by James Hunter
Our sudden appearance caused quite the stir, but no one seemed especially interested in messing around with a couple of fellows covered in blood and gore who looked like they’d just battled their way through a legion of roller skating nightmares.
I picked up some fried wontons and a box of vegetarian lo mein to go, and from there, it was a half hour commute via a rusted-out Tri-skiff to the Crossroad Saloon. Levi—now back in his human mask—sat in silence as we rode, his eyes pressed shut, his face oddly pale and sickly, while I ate. Crunching on crispy dough, savoring the rich crab-cheese filling, slurping up noodles by the mouthful. The grub wasn’t the best I’d ever eaten, but after scarfing down charred Hell critter, it tasted absolutely aces. All I needed was a beer, and I’d be set.
More than a few times during the trip, though, I had to drop my face because I noticed small packs of black-clad Flesh Eaters roaming the busy, neon-painted streets. They prowled through the bustling crowds in little pockets of empty space, their long black tongues tasting the air.
Searching.
Eventually, the Tri-skiff driver swerved through a dense pocket of traffic—huge monster trucks jockeying for position with a swarm of brightly colored mopeds—and screeched to a halt in front of the saloon. Levi fished a handful of tarnished coins from his pocket and handed them to the potbellied driver before slipping out onto the curb. I followed suit, offering the driver a curt “thanks,” which earned me a bold middle finger as the Tri-skiff dropped into gear and peeled out, cutting off an old-timey buggy being pulled along by a scale-hided lizard the size of a buffalo.
Last time I try to be friendly to anyone, ever.
Levi stole a look at me over one shoulder, then jerked his head toward the door and shoved his way inside. I stepped back into the bar-turned-blues joint and immediately felt about a million times better. Even though I wasn’t hungry, the aroma of tangy barbeque and the sharp odor of bourbon were like perfume in my nostrils, and the gritty blues licks loitering in the air were a balm for my soul. An acoustic guitar warbled out an occasionally manic, occasionally melancholy beat, while Robert Johnson belted out an up-tempo version of “If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day.”
The song was a foot-tapping classic that always had a spot in my playlist. The melody conjured images of warm summer nights while drinking good booze on the back porch. The jangled notes were old friends, welcoming me home with open arms.
I breathed deeply, taking it all in, then turned toward the bar. Unlike last time, most of the tables were full of bar-goers of all stripes, eating food, chuckling over drinks, and most of all soaking up the tunes and good vibes. Ma Rainey, droopy-eyed as ever, stood sentry over the bar, leaning casually against the hardwood counter on her elbows. She glanced up at us, offering me a lopsided smile and a quick wink, but kept right on chitchatting with one of the few patrons camped out at the bar proper.
Her, I recognized too.
It was the hard-edged, golden-eyed gal from my last rendezvous with Hecate the Succubus Queen. One of Hecate’s personal assistants.
She was stout and well-muscled like an Olympic gymnast, and wore dark cargo pants, black leather combat boots, and a gray wifebeater, showcasing a host of swirling tribal tattoos covering sleek arms. A tactical holster rode on one hip, complete with a .45 Magnum, and a heavy-headed mace sat in a leather frog on her opposite hip. A bronze circular shield, vaguely Grecian, covered her back, and bulky spiked shoulder pads with matching gauntlets completed the look.
Even from across the room, she put me on edge. Something about her reminded me of a feral animal too long without a meal.
She turned on her barstool, flashed us a professional, thin-lipped smile, then beckoned us over with a lazy flick of her wrist.
Instead of waiting for Levi, I took point, dodging tables and customers as I carved my way across the floor, eager to be off my feet and to have a beer to take the edge off my frayed nerves. The lady smiled a little deeper as I drew closer, though the gesture never touched her predatory golden gaze. She motioned to the stool beside her before returning her attention to a half-full glass of amber suds. Ma Rainey fell silent as I slid onto the leather-padded stool, and Levi straddled the next seat over.
“I seen some down-and-out folks in my days,” Rainey said, eyeing me long and hard, her gaze noting the dried blood, dusty grime, and the myriad of tiny nicks and scratches adorning my arms and face. “And you look ’bout as down and out as they come. If I didn’t know no better, I’d say you took a damn good whoopin’. The kind my pa used to hand out for being out past curfew.” She paused, the ghost of a smile dancing on her lips.
“You should see the other guy,” I replied with the biggest shit-eating grin I could muster, feeling good despite being broken, bloody, and dead tired. It was the music, of course. A good song has a strange, almost preternatural power all its own; sure, it can drag you down to the deepest, darkest pit, but it can also pull you back up into the light.
A tune like “If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day” was so damn infectious, it was hard not to smile. To laugh, even. A song like that preached one truth: So, you’ve had a bad day, huh? Well, it’s only life, don’t take it so seriously. Pick yourself up and get back to dancin’.
“You been stirrin’ up more trouble,” Rainey said, fishing a smudged, questionably clean glass from beneath the bar top, “but dat’s what you do, I reckon. How ’bout a stiff drink? I’ll even put it on da house.”
I sat up a bit straighter and arched an eyebrow at her. “What’s the catch? This is the Inferno—nothing’s ever on the house.”
“No catch,” she replied with a sly sideways glance. “Truth be told, I like lookin’ at you. You a bit roughed up ’round the edges, but them muscles are easy on the eyes.” She paused and licked her lips while her gaze roved over me with hungry lust. “Now, what’s your poison, sugga?”
I blushed—couldn’t help it. This was Ma Rainey, after all. “That’s damn decent of you,” I said, slouching forward, resting my forearms on the polished bar top, trying to cover up a bit without making a big deal of it. “You know what, it has been a helluva day,” I mused, consciously avoiding eye contact with Hecate’s assistant. “I was leaning toward beer, but how about an Old Fashioned? If it’s on the house, I might as well get my money’s worth.”
Rainey nodded and turned to Levi. “And what about you, Muddy? Looks like keepin’ this hooligan on a leash has aged you ten years. You look ’bout as saggy as I do.”
“I’ll take the usual,” he grunted, which took me by surprise. It was hard to envision Levi as the kinda guy who had a “usual” at all, much less in a place like this.
Ma Rainey just nodded, though, and shuffled off, returning a handful of seconds later with an Old Fashioned for me and a sludgy glass of crap for Levi. Seriously, whatever he was drinking looked like the pile of goo you might discover beneath an old dumpster after a long, hot July day in the Big Easy.
“It’s a combination of motor oil and magnesium powder,” Levi said, noticing my lingering stare. “Good for regeneration. Tastes like old car tires, though.” He grimaced and took a big slug of the sludge, which left an oily stain on the glass. I could only imagine what something like that would do to the guts of an average person.
God, the guy was such a weirdo.
I put him and his oily concoction from mind, taking a long pull from my glass as I waited patiently for Hecate’s assistant to speak. For a long while she didn’t, though. She simply sat there, polishing off her beer while I nursed my Old Fashioned, savoring the burn of Jack and the soft nip of bitters and club soda. The silence was an uncomfortable thing, but I refused to be the one to break it. This was a test, a power move to establish dominance, and I refused to give in.
Eventually, she finished her drink, stifled a small belch with a closed fist, then stood, her face cold and calculating as she eyed Levi and me in turns. “So, did you get it?” she asked without preamble, her voice bored, the words coated with a vaguely Europe
an accent. “The scythe?”
I took a long slug of my drink and didn’t answer, not right away. If she wanted to play it cool, I could do cool in spades. “I don’t owe you a thing,” I finally replied, not wanting to admit we’d failed. Besides, it’s never, ever a good idea to offer your enemy extra information, especially if it’s about a potential weakness. “But here I am.”
“Fine.” She crossed her arms, then absently examined her fingernails. “I suppose it’d be best if we took this somewhere more private,” she said. “Come.” The word was a stern command wrapped in a sheath of soft velvet.
“Not until I get a name.” I turned around and leaned casually against the bar while I sipped at my drink. “I don’t work with people I don’t know, and I sure as hell don’t take orders from ’em.”
The woman faltered, uncertain for the first time, and gave me a thorough once-over as she absently tucked an errant strand of hair behind a pointed ear with a tuft of fur on the tip. “Heckabe, Queen of Troy, and Mother of Lycanthropes,” she offered casually before heading for the basement staircase. “Now come,” she called out again. This time the words were a feral growl no human could ever manage.
Now, there was a twist I hadn’t seen coming. Mother of Lycanthropes? Yeah, that probably wasn’t a good thing. I’ve tangled with werewolves a time or two—they’re damn rare since the Judges nearly hunted their rabid, fur-covered asses to extinction—so I wasn’t looking forward to picking a fight with Mama wolf. But hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, especially with how banged up and exhausted I was.
I killed my drink in one long gulp, slipped from my seat with a grimace, and followed her. Levi trailed at my heels, but said nothing.
I had a brief flash of déjà vu as Heckabe ushered us through the ancient stone doorway marked with the words Neither here nor there, but everything betwixt and between. This time, though, the place was empty. No music pumped in the air. No bondage-clad Flesh Eaters lounged around tables, eating unspeakable things while the dead danced on stage. Even the Succubus Queen was absent, her booth abandoned and lonely.
“Where is everyone?” Levi grunted from behind me, his words brimming with barely veiled suspicion. Not that I blamed him—warning bells were clanging in my head too, and my hand naturally fell on the butt of my pistol, ready to draw and fire at the drop of the hat. Pro tip for you: The number one rule of surviving any preternatural situation? Shoot first, and go for the scorched-earth policy.
TWENTY-THREE:
Game Plan
“You don’t need to do that,” Heckabe said, pausing mid-step to glance at me over one armor-clad shoulder. “This is not a setup. We heard about your raid on the Roller Nation hours ago. The queen simply felt it unwise to be in the same room with the only man in Hell who can kill her.” She spread her hands, and there we are. She turned and made for a small circular table near the empty bar at the back.
“So, Hecate found out we jacked Tezrian, then she sent you to do the dangerous, dirty work for her?” I cocked an eyebrow at her and whistled softly. “You must be in the doghouse”—dog, wolf, get it?—“with your boss to get stuck with that job. I mean, what’s to stop us from just nuking your smarmy ass off the face of the map, huh?” I didn’t want to pick a fight with her, but in my experience showing a predator any hint of fear is a good way to get disemboweled.
She smiled, eyes drawn to dagger slits, and traced her fingers along the surface of the table. “You are certainly welcome to try, fresh meat, but I’ve been around since before Troy fell. I’m quite resilient.”
Levi slid up next to me and leaned in, his lips damn near next to my ear. “Best to just let this one go,” he whispered. “Trust me, there’s nothing I’d like better than to carve her up and feed her body into the Phlegethon”—he ground his teeth as he stared murder and death at her—“but best not to pick this fight if we don’t need to. Her aura’s as dark as a black hole. There’s nothing to her but death, killing, and mayhem. Maybe she was something else once, but not anymore. Things like her, they’re hard to kill. Might be we could do it, but it’d be costly.”
“Yeah, but can we trust her?” I whispered back, covering my mouth with one hand so she couldn’t read my lips.
“You don’t have much choice,” she replied tersely, tapping one pointed ear with her finger. “Mother of Lycanthropes has its perks. Now sit so we can discuss our business arrangements.”
I dropped my hand and frowned, but took the chair directly across from her. “I’m willing to listen, but if we’re gonna have a working relationship, I’ll need a little honesty from you first.”
She shrugged and spread her hands again. “I’m an open book, and I have nothing to hide.”
“If Hecate’s so worried now that we have the scythe”—I shot Levi a play-along glance—“then what are you doing here? Why not just leave us be?”
The woman waved the question away as unimportant or, perhaps, self-evident. “Just because she doesn’t want to risk an untimely demise doesn’t mean she isn’t in your corner. Quite the opposite. She wants Asmodeus dead, you gone, and as little collateral damage to her assets as possible. Raiding the Roller Nation was a final test, and since the pair of you have proven your”—she paused, tilting her head, searching for the right word—“indomitable spirit and ingenuity, she’s willing to back you openly. And so, for the remainder of your time in Pandæmonium, I’ll be tagging along. Helping out with logistics, resources, and perhaps a few other things.”
She grinned, her mouth suddenly near to bursting with needle-sharp fangs as she examined her fingers, now tipped with wicked curved talons. Neat trick, and pretty damned intimidating.
“What makes you think we need your help at all?” I said, pretending I was unimpressed by her display. “I don’t know you, and I don’t trust you.”
“You need me.” She pulled a folded manila envelope from her cargo pocket and set it on the table. “We share a vested interest, Lazarus, and breaking into the Flesh Palace isn’t going to be as easy as breaching the Roller Nation. Tezrian is reckless, but not Asmodeus. He’s devious, and more importantly, cautious.
“He rarely stays in the same place for long, and tracking his movements is as unpredictable as the migration of the great Wyrms. But there is one time a year when we know exactly where he’ll be. The Great Flesh Reckoning—Pandæmonium’s version of your American Superbowl.”
She pulled a glossy black-and-white photo free from the dossier and placed it on the table. A looming colosseum stared up at me, an easy rival to the original in Rome, though made from blocks of polished black stone and studded with thick spears like a humongous porcupine. Except these earthen spears weren’t merely for show; each one held a Hellion, impaled through the guts while a swarm of overgrown ravens with too many eyes tore at their flesh.
“In two days, the Reckoning will commence, and Asmodeus will be ringside in the Imperial Podium. It’s the only time of the year we can be certain of his whereabouts, and, even better for you, Pandæmonium’s nexus to Outworld is located above the colosseum. Everything you’ll need in one convenient place.” She pulled out another photo, this one of a circular amulet on a thick chain.
“This is the key you need to trigger the nexus, which will transport you to the Inferno Gate. From there, you can travel to any city in Hell or to the edge of Outworld itself. But Asmodeus wears it religiously around his neck. You want out? This is the way. I’ll confess”—she grimaced—“I don’t know how you’re going to kill Asmodeus, but my queen has devised a way to get you close enough to do the deed.” She paused and fished another pair of pictures from the envelope, placing them carefully over the others.
The first was an interior shot of the colosseum.
The arena was a dead ringer for what I’d seen in the Southside Blood Pit—a giant, sandy, gray pit—only a thousand times larger. A black stone retaining wall, thirty feet tall, encircled the area, and thousands of seats rose up toward the sky like a football stadium made of stone, sa
nd, and dried blood. At the far end of the pit, just above the retaining wall, was a private viewing box, edged with great black pillars meticulously sculpted to look like writhing bodies.
“That”—Heckabe said, tapping the private seating area—“is the Imperial Podium. Asmodeus will be there with an unobstructed view of the fighting pit. He delights in many things, but the Reckoning is his favorite pastime. That is the only time he will be vulnerable enough to attack.”
“So what,” I said, leaning forward, my eyes restlessly scanning the glossy photo. “We just get seats nearby, then take a poke at him when he’s got his back turned?”
Heckabe’s lips pressed into a thin, thoughtful line as she shook her head. “No. Unfortunately, it won’t be quite so simple. The second-tier seating, the maenianum primum, is reserved for honored Demons of Hell—Infernal royalty who travel in from all nine levels for the Reckoning. Getting in there will be impossible even with your formidable shapeshifting abilities. And the next tier, the secundum imum, will be just as difficult. Perhaps more so given the security measures Asmodeus usually employs.”
She clicked an ebony nail against the upper-tier seating, which consisted of a standing gallery encircling the top of the amphitheater. “Perhaps we could access the summum in ligneis, but at that point, we’d be too far to make the hit anyway.” She traced her nail down to the pit’s impressive floor. “No. The only way for you to get close enough is to be a participant in the games.”
I slapped a hand down on the tabletop, leaning in until I could stare her dead in the eye. “You want me to go in as a fighter? That’s the stupidest, most reckless idea I’ve ever heard, and I’m the chief architect of stupid, reckless ideas. It’s sorta my thing.”
She nodded, her jaw tight. “There’s no other way. And where it is impossible to infiltrate the lower decks, there are many ways to get you into the pit. The queen has an inside man working in the Flesh Palace who can smuggle you into a holding cell. You will have to go in unarmed, which might prove problematic, but that is the biggest hiccup. Few people know what you actually look like as a human—though Asmodeus will—but a simple helmet should take care of that. Then, once we get you in, it’s simply a matter of waiting.”
