DIRE : HELL (The Dire Saga Book 6)

by Andrew Seiple

  “In the end you won’t hurt us, Vector. You’re bigger than that. You’re not the man Maestro called Envy... you were never him, no matter how much he tried to make you into that sad little puppet.”

  Vector snorted. “At least I got to see that fucker die.”

  “Yeah. And we’ll get out of here alive.” I clenched my jaw. “No matter what it takes. No matter what stands in our way.”

  He lifted his smeared spectacles and snot-stained face from my neck, tapped my hand. I let him go, stood from the chair and stepped back, hands up. “You feeling better?”

  “I think so.” He mopped his face with one worn lab coat sleeve. “When you say that, when you say you’ll get us out of here, I can almost believe that.”

  “Believe it.” I folded my arms. “We got this far. Only have to put the boot in a few more times before it’s all over.”

  Vector nodded. “I’ll stop taking the suppressants. Clear my mind.” He sighed. “I’ve been my own worst enemy for far too long. Time to start weaponizing my loathing to more productive purposes.”

  I grinned. “When in doubt, remember that demons are biological.”

  “Oh, I know.” He cracked his knuckles. “Bitches are in my playground now.”

  I restrained my laughter, nodded, and left. Poor bastard had it bad, but he’d get over it. Despite how he wrecked himself, ran himself down, Vector was a decent man. He’d done more for the world that we were striving to return to than it would ever know.

  Given the new information I’d just gotten, I tracked down Punching Judy next.

  She was in her quarters, resting off-shift while American Paragon worked on keeping the mecha supplied with power. I knocked on her door, waited for her invitation. After a few minutes the door slid open, and she looked me up and down. “What d’yer want?”

  “Er...” She was nude, sweaty, and... well, she looked like she’d been pretty busy. I cleared my throat. “Bad time?”

  “Nah, we’re done. Half a mo.” She shut the door. A few more minutes crawled by, and I slumped against the wall, massaging my scalp.

  The door opened again, and one of my Romans, Juno, sauntered out. She smiled at me, and I smiled back.

  “She’s in a lusty mood today. I got her started for you,” Juno said, then left before I could formulate a reply.

  “Decent now! C’mon in, Doc!”

  I entered, surveyed the shambles of a living space. Somehow she’d found a way to make the barren metal cubicles I’d provided messy. Clothes of various types were draped around and about, and hand prints on the walls suggested that she’d been using her chi powers in a somewhat destructive manner.

  I wondered why I hadn’t heard about these. Then I remembered how Delta was in charge of internal damage reports, and I wondered about it less. They weren’t on load-bearing walls so I supposed I could let it pass.

  “Sorry ’bout the mess, love.” Judy reclined on her bed, inset into the wall, staring at the ceiling above her. She had a twist of some sort of root in her mouth, chewed on it as I watched.

  “What’s that you’re eating?”

  “Not eating. Stuff’s ’orrible. But it makes yer mind drift away a bit, lose focus.”

  “Where the heck did you find that stuff?”

  “Few of the foraging parties brought it back. Yer little labrat declared it safe fer Damned consumption. Closest thing we’ve got to a drug around ’ere.”

  I considered. Then I pulled over the room’s lone chair, kicked a few piles of clothes off of it, and sat down. “Are things really so bad?”

  “Spoken like someone who ent dead.”

  I looked over her listless face, and something in me snapped. “You know, Dire did legwork on you, back when she first came to England. You and the rest of your team.”

  “Bravo.” She held her hand up, with the first two fingers extended together. “Two stars. Woops, those aren’t stars...”

  “Self-pity wasn’t in the reports. Guess they weren’t that accurate, then. Because what Dire’s seeing now is a sodden lump of misery, trying to drown her fucking sorrows any way she can.”

  Judy closed her eyes. Then she sat up, leaning her head and torso out to avoid beating her head on the roof of the cubby, and stared at me. “You really want ta go there?”

  “Dire’s heading straight to the center of Hell to beat the shit out of Satan until she gets free of this place. And you wonder what she’ll dare?”

  “Lucifer.”

  “Him too.”

  Judy smirked, then rubbed her face with both hands. “See, that’s the problem. You’re goin’ back. Maybe. Us? We’re already dead, ent we? There’s no fixin’ that. Not ever.”

  I shrugged. “How do you know that?”

  “There’s no way out of here. Not for folks what belongs here.”

  “Then stay in Hell.” I stood, feeling my disgust overwhelming me. “Wallow in misery, rather than try to fight your fate. Give the word, and you can get off this giant robot any time you want.”

  “Yer bluffing.”

  “No, you can stop and get off any time you want. Right smack dab in the swamps of Envy. And now I know how it’s affecting you.You envy us for not being Damned.”

  “What? No, it’s not—”

  “It is.” I leaned forward and tore the straggly black root from her lips, chucked it in the corner. “You’re supposed to be the master of unseen flows here, check your six.”

  “Please. I’d know if anything like that... was...” her jaw dropped open, as her eyes unfocused. “Fuck me for a game of knickers.”

  “Yeah, you already did that,” I said, kicking around some clothes that definitely weren’t hers. “And when you get done with the self-diagnostic, go have a talk with Delta. She deserves better treatment than what you gave her.” I left before she could respond to that and headed out, fuming.

  I needed calm. I needed a lack of drama.

  I knew where I’d find it and made my way to Khalid’s alchemical lab.

  He looked up as I entered, smiling as various arcane squiggles glowed on his counter top and faded one by one until a circle of lines and curves was all that surrounded a glass vial full of glowing blue liquid. “That looks appetizing,” I said, studying it from various angles.

  “It would kill you upon contact,” Khalid said. “But on the upside, you would not feel a thing.”

  I laughed. “The way this day is going it’s starting to look like an attractive option. Everyone else’s woes are Dire’s woes.”

  “Welcome to the joys of leadership. It is why I tend to avoid the responsibility, when I can.” He tapped the side of the vial with a glass rod, nodded as it chimed. “I have seen you do this before. Walk among the ranks on the eve of a great battle. You need not worry for me, I am finally at peace with myself and my abilities. And perhaps even my faith.”

  I stared at him for a long moment. “Not that she doesn’t appreciate your conviction, but... why?”

  “Simply put? I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.” Khalid smiled, and pointed to the sword hanging from the wall. It was the one he’d used to fight the Worms, I saw. Curved of blade, long, and gleaming faintly in the dim light of his lab.

  “It worked well, then?” I hadn’t had time to analyze his performance down in the caverns, I’d been too busy dealing with American Paragon at the time.

  “It... is a sort of a feedback generator. It gains power from the dissonance inherent in demons. The more powerful the demon, the greater the essence of the adversary and his fallen forces within the demon, the greater the power harnessed by the blade. Around your temporary allies? It glows and heats from the essence of their progenitors. But down in the tunnels, fighting against that demon lord—”

  “Shudderworm.”

  “—yes, him. Down in the tunnels, it harnessed a power I had not expected. I had only expected that sort of might to resonate when I finally faced Buer. Now...” Khalid sucked his teeth. “Now the challenge is to ensure that when we do face Bu
er, I can survive wielding the blade.”

  “Immortality should help you there, at least,” I said as I studied the sword with more respect.

  “No, it will not,” Khalid sighed. “One does not harvest such forces lightly. An... overload has the potential to throw the carefully balanced essences and humors within my physical form out of conjunction. Should that occur, then I will not survive.” He looked at me, as he picked up the blue, glowing liquid and carefully slid it into his belt. “Understand that I would not risk this if I did not believe in the possibility of our success. If I did not believe in you.”

  I hugged him, and he embraced me back.

  “Thank you,” I said, closing my eyes against tears. I’d needed to hear that. I hadn’t known how much I needed to hear that.

  “Go,” he told me. “Before you tempt me into something I might regret.”

  I gave him another squeeze and left without a word. He might regret that. I wouldn’t. But those were thoughts for another time, perhaps when we were out of this place.

  And before that happened, I had a number of things to accomplish... including one more check-up.

  I made my way down to the generators in the center of the Direnaut, to the high-vaulted hall with wires criss-crossing the ceiling and lining the walls. Hardly elegant, but it had been fast and easy to do, and we’d had plenty of material. The scent of ozone comforted me.

  In the center of the room, clad in the trousers I’d found him in, American Paragon ran on a treadmill surrounded by Mark Twelve Van der Graaf generators. I moved around the room I’d personally designed, until I came to one of the safe spots I could occupy without risk of being fried or becoming part of the circuit.

  “Are you doing all right?” I asked the hero.

  “Just fine, ma’am.” he called back, legs pumping as he kept a steady rhythm, powering the Direnaut by his lonesome. “Was there something you needed?”

  I considered him. “Dire just wanted to talk.”

  “Oh, that’s fine. I can stop by and see her once I’m off duty I guess. Or if it’s an emergency I can come along now.”

  I blinked. No, he’d never seen me with his mask off, had he? “No, you misunderstand. You’re speaking to Dire now.”

  He honest-to-gods looked around the chamber, before he stared at me and comprehension dawned. His smile showed crooked teeth, perhaps the only flaw I could find in his chiseled physique. “Oh. I thought you’d be shorter.”

  “She’s never heard that one before.”

  “In my old line of work I fought a lot of armored enemies. Von Katzen loved to throw things like Eisenkrieger suited soldiers at us. Since your power armor’s oversized, I thought maybe you were building it big to help make yourself look a little more threatening.”

  He’d just implied that I had a bit of a complex going. But as much as I scrutinized him, I couldn’t find any sign of malice or get any feeling that it had been a deliberate insult. Was he really as simple as he appeared?

  “Ah, might as well just come out and say it. Can she level with you?” I leaned on one of the safety railings.

  “Sure!”

  “Why are you in Hell?”

  His grin faltered a bit. “Ma’am?”

  “Dire’s talked with other Damned, she knows it’s the question you’re not supposed to ask, but frankly she wants an answer out of you. She’s reviewed everything she knows about you, and unless she’s missing something, you were a pretty straight arrow. You should be in Heaven.”

  The smile faded from his face, and he looked away. His feet were moving faster on the treadmill now I noticed, and I knew I had to be careful. If he got upset he could pretty much rip everything in here to shreds in a heartbeat.

  But the possibility of an answer tantalized me, and I couldn’t let it drop.

  What had landed him here?

  “To be honest, ma’am, I haven’t the foggiest.” He looked at me, and his smile was sad now. “For the longest time I thought it was because I failed, and the Nazis overran the world. That I’d been the one responsible for the world falling to fascists. But you told me that wasn’t so, and everyone I’ve asked in here who came from later years confirmed it. So it couldn’t have been that.” He shook his head. “I must have done something to fail. I just don’t know what.”

  I nodded. “Well, we’ll have a talk with the man in charge down here. That’ll sort things out, she thinks.”

  “I’m grateful for the chance. If I’m here by mistake, I owe him a few wallops.” The grin was back. “You know, I have to say, I’m happy to see you looking human.”

  “Oh?”

  “You’re a completely different person in that armor, with that mask on. To be honest I wasn’t sure what to make of you. But actions speak louder than words, and from what I hear that whole hero and villain nonsense gets in the way of what’s really important.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Doing the right thing.” he said, running in place as he had for hours, as he would for hours more, hands gripping the strengthened ceramic composite railings of the treadmill. The railings he’d left fingermarks in, despite everything I could do to strengthen them. “There’s seven hundred people aboard who are putting their faith in you, lady. And no matter how bad it’s getting, they’re all here because of you. And they’ll see it through because they want to see you win. What happens after that, we can sort out when it gets here. Don’t worry about the now, okay?” He closed his lips, smiled wider, so much so that it crinkled his eyes shut. “We’ll take care of that.”

  I had nothing more to say. I nodded at him and left the engine room, feeling new determination well within me.

  I would see my people saved, one way or another. I might not know how yet, but I’d either get them out of here or set them up as kings in this forsaken place.

  CHAPTER 18: THE IRON CITY

  “Our struggle has not been easy, but occasionally the unbelievers assist us. The great lie has been suppressed with fierce brutality in Dis. As a result, Dis is a hotbed of shared lie covens, and it’s easy to find a game if you go looking for one.”

  --Excerpt from the epilogue of the first book of the Chronicles of the Shared Lie

  I’d thought Caym impressive, with its iron walls and mighty cannons. Quaint, true, but a statement in its own way.

  It was as much a pale shadow of Dis as a souvenir miniature Statue of Liberty was to the real monument.

  Caym had been a nowhere, a backwater, compared to this.

  I stared through the monitor at iron walls, massive iron walls that spun off into interior walls, then joined into lines that resembled nothing so much as a massive labyrinth from the perspective of the high-flying drone that I’d launched as soon as we came within sight of the city. It looked like one of those mazes that you gave children to amuse themselves with... mark the start point and the end point, and let them go at it. There was an order, some order to the interior walls that criss-crossed back and forth, but it followed rules I didn’t understand right now and had no context to explain.

  And the city filled the horizon, iron walls standing hundreds of feet high, with individual buildings and tunnels and rooms and cannons and other, stranger things poking out of them, jutting out at every angle as if gravity and structural engineering were a secondary consideration at best.

  Maybe they were. Once you started throwing magic into the equation, all bets were off. Gods, I hated that stuff.

  I was willing to bet that a number of the things poking out of the windows and apertures cut into the iron of the walls were telescopes, looking back at me. We were pretty big too, just in a different way.

  “Okay. Kind of glad we had the detour into the tunnels, now,” I broke the silence on the bridge as my team, and Pagliacci, shifted behind me. “Assaulting this place with only the Striges would have been tantamount to suicide.”

  “And now?” Pagliacci asked.

  “Now it’s kayfabe.” I cracked my knuckles. “And Dire can do that.�
� I turned to First Whisper. She looked nervous, sweating bullets as she turned her face to the screens, then back to me. “Your employers are in Dis, aren’t they?”

  “I’m not sure what—”

  I crossed the room in three strides, slapped her collar, and yelled “Boom!” She half-jumped backwards, shrieked, and flapped her wings for balance. I grabbed a fistful of her scanty tunic and pulled it toward me, eyes boring into hers without mercy. “The time for bullshit has passed! Answer Dire!”

  “Yes! Yes they were, are! I worked for the Seventy Seven Silent Eyes of Dis!”

  “Oh my!” The Cat said, and I smiled, patted First Whisper on the cheek, and dropped her.

  She squawked, but I ignored her and moved over to The Cat, crouching down to look at him instead. “You know about these bozos?”

  “Everyone does. They guard the Burning City, and ensure it remains free and ungoverned by any Lord, or even any Fallen One. They are myths, even among us.”

  “Thank you.” I scritched behind his ears and shot a glance at First Worm. He was shaking.

  “What?”

  “Are you going to yell at me? Or threaten to crush my skull?”

  “That’s not what Dire was doing to The Cat. No, she’s not going to yell at you, that would be mean. You’ve done nothing to deserve it.”

  “Good. I’m not hiding anything. I mean, I’m from Dis, and I’ve heard of the Eyes too, but I’ve never met them. Or worked for them. Or done much beyond run and fix Lurkcrystal matrices.”

  “Yes, we’ll get to that shortly. You’ll be a part of the plan, never fear.” I turned back to First Whisper. “That crystal you had communicated with the hidden masters of Dis, then?”

  She took a long breath. “Yes.”

  “Good. Epsilon, go fetch it from the vault. Khalid, Whisper, Worm, Cat, Alpha, you’re with Dire. Judy, you’re on power duty. Paragon, get ready to go kick ass. The rest of you, get to battle stations. We may need a demonstration.”

  American Paragon shot me a thumbs up and headed out at a jog. I’d taken the time to manufacture him a proper copy of his old costume once more, complete with cape, and he was the happiest I’d ever seen him.