I found myself on a floating platform, very similar in design to the dais in Joy’s office, only this one was situated within a huge central bore nearly twenty yards wide. The shaft stretched off into the gloom above and below us, and its outer wall was lined by hundreds upon hundreds of tiny blue winking LEDs.
I adjusted focus to compensate for the reduced ambiance, and discovered each of the displays signaled the presence of an elongated metallic hatchway. The overall impression was similar to that found within a bank vault’s strong-room, but on a much larger scale.
“How many are here?” I asked.
“Two thousand three hundred and forty-five,” Joy answered proudly, “and this is the largest of all the chambers.”
Our voices echoed off into the abyss, to be answered by the whine of a hydraulic system kicking into gear. Two concentrated beams of light stabbed out of the darkness, illuminating our chests in the red-wash of dual laser sights. Then I saw the source of them: a pair of double-barreled .50 Brimstone-Gehenna cannons with auto-track feature.
Nodding toward the guns, I said, “I take it those are part of the internal security measures you mentioned?”
“Yes. Sound and motion activated, and enhanced by an AI seek-and-destroy recognition system. We also have nerve-agent backups that can flood the entire shaft in seconds.”
“So how in Satan’s name did your intruder get past?” Apart from you fucking up, that is. “From what I see, it’s state of the art.”
“That’s what’s so disturbing,” Joy responded. “Even if someone did overcome the lethal deterrents intact, they’d still need to defeat the DNHA lockout protocol, and that has an explosive response. Let me demonstrate how elaborate it is.”
Joy moved toward the control panel and pressed her hand against a flat indented surface. Phhut! When she stepped back, I saw small beads of blood welling from her fingertips.
“DNHA sample analyzed,” a metallic voice intoned. “Agent Winters, J., recognized. Please enter passkey.”
Joy leaned over the microphone and in a deliberate voice, stated, “Cuídhhtích dòigh uile se cò inntrig a-bos.” She then repeated the same phrase in Standard English. “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”
I was impressed. “You speak ancient Hellanese?”
“Of course. It’s required for all those with level six clearance. And it’s the only way to prep the actual boxes.” She signaled for me to wait. “Just give me a moment . . .”
“Please enter the required code,” the same automated voice directed.
“Recognize item one. The Scroll of Divergent Union. Reference: neoni, neoni, neoni, aon, còigh. (Zero, zero, zero, one, five.)”
“Scroll of Divergent Union, neoni, neoni, neoni, aon, còigh, recognized,” came the reply. “Transferring now.”
Power bloomed. In moments, the deck commenced a dizzying ascent. As it did so, it scrolled around to the opposite side of the borehole and stopped in front of an access cover. I noted with interest how the .50s shadowed our every move.
A blue-white light sprang out from the LED unit. Once both of us had been scanned, I heard the faint hiss of a vacuum breach. Then the hatch slid open, revealing a compartment empty inside, save for a note written in blood:
There’s nothing better
Than a bright-eyed, soft skinned,
Little doll.
The perfect guinea pig
For the strychnine candy cane
That cures all ills.
You will die this night,
An exceptional death of pent-up frustration,
Bottled for so long, and released at last,
Like a volcano, against those who sin against God.
The inscription was different from the notes I’d seen before. It was bolder, less graceful, and didn’t degrade as the verse progressed.
Did Cream write this himself?
“Do you know what it means?” Joy asked, using the situation as an excuse to drape herself across me again.
“I’m afraid I do. Tell me, what exactly is the Scroll of Divergent Union?”
Still submissive to my will, she was helpless to resist.
“It’s an acoustic seraphim incantation that causes the veil to drop between realms.”
“Which realms? Heavenly or hell?”
“All of them.”
Oh crap! “And how often can it be used?”
“From what I understand, the manifest indicated that due to the extraordinary power incorporated within the fabric of the invocation, it may only be uttered once.”
“That’s once too many in the wrong hands.” Then I remembered an important facet of our earlier conversation. “You mentioned there were other boxes that had been broken into?”
“Yes, hang on a second.”
Turning away from me, Joy dipped her head to the mike. “Recognize item two. The Cup of Tartarus. Reference: neoni, neoni, neoni, dà, naoidh. (Zero, zero, zero, two, nine.)”
“Cup of Tartarus, neoni, neoni, neoni, dà, naoidh, recognized,” came the impassive reply once more. “Transferring now.”
Immediately we plummeted in a virtual freefall for over a thousand yards. When the stomach-turning descent came to a stop, we found ourselves level with a similar but smaller cover. Joy opened it. As before, the drawer was bereft of its true contents, and another bloody message had been left in its place.
I picked it up, and inspected the passage:
Do I remind you of someone who should be dead?
I’ve killed the sky,
And its curdling reflection greets me anew each day
With the burning flesh of a sadistic conflagration.
Soon, you will be mine to command,
A puppet, whose strings I’ll dangle
Above the abyss, on the edge of tomorrow.
My hand-wringing tormentor was back, but on this occasion the last few lines of an otherwise elegant script were barely legible.
So, were they here together? Or did one person leave both notes?
I felt I was on the verge of making an important connection.
Absentmindedly, I asked, “And what does this Cup of Tartarus do?”
“This cup grants the Power of Command to anyone who drinks from it. As with the scroll, the sheer dominion of the spell involved means the user may only wield it once, otherwise they’ll be consumed. However, the sovereignty of this particular icon remains active until the diktat has been fulfilled, or redirected.”
My blood ran cold.
I read the contents of both poems again, looking for clues.
Well, it’s clear they’re aiming their rhetoric at me, and . . .
An exceptional death of pent-up frustration,
Bottled for so long, and released at last,
Like a volcano, against those who sin against heaven . . .
I glanced at the second elegy:
I’ve killed the sky,
And its curdling reflection greets me anew each day
With the burning flesh of a sadistic conflagration.
. . . they’re making it obvious where I need to go.
“Joy, is there anything I need to know about the Geyser pyramids? Any other details that aren’t common knowledge, even to the likes of me?”
“Other than the fact they erupt so often, at all times of the day and night? No. But we can talk about that later . . .” The look of ravenous hunger had returned to her eyes. “We’re alone, we can’t be disturbed, and . . . ?”
She let the inference hang in the air between us and chewed her bottom lip provocatively. As I watched, she then began to tease the ripcord chain from between her breasts with her fingers in a slow, lazy, circular motion.
I must admit, I was tempted.
“C’mon,” she purred, “we all need some form of release. Who will know?”
That helped me make my mind up.
I held out my arms and smiled. Joy glided forward, her gaze fixed on mine, the first flush of arousal tinting her cheeks in a rosy blush.
She molded to my body perfectly, and despite my centuries of discipline, I felt myself respond.
Joy sensed it too and raised her chin for our first kiss.
An all too brief taste of mint, and then it was over.
Joy caught her breath and stiffened. All the tension drained from her body, and her legs gave way. I caught her weight as she fell, maintaining eye contact until her pupils had fully dilated.
I inhaled the scent of her one last time.
“Only a fortunate few can touch my flesh and avoid the consequences,” I whispered.
Very gently, I laid her out on the platform floor.
“And you’re not one of them.”
Visions of Strawberry’s alabaster skin floated through the outer vestiges of my mind.
“Your incompetence cannot go unpunished.”
Grasping the ripcord tightly, I interfaced mentally with its subprocessor and included the details I had only recently uncovered.
Pick the bones out of that!
Whoever her handler was, they could argue it out with the Attorney General and the Undertaker as to how things needed to proceed.
Me? I had other fish to fry, evidently, at the Spouting Pyramids of Geyser.
Chapter 9: Fish to Fry
Vernon took the news of Joy’s demise and reassignment surprisingly well. But then, as a lawyer, and they were experts at toeing the line and looking after their own asses. After placing a few calls to FBI headquarters and the Attorney General’s office, all agreed he would be left in charge of the depository until the appointment of a replacement librarian and the arrival of the special investigator, sometime in the morning.
He seemed quite happy, and from what I read in his emotions, considered this as a step toward promotion. Except that in his case that would only mean he would stink even worse than he already did: his tail would grow longer, and he’d make much more of a mess on the carpet.
Still, whatever rocks your boat, I suppose.
I paused to take stock of my situation.
I’d been inside the Sphincter for well over four hours. In that time, Paradise had departed and true night had fallen. The dusky glow of Dark Cairo did little to stave off the all-pervading gloom that infused the twilight hours here with an inevitable sense of menace. What’s more, my waning strength meant I was losing the advantage of my enhancements; and the ability to see clearly in the dark was one of them. Thankfully, fire pits situated at the base of each pyramid blazed high, and by their light I could distinguish the silhouettes of all the major structures. The flaming beacons aided me to keep on the right track, for I was currently making my way toward the cemeteries positioned on either side of Kung-Fu’s pyramid.
I mean, with all the threats regarding my imminent death, where else would I start?
The breeze picked up, and lightning branched across the sky in the distance.
That’s rather sudden. I didn’t get any warning of a storm moving in.
I started counting.
One thousand, two thousand, three thous–
A reverberating boom made the ground shudder.
And close too. Weird weather systems they have here.
The tympanic process repeated itself, only quicker this time; and before I knew it the sky was ablaze with a superfluity of anvil-to-ground and cloud-to-cloud discharges. A telltale pitter-patter on flagstones signaled the arrival of the first heavy drops of rain.
My internal alarm bells started ringing. I turned on the spot and extended my flagging senses out into the growing tempest. As a precaution, I also removed my scythe from within my coat and fastened my buttons tight.
It looks like Cream and company might have the balls to increase their attempts at intimidation. This should be interesting.
An ululating cry warbled out of the darkness.
“Reaper — Reaper — Reaper — Reaper . . .”
Who’s that?
“Over here — Over here — Over here . . .”
Despite my best attempts, I couldn’t zero in on the voice, which skipped from location to location around me.
“Cream?” I bellowed against the wind. “Show yourself, dammit! You’ve brought me here, so don’t be shy about facing me now.”
With a flick of my wrist, I extended my weapon to its full length.
As if responding to my challenge, the rain dramatically increased into a torrent, drenching me. I completed another slow circle, straining to get a clear line of sight on anything that might present a threat. Mocking laughter wove its way toward me through the downpour, taunting me from a dozen directions at once.
“I said show yourself. Let’s get this fiasco over with.”
Another blast of lightning followed. Right overhead, it drove me to my knees. The deluge erupted into a frenzied dissonance of light and sound. Thunder raged and hailstones as big as golf balls danced hypnotically about my feet.
Midnight congealed around me. I dropped into a fighting crouch. My alarm was working overtime now, and I decided it might be best to remove my gloves while I had time.
Before I had a chance to do so, a shadow rose up not twenty yards in front of me. It boiled and churned about itself, growing until it transformed into an eight-foot tall mass of flailing black rags topped by an impenetrable cowl.
Whatever it was, it didn’t appear to have legs. Immune to the effects of the weather, it glided toward me. Armored gauntlets slid down from the end of tattered sleeves, like cobras hunting for prey. Two pinpoints of light appeared, impossibly far back within the deepest folds of the hood.
At last, the penny dropped. That’s not Cream, unless he’s been abusing steroids. And I doubt it’s his hand-wringing buddy either.
“You wish to test yourself against us?” The tone of the question was laced with hostility. “That is well, for we have waited for a worthy opponent.”
Oh fuck! It’s a Sibitti enforc–”
The wraith morphed into a vortex of surging water and came at me with surprising speed. The surge hit. I was snatched into the air amid a bubbling, cascading frenzy.
Round and round I went, locked within an irresistible current that spun me head over heels and out of control. Had I been one of those denizens who needed to breathe, I would have quickly succumbed.
I found the experience both frightening and exhausting. I was weakened. I needed the Bãlefire to restore my full potential. And I had no way of calling for help.
Focus, idiot!
I lashed out, but it was like trying to swim in rapids. I tried to grab hold of the Sibitti’s essence in some way, but his substance flowed through my outstretched fingers like spray drenching the rocks on a shoreline.
How the hell do you fight water? In a moment of inspiration I unleashed a powerful blast of arcane might through my scythe. You boil it.
I needn’t have bothered. My effort had no discernible effect other than a resultant pressure wave that boxed my ears.
The Sibitti, however, didn’t like what I’d done: The waterspout began to spin much faster than before; so fast, in fact, that the blood rushed to my head. In seconds, my vision tunneled and started to dim.
Slammed into the ground, I hit the deck so hard; the air was knocked from my lungs. I saw stars. Overwhelming distress consumed me, surfing along my synapses in an unending wave that my healing ability struggled to cope with. I coughed, gagged, spat out blood — along with a chunk of my tongue — and struggled to push myself into a kneeling position.
“I find you wanting,” my opponent mocked. “How disappointing.”
“What can I say?” I retorted through clenched teeth. “You’ve caught me on a bad day.”
That thought struck home.
Or have they? I was led here, to this place, at a time when I cannot manifest.
I looked around, carefully. The storm had dissipated, no longer needed as a means to approach and then ambush me.
Oh, very clever.
Derisive snickering reverberated through the night.
It w
as a bloody set up! Just how many people has Cream included in his little rebellion?
“Perhaps my brothers may find continuing amusement in your pathetic attempts to stay alive,” the enforcer chided, “but I’ve grown bored with you.”
Brothers?
Sure enough, two more phantoms detached themselves from the gloom and manifested as identical corporeal forms.
Now I was worried. The Sibitti enforcers were personified weapons under the mandate of Erra, the Babylonian god of pestilence and mayhem. They possessed the might of an angel, and were true forces to be reckoned with. Assigned to hell to mock Satan and expose his weaknesses, they had caused widespread devastation in one realm after another. Had I been at full strength and able to Phage, I’d have fancied my chances, one on one.
But against three of them?
For the first time in my long and endless existence, I felt a twinge of doubt.
Despite my dilemma, however, I realized I had to suck it up. So I grinned.
There’s more than one way to fry a fish. Looks like it’s all or nothing.
“Do you find your predicament amusing, Reaper?” a different voice hissed. “Or is that pain I see etched across your bloodied face?”
Instead of replying, I called upon my remaining reserves and attempted to manifest. A slow crawl of energy answered my summons. I showed no reaction, hoping to catch them off guard. What little lethal force remained was pooled in the pit of my stomach, awaiting the trigger. I sent the command.
My essence fluttered like a fragile heartbeat . . . and then frittered impotently away.
As I suspected, I’d become far too weak to even call on the arcane majesty that was my right. A tingling sensation coursing through my veins was a sure sign that nearly all my remaining vitality was devoted to healing my injuries. So I went with option two:
My thumb edged toward the second button from the top of my sickle. Finding it, I fixed my target in sight and relaxed a little, for what I was about to do would even the score.
Addressing my intended victim, I teased, “Three of you? Three against one? I never realized the mighty Sibitti were such cowards. Just wait until the damned hordes of the underworld discover you were too scared to face the Reaper alone.”
Hell Bound (Heroes in Hell) Page 12
