Ken preferred not to finish that thought. The landscape to the left was even freakier. Sharp, jagged rocks, some of them curved like gigantic tusks, jutted from the ground, rising to dizzying heights. Lava snaked down their sides and spurted from blowholes, raining across the earth. Tables of rock clung to the sides of several mountains, their curved plateaus odd and empty in this forsaken place.
Ken slowed as Dementia and her demons navigated a wide lava river. As Ken drew close to it, he was startled to see a shape—no dozens of shapes—swimming in the hot bubbling liquid. Human in form, bare skulls screaming, they reached desperate hands toward him, begging for help. They reared up from the lava only to be dragged back down again. They screeched in agony. All were fully dressed in human clothing, but that only served to make their bony skulls even eerier.
Burn in hell, Ken thought, the term might have more meaning than I always thought.
Were these the souls damned to eternal agony for all the bad deeds they’d done? Or was this where failed reality TV contestants were cast? He backed away, inwardly making light of the situation to stay sane. The figures seemed alive, aware, beyond desperate. Ken watched as Dementia and her demons trod a rickety rope bridge across the boiling inferno. Two demons almost losing their footing and barely saved Milo’s cage from crashing down into the flames. Dementia caught one of the scrawny demons that had slipped, then took its place and flung it over the side.
Ken flinched away as several burning figures leaped up from the flames to claim the plummeting body, devouring it on sight.
He knelt in shadow, trying to ignore the plaintive appeals. He stared at the ground, waiting for space to cross the bridge. His sword felt hot to the touch.
At last the way was clear. Ken took great care as he approached the bridge, trying to clear his mind of the nightmare figures below and concentrate on holding the rope-handles. The first step was one of faith. The bridge swayed beneath him, rolling gently. He gripped the ropes to each side hard enough to turn his flesh white. One more step and he was on the bridge proper, suspended over the lava lake. A figure leaped up, flames pouring from his body, and swiped high, not quite reaching the bottom of the bridge. Another tried and fell atop the first. The pair fell writhing back into the fires. Ken stepped cautiously, placing one foot in front of the other and reciting silent prayers.
Halfway across, the bridge swayed uneasily. Ken fixed his eyes on the far bank and just kept walking, ignoring the plumes of burning smoke that drifted up from the soles of his shoes. Firm ground drew nearer and nearer. He had never been so happy to see the rotting filthy earth of hell. Beyond the decaying bank lay a paved area, offering another sensory shockwave to Ken’s already shredded senses. Low, squat buildings stood at the far end of the paved area, old and laden with earth-like architecture. What appeared to be a domed church took center stage. Other out-of-place buildings were dotted everywhere. Church spires climbed toward the skies. Castle walls ran from nowhere to nowhere, crumbling along their pointless lengths.
He walked away from the river of lava, leaving the burning supplicants behind. Still downward they walked, descending into the mega-wide Pit. The landscape was too irregular to see right into its heart, but Ken could guess what might be there.
He shut it out of his mind. The buildings would offer good cover. It was likely the best chance he was going to get to save his friends.
As if in sardonic agreement, Dementia appeared from the blind side of a building up ahead. “Did you think we could not sssseee you?” she hissed before he could catch his breath. “Ssssmell you?”
Ken felt a rush of anger and hefted his sword. From both sides, more demons came. Still, he would have taken his chances in battle, had not Felicia’s cage been brought into sight. At shoulder height, the lycan was still bent almost in half, crushed between bars, only now demons shoved pointed sticks through the small gaps, eliciting whimpers and grunts of pain. They had stuffed a gag into her mouth.
Ken felt the fight drop out of him. Felicia’s blood ran out of the bottom of the cage. Demons queued to lap it up.
“Please,” he said. “No more. Leave her alone.”
Dementia pointed at his sword. “Put down the Lionheart blade. It shinessss with a vilenesss not unlike your ownnnn.”
Ken blinked. The Lionheart blade? Really? He was carrying the sword of Richard the Lionheart? Why on earth hadn’t Cheyne told him?
His fingers trembled so much as he held it upright that it fell out of his palms and crashed to the earth.
Ah, that’s why.
Dementia directed a lackey to retrieve the weapon. The thing hopped across and screeched when it touched the sword, fingers burning. After a minute it thought to take off the rag it wore around its loins, treating Ken to the sight of a wrinkled old demon penis, and wrapped it around the hilt. Ken felt naked himself without his sword, particularly in the middle of all these demons.
He caught sight of Milo watching him, and Eliza. The big vampire shook his head in disdain and this time the female didn’t make a point of stopping him.
“Missed me?” Ken asked lightly, as the demons herded him forward.
Dementia’s powerful claw-like hand shot out, gripping his throat. “Open your mouth. Open!”
Ken relaxed his jaws. Dementia reached in and caught hold of his tongue, pinching it and pulling until it stretched uncomfortably out of his mouth, testing its moorings.
“I would happily rrrrrip this out,” she susurrated. “But Lord Lucifer wants you in one piece. But don’t tesssst me, pretttty boyyyy.”
Ken nodded frantically as she tugged a bit more, stretching the tendons beneath his tongue. She leaned forward, eyes closed, necklace of bones brushing against his face. He’d never been this close to a female before without the intention of getting that little bit closer.
But not with Dementia. If indeed she was female, and not some kind of hellish ladyboy.
Ken brutally stoppered the stream of thoughts that coursed through his mind. Humor and derision would get him nowhere now. Courage, cunning and expertise were the talents he should be utilizing.
But damn, the very thought that Dementia was about to bring him before Lucifer, the Devil Himself, the supreme being of all evil, froze the blood in his veins and the marrow in his bones. Not to mention every clever idea he might have been able to dream up.
And he wasn’t afraid to admit it.
*
The journey wound on, the path bordered by disintegrating buildings and stone statues on high pillars—griffins, dragons and gargoyles. A true highway to hell, it dipped underground for a short while, the ceiling a jagged mass of hanging stalactites, each one a thick irregular tooth where large serpents slithered and writhed. The way grew rocky and irregular, one potholed slope leading to the next and, when they emerged from the underground chamber, they passed by a deep quarry to the right. Its sides wound down and down, ever lower into the depths of the abyss. All along the sides and splayed across the bottom were groaning wretches; men and women condemned for eternity to the serpents’ torture.
Ken wanted to shield his eyes, but the horror of it all would not let him. Naked forms lay everywhere, their limbs entangled with snakes’ bodies, held and wrapped in such a way that they were rendered immobile, effectively tied, the snakes being their bonds. The humans could not move a muscle, but screamed in agony, their bones, sinew and very flesh crying out for relief from the terrible positions. But they would not be given relief or shown mercy, and they would never die, the torture was forever.
Ken felt his courage dwindling. The quest was hopeless. Even though they’d snagged both artefacts, one was in the hands of a young girl they’d just met; a young girl from hell. And the other was buried somewhere, probably waiting to be found by the hierarchy demon that would be drawn to it.
What next?
Eternal torture and damnation. This wasn’t a simple prison they were trying to escape from. As if to clarify, the road ahead dipped slightly and Ken found himself
at the rim of a fire pit, a dazzling, simmering volcano. Lava boiled and popped at the surface. Sulfurous gases writhed lazily through the air.
Around the far side of the fire pit there was a platform clinging to its side, barely raised three feet above the boiling hot magma. Dementia shoved a claw into his back.
“Walk around the rim. Meeeet your fate. Meet Luciferrrrr.”
Ken’s legs almost locked up. It took every ounce of will to make them inch forward. The rim was narrow, barely a meter wide. Molten rock flicked and splashed over the edge. Ken fixed his eyes to the path, swallowing hard. The going was grim, requiring all his concentration. As much as anything he prayed that the demons holding his friends would not slip. So far, they’d been anything but reliable.
His flesh burned. Sweat ran from his brow to his face and dripped off his chin in rivulets. His entire body was coated. As he rounded the fluctuating, precarious edge he began to distinguish a little more detail of the platform.
It was much more than that, and much bigger than he’d thought. It was an enormous shelf of rock, seven-tiered and adorned with all manner of nefarious features only the Devil himself could imagine.
Thirteen black altars stood in a semi-circle around the first level, their crosspieces holding human sacrifices. Blood ran freely from many puncture wounds, flowing along grates and funneling around so that a red shower sprayed constantly over the hot pit, crackling and snapping as it came into contact with the lava.
As for the other levels, they only became more and more depraved. Ken eyed each one as he drifted closer. No one forced him ahead; it seemed nobody, even Dementia, wanted to hurry to the next part of the journey.
The final part.
Ken’s eyes rebelled, mutinied, involuntarily closed to block out the horrors and almost sent him into the fire pit. With a heavy wrench of deep, deep courage he forced them open again.
The horrors remained.
The second level of the Devil’s platform bristled with torture devices. All of them were in use, with lines of pitiful humans waiting dejectedly for their turn. Once broken, battered and almost dead, they were returned to the back of the line to be repaired and returned to the queue.
On the third level, humans, demons and other creatures were partly walled up, their rear halves set into the rock wall and their front halves hanging over troughs filled with leaping fire, spitting snakes or jumping spiders the size of dinner plates. Other horrors lurked in the troughs: flesh-eating parasites, tiny worms that sought out ear and eye sockets, and tethered bats that flayed flesh from bone.
On it went. The fourth level overflowed with men that had been fused to men, head to head and head to back; women that had been fused to women the same way, and then in threes and fours until one being didn’t know which arm was their own and which leg moved for them.
The fifth and sixth levels were made up of the roasted ones, those condemned to burn in hellfire and then be put on show for the masses to see, their sinful flesh burned away and their corrupt eyes boiled from their sockets. They stood there until they were healed and were then doused among the fires once more. The lowliest circle of hell was reserved for rapists, child killers and paedophiles. It was the one thing Ken and the Devil agreed on.
And finally, as he passed under its shadow, Ken got a look at the platform’s seventh tier. In truth, its purpose was not hard to make out. It was the lair of Satan, the Devil.
An enormous throne sat there, obsidian, its arms carved into obscene figures. To its left and right rose high pillars, similarly carved and topped with obelisks. Behind and around its huge frame, demons and humans had been nailed to the rock wall in the inverted crucifix position, their mouths sewn shut to ensure they suffered their eternal torment in utter silence. Along the floor lay many forms of demon, all prostrate or on their sides, faces down. Even the steps that lead up to the throne had trails of fire carved into their sides, fires that ringed the whole tier and leapt higher occasionally as if in sport to cook the legs of even more humans and demons hanging from the gallows above.
Ken gaped. He shuddered in terrible awe. He stared with eyes tainted forever and fought to hold onto his faculties. Never—never in a hundred years could he have expected this. The pain, the suffering, the degradation and dishonor. In that moment he regretted everything.
Aegis. The Chosen. Miami Beach. This outrageous trek through hell. Even Felicia; he even regretted her.
Then a trickle of hope worked its way through the cloying mud. The tiny voice. Her voice, thin but tough.
“Stay strong,” Felicia said. “Be confident that there is a future for us.”
Ken turned, saw her squashed-up face near his shoulder and the way she was crammed harshly into the tiny box. He saw the leering demons and Dementia’s pitiless face. And then he knew—unbelievably, he was still in the right place at the right time. The game was still on, everything to play for.
“You will run free again,” he said.
And turned . . . .
To face Lucifer.
TWENTY SIX
Ken’s heart almost stopped.
As he was led forward, a figure appeared. It glided out of the shadows at the back of the throne, moving swiftly until it halted on the lowest step. As Ken was pushed up to the throne tier itself, walking among the penitents, the sufferers and the worst of the damned, passing so close to the roasted ones that he could feel the appalling heat radiating off their crackling bodies, spattered by the endless shower of blood, picking his way through curled-up bodies, the staggering truth overrode everything.
He was face to face with the Devil.
It was said that Satan could adopt many forms, and often did. But today he was all of them. The shape in front of Ken flickered rapidly—shifting from a tall man clad in black to a gigantic, terrifying serpent, tongue flickering and eyes blazing with hate; from the horned-devil visage to the bowler-hat wearing businessman; from a bare-chested, fury-filled drunk to a spectacular dragon, rearing back with wings fully spread and fire jetting up from a mouth the size of a building. Every few seconds the Devil transformed his image, but the words that came out of his mouth were stable and strong.
“You seek to thwart me at this, the eleventh hour. It has been thousands of years in the making, millennia in the planning. And you, puny man, seek to obstruct your future master? The eternal fires of damnation are too good for you. I will watch you all torn to pieces for my pleasure.”
Ken braced himself, looking left and right. Nothing moved. Only the Devil could issue orders around here, and it seemed he hadn’t done so yet.
“Where are the artefacts?”
Ken cringed. He really didn’t want to talk to the Devil. The sound of his friends being brought to the tier still in their cages didn’t help matters.
The Devil read him easily. “You are afraid. It will only get worse. You are mine now. And I will find the artefacts without your help. Spare yourself more agony and tell me now.”
“I’d rather die,” Ken said finally.
“Die?” the Devil returned. “Die? We have no death here. Only suffering.”
Dementia stepped past Ken for a quick second. “Your daughterrrr hassss one artefact, my Lord. He had the otherrrr and must have hidden it near the house on the hill.”
Fury raged from the Devil, fire leaping from his hundreds of mouths. Ken barely noticed it as he tried to wrap his head around the demon-bitch’s words.
Daughter? What—?
“Lilith is your daughter?” he blurted. “For real?”
The Devil ignored him. “We can track the artefacts using the hierarchy,” he blazed at Dementia. “But it will take time. I will not wait! I will reduce their world to ashes!”
He swung back to Ken. “Where are the artefacts?”
It was a devastating bellow, rampant with hate and anger, so strong it forced Ken back a few steps. Ice paralyzed his entire body, the chill of pure terror.
“I . . . I told Lilith to—”
“No
!” Eliza and Milo cried, and Felicia shouted at the same time. “Say nothing.”
The Devil, instead of acting crazy, merely turned and plucked the head from his nearest supplicant. As he drank from the upended skull, he fixed Ken with a speculative glare.
“Solidarity? Camaraderie? I find the notion repulsive, but quaint. A human condition, if I am not mistaken. ‘Fight to the last man’,” the Devil mocked. “‘Leave no man behind’.”
The serpent screeched. The businessman doffed his hat. The drunkard struck out with clenched fists. The dragon roared. All in a split-second.
“Then fight you will,” the Devil said in a surprisingly quiet voice. “It will not take long.”
He ordered that Felicia and the vampires be released. As they stretched and moaned, he climbed the stairs to his throne and took his seat with a flourish. A black-robed priest now, he stared over his domain with patient reverence.
“All mine. Everything you see. My own work. Cast out from heaven, a fallen angel, I started with nothing. Now, I have conquered worlds. Every demon in my hierarchy is a former priest. Do you see the depths of my vengeance? Do you? I will have vengeance on all of you and the rest of the so-called Chosen, but first we will allow you to try out our favorite sport.”
Ken helped Felicia to her feet, supporting more of her weight than she could on her own. He wanted to retort at the Devil, saying ‘increasing energy bills’ or ‘investing in the people’s future’, and was quietly pleased to realize his sense of humor had returned. It felt good, having Felicia, Eliza and even Milo at his side.
“Initiation,” the Devil said.
Dementia and her demons moved away, leaving the tier to its original inhabitants and the Aegis team. Ken still struggled with the concept of Lilith being the Devil’s daughter and the thousands of questions it raised. Chiefly . . . why was she trying to escape?
The Chosen Trilogy Boxset Page 38
