The Deadliest Bite

by Jennifer Rardin

  Raoul held up his fingers as he ticked off his objections. “She’s a demon. They can use the tool differently. She told you that herself.”

  “True,” I admitted. I looked at Zell. “You got anything to add?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Nothing that will not make my tongue turn to ash inside my mouth the moment I say it. I can only confirm what you deduce on your own.”

  Vayl stepped forward. “Is that why you are here, Zell? Did they capture you and bring you to hell because you know all the secrets of this tool, and it is so valuable that they cannot risk allowing your soul to fly free?”

  Zell nodded. “You hit that one on the head.”

  “And this last secret?” Vayl continued. “Are we on the right track?” Zell just stared. Vayl’s smile looked a lot more triumphant than I felt. “I will take your silence as a positive sign.” He turned to Raoul. “Let us assume Kyphas managed the death this tool requires and we never discovered that detail—”

  “I say we give it what it wants.” We all looked at Lotus, whose face had paled so drastically she looked like a mannequin before the makeup’s gone on. The starkness of her expression, her absolute certainty amid all our doubt, made her seem more Vayl’s progeny than anything else she’d done so far. “Then we can go, right? Then this whole nightmare will be over?”

  I said, “Not necessarily for you, snookums.” I kept my voice gentle as I pointed to Helena and said, “She was a good, honorable woman. And she’s trapped inside, still being righteous, still fighting on the side she chose when she was just a girl. You, on the other hand, are still trying to turn your back on the pile of bullshit you’ve made out of your life when you’re actually buried under it.” I pointed to the souls that had chosen maiming and torture. “That’s you if you don’t start digging.” I made a fist. “And I’m not helping you make it worse by killing someone in this crew.”

  Astral had been sitting quietly beside Raoul all this time. Now she stood up, looked over at me intently, and then stared at Lotus. “Grenade?” she offered politely, as if she knew exactly how I was feeling and had already figured out a quick way to rid myself of the unwanted company.

  “Not at the moment, thank you,” I told her.

  “Maybe later, though,” Raoul said.

  We all looked at him. “What if we invite the noisemakers”—he jerked his head toward the howls we’d been monitoring since our arrival at the gate—“a little closer?”

  “Are you sure you want to do that?” asked Zell. “Normally spiderhounds aren’t creatures you fight. They’re ones you hope you can outrun.”

  I stared him straight in the eyes. “I have to put this name on the gate, Zell. You, of all people, should understand why.”

  He nodded. “I have another idea. If it works, it might even get us out of here. But you have to trust me.”

  “No problem,” I said. “Anybody else have any issues with trusting the cowboy?” I asked. Then before they could answer I did it for them. “Nope, we’re all for your plan. Don’t even bother filling us in. Just throw it in motion and we’ll learn as we go.”

  Zell nodded and began stomping. It was hypnotically rhythmical, like the precursor to every stage show that had ever involved drums and heel taps. Helena joined him, linking her arm in his and adding a double stomp every fourth beat. Sometimes she would pause and grind her toe into the chalky soil, leaving a crescent moon–shaped indentation that, combined with all the others, began to look a lot like some of the spells I’d seen scrawled across pieces of ancient parchment.

  While Zell and Helena performed their bizarre dance, my comrades pulled every blade they’d brought with them. Since my job was to bloody the Rocenz with its sacrifice, I gave Vayl my bolo. He held it in his left hand while his right continued to grip his cane sword, its sheath still lying at the foot of the gate, waiting for the final outcome.

  Raoul held his shining weapon with both hands while Lotus gripped the dagger he’d lent her. They both stared off into the horizon thinking such different thoughts that it was a wonder to me that they could stand next to one another without small lightning bolts zapping into their brain stems until one of them finally blew a gasket.

  I didn’t see any weapons on Zell or Helena, though I sensed they were both carrying. Maybe it didn’t pay to display, especially when you were basically walking around inside a huge prison all day long.

  Astral, perhaps sensing the rising tension, paced restlessly among the four of us as if we’d caged her. Most often her nose pointed toward the source of the howls and a new, deeper rumbling that signaled many more than two or three creatures heading our way. It seemed like she already knew Zell’s plan and her place in it. Especially when she leaped into my arms and said, “Hello!”

  Suddenly the ground under my feet tilted. I grabbed Vayl’s arm as Astral anchored her claws into the soft meat of my shoulder. Vayl wrapped his arms around my waist as another rumble of unstable ground moved us into an awkward fighting-for-upright dance.

  Zell and Helena intensified their movements on the other side of the gate, barely acknowledging the dead earth beneath their feet groaning like an arthritic old man trying to get out of bed in the morning.

  “Guys,” Astral hooted.

  “What?” I turned my head so my ear was next to her mouth. “What do the guys need to do?”

  “Geyser coming!” she shouted just as a fountain of boiling-hot water shot out of the ground on Zell’s and Helena’s side of the fence, its perimeter inside the perfect circle I could now see that Zell and Helena had made with their boot, toe, and heel marks.

  “Do you see how we did it?” Zell called.

  “Yes,” said Vayl.

  “We’re gonna need at least three or four on each side of the fence before the durgoyles will smell the water and come to drink.” He didn’t have to explain further. Durgoyles were hell’s livestock, herds of four-leggers inhabited by the souls of those who had plodded through life with rings through their noses, allowing everyone from gangbangers to dictators to lead them into evil as if they were as docile and dumb as cattle. Bigger and meaner than full-grown moose, they fed on scavenged meat and spent most of their waking hours thinking up new ways to maim each other. If we could attract a herd, one of them could be sacrificed to the Rocenz. Unfortunately, where there were durgoyles, you could usually count on at least a couple of spiderhounds as well. Somewhat ironically, even death’s realm had a circle of life, and the spiderhounds had managed to climb the food chain faster than the durgoyles. What a crazy flipping world.

  What Zell had surmised was that we’d been hearing spiderhounds following a herd somewhere south of us. Now he wanted to turn the durgoyles our way. Which was an excellent plan since we didn’t want to sacrifice any humans to the Rocenz. But none of us discussed the possibility that we’d probably have to fight their natural predators if we meant to get back to our world alive. Instead we paired up and joined Zell and Helena, copying their moves until every one of us, Vayl included, had become an expert at the watering hole dance. One by one geysers shot into the air, until we had to stand on the far right side of the gate in order to avoid being burned.

  And still Astral continued repeating her message. “Geyser coming!”

  “Okay, okay,” I finally told her. “I gotcha.”

  “Do you think that is enough?” Vayl asked as we watched seven fountains stink up the atmosphere. They smelled of sulphur and unwashed ass. I couldn’t imagine any living thing sticking its face in a concoction with such an obnoxious odor, especially one designed to boil your nose off the second you came within a foot of it. But within five minutes we could hear the steady clip-clop of what Zell estimated was a herd of between forty and sixty durgoyles. And Raoul said, “I see them! Horns on the horizon and closing fast!”

  They emerged from the water-induced fog like a fleet of sailing ships speeding into view, their gray skins resembling stained sails, their protruding ribs reminding me of rigging. The yips and howls continuing
at the back of the herd explained their speed. I don’t know where they thought they were headed, but the plan definitely seemed to involve escaping the spiderhounds snapping at their hooves.

  The doomed animals’ horns grew straight out from their heads and then curled back in, so that the tips were constantly rubbing against their necks, leaving a steady trickle of blood that turned their forelegs a permanent rusty color. Flies pursued them relentlessly, buzzing in and out of their ears, forcing them to slap their hindquarters with whiplike tails that left bloody slashes, opening sores for the insects to lay eggs in, many of which had hatched and flourished, transforming the sores into oozing pits full of wriggling maggots.

  As if they needed yet another reason to be permanently pissed.

  Fights broke out at the brushing of a flank. Horns clashed almost constantly, filling the air with echoes of bone smashing against bone. At least once a day a durgoyle fell to its knees, where it was promptly trampled by the rest of the herd, which didn’t moo like cows. The sound they made, and they did it with the frequency of New York car horns, squeaked through the air like dolphin calls, making me suspect my ears would also be bleeding before this episode had ended.

  “I think I wanna kill them all,” I said. “Is that a bad thing?”

  “Just pick the one you want,” Vayl told me.

  “Wait,” said Zell. “We need them to crash the gate first.”

  “And how are we supposed to do that?” I asked. “They’re on the wrong side of the Moat.”

  Zell said, “Four of the geysers are over here. Half of them will cross just to drink this water.” He nodded at Astral as a series of yips made us look beyond the herd. We still couldn’t see the spiderhounds at its edge, but their calls were clearer than ever. “The durgoyles will think your cat is one of their predators. Not a spiderhound, of course, but perhaps a zenqual, who hunt in herds of sometimes twenty or more. I noted she can talk. Can she make special sounds too?”

  “When she’s in the right mood.”

  His eyebrows quirked. “Well, the zenqual often hunt silently, but many of them squeal like a hog at feeding time too. If you can get her to make that sound while you help herd them toward the gate, panic should do the rest.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the huge metal edifice leering behind me. Even with the entire herd butting their heads against it at once, I doubted they could round up enough force to break open an entry that the devil himself had ordered closed until further notice. But it was worth a try. So I nodded as Raoul and Lotus went to the other side of the gate to make sure they’d be somewhat on the opposite edge of the herd once they moved into range.

  The yips got louder and more frequent, assuring us that the spiderhounds had stayed on the durgoyles’ tails. We became even more positive when the pace of the herd increased. When their heads came up, their ears swiveled, and they began to squeak at each other more often, we knew we’d be seeing predators sooner rather than later.

  The first of the durgoyles hit the Moat without even hesitating, swimming strongly toward the geysers we’d danced out of the earth despite the depth of the river at this point. Luckily the current was slow enough that it didn’t carry the creature far downstream at all. Within minutes half of the fifty head had joined it.

  I pulled the cat, who’d been perching on my shoulder, into my arms. Somehow it felt important to maintain eye contact as I said, “You need to squeal like a pig as soon as the durgoyles hit shore so they’ll run toward the gate. Make it seem like you’re fifty cats, not just one. Can you do that?” I asked.

  Her reply was a soft grunt that sounded an awful lot like contented pig. But I wasn’t really sure until she headed toward the water and jumped in. As if I hadn’t been impressed with Bergman’s invention or the fact that he’d deigned to give it to me rather than sell it to some mega-rich country for enough dough to retire on, now I felt real affection for Astral as she emerged from beneath the water, swimming strongly against the current, and making pig squeals so authentic I could almost see the waller from here.

  Unbelievably, every time she made noise, the durgoyles lunged forward as if they’d been tased. It began to be entertaining. Until we got a whiff of them.

  “Whew!” exclaimed Lotus as she pinched her nostrils together. “They’re in the frigging water! How come they still smell like rotting meat?”

  “Because, in a way, they are,” Raoul explained. “Now herd them toward the gate. Raise your arms. Yell a little. You should know a lot about that, thrillseeker.”

  She actually looked hurt, which amazed me. I glanced at Vayl and caught him smiling. Then the expression changed to one of intense concentration as he looked first toward Astral and then to me. “Be ready,” he said. “Let us get this right the first time so you do not have to suffer any longer.”

  Which was why I so loved the guy. I’d tried not to complain anymore, but it had begun to feel as if my head might literally explode. Also, the rest of my body was now unaccountably sore, as if the nosebleed had reversed itself and spread, and now every organ had sprung a leak.

  Astral cleared the water and ran to my side, where she paused long enough to shake all the water she hadn’t yet shed onto my jeans. Vayl pointed to the nearest field and said, “There. Beside that torso wearing the Raiders sweatshirt. Do you see it?”

  I did. Spiderhounds are easy to spot, mainly because their heads are covered with eyes. Thirty-two of them to be exact. Not all of them work at the same time or in the same way, which is what makes them such a dangerous enemy. But then, they are a vulnerable area on the animal, and one it pays to target. Because the hounds are also big, fanged, clawed, and vicious. If you can even partially blind them you radically increase your odds of survival.

  This one, a pure white giant that made Jack look like a dachshund, was wagging its spiked tail up and down like it was about to play fetch with one of the feet that stuck out of the ground at paw level. I was about to signal the hound’s location to Raoul when I realized one set of its eyes was the same shade of yellow as those I’d seen in Vayl’s memories of Roldan. But in those visions his fur had also been covered with patches of black, proving this was just another coincidence. Like Zell finding Helena. I factored in the knowledge that Kyphas’s eyes turned yellow when she was pissed off too, and decided that hell just preferred that color. So I shrugged it off and let Raoul know where the spiderhound was located. He quickly showed Lotus.

  I leaned in to Vayl. “Do you see any other spiderhounds?” I asked.

  He nodded. “The second is trotting at the back. I have only been able to see his eyes twice. They are glowing.” Raoul signaled that he’d heard. And wasn’t happy about it. Because it meant the alpha had come along for this hunt. Not unusual, but bad for us. Alpha spiderhounds, besides the obvious attribute of larger size, also carried sacs of poisonous spiders underneath their jowls. Not a threat from a distance, but if the alpha could put the bite on you, so could his little friends. By the tens of thousands. It was not a pretty way to die. I’d seen a couple of the corpses that had made it topside before succumbing. They’d all gone screaming.

  Well, that wasn’t how I planned to face my end. But if it happened here, while I was fighting beside the man I loved, nobody would hear me bitching when they found me looking up his address in the afterlife.

  I tightened my hands on the Rocenz and wiped my nose on the hem of my shirt yet again. It wasn’t fancy, just a black pullover, but I’d liked it once. Now the sucker was going straight to the rag pile when I got back home.

  “They’re coming,” Zell whispered. “Get your cat ready.” He and Helena were crouched beside the fence, their hands clutching the bars so tightly that the spikes had begun to cut into the edges of their fingers. To be free after all this time—I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it might mean to them. Or how our failure could crush them. So I didn’t try. I just crouched beside Astral, pointing out the durgoyles I wanted her to chase as soon as I gave the word.

  I
glanced up at Vayl, hoping for a little moral support. But his glance had crossed the Moat, where it was glued to the spiderhounds. They’d targeted an old cow that looked to be limping.

  The squeals of the spiderhounds signaling their attack galvanized Zell as well. “Now, Jaz!” he yelled.

  “Go get ’em, Astral!” I gave her a slight push and she took off, squealing irritably at the durgoyles as she waded into them, deftly weaving in and out of their paths, jumping clear of an irately jerked horn or kicked hoof. At first it seemed like all she was going to accomplish was to piss them off so much that they’d either find a way to stomp her into scrap or massacre each other trying. And then she sprang up and bit a big old bull in the butt. When she landed she began singing a Bloodhound Gang hit at top volume: “You and me, baby, ain’t nothin’ but mammals, so let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.”

  The bull had felt the double insult like it was a pitchfork thrown by the Great Taker himself. He jumped into the air so high that all four hooves cleared the ground at once, his eyes rolling whitely as he shrieked in panicked protest. Every durgoyle gate-side flinched as if it had been struck, and the air suddenly filled with high-pitched what-the-hell squeaks. Chaos broke out as mothers tried to protect their young, the young trotted in circles trying to figure out where the hell safety had gone to, older males each decided it lay in five different directions, and the biggest bull of them all trumpeted for the herd to get their heads out of their asses and follow him.

  He came charging straight for Vayl. Who stood his ground like a Neanderthal determined to skewer some fresh protein for his starving tribe. My sverhamin, so fully channeling his inner Wraith that the tips of his curls had gathered frost, raised both hands over his head, his sword pointing straight at the fiery sky like it was a match he needed to light. The sudden gust of arctic wind whacked the bull on his brown nose, turning him directly toward the gate. His herd hesitated. Tried to turn. But Raoul and Lotus were on the other side, yelling, singing, and trying out their own version of pig squeals.