March till Death (Hellsong Book 3)

by Shaun O. McCoy

  “You plan to go across to Sheol, don’t you? You’re going to fight a Fury and get that weapon that can hurt Saint Wretch.”

  Galen gave no answer, he just stared at the ceiling.

  “And when you’ve done that,” Calimay whispered, “When you’ve fought with every last ounce of your soul so that your son can have a Hell worth surviving in, and when I’ve managed to outlast Maab and Saint Wretch, you’ll come back to me, and share my bed.”

  “There are no miracles in Hell.”

  “It gives me hope to think such things.”

  Galen stood. She marveled at his naked body. She could not have imagined a more perfect man.

  He pulled on his pants, preparing to leave. “Then for hope’s sake, I’ll be back when all is won.”

  Calimay knew it was a lie. There was no beating Saint Wretch. And by Mithras, she couldn’t even defeat Maab. Her bed, as comfortable as she had tried to make it, would be cold and empty from now until the day she died.

  Martin’s twenty men trailed closely behind him as he walked through the tunnels. “Anyone seen Huxley or his crew in the last hour?”

  “Looks like James and I were the last ones to see him,” Tucker said.

  Well, if we end up in a fight, at least I’ll have some good men beside me. I wish Hux were here, or Hidalgo. I’d give up my fucking hand again for Hidalgo.

  They trotted along the far side of the Kingsriver, staying as close to the rock walls which separated them from the Carrion as they could. Martin swore that he felt the cold of the place sucking the heat away.

  Now that he had seen the Carrion, Martin could tell how the architecture and rock formations had been warped by their proximity to the region. Here and there the natural caverns and red brick walls and ceilings gave way to the large dark stone blocks of the kind he’d seen on the other side of the barrier. In other places he saw archways, topped with keystones and cubbyholes which, but for their illumination, were also the same as in the Carrion.

  They came to a four way fork with two purple cube markers.

  Martin nodded to Tucker and James. They trotted off, one down each cube-marked corridor.

  Martin sniffed the air. He thought he’d smelled blood.

  Jesus Christ, it could be here. A little farther downriver than I thought but . . .

  He thought he heard a whine.

  Martin walked away from the fork and headed towards one of those arches. Marcus and a few of his men followed behind him.

  “Stay close,” Martin warned.

  He raised his rifle and stepped carefully through the archway. He heard the scuffs of his men’s footfalls behind him.

  “Aleck,” Martin whispered. “Go and warn Tucker and James to be quiet when they come back.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The next room was a narrow one with a low red brick ceiling. Martin had to duck as they got near the end of it. There was another arch here, perhaps three feet high, and Martin could tell that its keystone was purple in color.

  He crawled through it. The next room had a higher ceiling, and its floor was littered with slain dyitzu. Near his feet was a half-dead hound. Its whine was surprisingly similar to that of an old world dog.

  “Oh, shit,” Martin said as he got up off of his hands and knees. “Guinness, guard the exits. Marcus, help me check these bodies out.”

  Tucker, James and Aleck came up behind him.

  “You were right, sir, there’s a bre—” Tucker’s eyes widened in surprise as he saw the slaughter. “Oh, hell. What happened here?”

  Martin knelt by the twitching hound. It had been hit by dyitzu fire. A lot of dyitzu fire. Its fur was a blackened mess, and its face had half burnt, half melted off. Oddly, it seemed as if its claws had all been severed at the knuckle.

  Trophies maybe?

  “Dyitzu look like they were mostly hit by buckshot,” Marcus said, “except this one. Jesus, somebody’s packing some serious ammo.”

  He lifted the lifeless head of the dyitzu. The entry wound was directly between the dyitzu’s eyes. The back of the head had been blown to pieces. Scattered bits of skull and dyitzu brain were spread out on the wall behind the thing.

  Martin whistled.

  “Human over here,” Guinness reported. “Looks like he wore all black.”

  Martin stepped over the bodies to see the man.

  “We found a breach back there. It was definitely made by people,” Tucker said. “Not sure how they managed to do it without getting killed, but they fucking mined through the entire barrier. It was just wide enough for a man, or a dyitzu to crawl through.”

  “It looks like the dyitzu were what got the hound,” Marcus mused.

  “Must have been an accident,” Martin said absently as he knelt by the body of the dead human. “Maybe they were shooting for this guy and missed?”

  The man’s clothes were indeed all black. They reminded Martin a little bit of what Cris had worn when the Infidel Friend had stood on the far side of the Golden Door. Only somehow Martin doubted this man was an infidel.

  “No rigor,” Marcus said. “He ain’t been dead too long.”

  Martin pulled on the sleeve of the man’s shirt, rolling it up. There, on his shoulder, was a tattoo. It was of a man with raised arms, palm touching palm as if he were praying. His torso was encased in rock.

  Maab’s men are here.

  “Should we go back and get Copperfield?” Aleck asked. “We’ll have to repair this barrier right?”

  Marcus was staring at the booted footprints left in the blood. “I think they went—oh shit.”

  Martin started, and the hound began whining and pawing the air with its mutilated claws.

  “What?” Martin asked, walking over to Marcus.

  “One of ours. Hit with buckshot. Took it full in the face.”

  “That was Steven, sir,” Tucker said, “I can tell by the stain in his hoodie. He was in Hux’s group, sir.”

  Martin unloaded a pair of rounds into the fallen hound. The whining stopped.

  “Pick up the pace,” he ordered. “Marcus, you’re at point.”

  Arturus stared at the small bedside table. There was a silver backed ironglass mirror laying there next to a set of combs made out of polished hellstone.

  “Are you mad at me?” Calista asked.

  Of course I’m mad at you.

  “No,” Arturus lied.

  “Are you okay?”

  Arturus fought to keep his frustration down. “Just a little bruised, is all.”

  “I didn’t mean to, I promise. I just got excited.”

  I slept with you so I could be with Kelly.

  “I understand.” Arturus tried to make his voice sound genuine. “It was an accident.”

  And it had been, only she shouldn’t have had the chance to make that particular mistake. I’m probably lucky she didn’t leave me like Avery.

  Arturus sat up and caught a glance of his reflection in the mirror. He still looked pretty damn dead.

  Calista didn’t seem to care.

  It was an odd realization. He had thought his ugliness would have put her off, but it hadn’t. Not at all. It was as if she really cared for him. He felt Calista’s smooth fingers touch his shoulder.

  Too smooth, no calluses. She never does any work.

  There were footsteps in the room beyond this one coming from the other side of a woodstone door. Calimay’s chambers were through there. Maybe his father was leaving, heading back to Aaron, Avery, and Kelly.

  He felt a twinge of pain when he thought of how hurt Kelly had been.

  I’ll just lie to her, tell her I didn’t enjoy it.

  Calista’s other hand found his shoulders. She started massaging him. It felt good. Damn good. It felt like her fingers were bringing his muscles back to life.

  I shouldn’t have enjoyed that. It was practically against my will. Kelly will probably be crying about it for weeks. I want to be Kelly’s man, and hers only.

  But he had enjoyed it. He had enjo
yed it a lot—except for when she hurt him.

  “It might be too early, but I swear I can feel your seed quickening inside me.” Calista’s voice was soft in his ear.

  It will be a fatherless child she bears. A bastard.

  “And that makes you happy?” Arturus asked.

  “Yes,” Calista said. “I’m having our baby. Good thing too, considering how easily I hurt you, you probably couldn’t handle childbirth.”

  Arturus felt a little insulted by that, but her fingers kept massaging his back, and they felt too good for him to be mad at her.

  “You love the Maab priestess, don’t you? Kelly is her name?”

  Arturus nodded.

  “That’s sad,” Calista said. “I think you would have loved me if you’d had the chance. Mother says that you and your father are a different kind of man. She says you are used to choosing who you love, but I think you would have chosen to love me.”

  Arturus didn’t answer. The warmth of her naked body was pressing up against him. Her figure was very different from Kelly’s. Calista was much broader, and her breasts were much larger. Arturus had enjoyed that.

  “I’d love it if you stayed,” Calista said. “You could help me raise the child. If it’s a boy you could raise it to be like yourself, you know? A man who chooses who they love.”

  Arturus felt his heart sink in his chest. He hadn’t thought of that. Were he to have a son, he’d be the father of a bastard slave. Arturus looked up to the ceiling. It was covered by a red and gold Mithras tapestry.

  “I can’t stay.”

  “I know. It’s not the Kelly girl either. Mother told me. It’s your other father. You miss him.”

  Arturus’ eyes hurt all of a sudden.

  My tear ducts must not be all the way alive yet.

  A tear ran down his cheek. She let out a gasp before touching his face, wiping the tear. She held up her finger. The tear was red.

  “You cry blood,” she whispered in awe. “You are holy!”

  “From being a leper,” Arturus explained, “not an angel.”

  “No!” she said. “You don’t understand. Mithras, he’s in Londinium, encased there in stone. The one who’s supposed to rescue him, they say ‘his eyes are idols of stone.’ The person who helps Mithras come into Hell through the rock so he can fight Ahriman, that’s you. You have the stone eyes which cry blood.”

  Arturus shook his head. “This is Hell, Calista. Prophecies don’t come true here.”

  He felt the hard nipples of her breasts pressing into his back.

  “Maybe,” she said, “but I’m happy that, of all the men who’ve been damned, you’re the one to be my child’s father. Lay down with me?”

  “I can’t,” Arturus said. “I have to go back.”

  Her breasts pressed harder into him. “Just pretend. You’ll be with Kelly for the rest of your life. Just pretend. You were born in Hell, weren’t you? Just like me. You and I are the same, you know.”

  It seems like every girl I meet wants to play make believe.

  Arturus frowned. “I’m sorry, but—”

  “You don’t have to mean it,” Calista said, “but lay down next to me. Let me pretend for the rest of my life that you loved me. On that day when I look into the eyes of my child, let me remember yours. Let me have this pleasant fantasy that somewhere in Hell, you’re thinking of me, wishing you could return.”

  More blood ran down his cheeks.

  Hell’s gotten to me. It’s gotten inside me.

  He lay back down, putting one arm over her body and guiding her back into her soft sheets. Calista closed her eyes, a contented smile spreading across her face.

  “I really am sorry I hurt you,” she said. “It was on accident. I didn’t know it would take so little.” One of her eyes opened and she grinned harder.

  Arturus shook his head.

  He rolled over onto his back, looking up to the tapestry. Then he closed his eyes. He wondered what it would be like to finally come home. Rick’s face would light up. He’d be grinning from ear to ear.

  There was the distant sound of stones grinding against each other, and then the sound of rock being split in two. Arturus eyes shot open. Calista was clinging to him.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, her voice panicked.

  Arturus heard men screaming. As calmly as he could, he got out of bed and put on his pants.

  “Tell me!” Calista shouted, “What’s happening?”

  “This world of yours,” Arturus said sadly as he picked up his shirt, “it’s ending.”

  “Did you hear that?” Kelly asked.

  Aaron stirred.

  He looked over to Avery. The hunter was sitting on the upper bunk across the room, his hand pressed against one of the dark, fitted stones which made up their small chamber.

  “There it was again,” Kelly whispered, her head cocked to one side as if she were listening to something.

  Aaron swung his legs over the side of his bed and lowered himself down to the ground. “I’m not hearing anything.”

  “Come here,” Avery said. “Put your hand against the bed.”

  Aaron took the three steps necessary to cross over to the other bunk and put his hand against it. He waited.

  “What does it—” Aaron began.

  “Shh!” Kelly let out the sound harshly.

  Someone else must have heard whatever it was in the chambers beyond, because Aaron could hear their worried voices. There were quick footsteps passing by their door. Then silence. Aaron could hear a slight wheeze coming from his lungs. He coughed to try and rid himself of it.

  “Shh!” Avery and Kelly shushed him together this time.

  Then it came. He felt it more than heard it, a vibration in the bunk. Now that he was aware of when it was coming and when it was going, he felt like he could just barely notice the distant rumble.

  “A settling,” Aaron breathed.

  Kelly’s head shook slowly.

  There were a few more hushed whispers from outside, and more footsteps.

  “Something’s coming,” Kelly said.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Aaron shot back. “The stones—”

  It came again, louder this time, and the vibrations lasted longer.

  The hell?

  “It feels like a settling doesn’t it?” Avery’s voice was so soft Aaron could hardly hear him. “They can be this spread out, right? A set of pillars slowly breaking or something.”

  Kelly shook her head again. “Get your weapons ready.”

  “You can’t seriously think it’s a devil,” Aaron said.

  “It is,” Kelly answered. “Or Maab. But this is no settling. The blasts are too even. Someone is . . .”

  The rumble came again. This time Aaron could see the bunk vibrate.

  “I—” But the rest of Kelly’s sentence was drowned out by the loudest sound Aaron had ever heard. Louder than a settling. Louder than the screams of the dying. Louder than the long wail of the Furies.

  He was propelled into the air and his world went suddenly dark. He slammed into the back wall, hitting it so hard with his back that he lost his breath. He fell to the floor. Then, behind the rumble, there was a crack far louder than thunder, reverberating all around him and through the hollow of his chest. He found himself on his hands and knees. The chamber had once been well lit, but whatever had happened had sucked the light out of the stones. The only light he could see by was coming from around the edges of the door.

  It sounded like pebbles were raining down outside of their room. Aaron noticed there was a crack now, spread throughout the stone ceiling near the doorway. It looked like it only went a little ways into the room, but as his eyes followed it, he noticed it was nearly halfway across. No, even farther.

  Jesus, it’s growing!

  The crack’s tendrils shot across their ceiling and began creeping down the back wall.

  “The bunk!” Aaron shouted.

  Together, the three of them took cover in Kelly’s bunk. S
mall stones began dropping from the ceiling, raining down onto the top bunk. Then there was another thunderous boom.

  When the sound of that explosion died away, all Aaron could hear was the ringing in his own ears. He shook his head to try and clear it. Avery was saying something, but the ringing overpowered his distant sounding voice.

  Aaron stood up out of the bunk and stumbled, either because the explosion had robbed him of his balance, or because there was another blast—he could not tell which. Aaron staggered through the darkness, tripping in places over the rubble, heading towards the door. His hand touched the woodstone and he tried to listen.

  The ringing started to lessen, and he began hearing shouts outside.

  “South quarter! Get to the south quarter!” A soldier was yelling.

  Aaron slid the door’s latch over and pushed. The door opened a little, letting light spill in from the hallway beyond, but it got jammed.

  “What’s going on!” Aaron yelled out into the corridor.

  Someone was answering, but Aaron couldn’t hear him at all. He shook his head again, looking back to his friends to see if they’d heard what the voice had been saying. He could barely see them in the sliver of light that the open door-crack provided. Kelly was kneeling on the ground. Avery stood protectively over her. Small pebbles and streams of dust were coming down from the ceiling.

  “What?” Aaron shouted back through the door.

  The light in the hallway was flickering. He saw one of Calimay’s grey shirted soldiers coming up to the door. He was walking over nearly half a foot of rubble.

  “Stones have got your door closed!” the soldier was shouting. Aaron missed the next part of what the man said because of the atrocious ringing. “. . . at the south quarter. Dyitzu mostly. Looks like some corpses. We’ll have to break you out and move deeper into the complex.”

  “Not Maab?” Aaron asked.

  “No,” the soldier answered. “It’s okay, we’ve got a plan for this. Help me break this door down and we’ll keep you safe. Are you armed?”

  There was another blast. It seemed farther away, but more streams of dust came down from the ceiling.

  “Yes,” Kelly shouted back, “but almost no bullets.”

  “Avery, help me with this.”