Soulfall (Hellsong: Infidels: Cris Book 2)

by Shaun O. McCoy

  “It won’t work,” El Cid interrupts.

  Nebuchadnezzar crosses his arms and sits down again at the head of the table, leaning back into his wicker chair. He kicks up his black boots onto the table, flinging particulates of ice across the dark wood. “Do tell.”

  “The subjective changes don’t stick,” she says. “He’d have to stay by the Erebus for the rest of his life.”

  That’s not good news, but it is better than nothing. “I’d rather that than see him die.”

  “There are Furies at the Erebus, Cris,” Q says. “The rest of his life at that point would be about ten minutes.”

  Nebuchadnezzar is smiling. It’s the creepiest motherfucking smile I’ve ever seen, but right now, I’m hoping like hell he knows something we don’t. “The Infidel usually uses a statue as an example for the subjective nature of Sheol being temporary, does he not?”

  “You take the statue to the Erebus,” El Cid says in agreement. “You change it with your mind. When taken back, it will slowly revert to its original state.”

  Nebuchadnezzar’s grin splits his face.

  “Tell us,” Q snaps.

  “I’ll wait for you to figure it out.”

  I really fucking hate this guy. Fortunately, El Cid’s smart as fuck.

  “Slowly,” she says.

  “Correct,” Nebuchadnezzar answers. “Aiden won’t be on edge. If we take him away from the river slowly, only parts of his soul will revert into being a wight.”

  Q starts nodding, too.

  “Will someone please explain this to me?” I beg.

  “It’s like a wound,” Q says. “If I took all your skin, you’d die. But if I took away the same amount, little by little over a series of weeks, you’d heal. Sheol will pretend restore your son, but as we move back, if we move back slowly enough, your son’s healing will be real. Eventually, as the pretend falls away, all that will be left is Aiden.”

  El Cid’s brow furrows. “We need to get there quickly. The fastest route would be through the Carrion, but I won’t risk it.”

  “Why not?” I ask.

  She doesn’t bother answering the question, but she doesn’t need to. I’d traveled with Myla through the Carrion briefly on our way out of the City of Blood and Stone, and the place had defined the word hellhole.

  Nebuchadnezzar gets up and moves to the fireplace. He puts a log on the coals of the fire and stands back. “Wouldn’t work anyway.”

  “You know what,” I say, “I’ve about had enough of this shit. Just tell me what we need to fucking do.”

  El Cid ignores me again. “Why not?”

  “Imagination doesn’t become a sense until you’re nearly in Sheol,” Nebuchadnezzar says. “Just marching up to the edge of the Erebus probably wouldn’t do it. If he can’t feel his own soul, he won’t be able to heal it—or, not enough, I believe. You’ve got to get him practically across the river before his mind will even be able to touch what it’s supposed to believe into health.”

  El Cid leans forward, her lips curling into a smile. “Soulfall.”

  Nebuchadnezzar nods.

  Soulfall. That sounds familiar. I’ve heard that before, when Q was telling me about the Infidel.

  “We can take the Pole’s tributary to the river Janus,” Nebuchadnezzar says. “Switch up to the Northern Lethe at Maylay Beighlay.”

  El Cid puts a hand to her chin. “Can’t. It’s gone dark.”

  “Maylay Beighlay?” Nebuchadnezzar asks.

  El Cid frowns. “We can switch over at Dendra.”

  “I hate that place,” Q says. “They’ll confiscate all our weapons.”

  El Cid shrugs. “They’ll give them back when we leave.”

  Soulfall. It had something to do with the Infidel and Lilith. Something to do with—

  “We can even stop at Portsmouth on the way,” Nebuchadnezzar says. “If we’re lucky, we could get there in two weeks. Can you keep the boy alive that long?”

  “I can sure as hell try,” El Cid answers. “We can ease up on the ferment at times, but the boy’s cries might bring enemies to us.”

  “Best to ease up now,” Q says. “It’ll be much more wild near the Erebus.”

  “And the Furies?” El Cid asks.

  Nebuchadnezzar breathes in deeply as he looks up in contemplation. “I can distract them. There are undead on top of Soulfall. I can make them harmless. That little touch I give them will make them targets of the Furies. It will buy us some time. Not much time, but perhaps enough.”

  Soulfall. Now I remember.

  It’s where the Infidel committed suicide so that he, like some mad Orpheus, could chase his lover into Sheol and try to rescue her. Where the currents of the Erebus river tore a city away from Hell to leave it hanging between this damnation and the next. Where the survivors of that calamity were driven insane by the awful power of Sheol.

  Where I’m headed.

  But none of that matters. Like always, I didn’t understand everything the infidels said, but I don’t need to. The important bit is that we have to take my son to Soulfall. What matters is that Nebuchadnezzar can get us passed whatever those Fury things are. What matters is that once we get there, Aiden will live.

  The ice cave is lovely, bright, and deep. It snakes around from the back of Nebuchadnezzar’s keep and curls into the edge of the Pole’s wall. Ice stalagmites and stalactites rise and fall to meet each other like the broken-tooth maw of an angry hellhound.

  My balance isn’t getting any better, but at places the ice floor gives way to loose rock, and Jessica’s boots finally find some traction.

  Behind us, moving with surprising grace, is a wight larger than I would have thought possible. It’s unsettling enough that this necromancer could control wights in the same way that Minotaurs and Archdevils can, but worse than that, this person couldn’t have died at his current size. Nebuchadnezzar had to have done something to create this eight foot muscle-bound monstrosity besides tattooing that ridiculous swastika on its forehead.

  Balanced over one of its comically broad shoulders is our boat, a red, wooden gondola, long enough to hold the five of us. I’m not sure who made the damn thing, but it looks like it had been plucked straight from the set of some Venetian movie—with one major difference. Its prow is high and shaped in the form of a curve-necked Chinese style dragon.

  “You’re not afraid to leave your experiments behind?” I ask Nebuchadnezzar.

  He shakes his head.

  “Why’d you cage up Jeeves, or Hansel? Whatever his name is.”

  Nebuchadnezzar’s blue eyes squint at me. “It’s necessary to cage him.”

  “Why, though?”

  “Otherwise he’ll take over.”

  I chuckle a little—not because this Nazi fucker is funny—but because I need his ass to save Aiden.

  “You know why I help you?” He asks me.

  I look back to make sure Aiden is asleep. “Yeah, because all you Nazi fuckers have a hard-on for Eva.”

  He shakes his blond head. “No. Well, perhaps. But I saw the way you interacted with Hansel.”

  “Oh?”

  “A man who can empathize with a corpse might be open minded enough to see me fairly.”

  Wait until he finds out what my “open mind” thinks of him.

  There’s a drop where a section of the floor, now a smooth ice sheet, forms a steep ten foot decline. El Cid and Q hop down, sliding on the soles of their boots with their inhuman balance. Fuck. Why can’t I do that shit?

  I stop at the dip and put my belly to the floor, feet facing down, keeping Aiden away from the ice. The cold hurts my fingers. I slide. To my horror, the giant wight-thing glides down, boat and all, like the infidels did. Nothing that big should move so smoothly.

  Nebuchadnezzar follows, scooting down on his ass.

  Q looks confused and is paused at the mouth of two different ice caves. He points down one and looks to Nebuchadnezzar.

  “That’s it,” the Necromancer says.

&nbs
p; The path becomes more rocky, and the ice stalactites drip water into pools. Small rivulets of running water begin collecting in the center of the tunnel. The melting ice should mean that the cave is getting warmer. If it is, though, I can’t feel it.

  Nebuchadnezzar is looking at me as if he’d asked me something. Oh right, the shit about me being open minded.

  “Why would you care if I judge you or not?” I ask.

  He doesn’t answer, but I realize how lonely it must be for him. Not that he doesn’t deserve it.

  “Look,” I say, “I’m not trying to see you, or judge you. I’m a father who needs you.”

  His genuine-ass smile splits his face. “We shall see, Cris with no ‘h.’ We shall see. But your friendship is of little matter. You will take me to Eva.”

  “Yes, or to where she was.”

  He looks at me, as if considering that I might be lying to him for the first time. Wish thinking will trip anybody up, even a Nazi. Hell, considering they opened a second front against Russia, especially a Nazi.

  I do my best to keep my face unreadable.

  The caves must be getting even warmer as we keep moving because more of the ice is melting. I still can’t feel it, though. There must be some sort of heat cycle in here, because otherwise wouldn’t these caves have all melted away? Or at least, that seems right. Who knows? Hell is a strange beast.

  Cid would know.

  “You sure we need the golem?” She asks, motioning to the eight-foot wight. “If the boat is really that heavy, I don’t know how we’d port it.”

  Nebuchadnezzar shrugs. “We could take him with us.”

  Q snorts. “You can try and take that thing through Dendra.”

  Nebuchadnezzar laughs. That German guffaw is getting on my nerves.

  “The boat is light enough,” he says. “And the Creature will stay.”

  The water is filling up the middle of the cave’s floor. It’s really starting to look like a stream now. I hear the rush of a larger river ahead, and the sound is comforting.

  “How much farther?” I ask. “I might need to pass Aiden on.”

  Nebuchadnezzar looks at my boy. “The Creature can carry your lad—but only a few more chambers, to answer your question.”

  I look at the wight. Hell no. I’d rather Aiden spend time with his mother than that thing.

  El Cid freezes, her hand dropping to the pistol at her hip. “Nebuchadnezzar, are any of your undead in these caves?”

  The necromancer shakes his head. “When I first cleared them out, there were a few Kharas Bolge, but no longer. Nothing can survive that cold water long enough to get this deep into the caves.”

  “I heard something,” Cid warns.

  “Your own fear, perhaps,” Nebuchadnezzar says.

  Maybe he’s right, but Cid don’t scare easy.

  As Nebuchadnezzar said, the small river we’re following joins a big one, perhaps twenty feet across. The ice ceiling hangs low enough that the boat on the monster’s shoulders starts breaking away some of the icicles.

  Some stranger starts shouting from a crevasse across the river. “No! They’re not! The infidels are on his side.”

  El Cid and Q dive behind some human-sized ice stalagmites.

  I look toward the yelling, seeing three men dressed in white. Their guns are leveled at us.

  Shit!

  I reach around behind me and clutch at Aiden’s harness, keeping him close. I backpedal madly, turning my body toward the guns to shield him from any incoming bullets.

  Nebuchadnezzar is about as fast as me.

  “Creature—” he begins.

  A shotgun blast rings out and a sudden spray of pulverized ice erupts from the stalagmite by my head, shards scattering across the floor. Two rifle reports follow, hitting the Creature.

  “—back!” Nebuchadnezzar yells.

  Together, the necromancer and I take cover in the passage that leads to this chamber.

  I reach for the buckle at my waist.

  The Creature seems unharmed by the bullets. It obeys its master, and comes back, boat and all, rushing toward us. I duck below the gondola as it passes by.

  “Help me!” I shout to Nebuchadnezzar, pointing a thumb behind my back to Aiden.

  “How might I assist?” The necromancer is as calm as ever.

  “Hold him up!”

  Another shotgun blast sends ice crystals flying into our chamber. Some of them end up in my eyes.

  I blink them away. “Jesus!”

  I kneel down and work at the buckle. My freezing fingers are stiff and unwieldy. I feel Aiden’s weight lifting off of me, so I know Nebuchadnezzar has my son. Fucker will probably try and use him as a shield.

  “If he dies, you die!” I shout as I get the buckle undone.

  I slide out of the harness and draw the Old Lady. She’s a Smith & Wesson Model 916A pump action 12 gauge shotgun with a 28 inch barrel.

  The walls of the tunnel are ice, so I try and see through them to my enemies. No luck. I look around for something to toss—something to draw their fire so I can get a shot off. Nothing.

  I’ll have to wait for Q and El Cid to return fire.

  But they don’t look like they’re trying to fire back, they’re huddled down behind their stalagmites.

  The hell?

  I rip the blanket off of Aiden and throw it out into the open. Two rifles and a shotgun fire. I turn the corner in an instant, the Old Lady ready.

  “No!” El Cid yells.

  I jerk back quickly, slipping on the ice and landing on my ass safely back in the passageway.

  “What the hell, Cid?” I struggle back to my feet. “They’re shooting at us.”

  “They’re here to kill Nebuchadnezzar, Cris!”

  “No shit! And we need him.”

  “He’s evil. Under different circumstances, we’d kill him. We can’t shoot these people for being good!”

  You’ve got to be kidding me. The infidels are famous for their pragmatism, their willingness and ability to win over the loss of their loved ones, but I’m beginning to think that I could give them a few lessons.

  “This ain’t the time for moral judgments!” I shout.

  To help my argument, the strangers fire another round of buckshot.

  “See?” I yell over a rifle shot. “They’re not interested in our neutrality. So help me God, Cid, if they cross that river I’m gunning them down.”

  Even from this distance I can see Cid’s frustration. “You will not! Neb’s got to fight this one on his own.”

  Neb shrugs. “The Creature will dispose of them.”

  Well that’s good.

  Fuck. That’s not good. Those people are going to die. Or worse, Nebuchadnezzar is going to die.

  The idea gives me pause. Do we really need him? We already know where to go. The idea of betraying the guy now makes my stomach a little queasy—but I can handle that.

  No. We do need him for something. The Furies. He’s going to distract the Furies. Damn it.

  I peek out into the cave. One of them is slinking behind some rocks by the river. Shit, I think he’s found a crossing. If he gets to our side, he’ll have an angle from which he can shoot right at me.

  Another shotgun blast showers me with ice crystals. A light mist hangs in the air where the buckshot hit, slowly dissipating.

  I’ve had enough.

  “Hold your fire!” I shout. “I’m coming out.”

  “We’ll kill you!” one answers.

  It strikes me as odd that he’d warn me about that, like he doesn’t actually want to shoot me.

  “I’m coming out!” I repeat.

  “Any friend of Nebuchadnezzar deserves to die.”

  He’s got a point. “I hate that fucking bastard.” I turn to the necromancer and speak softly

  to him. “Sorry to throw you under the bus.”

  He shrugs the shoulders of his grey overcoat. “Throw away.”

  He’s set Aiden against the cave wall. My boy’s kicking in his sle
ep, probably because the gunshots are disturbing his ferment coma.

  I throw my Old Lady out into the chamber.

  “Before you go,” Nebuchadnezzar says, “tell me where to find Eva, in case you die.”

  Prick.

  I shake my head and storm out into the chamber, my hands held high. “Please don’t fucking shoot!” I shout, my voice shaky. “I just want to talk, okay?”

  I’m not dead yet, so I take that as a good sign. I slip a little. I need to be careful. Another jerky motion might get me killed. I pick my way across the icy rocks. The rush of the river is a gentle thing. A peaceful thing. I try to let it soothe my nerves, but my adrenaline is racing.

  I see them more clearly as I get closer. One is still behind cover, his rifle trained on me. The other two have stood up from behind their rocks. They’re both bearded. One looks Mexican, the other white. They’re clad in what looks like layered dyitzu fur, only it’s snow colored. Maybe they found some way to bleach it. All three of their guns, two rifles and a shotgun, are all leveled at me.

  I make my way slowly down the uneven trough which ends with the stream.

  I stop at the bank. “Please, let me explain this to you.”

  The first stranger tosses down his rifle and comes out. “No, let me explain this!” He charges down to his side of the river, his breath misting in the air. “When Keith came and warned us about you, we thought you’d come to kill Nebuchadnezzar. I thought I could trust infidels. We figured Nebuchadnezzar would sneak out the back, so we came to help you, and look what we’ve found! You’ve decided to help him?” He points back to the cave where I left the necromancer. “Do you have any idea what he does? And to think I defended you infidels when Keith warned us.”

  Sooner or later, we’ve got to kill that Keith bastard. No time to think about that now.

  I clear my throat. “I know he raises corpses but—”

  “He’s brought back my daughter!” The man’s voice is shaky. “He keeps her there in his castle of ice. Keeps her as his bride.”

  After a moment, I realize my jaw is open. I look back over my shoulder to the cave where Nebuchadnezzar is hiding.

  Oh, he’s going to die. I might do it right now.

  “Cris!” El Cid shouts. “Do not do anything stupid.”