“Out, Q,” she orders. “Pull us back.”
Q hops out of the gondola with his preternatural-infidel balance. He loops the strap of his M-16 around a corner of the back of the boat. With the help of Nebuchadnezzar’s poling, Q pulls us slowly upstream.
Our progress against the current is terribly slow.
“You think they’ll let us out of this room?” I ask.
Cid shrugs.
“Are we going to find another way around?” Nebuchadnezzar asks.
She shakes her head. “This is a feint.”
And it’s working. I hear the echoes of dyitzu claws clacking against the stone as they run, unseen in the darkness behind the arches. The sounds fill the chamber. There must be a hundred of them.
Aiden sits up, his face in agony.
“Down, son.”
“I need ferment.” Tears are in his eyes.
“Down!”
He does as he’s told.
Q struggles on as the dyitzu claws continue their movement.
“Just a bit more,” Cid says.
Q nods and keeps on pulling.
I see a dyitzu in an arch on the second level. It’s leaning forward, eager, not even bothering to hide itself. This one’s skin is a dark brown. I can see its bald head, and though the dyitzu is too far away for me to make out its black eyes, the devil turns slowly with our progress.
“Now!” Cid yells.
Her M-16 rings out as she looses a pair of three-round bursts. I see one dyitzu slump forward out of his arch as the boat switches direction. The boat rocks and Q jumps in.
“Pole!” He shouts. “Pole, Neb!”
The grey-coated necromancer, his face contorted with a grimace of fear, slams his pole down into the water. He works it frantically, pushing us faster and faster with the aid of the current.
The archways light up as the hidden dyitzu there form their fireballs. I see them, for a moment, standing behind their foot-wide infernos. They’re bunched up in the arches near the upstream side of the chamber, a testament to their stupidity.
They’d fallen for Cid’s trick.
“Defense, Cris!” Cid shouts.
The hell does she mean?
Her and Q open up, firing their three-round bursts.
I’m about to loose my own shot, but Nebuchadnezzar’s sudden poling causes me to lose the bead on my target.
Again, the fireballs come streaking in at us.
Neb shoves the pole down, and we jerk as we slow suddenly. I almost fall onto my son but catch myself by posting my knee on the bench. The wave of fire rolls in ahead of us, exploding into showers of fiery raindrops as they burst on the granite bank or sizzling with steam as they bury themselves into the river.
One hits the front of our gondola, exploding into a shower of liquid fire. El Cid, standing at the prow, stops shooting as she steps over my son, straddling him and bending over.
The flaming droplets of the last fireball land on her. She spins around, her armored back still smoking as she takes aim again with her M-16.
While the first volley of fireballs came in a wave, the second is much more uneven. Nebuchadnezzar does his best to keep us out of the hellish rain, but it looks like a few are coming straight at us.
Ah, defense.
I loose two sets of buckshot at the incoming missiles. The spread tears up three of the fireballs as they come, sending their napalm-like conflagrations showering across the stones far short of our boat. As a bonus, some of my shot hits a dyitzu. A fourth fireball singes my shoulder as it rushes by, and I can feel its heat rake across my cheek.
We’re about halfway, one hundred and fifty yards to go.
I hear the growl of hellhounds.
They come, a pair of grey-coated dogs, five foot tall and four foot wide, tearing around the bend of the river.
“I’ve got them!” Nebuchadnezzar yells.
There is nothing to do but trust him.
I shoot down another couple of fireballs, but even so, one soars right past Cid’s head. Bitch is so hard, she doesn’t even flinch. She drops her clip into her belt and loads another with no wasted motion.
The dyitzu start pouring out of the archways, some dropping down from the second story.
The hounds are nearly on us.
I know Nebuchadnezzar says he’s got ‘em, but I can’t help myself. I loose a shell in their direction.
I might as well have been shooting a BB gun.
Neb, one hand on the pole, produces a glass jar from his overcoat and tosses it. It shatters on the granite and the air fills with white dust.
My eyes start watering as we float through the chalky substance.
Oh Jesus, it stings. I feel it getting into the back of my throat.
“Loading!” I shout, my voice cracking from the burn of the dust.
But what it’s doing to us is nothing compared to what it’s doing to the hellhounds. They howl and screech and whine and bark. One is rolling around on its back, rubbing its face on the wet granite. The other is clawing at its snout so fiercely that it tears open wounds, the blood turning its grey fur red.
A pair of fireballs slam into the side of the boat, sending more liquid streamers of fire up into the air and onto the boat’s floor. The flaming substance starts flowing toward Aiden.
I’ve only got two shells in, and a third slips from my fingers as I reach over and grab Aiden by the collar of his shirt. I jerk him up on the bench. El Cid is still firing.
The river pulls us out of the room.
The smell of smoldering wood fills my nostrils. I peer behind us through the smoke that’s coming from our boat, the Old Lady raised.
There seems to be no pursuit.
El Cid pulls out some shells and starts filling up her clips. “Well?” she asks. “You gentlemen going to put out the boat?”
Blood is dripping down from Aiden’s mouth. Cid had given him his leather strap to bite down on after the fight, but only after he’d managed to chew a hole in his lip. Wight blood isn’t a half-coagulated sludge like a corpse’s. It isn’t red like a human’s either. It is a smooth, black liquid. Aiden’s blood is something in between, like high-end motor oil.
It is inhuman.
A tree root has risen out of the water, snaking itself around a pillar before plunging up into the rock ceiling.
Wait, that doesn’t make sense. The roots should go down, right? But the thing is thicker at the base than at the top, so I assume it’s headed upward.
As the river and Q’s careful poling takes us forward, I see more roots rising up from the ground and out of the river, constricting pillars into pieces or bending them like clay with their timeless grip.
My father, before he left me in the old world, used tree roots as a metaphor. Some roots had torn up the concrete in our driveway. He’d said some drivel about life being more powerful than rock. Well, maybe not drivel, maybe he was right.
“We’re getting close,” Q says, pointing at a particularly thick set of roots.
El Cid inclines her head in agreement.
I put my hand on Aiden’s shoulder. He shakes it off. Beads of sweat are running down his forehead.
Q guides us around the dark mass of spiraling roots he’d pointed to. “You better medicate him now, Cid. If they suspect he’s half wight, they won’t let him in. We’ll need to pass him off as a living boy.”
“I can do it,” Aiden says around the leather strap in his mouth.
“You’re not looking so good,” El Cid says.
He spits out the strap. “I said I can do it.”
I love my son, so much. So God damned much.
El Cid turns and puts one of her tiny hands on my wrist. “Cris, if they find out he’s on edge, they’ll do more than keep him out of the city. They’ll kill him.”
“Try,” I say.
Her eyes narrow in confusion.
“They’ll try to kill him.”
“Better clean that brackish blood off of his chin.” Nebuchadnezzar is using
his honest voice. “It’s a dead giveaway.”
El Cid hands me a little white handkerchief. Who knows where she gets all her damn knickknacks. My fingers brush over a pair of embroidered letters, a gold threaded “CW.” The motor oil smudges on his skin when I attempt to clean it up. I dip the cloth into the water and try again.
There.
Much better.
I pass the handkerchief, un-cleaned, back to Cid.
“Thanks,” her sarcastic voice replies.
Ahead of us, a series of those roots have climbed into a cavern, growing up along both sides of the fifty foot walls before spearing themselves in tangled knots through the stone ceiling. They create an overhang which creates a one hundred foot deep tunnel under which our gondola is about to go. A few tiny brown feathered white-breasted birds, which the infidels call psychopomp sparrows, nest amongst the flora. One flutters from one side to the other.
The longer I stay in Hell, the more terrible and beautiful it seems.
Two men, dressed in dyitzu skin and wicker hats, stand guard on either side of a small archway. Each is armed with a Winchester rifle. Q hops to the bank and brings the boat to a halt. I climb out and sit on the stone, my feet still in the gondola. I lift Aiden up and help him to the shore where he manages to stand on shaky legs.
“Infidels,” one of the guards mentions. “Nebuchadnezzar, I never thought I’d see you associating with their kind.”
Shit, I guess they aren’t friendly.
Neb steps off the boat, his black boots squeaking loudly against the wet rock. “They’re escorting me to Portsmouth.”
It’s as good a lie as any, I suppose.
The other guard frowns. “Better turn around then, Portsmouth has gone dark.”
Fuck.
Nebuchadnezzar shrugs. “That’s what they’re here for.” Neb jabs a thumb over his shoulder at us. “Don’t worry, we’ve no plans to stay. We just need to switch our boat to the Northern Lethe.”
The first guard glances back to his city. “We’ve got members of the Order in here, so you all are going to have to give up your weapons.”
El Cid’s hand instinctively goes to her M-16.
“Don’t worry,” he says, “we took their weapons too. We’ll have the guns brought back to you. And be honest because we’re going to pat you down.”
The second guard speaks up. “There’s an Infidel Friend in here already. Amirani. He’s on good terms with the Tree Lord. I could have him escort you.”
“That’d be very kind,” El Cid answers.
The second guard disappears through the archway.
A drop of sweat runs down Aiden’s brow. I can see him grinding his teeth.
“The boy okay?” the remaining guard asks.
“Yessir,” I answer. “Took a bullet a ways back. He’s recovering, though.”
Hell, Aiden’s too pale for even that to make sense. A drop of his motor oil blood beads up on his lip.
I put my knuckle up to my own lip and meet his dark, dark eyes. He takes the hint and wipes his sleeve across his mouth.
I bend down, adjusting his clothes, and whisper, “Keep your head down, don’t let them see your eyes.”
He’s shaking, from fear, perhaps, or from pain.
Hell.
He nods.
Q pats me on the shoulder.
With a series of heaves, he and I tug the gondola up onto the bank. For a boat, the thing is surprisingly light. Then comes the hard part. I have to divest myself of my weapons.
I drop the Old Lady, my 9mm, and my broken-pointed knife before them.
I never like giving up the .22 I keep at the small of my back, but hell, they did say they were going to give us a pat down. I add it to my pile.
“Your packs, too,” the guard says.
Christ.
I toss my pack on my weapons.
The guard steps behind me. “Sorry about this, brother.”
He begins his pat down by running his hands through my hair. Then he checks my under arms and all along my back.
“Drop your pants,” he orders.
Jesus Christ, it’s a damn thorough pat down.
Fucker even cups my balls before jamming a thumb up my asshole and running both hands down my pant legs.
“Shoes off,” he says.
I roll my eyes, taking off the marvelous boots Jessica made me. He gives them a once over.
Q’s next, and the guard is no gentler on him.
“El Cid,” a voice calls from the archway.
I can tell the newcomer is an Infidel right away, and not just from the M-16 on his back. His bearing is too straight, his grooming too perfect, his—wait? How come he gets to keep a weapon? Four more brown dressed guards fan out around him.
Cid smirks. “Hi, Amirani.”
Amirani motions to our stuff, and the guards start picking it up.
“I’m sorry, but this is necessary,” he apologizes. “Just a warning, make sure you stick close to me when we get in. There was an attack on the grove last night, and the dyitzu are still occupying two of the trees. They’ve been throwing fireballs at us all morning.”
Q is taking his boots off.
“Are you serious?” I ask, keeping an eye on Aiden. “There are devils in there and we can’t even keep our guns?”
The guard picks up Q’s boots, one by one, and shakes them.
Aiden is next. I feel my heart rate pick up.
Q and Cid don’t even bat an eye. Nebuchadnezzar is similarly stone faced. I must be the only nervous one. Hopefully I’m keeping enough of my fear hidden to make them think I’m just an over-concerned parent—but I doubt I am.
“Dead serious,” Amirani says to me. “The Order’s got a cell visiting, and the Lord doesn’t want any shooting. Normally we’d make an exception, but we can’t this time.”
“What’s the Order?” I ask.
The man moves to my son, but he’s got half an ear open to hear what Amirani is going to say. Here’s to hoping he’s distracted.
Aiden has his eyes closed. Smart boy. That little bead of dark blood is building up on his lip again and the wound itself doesn’t look like a normal scab. I put my knuckle up to my mouth again as a signal, but with his eyes closed, Aiden can’t see me.
Amirani says something, but in my worry I miss it.
“Well, Keith’s one of them. They’re a cancer, Cris,” El Cid says. “They took some of our training, but they have shit for morals.”
“They say the same thing about you,” the guard remarks.
He begins running his hands through Aiden’s hair. Some of it comes out.
Oh, fuck.
“I bet they would,” El Cid answers, “but the fact that there are no women in the Order should be a dead giveaway.”
The guard shrugs. “Women soldiers aren’t all that good.”
“What are you doing so deep?” Amirani asks. “So far beyond . . . the Pale.”
El Cid shrugs. “We’re a little on . . . edge. This man,” she motions to Neb, “he’s got some business just past Porstmouth.”
Amirani nods, his eyes two burning pits of infidel intellect. I suddenly get the feeling that he knows what’s going on.
The first guard continues searching Aiden as the other four take our packs away.
“Wait!” the first guard calls.
The four stop, and so does my heart.
The man continues his pat down. “Come back for the boat.”
Thank the fucking gods.
“Bullshit!” one answers. “We’re not carrying that.”
“Have to,” the first guard shouts back. “Could be weapons in the boat.” He turns to El Cid. “I’m going to have to cavity search you when I’m done with the boy.”
Fucking perv.
Aiden flinches as the man cups his boyhood.
“Shoes,” the guard demands.
Aiden, eyes lowered, takes off his boots. His toenails are black, and the dark blue veins in his feet make his extremities look like t
hey were carved from marble rather than made of flesh. The guard’s lips part as if he’s going to say something.
Amirani speaks up. “If you want, Cid, I can do that part of the search. I’m sure the guard here won’t object.”
El Cid shrugs and shimmies her pants down to her knees. “I don’t give a fuck.” She looks at the guard. “Go ahead, shove your fingers on up there.”
The guard absentmindedly shakes Aiden’s boots as he stares at Cid’s cunt. He drops them and begins to pat her down.
I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding.
Aiden begins putting his boots back on.
I turn back to Cid. Her green eyes focus on me when the guard works his fingers into her. It is the most unsettling gaze I think I’ve ever received.
“Alright,” the guard says, wiping his fingers on her pants. “You’re clear.”
El Cid pats the guard’s ass as she walks by him. “It was great, thanks.”
I put my hand around Aiden’s shoulder and guide him through the archway.
“Sorry, Cid,” I whisper.
She shrugs. “You’ll make it up to me.”
In the twenty or so years I’d spent on Earth and the decade plus I’d spent in Hell, I ain’t never seen a place like this.
The trees, more massive than even the giant redwoods I’d seen at Big Sir, grow down. There are perhaps two or three dozen of them, their massive roots—large enough to be trunks themselves—claw into the ceiling above while their branches spread, plunging into the bright mists below. Wooden walkways and wicker bridges line the limbs, sometimes spanning from tree to tree. Huts made of interwoven green matter nestle themselves into the nooks and crannies created wherever gnarled branches meet the irregular uber-oak trunks. A few of those psychopomps fly by us, swooping along the edge of the chamber before alighting onto a set of nearby branches.
Amirani leads us along a vine bridge which takes us from the chamber entrance to one of those wooden walkways.
I look through the upside-down canopy to the silvery, shining mists beneath us and wonder how long I would fall before hitting the bottom.
Soulfall (Hellsong: Infidels: Cris Book 2) Page 6
