by Scott Hale
Hex was waiting for them at the wood’s edge, guarding the mass, her so-called brother, behind her like a mother would her brood. Her blue hair was greasy, knotted; filled with twigs and stones like the bird’s nest it resembled. As with almost everyone else here, she was covered in blood, except Herbert could see where she was wounded. A long gash across her face, from her ear to chin, and then down her neck, vertically. Her breastplate had been broken in; the plainclothes behind it shredded, as if something had meant to get at her breasts. Her hands looked as if she had armed herself with thorn bushes as weapons, and her left leg kept giving out. She used her sword like a cane; seeing that, Herbert didn’t feel so old anymore.
Ichor, partially obscured by Hex, the trees, and the snowfall, whined. Thick vermillion veins rose and fell from his bulbous husk. Periodically, they would snap off, hit the ground with a loud crunch and thump. One by one, they did this, like ropes being cut from a completed monument. Herbert didn’t know anything about Ichor, but he didn’t have to know there wasn’t anything beyond what he’d become.
He moved to move closer, but Hex intervened. “Don’t lay a hand on him.”
Herbert held up both his hands. “Trust me, I’d rather not. This is… this is Ichor?”
Two eyes blinked. A mouth opened wide and a tongue of vermillion veins poured out. Ichor trembled as he brought what must’ve been his hands (they looked like tumorous trunks) to what must’ve been his face and cleared the snow off it.
Herbert cringed and looked back and forth between James and Warren, to make sure they were doing the same (James was; Warren’s eyes weren’t even open). Ichor’s face was like a piece of paper that had been punctured through and held in place by the hard, vermillion rods jutting from his elephantine head. His neck wasn’t a neck, and his body wasn’t a body; both were one continuous trunk, tightly wound and teeming with growths. To Herbert, Ichor was God’s bezoar: a solid mass of human and the divine; sanctified shit that any priest worth his spit would prop up and proselytize as the ultimate in earthly ascendance. In his own way, Ichor was a monument; he was a representation of what was possible if one were to follow the teachings of the Disciples of the Deep. He was pathetic and disgusting, but in Herbert’s experiences, that had never stopped the devout before. Such qualities only made it more attractive. The worse the suffering, the sweeter the reward.
“You can’t keep him alive…” Herbert said.
Hex’s face hardened.
“I mean… at least… you can’t let anyone see him.”
“There’s r-reports—” James paused as Ichor’s mass unraveled and a flesh fiend in a butler’s suit fell out. “—reports of others changing across the Heartland once they ingest the seed of heaven. More and more are—”
Infused with the steaming heat of Ichor’s digestion, the butler flesh fiend sank into the snow.
“—surviving the change. They’re passing seeds out like candy.” James covered his mouth with his nub. “I heard the Holy Order’s put a bounty on the mutants. They’ve been calling them Lilin. Killing one is an automatic entry into heaven.”
“Hydra’s a Worm last I heard. Pot calling the kettle black,” Hex said, sounding offended. “Ichor’s coming with us.”
This grabbed Warren’s attention. He struggled with the question, perhaps he was afraid of the answer he’d get, but it came out all the same. “What are you going to… use him for?”
“Intel. Find out what he knows about the Cult. Find out what he knows about the Disciples.” Hex knelt down beside her brother and touched his repulsive face. “Study him. Might find a way to use the seeds to our advantage. Take out the Disciples and the Holy Order at the same time, before they go and fuck the Heartland over. This is the Marrow Cabal, isn’t it?” She shushed Ichor as he started to whine. “It’s what we’re meant to do.”
“Hex,” Herbert started.
Hex pulled her hand away from Ichor’s face; a slick webbing clung to her fingers and his torn forehead. “What?”
Don’t say it, Herbert told himself. Let it go. Shoulder your blame. It’s not worth… And then he came out with it, anyway: “Hex, one of those Witches got in your head. You kept going on and on about a pilgrimage. You’re from Lacuna. Did you know… what we were walking into?”
Scoffing, Hex stood and started working her blue hair into its trademark braids. “Did the Skeleton?”
James drifted closer to Warren, farther away from both Herbert and Hex.
Hex’s grip tightened on her sword. She had Corruption on both of her arms, and they were so red, it was as if they were on fire. “Did you know?”
“Jesus Christ,” Herbert said.
“Who’s that?” Hex asked.
“No one, no. Listen… I didn’t. I thought it was strange he was willing to trust—”
Inches from Herbert, Hex stopped. Despite her buckling leg, she pulled her sword, that makeshift cane of hers, out of the ground and took it in both hands.
“Did you know your brother would be here, too?” Herbert didn’t care anymore; bring on the wrath, woman. “You’re as crazy as the Bone Man.”
Hex smiled. “We hurt the ones we love.”
“Alright, Hex.” Herbert put out his hand, to drive her sword away. “Come on. What’re you doing?”
“I know everyone’s been busting your balls about the Skeleton leaving. I’m not all that upset. Problem is he’s going to come back, and he’s going to come back with more problems for us to deal with.”
Hex nodded at James and Warren.
Warren got the hint and headed back towards the Marrow Cabal.
James, on the other hand (his good one, if you will), didn’t. “Let’s wait it out,” he said, as Warren returned to him and ushered him away. “Hex, don’t.”
Herbert’s heart kicked up a notch into something short of full blown cardiac arrest. “Hey, wait. Don’t fucking kill me.”
“I’m not going to kill you.” Hex stabbed the sword into the ground and leaned onto it. “Eldrus, Penance, or both were going to be on our doorstep eventually, anyways. We had to move.”
“Thanks f-f-for c-coming… Sis,” Ichor sputtered, his veins writhing in excitement.
Hex kicked him in the face, and he stopped moving.
“But if the Skeleton had been here, you wouldn’t have lost so many cabalists,” Herbert said, catching her drift. “Vampyres, too.”
“Don’t give two shits about Atticus’ friends,” Hex said. “But we had to sacrifice. I have to be better than him now, whether he comes back or not.” Her eyes started to glow a vibrant blue color. She closed them, and when the light stopped seeping out from underneath her lids, she opened them again. “Got another sacrifice to make. Look to the woods. Tell me what you see.”
Herbert thought about running, but where would he go? Back to camp where no one would defend him? Into the wilds, where a stray flesh fiend could feast on what the cold hadn’t taken from him? He was one-hundred-and-fifty-five going on oblivion—the only safe place for him was the comfy confines of a coffin. So he didn’t run. He stayed. And looked to the woods.
I’m old, he thought, eyes wandering over the flooded woodland. But she’s wounded. Trees. Water. The hazy silhouette of mountains, one much larger than the rest—one that he could’ve sworn hadn’t been there before. I could knock that sword out from under her. There wasn’t anything out here; even if there was, he wouldn’t see it, anyway. Not with the snow smearing the scene like television noise. I’m old, but she’s out of her mind.
Thump, thump, thump.
The sound hit Herbert like a bat to the back of the head. His vision doubled. His stomach lurched. Fight or flight kicked in, but the fear was stronger. Paralysis of the deepest kind. A black hole had opened up inside him, and through it, he’d find the Abyss.
Thump, thump, thump.
Not far from where they stood, the snow had stopped obeying the laws of the universe. Where it should’ve fallen, it rose, and it swirled, and then it pulsated outwar
d—a bracing nova that left icicles on everything it touched. At the center of the nova, reality had become smudged; he could see what looked like fingerprints in the rawness of space; a kind of genetic code, or molecules, or maybe even the last bit of evidence of a preternatural creator. And then there was a hat, large and battered. And then a face shrouded in blonde hair. And then, a hand, and in it, a crook.
Thump, thump, thump—the rest of the shepherd came through.
“Get it away… g-get it away,” Ichor said, flopping around like a seal.
“It’s either you, or Clementine and Will. They’re a package deal,” Hex said. “One’s not going without the other. I can’t have them gone when Atticus gets back.”
The shepherd reached into its cracked leather jacket and took out a roll of pink bandages. This shepherd’s nails were gray, like the color of the Void.
“I… I…” For all his bitching, Herbert wasn’t exactly ready to die again. “I think Clementine and Will would rather go.”
“Not going to work,” Hex said. “Skeleton comes back and those two are missing? That’s it for everyone. Everything. Won’t be no holding the Black Hour’s heart back. It’s you, Herbert. If Mr. Haemo were here, maybe this could go differently. But he isn’t. So be a man and get.”
Herbert shook his head. With a scream, he shoved Hex back. Her bad leg gave out and she crumpled upon herself in the snow. Ichor raged and hoisted himself forward, one agonizing centimeter at a time. The shepherd blew its hair out of its face and, holding its hand out to grab him by the neck, hurried forward.
“Get the fuck back!” Herbert grabbed Hex’s sword off the ground. “Tell Death if She wants me, She’ll have to come and—”
As if some great bond had been broken, an earth-shattering explosion rang out through the woods. A force rushed through the area, knocking Herbert off his feet and the shepherd back into the Membrane. Trees were felled, and the few birds remaining were knocked from the sky.
Herbert, face-down in the snow, exhaled. His body hurt immediately, like it was covered in one large, hideous bruise.
“Fuck,” he wheezed, eating the snow while he struggled to breathe. Everything had gone dim. He shook his head, rubbed his eyes. The snow was a different color, a sinister shade of black. He turned over, on his back. The sky. What the hell? He rubbed his eyes harder, but still the image stayed.
The sky had turned red. The color of Corruption. And the clouds were on fire.
CHAPTER XXVI
Green tubing tying off gangrenous arms. Summer heat, knife in meat. Black cloak prowling refuse. Legs spread wide; a whole universe inside. Blood on the banks. Bombs in the blood. Corn fields. Red sky. The Ashen Man strapped to a bed, breeding flies with Pain. A globe in a classroom. Rats running the sewer.
“H-hey… please… stop.”
Bodies in the expressway, flashing lights behind their skin. Two lovers in the park. Beds covered in hair. A rope made out of clothes. Lust at a beauty pageant. Chalky arithmetic.
“I can’t take…”
The Dread Clock an hourglass. Skull and skin on a scale. Little girls in their fathers’ arms. Beaming mothers at a spelling bee. The pull of the Abyss from before even birth. An alligator. A cat. Fast food.
“Just stop. I’m…”
Catheter made of thorns. Green jungle. Red tribesman. Scorpion priest. Bookstore signing. Matted fur. High school stench. Vigilance. Virulence.
R’lyeh forced her eyes open and kicked at the Skeleton’s arms until he dropped her.
Shepherds on Sunday. Mourning on Monday. Terror on Tuesday.
The Black Hour images stopped as soon as she was out of his embrace.
R’lyeh flipped over. She did a belly flop on the garbage bag-colored ground. The inorganic material received her with hard indifference. The air blew out of her lungs, and a sickening, empty feeling filled them back up again. She sat up and turned around, and saw that the Dead City was behind them, far behind them. They were back on the peninsula, almost to the mainland, and the Green Worm’s fog had all but cleared.
The Skeleton stood over her, his cowl flapping in the quickening wind. For a man who supposedly didn’t feel anything anymore, he looked as if he had just had the crap beat out of him. It wasn’t that he was wounded. It was the way he held himself. Like the weight of the world was finally getting to him.
R’lyeh was lost in her own twilight. She probably was in pain, too, but her body hadn’t realized it, yet. Sweating, not thinking clearly, she stripped off her armor, piece by piece, until she was down to her doused shirt and pants.
She rubbed her eyes, and they felt like stones. She sniffed her nose, and a gallon of snot went down her throat. She farted, and accidentally shat herself. In a place so cold—Great, here comes the snow, she thought—she appreciated the warmth, and didn’t mind the smell. R’lyeh smacked her lips; it felt as if her gums were flaking.
“What—” her voice sounded as if she she’d been smoking since birth, “—happened back… there?”
The Black Hour’s growth had spread farther. It had reached the Skeleton’s neck.
“How’re you feeling?” he asked.
“If a shit could shit, I’d be that shit,” R’lyeh said. She smiled to herself. That wasn’t a bad, badass phrase, was it? Oh man, she’d forgotten to work on those. So much to do, she couldn’t even remember what it all was. She coughed loudly.
The Skeleton offered his gloved hand and said, “Let’s find you somewhere better to rest them bones.”
R’lyeh’s legs weren’t having any of that. Moving sounded like the absolute worst idea in the world, even worse than coming to the Dead City. She shook her head. “I’m good here.”
Not far off from where she sat and he stood, on both sides of them, the ocean lapped against the peninsula. There must’ve been more land here at some point, she considered. If they had just waited for another hundred years or for a terrible hurricane, this bridge between the Old World and New might not have even been here. If only she had gone more slowly, she might still be back in Alluvia, telling Derleth no as he handed her the roots of the Crossbreed and asked her to drop it in the village’s well. She coughed again.
Aimlessly, R’lyeh dug out the ground, pulling up piece after piece of the black plastic material that coated it. Occasionally, she’d find a buried trinket, a forgotten memento, or just junk: a locket, a wallet, some laminated business cards; a stuffed animal, with most of the stuffing out of it; coins, and a wedding ring.
“Look at all this stuff.”
The Skeleton kept on looking at her, instead.
R’lyeh stopped digging. It was making her tired. “What happened back there?”
Could a place know someone was talking about it? Out of the dreary still life that was the Dead City, the angry sounds of machinery lifted.
“You had a fit. They attacked us.” The Skeleton paced, and then he settled on a spot beside her, where he sat. “They were going to kill you. There was nothing I could do to stop them and save you.”
“What’d you give them?”
“What they wanted.”
R’lyeh covered her mouth, but the force of her cough was strong enough to blow her hand away. She wasn’t cold, even though she should’ve been, but she was shivering, anyway. Her lower back hurt, too. Like she’d been slouching all day. Mom and Dad did warn her about that.
“Wanted parts for their ship,” the Skeleton said. “Gave me a time, date, and a place where I could find them.”
“You used the heart.”
“Yeah. Didn’t get everything, but it was enough to get them away, get you out of there. Didn’t take long, but I’d say I was in the Black Hour for a good forty-five minutes. Wasn’t sure you were going to make it.”
Dead-eyed, R’lyeh smiled at the Skeleton, “I’m doing alright. So… we own… the City?”
“Doesn’t matter if we do or don’t.” The Skeleton started digging at the plastic ground, too. “It’s going to be ours, regardless. Once I eat
them up.”
R’lyeh let that last statement slide. It had been a rough day for the both of them. She started coughing again; she put her whole body into it—bones, too. Things were going to start cracking inside her. She had to get this under control.
“Need to get you back to the mainland,” the Skeleton said. “I’ll carry you.”
R’lyeh laughed and rubbed her moist face. Vomit sailed the edge of her esophagus. She pissed on herself, because why not? And then she started coughing again. This time, a sharp bar of pain drove itself through her ribs. She winced, moaned; she smiled at the Skeleton, drool in the corner of her mouth, and pretended she was okay.
“Oh man. Atticus, after everything, I think I’m finally getting sick,” she said, wiping her mouth.
The Skeleton didn’t say anything. She was hoping he would, but he didn’t. Instead, he sat there, cloak flailing around his frame like it meant to get away from him, staring at her. Most of the time, he didn’t look any different. How could he? Like a witch’s stew, he was eyeballs, tongue, and bone, with that southern broth of sass. But today, right now? He did look different. Maybe it was the shadows in his cheeks, or the glint in his pupils—that little spark of humanity that had somehow escaped the Black Hour’s black grip. Or maybe it was the way he carried himself. That kind of sympathetic slouch Dad used to get when R’lyeh would come home with a scrape, or from school after having scrapped in the school yard. Every time she coughed, he’d lean in closer, like a scientist inspecting a specimen. So she coughed a lot, even when she didn’t have to, thinking she might get a hug out of this. She didn’t need another dad. But she wouldn’t mind a good hug.
R'lyeh made herself laugh. “I… I said I think I’m finally getting sick.”
The Skeleton’s tongue, which at this point had to be infected by the Black Hour, ran over his crooked teeth.
“What?” R’lyeh hacked up a lung, literally; a bloody chunk flew out her mouth, onto the ground. Again, she made herself laugh.
“I think you’re getting dying,” the Skeleton said.
