Knight of Gehenna (Hellsong Book 2)

by Shaun O. McCoy

  They dragged him to his feet. He wretched once more, feeling the pull again on his testicles. Julian’s world went dark.

  Rick got an uneasy feeling as he approached the Harpsborough guards. They seemed a little too nervous. Even when Rick was standing before them, they didn’t pay him much attention. They kept looking over their shoulders as if they expected something to be happening back in town.

  “Everything alright?” Rick asked them warily.

  “Yeah,” one said.

  “I’m just here to trade.”

  “Sure, sure,” said the other, “of course you are. Come on through.”

  Rick entered. He was surprised by how many people were in the village. Since their rations of spider eggs had run out, the town had been mostly empty. With Julian’s food supply gone, and with the hunters unable to find any devils, the villagers had been forced to wander the wilds in hopes of finding food. But now there were almost as many people lying amidst the stone hovels as there were just after Michael had brought back the giant spider.

  Except this time things were different. This time there was no vibrant hum of conversation or feeling of vitality amongst the Harpsborough people.

  About a dozen were sitting on the church steps. A few dozen more were lined up along one of the Fore’s walls—one that didn’t have the still man. Martin, the hunter, was the only one on that side.

  They all seemed dejected, morose . . . or something a little different—as if they had the stilling themselves.

  God, these people are starving.

  Rick realized that he was the only person standing in the village. He could see the Fore’s second story balcony. Two Citizens sat there, laughing and eating. Their joyous conversation seemed callous when compared to what was happening on the village floor. The villagers wouldn’t take that forever.

  The villagers began to rise, one after another. They started heading for Rick.

  Rick felt the hair standing up on the back of his neck. They moved slowly, almost like corpses.

  One held out his hand. “Can you trade me some food?” he asked.

  Rick couldn’t remember his name.

  “I’ll give you anything,” the man continued. “I don’t have anything now. But the next thing I find. I promise. No matter what it is—”

  He was cut off by someone else. “I’ll give you my shoes.”

  “Do you have anything to spare?” Another asked.

  They were upon him now. Some were grabbing him fiercely.

  “What right have you to refuse us?” One blond headed man shouted. “Can’t you see we’re hungry?”

  Rick tried to shake himself loose, but they clung to him, their voices a chorus in his ears. He struggled more violently, his shoulder colliding with someone as he pushed them away. As soon as he was free, he retreated, putting his back against the uneven Harpsborough cave wall. Slowly, so that all could see, he let his hand drop down to the pistol he kept at his side. Then he let his pack slide down off of his left shoulder until it fell to his feet.

  The laughter in the Fore had stopped. The Citizens were standing. More were gathering with them on the balcony.

  “You shouldn’t have done that, Rick,” the blond haired man said.

  “Tell him, Constance.”

  Constance. I remember him. Helped me rebuild the Carrion wall.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone,” Rick said, “but you’ve got to give a man his space. Especially a hermit like me.”

  “If you want space then you should ask for it,” Constance replied.

  He’s desperate. I wish I could feed him.

  “I behaved badly,” Rick said. “Forgive me. Let me have my space now.”

  “You punched Aleck here in the face!” Constance pointed to his friend whose nose was indeed a little red. “You should give him something for what you did to him.”

  The crowd murmured its agreement.

  “I had not realized it had gotten so bad here so quickly,” Rick said. “Just the other day I mourned with you as we buried our friends behind a wall of stone. Buried them in the Carrion.”

  A gunshot went off. For a second Rick thought he might have been shot, and dropped to one knee. He was about to return fire—but everyone else had frozen still.

  “You don’t think it’s been hard for him too?” Martin’s voice boomed. “He’s lost two good hunters of his own, Galen and Turi, and taken in a new mouth to feed. And he’s done that in these hard times.”

  Constance sneered. “But the Fore’s allotted him too much. He’s got the entire Hungerleaf Grove, plus some devilwheat and sinfruit. Each cache is more than anything we have.”

  “You say he’s got the grove,” Martin said, “but you know we’ve all picked through it. There’s hardly a leaf left there at all. Those trees have been picked so clean they might up and die! Let the man breathe, for God’s sake.”

  The two guards had moved to join Martin. Constance didn’t look intimidated, but those around him did. Rick knew those hunters were outnumbered, but they were of a different breed than the villagers. The villagers might have to fight once in a while, when they couldn’t run, but the hunters didn’t go out into the wilds looking to run—they went out to kill. In a game of chicken, the hunters were bound to win.

  “We’ve got you outgunned, Martin.”

  “Don’t be silly, Constance,” Aleck said, grabbing Constance by one shoulder. “He just hit me on accident. I deserved it, too. It was with his shoulder, not his fist. We don’t want to fight just so we can touch the guy.”

  Constance shook him off but cooled down soon after. “Sorry.”

  When he left, the other villagers did as well. Except for Alice, who came running up to Rick.

  I can’t give you food, Alice. That’ll bring them right back. Damn girl, I thought you had more sense than this.

  “I’m not—” Rick began.

  Alice held something out to him.

  It was a Dreamcatcher, not unlike the one that hung over her own hovel’s door. She’d smoothed off the top of one of Kylie’s wider pots to form the ring. Yarn was strung inside it, forming a net that looked almost like a spider’s web. Caught within those strands were stones—some jade and others tiger eye.

  “Here,” Alice said. “It’s for Ellen. For the hungerleaves.”

  Rick nodded, and then wrapped her up in a hug.

  I misjudged you, girl. I’m sorry I ever told Turi to stay away from you.

  Julian awoke, his legs spread into a split. He wasn’t that flexible, they had just ripped his groin muscles. There was a stone block between his legs marked with a slight indention. His half ruined manhood rested in that indention. It looked like such a small and pathetic thing, tied up there on the cold stone.

  A Little Lady stood before him. In her right hand she held a Bible. An honest-to-God Christian Bible. In her left she held a rock. The edge of the rock had been sharpened into a bladed edge. It looked like an axe, but rougher, and without a handle.

  She placed both items down. He felt the vibrations of the sharp rock settling on the stone in his balls.

  “You know what happens to lambs, don’t you?” Her voice was soft, sweet.

  It was a young girl’s voice. He might have found it beautiful had she not been on the verge of gelding him.

  “I asked you if you knew what happens to lambs. Your participation is required.”

  Julian nodded.

  “Now we don’t want to take your penis away from you, Julian. We really don’t. That’s why I’m here. I’m showing you the error of your ways. Now it’s okay to disagree with me, or question me on some points. You may even be stubborn, to an extent. But I warn you, don’t let emotions take over. We find that many, after hearing arguments that are true, fail to see that truth. Normally, you’d get angry and keep to your side. Then you’d cool down after a few days, admit you were wrong, and move on. You don’t have time for that here.” She placed her hand on the rock and twirled it. “So you need to watch yourself
and your feelings, or by the time you find out I’m right, you won’t be a man.”

  He could lie. He could pretend. He could tell her he denied Jesus but still keep the Lord in his heart. That was all he had to do.

  Remember, once you’ve accepted Jesus, you can’t deny him, or he’s gone forever.

  “What was Satan’s name?” she asked, holding up the Bible, “in this?”

  “Satan’s name. Satan?”

  “His real name,” she clarified.

  “The Enemy? Lucifer?”

  “Lucifer! Good. What does that name mean?”

  I know this. Someone told me long ago.

  But he couldn’t remember it, so he shook his head.

  “Lightbringer,” she said.

  That’s right. That’s what Lucifer means. That’s what he was before he fell.

  “Do you love Jesus?” she asked.

  “No,” Julian managed.

  “Do you know what happens to liars?”

  Julian shook his head.

  The Little Lady reached out her hand. The black robe’s sleeve pulled back a bit as she stretched out her arm, revealing her delicate white wrist. Her fingernails were carefully manicured, trimmed neatly. Her fist looked alabaster as it formed over his black genitals. She dropped that fist downward.

  He lost consciousness.

  Julian awakened to see vomit all over his stomach. Tears of pain were still in his eyes, but he couldn’t move his bound hands to wipe them away. The Little Lady was smiling at him.

  “You threw up some on the Bible,” she said.

  I’m sorry. Jesus, I’m sorry.

  Her laugh echoed in the small chamber “Are you ready to begin?”

  He nodded his head.

  Don’t give up too easily. Resist a little. Otherwise she won’t believe that you’ve let go of Jesus.

  She walked around the table, untied his wrists, and handed him the Bible. “Did Jesus die for you?”

  “Yes.”

  She walked back to the far side of the stone table and sat down. “Oh? Then why are you in Hell?”

  “I guess he didn’t die for me. But he died for people I love.”

  You can’t deny him. You’ll lose him forever.

  “I think you’re wrong,” the Little Lady said. “This may surprise you, but I think Jesus did, in some way, die for your sins. I think you probably followed him well, or at least his teachings about Yahweh. Did you know that your God’s name is Yahweh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. That shows some promise. He has another name, a secret name, which I will teach you as we go. But he didn’t like that name, Julian. Did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “Why do you think Yahweh wouldn’t want people to say his real name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Julian looked at his ankles. They had been chained down. He wished they hadn’t been so that he could stand up and kill the Little Lady. So he could bash her head against the wall.

  She smiled. “You hate me, don’t you?”

  “No.”

  She sucked air in through her teeth. “Don’t lie.”

  She formed her alabaster fist again. This time he wasn’t lucky enough to lose consciousness. He began to sob in pain, cringing with each heave as it pulled on his testicles.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I truly am. And I understand that you hate me, but really, I’m doing you a favor. As painful as this is, forcing you to face the truth here will save your masculinity. Understand? I want to help you save your manhood. Maybe I’m doing it because I like you. Maybe I want you to be my lieutenant when I grow up. Or maybe it’s just altruism. But in any case, you have to realize that I’m arguing to save you. Do you understand? You know when this stone cuts off your dick, it stays cut?”

  Julian nodded, gasping for breath.

  She pulled back the sleeves of her satin robe to her elbows as if she was getting ready to start working. Her blonde hair bunched up behind her as it flowed into the hood of her robe.

  Best to say as little as possible.

  “Now, do you hate me?”

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “Good. You are forced to tell the truth, because I can tell if you’re lying and will break your stones. And likewise, you should know that I am bound to tell the truth by Mithras, the holy representative of the great God of Light, Ahuramazda. Understand?”

  He nodded again.

  “What is the name of the God of Light?” she asked.

  “Ahura . . .” he couldn’t remember the rest of the name.

  “Mazda,” she finished for him. “Ahuramazda. Good,” she smiled. “And the God of Darkness, Deceit and Lies?”

  “Ahriman.” Julian remembered that one.

  She smiled.

  “How many of the Epistles of Paul were written by Paul?” she asked suddenly.

  “I . . . I don’t know. All of them?”

  “How many are there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The New Testament has fourteen such letters,” she answered. “Did you know that your contemporary scholars consider only seven of them to be truly Paul’s? One is even left anonymous in the text. Three are outright forgeries, and three others are thought likely to be forgeries. Did you know that?”

  She’s lying.

  “No.”

  “You went to church. You went to Sunday school. No one ever told you this? They just left it in the Bible, knowing them to be lies? Never thought to tell you?”

  “No. That can’t be true.”

  Of course she’s lying.

  But it didn’t feel like a lie. It felt like she was telling the truth.

  She pointed to the Bible. “Did you know this book claims you can be bitten by snakes and survive the venom?”

  “That’s a metaphor,” he answered.

  She shook her head. “Not even that. Another forgery. In the earliest versions of Mark, that text doesn’t appear. It only shows up in versions written down almost a century after the text was first penned. That means Mark, whoever he was, didn’t write it. Never told you about that one either, I’m guessing?”

  She can’t be telling the truth.

  “‘Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone.’ Did Jesus say that?”

  Of course he did!

  “Another forgery. That one is really bad, showing up first in the 10th century. Of course, that one’s kind of obvious. By the end of the scene it’s just Jesus and a girl, so I’m not sure who was supposed to have been giving an unbiased account of the story.”

  “Someone would have told me about these things.”

  “I’d like to think they would have. But your God is a God of lies, and his priests are liars too. They knew, believe me, they knew that much of this book was a forgery. They were even taught that in seminary . . . but they didn’t tell you. Even if you’re questioning the text’s validity, they won’t bring up the forged nature of the Bible unless you do. In the old world, they’d actually give sermons on stories they knew were forgeries. They wouldn’t bat a lash. Most of them didn’t believe everything they preached, either. They’d have to make compromises because they were being paid by one denomination or another. I mean, can you believe it? They all knew! And none of them told you.”

  The pain in his groin muscles faded away. He felt heat on his cheeks. If he could just get his hands on her. He threw the Bible at her as hard as he could, but the motion brought so much pain to his manhood that he lost his vision for a moment. He didn’t think he had even hit her.

  “Careful,” she said. “Remember I’m here to save your masculinity.”

  I have to listen. But I can’t. I won’t. I won’t deny Christ.

  “Of course, it is to be expected that the book is full of forgeries. Oh, and it gets much worse than that. The story of Jesus’ birth? That’s taken right out of the Avesta of Zoroastrianism. Of course the story is a rip off. I mean, can you imagine anyone running a census where you had to travel to your
home town to be counted? No one’s that inefficient, let alone the Romans. And the whole scene, it turns out it’s entirely unnecessary. You don’t need it to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies. You really don’t. You don’t even need the two contradictory versions of half-baked genealogies to uselessly prove that David was related to Joseph, who incidentally, is not thought to be the father of Jesus. You know why?”

  Julian shook his head.

  “Because the Hebrew word meaning young girl was translated into a Greek word meaning virgin. Now pay attention. Remember, your cock is on the line. But there is some truth to these testaments. Jesus was a person, and he serves Yahweh, a very real God. I want you to open this Bible in the place I’ve saved for you. I want to show you the truth.” She handed him back the vomit splattered book. “Open it.”

  Julian obeyed.

  “Now read.”

  Julian obeyed.

  “Do you know who Cyrus the Great was?”

  “No.”

  “He was a Persian. A conqueror of Judea. In this book, he speaks with the voice of God. A foreign man of the Persian Empire. The Jews said he spoke with the words of their God. Their God. Do you know why?”

  That did seem odd. Julian knew the Persians weren’t Jews. Why the hell would their King, or emperor or whatever, be Jewish? But he was reading this, right there in the texts.

  “Cyrus was Zoroastrian, like me. At one time the Jews were too. They worshiped the same God. But Yahweh got his hands on your holy book. He corrupted it. And you can tell, too. Even older than the Jews were the Zoroastrians. They believed, we believe, in two Gods. One of good, one of evil. One of Light, one of Dark. What’s the God of Light called?”

  “Ahuramazda.”

  “And the God of Darkness?”

  “Ahriman,” Julian said, putting the Bible down and pointing to it. “Okay. I understand. It’s all bullshit.”

  “Now listen!” she shouted. “And understand!”

  She leaned forward, her light eyed gaze a torrent of fearless emotion. He tried to recoil, but there was no escaping her.

  She smiled as she began to verbally devour him. “What states in old world America were the most Christian?”