by James Hunter
I had one last trick up my sleeve, though. Hopefully, it would be enough. It had to be, or I was screwed.
I planted my feet, pulled on the Vis flowing through me, and triggered my last big construct, buried beneath the colosseum floor. The massive sigil might’ve been out of sight, but the power was still there, just waiting. My trickle of energy completed the circuit and unleashed the terrible working: a forest of rocky spears exploded through the colosseum floor, stabbing into Asmodeus’ tentacles, impaling his lower body. Black blood spilled like oil—
But the rocky protrusions cracked and snapped as Asmodeus pressed on like a steamroller. That trap should’ve stopped him cold, but instead, he continued to charge, even though spits of earth skewered his flesh, and he was leaking worse than the Exxon Valdez. Oh shit. I thrust one hand out, unleashing a concentrated beam of violet Nox, which carved deep furrows in his chest and stomach. That didn’t stop him either. In a panic, I dropped the beam and darted left, hoping to outmaneuver him, but he was close now. So close.
I put on a renewed burst of speed, but a huge tentacle slammed into my calves, sweeping my legs out from beneath me. I crashed face-first into the dirt, trying to break the fall with my palms and forearms, but failing horribly. My nose smacked against the unforgiving ground, and a searing flash of pain erupted in my head as hot blood gushed. A broken nose. Exactly what I needed at the moment. I reached up on instinct to staunch the flow, but I should’ve been moving instead.
That careless move cost me precious time.
A tentacle slid beneath me and locked around one leg, cinching down like a vise. I struggled and fought, bucking and kicking, but it was too late. Asmodeus lifted me up; suddenly I was dangling upside down by one leg, only a few feet away from his serpentine face. “So much trouble you’ve caused me,” he growled, eyes pressed into thin slits. “You’ve killed esteemed members of my court, ruined my games, and embarrassed me in front of the other great Nobles of Hell. For that, you will pay in eternal suffering.”
Blood leaked down into my eye while he gabbed, making it damn tricky to see. But even through the haze of blood, I realized I wasn’t likely to get a much better shot than this. I was less than three feet from his head—at this range, I couldn’t miss, and though he wasn’t waltzing with death yet, he certainly wasn’t in good shape. I grinned as he droned on, right hand shooting for the pistol. But as soon as my hand wrapped around the grip, I was sailing through the air in a vicious arc.
The tentacle smashed me into the ground; stars exploded across my vision, my ears rang like a bell, and the gun slipped away, clattering across the floor.
“No,” Asmodeus said with a shake of his head. “No more tricks. No more games.” Another tentacle slithered around my neck, squeezing down. I’d come so close. All for nothing. As I lay on my back, dying, I reached up a trembling hand and wiped the blood from my eye. Then, even though I was on the verge of blacking out and I could hardly breathe, I started to laugh. A weak, frail sound, but a laugh all the same.
“What’s so funny?” Asmodeus hissed, his tentacle pressing down even harder on my throat.
I couldn’t talk, so instead, I just offered him a bloody grin and pointed upward with a wobbly finger.
Levi—covered in rocky quartz like medieval armor, with black spikes of obsidian sticking out like thorns—was diving straight toward us with his sledgehammer fists extended.
The MudMan passed through the golden barrier like an arrow and slammed into Asmodeus’ face like a cannonball. The demon lord stumbled as one cheek vanished in a spray of black blood, and down Asmodeus went, Levi clinging to his neck like a giant tick. The pair hit the deck with a boom, a cloud of dust billowing up around them. But the best part was Asmodeus’ tentacles released just enough for me to wriggle free and scramble for the pistol a handful of feet away.
I snatched up the gun and spun, rubbing at my throat, taking a half second to catch my breath while surveying the damage.
Asmodeus was on his back, huge arms waving desperately in the air, trying to swat Levi away, but the MudMan wasn’t having it. Nope. The great, gray murder-machine was kneeling on the Demon King’s chest, his blocky, stone-covered fists raining down devastating blow after devastating blow. Each hit landed with a wet thwack accompanied by a squirt of viscous blood. Levi might not have much of a sense of humor, and he might be weirder than a meth-head hobo, but holy shit could that guy kick some serious ass.
Time to finish this thing, before Asmodeus got a second wind. I broke into a shuffle-footed jog, swerving to avoid Asmodeus’ flailing tentacles as I skirted along the right side of the Demon King’s body. I came to a herky-jerk halt at Asmodeus’ head.
Levi glanced up at me, his fists still firing like pistons, and nodded. Do it.
I felt like there should be some quippy hero line here, but I was tired, sore, sick to death of Hell, and ready to see this shit-sucking demon dead and gone. So instead, I pressed the barrel of the weapon into his temple and pulled the trigger. The gun belched fire, and the bullet plowed through his skull, leaving a black burn and a gaping hole. In an instant, Asmodeus’ thrashing ceased, and purple flame bled from the wound, crawling over pale skin with living awareness, wreathing him in dancing light.
Levi stopped his pummeling, ripped the amulet from the Demon King’s neck, then dove from the body as the purple flame raced over Asmodeus’ neck, down his chest, across his arms, and onto his tentacles. Incinerating him. Killing him. No, more than killing him. Unmaking him. I grinned and lowered the pistol as the Demon King turned to a giant pile of sooty ash.
I glanced at Levi, who was smiling like a loon. He looked … well, happy actually. Or at least almost happy. Content might be a better word. “Why the good mood?” I asked, dropping down onto my ass, rubbing at the bridge of my nose and taking a much-deserved breather. “Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you look like a bag of literal shit right now,” I said.
His grin widened as he shuffled over to the edge of the golden containment circle and knelt down. “Because we did the right thing, Lazarus. And sometimes doing a little good, even in a bad place, is enough.” He smudged a line of Hebraic script with deft precision, dispelling the golden barrier with a thunderclap of displaced air, which blew away Asmodeus’ remains, leaving behind no trace that the shitheel monster had ever lived. He stood, nodded in satisfaction, then headed my way, helping me to my feet with one broad hand, stained black with blood.
“Now”—he paused and shot me a sly look—“as you are wont to say, let’s blow this popsicle stand.” He said the words far too formally, but I laughed anyway. The guy was trying. He lifted Asmodeus’ amulet into the air, and suddenly the jade beam of light was pulling on us. Lifting us up, up, up, drawing us toward the hellish sky above. We drifted out of the cavernous Nekropolis and into the colosseum proper, surveying the madness still unfolding as we ascended.
The demon lords had formed a proper resistance. Small groups patrolled the arena, killing the most dangerous creatures, before moving on.
But the upper levels of the colosseum were still a mess. Hellions and Revenants duked it out like there was no tomorrow. Blood flew. Bones snapped. Bodies plummeted over the guardrail, smashing on the lower decks like rotten pumpkins. And there, loitering near an exit on the upper level, was Heckabe. We were far enough away that it was hard to tell for sure, but when she turned toward us and offered a brief wave, I knew.
I waved goodbye, feeling a small pang of regret as she disappeared into a pool of inky shadow. Despite a rough beginning, she was alright.
In seconds, Levi and I were above the colosseum, floating up, until all of Pandæmonium stretched out below us like a perfectly rendered map. From this high, I couldn’t see the neon lights or the Hellions packing the streets; it was just black termite mounds, gray dust, and flickering orange fire …
And then that was gone, too …
Everything was burning green light and rushing, hurricane-force winds, and then we were in a circu
lar weather-beaten cave with rough granite walls untouched by human hands. Ten portals surrounded us—each an opalescent shimmer marring the rock face, each marked by a single, burning green rune. Though I didn’t recognize any of the symbols offhand, my mind translated them all the same. Names. The nine great cities of Hell: Dis, Thule, Sodom, Pandæmonium, Niflhel, Diabolus, Babylon, Matabuhr, and Walohr.
And the tenth portal?
The tenth was a name I knew, too. Annwn.
A land in the deepest region of Outworld. Not exactly a fun place to be, but anywhere in Outworld was better than Hell. I slapped Levi on the shoulder, offered him a lopsided grin, and pulled him through the portal, away from Hell, and into the night-darkened, rolling plains of Annwn …
THIRTY-SIX:
Welcome Home
We stepped out onto lush green grass coated with dew that caught the moonlight above, and instantly I felt my hackles rise. It was one thing to escape Hell, but in its way, Annwn wasn’t much better—not with Arawn the Horned roaming around. The guy was batshit crazy, completely unpredictable, and served as a watchman over the gates, ensuring no guilty soul escaped the awful punishments of the Pit. We’d met once before, and I wasn’t eager to relive the experience.
I turned, glancing back at a sleepy town not far off, which could’ve passed as the grounds for a cheesy Renaissance Festival. A worn cobblestone street carved its way through a host of narrow wood-framed houses and shops. Silver starlight played over the shingled roofs. Even from the outskirts, the buildings looked dusty and worn, like the kind of places you might expect to find in some turn-of-the-century German village, tucked away in the backcountry, untouched by the onslaught of the modern world.
I’d spent time in four of the five fae capitals, and Tylwyth-Tir, the capital of Anwnn, land of the Unfettered, was definitely the dullest. At least when it came to looks.
After the last few days, though, I was good with dull. Any more excitement might kill me outright. And thankfully, the street behind us was quiet, the windows all closed and shuttered. No one was moving about, which made sense because during the nights in Anwnn, the Wild Hunt was liable to roam, and no one was safe from the hunt. Not unless you were part of it. My gaze landed on the only genuinely interesting building in the whole village: a gigantic structure at the center of the town cobbled together from old wood, chiseled stone, worn shields, and tattered battle standards.
The Black Lodge.
“High time we get the hell away from this place,” I said to Levi.
We set out across the hills.
Levi, though not exactly fast, could speed walk like nobody’s business and set a demanding pace that quickly left the village as little more than a glimmer on the horizon. But just when I was about to breathe a sigh of relief—sure we’d made a clean getaway—a deep, misty fog rolled in around us, obscuring the landscape, as a distant horn blared, followed by the meaty growls of hunting hellhounds. Levi wheeled in a circle, apparently as unsure about what was happening as I was, then crouched down, digging his fingers into the loamy soil.
“What do we do?” I hissed, pulling on rich, delicious, plentiful Vis while I drew my hand cannon. “Do we run?”
“No,” Levi grunted, glancing up and into the swirling fog. “It’s too late for that, they’re already here.”
“Indeed,” a deep, rich voice boomed. A second later the speaker stepped through the mist. Lord Arawn in the flesh. Unlike the hideous demons of the Great Below, this guy had the rugged good looks of a Greek statue. He was fifteen feet tall, with tussled ebony hair, a wicked set of stag antlers protruding from his head, and black-and-red armor adorned with spikes, chains, hooks, and blades of every shape and size. The guy was basically a mobile torture chamber. “The Hunt moves on the winds, gentlemen. No soul can escape us.”
I spun in a circle, searching for a way out, but there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. Arawn was in front of us, sure, but he wasn’t alone. I raised my pistol to the ready—I wasn’t going back to Hell without a fight.
To our right was a ghostly horse: a decrepit, decaying creature made of dead flesh and gleaming white bones, its eye sockets empty and leaking streams of fog like gray tears. On its back was a headless rider, dressed in tattered finery that would’ve fit right in on the battlefields of the Revolutionary War. Lord Griggs, a Dullahan, and Arawn’s right-hand man. On our left was a whip-thin woman covered in a thousand filthy rags, with dark hair knotted into a multitude of dreads and an ancient golden whistle hanging around her throat. Matilda of the Night, the keeper of the hounds.
And speaking of hounds … Spread out behind us in a loose semicircle were a host of Cwn Annwn. Hellhounds. Charming little fellas, really. They were huge, beefy things that were related to dogs in the same way a house cat is related to a tiger. These things had a lion’s build with blocky heads, crushing hyena jaws, and manes that burned with sulfurous blue flame. Their bodies were covered with bulky muscle, all wrapped in scaly plate mail. The creatures stared at Levi and me through molten yellow eyes, heavy-lidded and sleepy.
Yep, we were boned.
“We’re not souls,” Levi said, standing up nice and straight, squaring his shoulders. “Lady Fate, she told me you have no authority to throw us back in Hell because we don’t belong there. Man is destined to die once, and after comes judgement—that’s the rule. But we”—he waved a fleshy gray hand toward me—“haven’t died. No death. No judgement. No hunting.”
“Yeah, what he said,” I replied. “And also, if any of you sons a bitches get uppity, I swear to God I’ll set you all on fire.”
“Wait,” Arawn said, his amber eyes weighing me. “Those words. I know you. Yancy Lazarus—the Hand of Fate.” He dropped down to one knee so he could get a better look at me. “Yes. Much has changed about you. A hard road you’ve walked since last we spoke, but you are the same.” He paused, nose scrunching up in distaste. “Though you reek of demons.” He shot one hand out, and a huge hellhound materialized from the mist, padding forward with its lips pulled back, revealing deadly black teeth. “Be easy.”
The hound inched up to Levi first, its snout sniffing at him, before finally moving on to me. The beast circled me once, twice, its hot nose pressing against my jeans. Finally, it grunted and slipped away, back to the side of its master.
“You speak true it seems. Neither of you are souls. But you are trespassers on my land, and that makes you eligible for the hunt.”
I tensed, ready to fight, but then he grinned and raised one hand. “Peace, Yancy Lazarus. The smells I smell tell of the grandest story. One of battle and intrigue. I smell Asmodeus, and Hecate. The Bone Collector and the whiff of sulfur. Stranger still, I taste flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood upon you. You have seen Heckabe, daughter of mine?”
I nodded, feeling supremely unsure.
“I’ll strike a compact with you, Yancy Lazarus. I am easily bored. I have seen all manner of things in five thousand years, yet I must know your story. I simply must. Where have you been, and what things have you done, my curious friends?” He glanced at Levi and me in turn. “Tell me a story unlike any I have ever heard spun, and I shall grant you safe passage from my lands. Make me forget the tedium of existence for but a night and I shall even cast you a portal from this place, all the way back to Hub, should you so desire.”
“So, all he has to do is tell a good story?” Levi hedged. “And then you let us go?”
“Just so, my odd friend,” the horned godling replied.
Levi glanced at me and nudged me with a pudgy elbow. “What’ve we got to lose? Besides, you sure like hearing the sound of your own voice. Tell him.”
I grunted, shifted uncertainly on my feet, then cleared my throat.
“So, no shit, there I was …” I started, recounting my rude awakening on the toilet, my brush with Levi, and our subsequent trek through Pandæmonium. I told them about the Flesh Eaters, and my fanboy moment inside the Crossroad Saloon. I recounted my meeting with the Succubus Queen and our ra
id on the Roller Nation. When I got to the part about Azazel reforging the Reaper’s Scythe, which now rode my side in the form of a gun, everyone scooted back an inch or two, but they still listened.
By the time I was done, Arawn was sitting cross-legged a few feet away from me, his eyes shining like chips of amber, his chin resting in his hands. He looked enthralled. Like a little kid who’d heard the story of Santa Clause for the first time.
“By the gods, that is such a tale,” he finally said, pushing himself to his feet, a faint lopsided grin playing across his lips. “You are a strange mortal, Yancy Lazarus. Twice now you have entered my land unbidden and unwelcome. Twice now, you have entertained me and shall walk away unscathed—a feat no other mortal has ever accomplished. I do not know what the future holds for you, child of chaos, but I’m eager to find out.”
He thrust one hand out, fingers splayed back, and a shimmering portal erupted in the air, showing me a familiar bar, in a familiar corner of the Hub. The Lonely Mountain. “Fare thee well, Yancy Lazarus. Until we meet again.” He paused, eyes hazy and distant. “And somehow I feel certain we will meet again. Thrice cursed, thrice blessed, thrice our fates shall be entwined.”
I offered him a perfunctory bow, mumbled a hasty goodbye, then dragged Levi’s bulky ass through the portal before that crazy asshole could change his mind.
***
Levi and I stood on the sidewalk in front of a posh home a few blocks away from Colosseum Square in the Lower Garden District of the Big Easy. It was night, the moon nearly full overhead, and despite the muggy air of the South, it felt like the arctic after my time in Hell. I mean, sure I was sweating, but I wasn’t actively melting into a flesh puddle from the heat, so that was a huge win in my book.
