MudMan (The Golem Chronicles Book 1)

by James Hunter

  Levi hesitated for only a second before climbing to his feet. Before he could think through his actions, he leapt forward, hands outthrust, ready to choke the life from the evil man. Hogg’s finger never came close to the button, yet the spikes stabbed back down, sending a lightning strike of pain through Levi’s body. He stumbled and crashed into a wall, staggering and shaking while he fought to keep his feet.

  Hogg watched with amusement as Levi wrestled against the crippling agony. “Despite what you may think, Golem,” Hogg said, “you are a machine. A machine I built. And like any other machine, you can be programmed and controlled. The manacles are powerful Vis-wrought objects. Technomancy at its very finest. They can sense intentionality. Try to escape and the spikes trigger automatically. Try to harm me and they trigger automatically. You are a slave. Just as I always intended. Understand?”

  As much as Levi hated himself for doing so, he gritted his teeth and nodded his assent.

  Hogg waited for another few beats before keying the remote in his hand, drawing the spikes back into the manacles. “Now, upstairs. I don’t want to miss my moment of triumph.” He turned his back, completely unworried about Levi, and marched up the stairs.

  Levi didn’t follow, not right away, but it took only seconds before the spikes began easing out, a centimeter at a time. Levi took a step, and immediately the spikes retracted.

  “Don’t dawdle,” Hogg called down. “Disobedience also carries a heavy penalty. I think, perhaps, you are starting to see the extent of your predicament.”

  Knowing he could do nothing else, Levi followed, obedient as a collared dog.

  Upstairs was a lavish living area, like something out of a museum: Elegant drapery of velvet, trimmed in gold, lined the walls. Heavy furniture, old, graceful, and vaguely Roman, filled the space. A huge, heavily tinted window took up most of the right wall, overlooking the reconstructed Kobock temple below. On the far side of the room stood a doorway—or rather the outline of one, painted onto the stone in neat brushstrokes of red. Running along the door’s edge were a host of arcane symbols, a few of which Levi recognized—one from the Picatrix, another from the Clavis Salomonis—and more which he didn’t. He didn’t need to understand the runes to understand the door’s purpose, however.

  It was a gateway, a manufactured thin spot that led to somewhere either in the Hub or greater Outworld. An escape hatch, just in case the captain needed to jump ship.

  The Mudmans’s eyes lingered on the door for only a moment before his gaze shifted to the huge window overlooking the battle still raging away. A cursory look told Levi things were not going well for his side. With the addition of the Thursr backups, the tide was most definitely turning in Hogg’s favor. Worse, Levi saw no sign of Chuck, and the shaman’s ritual was underway—the dark power he’d conjured thrummed in the air, beating against Levi’s preternatural senses.

  “The chains on the wall.” Hogg motioned toward a formidable set of glimmering lengths of metal connected to a brick wall on the far side of the room. “Go lock the manacles in place. One more added precaution until I can break you properly.”

  Levi didn’t move. Being captured was one thing, but willingly chaining himself to a wall for his captor was something else entirely. Hogg maneuvered to the window and leaned against it with one elbow, contently staring down on the scene below. Then he pressed the button, never taking his eyes from whatever was unfolding in the warehouse.

  Pain, like a swarm of stinging bees, exploded inside Levi. The pain was less than before—he managed to keep his feet—but still maddening in its intensity.

  “I can control the amount of pain by controlling the amount of catalyzing agent entering your bloodstream. You should be able to walk. Once you secure yourself to the wall, the pain stops,” Hogg said with a shrug.

  Levi had to comply. There was no alternative.

  Death would be far better than this torturous existence, and the Mudman would do next to anything to be rid of the hurt. He threw himself into motion, scrambling over to the brick wall, his thick fingers trembling as he worked at the chains hanging from rune-etched steel plates fastened into the brick. Every moment he failed to obey, the pain intensified, until he could hardly stand or see. He struggled with a clasp, which fit into a loop on the outside of his left manacle. After a few heartbeats the clasp finally slipped into place and snapped shut with a click. The spikes receded a bit, the pain dimming enough so he could see again.

  The second lock was easier than the first, his hands responding with greater confidence and familiarity. His leg restraints were easier still, and as the last lock ratcheted shut, the pain faded completely. He slouched against the wall, chest heaving as he sucked in a few long pulls of air.

  “Ahh. And now it begins,” Hogg said, a note of celebration in the words. “All the pieces fall into place.”

  Levi couldn’t see whatever was happening in the warehouse below, not from his vantage point, but it didn’t matter.

  It was over.

  He’d lost everything.

  Ryder would die.

  Chuck would die.

  The men he’d hired would die.

  Everyone would die. Everyone but him. He would live as a slave to Hogg. He shuddered to think of what he would become in time. He’d had the damned manacles on for a few minutes and already he raced to submit to the doctor’s commands. In a month or a year? Ten years? He’d be a mindless monster once more—a killing machine, concerned only with avoiding the stinging lash of his master’s whip. No thought to conscience. To morality. Or God. Not so different from the way he’d spent the majority of his life, really.

  Ryder screamed, a wail that resonated throughout the building and carried over the clamor of the fighting.

  It was the sound of a woman dying.

  Hogg laughed and clapped his hands as though watching the stirring climax to some wonderful play.

  No.

  The word ran through Levi’s head, but it wasn’t Levi voice. It was the voice of the dead, the souls of the slain residing inside him.

  No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

  That single word over and over again, building in conviction with every repetition, a different voice each time, crying out their demand. And with the chorus of no’s came visions and memories: the Wehrmacht; the Luftwaffe; black-garbed Schutzstaffel; the roar of the single prop Focke-Wulf; the packed train cars; Red House; Nicholas Fackenheim, murdered March, 1942; Opa—the old Kite—murdered April, 1943. Faster and faster they came, until all of them blurred together, just like the night he was born.

  And now—as on that night in the open grave—those voices coalesced into a single demand. A demand for retribution.

  There was a way out, they said. Then they told him how.

  The manacles, those were the real problem. He just needed to be rid of them and he’d have Hogg right where he wanted him: cornered and alone. It was obvious the man had some powerful talents, but Levi knew he wasn’t a physical threat. There was a reason Hogg surrounded himself with huge bodyguards and only acted if he was sure he could win.

  That assurance, that overconfidence, would be Hogg’s downfall—assuming, of course, Levi could break loose. You can break free, the voices corrected. It will hurt, but what’s a little pain after all we’ve suffered?

  Even the thought of escape brought the pain back with renewed fury, the spikes wriggling themselves into place. But the voices dwelling in his skull, in his soul, drowned out that pain with their racket. Pull, they urged as one.

  Pull. Pull. Pull. Pull.

  Levi focused on their haunted chanting. They were right, if he could bear the torment, freedom was only seconds away. He focused on the memories, focused on the injustice, and on his hunger for vengeance. He gained his feet and pulled the slack from the chain with his right wrist, just as the voices instructed. He didn’t stop there, though. Instead he continued to wrench at his hand. The spikes from the manacle dug in deeper, but that served him. Pressure built ar
ound his wrist, mounting, growing, as his bicep bulged and tugged against the manacle and the manacle, in turn, tugged against the chain.

  The chains groaned and creaked from the tension, but they were nigh indestructible, as were the shackles, and both refused to break. But Levi wasn’t aiming to break them—he was depending on them holding fast. With gritted teeth, he wiggled his wrist until he felt something give—the flesh ripping under the tension and bite of the spikes. Then, with a wet pop, his hand tore away entirely, the chain swinging back to the wall, his hand still locked in its binding.

  A bellowing roar ripped through the air at the same moment, the sound of a T. rex venting its rage.

  Levi stole a hasty peek at Hogg. The man paid him no mind; his shoulders were knotted with anxiety and he was totally absorbed with the spectacle unfolding in the warehouse below. The failsafe, Levi reckoned. Chuck must’ve come through.

  You’ve only begun, the voices screamed, driving the thought from his head.

  Again. Again. Again, they urged.

  This time he worked on his left hand, fighting and pulling until that hand tore free and joined its amputated brother, dangling from the wall. The torment in his wrists—now jagged, gold-smeared stumps—was monstrous, but still less painful than the manacles had been. He needed to free his feet, but for that, he would need hands. New hands. An impossibility. Unless, of course, he had a huge reserve of ichor handy. Like the six unused pots in his belly.

  With a tremendous effort of will, he opened the storage cavity along the length of his torso and jammed his bleeding stumps into his middle. Two pots fractured with a faint crack, then spilled out their precious, life-giving contents. Levi pulled the raw ichor into his stumps and repurposed the substance into wet, gray hands of clay.

  “What is this?!” Hogg spat, rounding on Levi, eyes wide as he glanced between Levi’s new appendages and the amputated hands hanging from the walls. “No, no, impossible.” He jabbed at his little remote. The remote had no effect, since the remaining ankles spikes were already fully extended. Levi couldn’t walk—could hardly move or think—the fiery hurt was far too debilitating, but he could fix that.

  “Klieg, Klieg, Klieg-Du bist a Nar,” Levi said, lips pulled back in a snarl. An old Yiddish saying, You are smart, smart, smart—but you are not so smart!

  Levi’s hands transformed in a blur, fingers giving way to blade-edged meat cleavers. With only a moment’s hesitation to brace himself for what was to come, he slammed the meat cleavers into his shins, severing both of his feet in one fell blow. New agony screamed and capered through his body, but the absence of the spiked manacles was like a breath of fresh air to a drowning man. Levi shifted his hands, fingers swirling back into place. He withdrew another two pots, which he promptly smashed into the clean-edged stumps on his legs. Ichor bloomed, melted, and surged, giving birth to new feet.

  Levi pushed himself upright with an ugly, lopsided grin which promised pain and death in equal measures. Hogg glanced through the window, fear etched on his face—whatever was happening out there wasn’t good. At least not for Hogg. The pudgy doctor jabbed his finger down on the controller one more time. Nothing. Not with those damned cuffs gone.

  “I see I’ve underestimated you, Golem.” He edged away from the window, angling toward the emergency portal painted onto the back wall. He never took his eyes from Levi. A sheen of nervous sweat coated his face and hands. “I won’t be easy game,” he said. “I may not have the full power of a mage at my command, but I’ve been around for a very long time, and, like you, I have access to a Philosopher’s stone.” He tapped on his chest with one plump digit. “Admittedly, I do so hate perpetrating physical violence, but I’m capable of doing what needs done.”

  Levi burst into motion—

  A renewed scream cut him short. “Heads up, Chuck! He sees you.”

  A burst of gunfire followed, the harsh bark of Chuck’s Desert Eagle.

  He couldn’t believe it. Somehow both Ryder and Chuck were still alive. But only God knew for how long. If Chuck was firing in the open, it could only mean Levi’s backup plan had failed. Cain, the patron god of murder, was loose and unopposed.

  Movement at his periphery:

  Despite his big talk of “doing what needs done,” Hogg was running … well, waddling toward the emergency exit, his squat legs swishing back and forth as fast as they would carry him. A runner, not a fighter. Probably the reason he’d lived so long. Levi stood frozen by an uncharacteristic indecision. Hogg might have been a runner in spirit, but he wasn’t an athlete by any measure, and Levi knew he could beat him to the door. Given enough time, he also knew he could end Hogg’s miserable existence once and for all.

  Was the price worth paying though?

  Ryder and Chuck were alive, but they might not be for long. It was entirely possible Levi would kill Hogg only to find his friends dead at the hands of the raging Cain. Murdered and left to die in a pool of their own blood. He could always gamble: just kill Hogg and hope for the best. The Mudman could stop Hogg or he could save Ryder and Chuck. But he couldn’t do both. Not with any degree of certainty. Despite Hogg’s obvious cowardice, Levi was positive he would have some trick up his sleeve—a man as cunning as Hogg would never be completely defenseless. Killing him would take time, precious time.

  Time Ryder and Chuck didn’t have.

  The angry specters screamed and cheered in support of the Hogg-murdering option—the brand in his chest burned with the fury of a personal sun.

  Hogg was responsible for all of this, the voices pleaded. He’d killed all those men and women so many years ago. He was an unrepentant, black-hearted murderer who, if left alive, would surely go on to cause more trouble and inflict more death. What was two lives against the fate of so many more? Justice demanded Levi kill the doctor. Everything in him demanded he kill the doctor.

  Something Hogg had said earlier tickled at the back of Levi’s mind. “Perhaps in that crude brain of yours you’ve convinced yourself that you came to rescue the girl, but the fact that you chose to hunt me over saving her shows the true intentionality of your twisted heart.” And here Levi was, standing at a crossroad with exactly that choice before him. Pastor Steve’s words followed:

  “Anger and vengeance are like a fire, Levi, and like fire, they burn indiscriminately. You might get your vengeance, only to find yourself consumed and destroyed in the process. At the end of the day, you need to make the choice you can live with—and sometimes the choice you can live with isn’t the one that makes any sense at all from a worldly perspective …”

  Hogg reached the emergency exit.

  Levi let him.

  The Mudman wheeled around, leaving the doctor to make his getaway, and charged toward the picture window. He didn’t look back as he smashed through the glass like a cannonball and plummeted to the warehouse floor, ready to save his friends.

  Had he made the right decision? He didn’t know. But he’d made a decision he could live with, and for the first time in a long, long time, his heart felt light and easy.

  THIRTY-ONE:

  Resurrection

  Ryder absently ran a hand over the surface of the stone table beneath her, its texture slick and smooth like polished glass. She didn’t know how long she had left to live, but she knew it wouldn’t be long now. A double handful of minutes, tops. For one, they’d stopped drugging her. Said she needed to be awake for the ritual to work. Two, the Kobock shaman—the leathery, old bastard sporting a patchwork cloak of what Ryder assumed was skin—was busy working away at a cauldron, brewing some rancid soup, which burned her nose hairs. A sweet and sour stink like old vomit and even older roadkill.

  She craned her neck and glanced first at her sister, who refused to meet her eye, then at Professor Wilkie, still chained against the wall. Yeah, she knew she was going to die, but she hoped he might walk away from this clusterfuck. He was a kooky son of a bitch, but he’d offered her more than a few reassuring words. Well, he had until one of the Kobocks smas
hed his face in with a rock. Not enough to kill him, she could see the steady rise and fall of his chest, but enough to silence him for a good long while.

  She hated seeing him like that and hated watching her sister even more. Looking the other way was even more depressing, though. A horde of Kobocks hung about on the other side: Picking their noses. Hitting each other with beer bottles. Rutting on the floor like wild dogs. From her vantage, they seemed like a virtual ocean of blue-skinned monstrosities lurking between her and freedom. An ocean of total grossness. Even if Levi came, which seemed less and less likely by the moment, there was no way he could fight through that. A hopeless brawl, even for a thug like Levi.

  A thin stream of tears leaked out from the corners of her eyes.

  She hadn’t expected the end to be like this. There’d been some awfully low points in her life, points when she’d thought death was calling—like that time she’d overdosed on speed and slept it off in a Walmart bathroom. Or that time one of her ex-boyfriends showed up with a sawed-off shotgun, high on peyote and meth, raging about how she’d stolen his liver. Never saw this coming, though.

  A shriek of metal and the yowl of Kobos ripped her away from the morbid thoughts.

  She turned her head in time to see a giant boulder, big as a park bench, arc through the air and crash into a group of loitering Kobocks, smashing them like a huge flyswatter, leaving only a dark smear on the concrete. Next came movement and more screaming. She couldn’t see much, not with so many creatures blocking the view, but the madcap scrambling and ensuing violence spelled things out plenty clear.

  Crazy-ass suicide mission or not, Levi had come for her, and since she hadn’t yet been split open like a pig, some tiny measure of hope remained. A sliver no bigger than her pinky, but persisting all the same. She felt like a death-row inmate—strapped down and waiting for the end—who’d just heard she might get a stay of execution. Maybe.