. I was on the back of a fifteen-foot super freak who had to weigh in at a solid ton of meat and muscle. If he fell back, the force of the fall would crush me like a car compactor.
Frantically, I thrust one hand behind me and whipped up a construct of air and fire: an impromptu hand-held jet-pack. Flame exploded out, scorching the wall behind me like a rocket marring the launch pad. Thankfully, physics still applied in Hell; the force of the blast decided our trajectory, propelling us forward, toward the Pit Fiend. I stole a quick peek over the giant’s shoulder and watched the MudMan bolt right as I rode the falling giant toward the ground, clinging tightly for dear life.
We hit with a thud that rattled my teeth and reverberated in my bones, but the Flesh Eater absorbed the bulk of the impact and kept me from breaking anything important.
A thunderous cheer went up from the crowd, lots of “eat that loyalist cocksucker,” and “death to Asmodeus,” intermixed with a few calls for free beer. I just lay there, basking in the moment, letting my shot nerves and trembling hands settle as the cheer transformed into the familiar chant of “Blood, Blood, Blood.”
“Back!” Levi boomed, his landslide voice cutting through all the clamor as the Pit Fiend’s fleshy tentacles shot up around the Flesh Eater. In a wave of panic, I loosened my death grip around the Flesh Eater’s neck and rolled off the corpse, landing in the dirt next to the Pit Fiend. Then, quick as I could, I scrambled away, sliding to a halt, spinning around, and pressing my back against cool stone. The Flesh Eater’s body folded in half with a crunch, its back snapping under the tremendous pressure of the sinuous tentacle tongues.
It only took seconds for the colossal body to vanish down the grotesque wyrm’s throat, and then it was done. Gone. The pit floor reverted back to normal, and there was no evidence—aside from a few new blood smears and some golden goop—that anything had even happened.
NINE:
Crossroad Saloon
Levi, once more resembling a dumpy grocery-store manager, ushered me out of the Southside Blood Pit and into the unnaturally hot night. After we’d finished off the Flesh Eaters, Quintus had kindly fished us from the pit, given us a generous round of drinks on the house, which we’d politely declined, and seen us off after hooking me up with an additional pack of Reds. Apparently, murdering ten loyalist Flesh Eaters was worth a little goodwill in Hell.
Or at least, in this particular part of Hell.
Levi loitered by the wall, coldly surveying the winding alleyway in both directions, running his fingers along the stone, before finally nodding, satisfied by whatever he felt. “We’re in the clear,” he mumbled more to himself than me, before drawing a silver flask from a pocket. “Here,” he barked, unscrewing the lid with surprisingly nimble fingers, then pushing the little bottle toward me. “Drink this.”
I eyed the flask, thinking back to his hulking murder-machine form. “Where exactly do you keep that thing?” I asked, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I don’t remember seeing any pockets when you were all Hulked out back in the pit.”
He frowned, grimaced, then pointed to his belly. “I store things inside my gut,” he replied offhandedly, as though that were the most natural thing in the world. His flannel-clad stomach rippled and pulled back, revealing a gray divot big enough to hold a wallet, phone, or, in this case, a bottle of hooch—at least I hoped it was hooch. Preferably bourbon. Good bourbon, though that was probably asking too much.
“Yeah, that’s not normal,” I offered with a frown and a nod.
“It’s not a suggestion,” he replied sternly, thrusting the flask at me again. “You used a lot of Nox back there, and that wears down the seal.” He reached over and tugged up my jacket sleeve. The formerly glowing tribal tattoos decorating my right arm were dull and lifeless. “Makes you vulnerable over time. I don’t want my handiwork to go to waste.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, eyeing the swirling golden tattoos and Levi in turn. “Did you do this to me?” I lifted my arm and waggled it in his face. “You’re the asshole that carved me up without permission?”
He nodded, unruffled by my accusation. “Not sure if you realize this, but you have demons in you. More than one.” He gave me a flat, hard stare edging on hate. “The exorcism I performed on you, it didn’t get rid of those monsters hitching a ride in your soul. Just locked them up nice and tight so they can’t influence you. So they can’t speak to you or wrestle away control.
“And those sigils”—he jabbed a finger toward my arm—“are what’s keeping ’em in check. But don’t ever forget, they’re still in you. That means you can access their power, but the more Nox you draw, the more the ichor has to work to hold them back. So, if you want to stay in control, you’re gonna be drinking this stuff every couple of days. Maybe more.”
I eyed the flask askew. Reluctantly, I accepted and took a deep swig. The liquid was sludgy and tasted like spoiled milk and old pennies: bitter, rancid, and slightly metallic. “Gah,” I gagged, pulling the bottle away and running the back of my hand across my mouth. I glanced down and noticed a glistening golden smear marring my knuckles. “Oh God, please tell me this isn’t your blood?”
“Not blood,” he said curtly. “Ichor. But yes, it’s mine. Now drink it. All of it.”
“Ah, nope. No way. Me, I’m not exactly trusting by nature, so I want a full explanation before I start downing a pint of monster blood. I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard of vampires, but chugging blood is how you get vampires.”
Levi glowered at me and crossed his arms, one foot tapping in irritation, as though explaining basic facts was the most inconvenient task in the history of humanity. “Fine,” he conceded with an eyeroll. “I’ll explain while you drink.”
I lifted the bottle to my lips, pinched my nose, and took another swig.
“I was created to house a demonic godling,” Levi begrudgingly explained. “The big problem with demons is finding a host capable of holding their essence without it leaking all over the place. Generally, mortal bodies can’t handle the strain … The seepage of Nox kills most people. And conjured bodies are even less resilient—they need a constant supply of life force to operate on the Mortal Plane. But me?” He slapped his chest with one hand. “I’m custom built. The product of two thousand years’ worth of experimentation.”
He paused, gaze drifting for a moment as though trapped in some horrid memory, before snapping back to the present with a shake of his head. “My blood, my ichor,” he continued, pushing his gla
sses up on the bridge of his nose, “is a transmutable insulator. Allows me to shapeshift, but it’s actually intended to prevent demonic essence from leaking. Ichor works both ways, though. It can keep a demon perfectly preserved inside me, but it can also be used to keep demons out—or in your case, locked up. But you need a steady supply, and I’m the only one who can get you what you need, so no funny business.”
I grimaced and finished off the bottle, holding back the projectile vomit through sheer force of will, before offering him the empty flask.
“Now, if you’re satisfied, Chatty Cathy, let’s go. We’ve got people to meet.” He turned and set off at a good trot, no longer bothering to offer me even the pretense of conversation. Considering what kind of conversationalist he was, I didn’t mind a whole helluva lot. We followed the claustrophobic alley for another couple of minutes before exiting onto a winding street packed with more strange shops and more freaky denizens who didn’t offer us a second glance.
Here, it seemed, we were just another couple of Hellion Rubes, on our way from nowhere to nowhere.
After another twenty minutes of steady trekking, and what felt like a thousand turns and switchbacks later, Levi finally halted in front of a twisted building with an electric-blue neon sign: The Crossroads Saloon. Surprisingly, this sign was in genuine English, and even stranger, gritty blues licks—partially muted by the heavy door—drifted to my ears. The tinkle of piano keys. A riff of twangy guitar. The thump, thump, thump of a classic bass line. A dark rendition of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You.”
Levi pushed his way in without explanation, and I followed, intrigued. The music intensified and soon the savory smell of roasted meat and tangy barbeque sauce assaulted my nostrils, making my mouth water. I still had the god-awful metallic taste of Levi’s blood—ichor, I reminded myself—lining the inside of my mouth like a thin coat of lead paint. Needless to say, the thought of washing my mouth out with a fire hose of barbeque sauce was supremely appealing.
