by Kenny Soward
No wonder they’d needed four generators. This place probably sucked as much juice as the Lexington compound, computer-wise.
A single crucifix was affixed to one of the far support poles, a tiny blue LED light shining on it so it stood out amidst the computer glow.
“This is our mobile unit,” Kristanna said, gesturing briefly with a hand. “You like it?”
“Fucking impressive, that’s for sure.”
One operative sat before the biggest monitor of them all. The screen was mounted on the far side of the command tent and was at least thirty-six inches across, projecting in vivid color occasionally broken up by fuzz. The landscape it displayed was instantly recognizable yet impossible all at the same time. It appeared to be a video feed of…no fucking way.
Lonnie recognized that red sand and a huge fin of rock splitting the video screen, panning up to a torrid sky streaked with dark, ashy clouds.
Hell.
“Incredible, huh?” Kristanna said as she sidled up to the big screen. Then her voice lowered in a kind of shaky reverence as she turned her attention to the image there. “So, this his Hell. The place we’ve all been told to fear. Lakes of fire and such.”
Lonnie joined her at the monitor, peering back at his home world with somewhat mixed emotions. He thought they’d mostly be negative emotions, yet he found himself missing it. Missing his sobriety (he could barely remember what that was like) and how it had felt being a member of the ruling house of Xester, a time so distant now that it might have been another person who’d lived it.
“Doesn’t seem so dangerous. Quite desolate actually.”
Lonnie shook his head. “Oh, it’s as bad as you think. Worse, in some ways.”
“Lonnie?” A voice coming from his left, from deep in the corner of the tent.
Lonnie’s eyes searched the darkness.
“She requested it be dark and quiet,” Kristanna said, leading him over.
“Hey,” Lonnie said, following Kristanna over, feeling a little guilty for not noticing Torri right away. “How’s it going?”
Torri sat cross-legged in an over-sized chair with a high back. Two silver rods stuck up on either side of the arm rests. A shawl was thrown over her slumping shoulders despite the cozy warmth being created by all the computer gear.
“I’m good. I’m just a little tired.”
“You look tired. They treating you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said, smiling dreamily up at him. “They’re nice. Always been pretty nice to me.”
Lonnie noticed that whenever she spoke the voices coming through the HD speakers became fuzzy and cracked. But she wasn’t connected to any wires or IV drips. She didn’t wear a helmet crowned with electrodes like he thought she might be.
Genuinely baffled, he said, “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Oh, I’m just um…whadya call it, Kris?”
Kristanna had been hovering just behind him. “She’s acting as a spiritual conductor for us. Bess is transmitting a signal through standard equipment to the temporary gate we created in Hell, and we have one here, of course, wired up to the gate beneath the pond. But we don’t have the technology to connect those two signals through the Fade. Torri is doing that for us.”
“Still, wouldn’t she need to be inside the Fade to connect your signals?”
“Part of me is in the Fade,” Torri said. “A lot of me, actually.”
Lonnie felt a nervous sweat break across his brow. “Selix said if you got lost in the Fade, you’d be fucked.”
“I reckon she’s right about that. But I can do it. I can live inside it a little when I want to, so long as I don’t stand fully inside for too long.”
Kristanna smiled down at the hill witch. “Torri worked a little magic. She’s more proficient in gate work than we originally thought. Managed to temporarily transform it into a bi-directional passage.”
Lonnie nodded, unsure that was a good thing. “I see. She’s just keeping the communication lines open?”
“Yes. We’ve got monitoring sensors down at the gate hard-wired all the way up here, running through this fork.” Kristanna indicated the silver rod on the left. “It passes through her and into this other one, where we can then receive it.”
“Wow. That’s some shit.”
“Yeah. Magic and technology working together.”
“So, she just sits here and channels the signal? That’s it?”
“Pretty much. Well, she has to focus to do it, but she can hold a conversation if she needs to. She’s an extremely talented woman.”
“And it doesn’t bother you to be using magic? I thought that was, you know, prohibited or something. Didn’t you people used to kill witches?”
“That was a long time ago. And those were fade rippers like yourself. No, Torri is just an extremely sensitive Earth woman who happens to be carrying out God’s will in a different way. None of us are afraid of her, or scorn her.”
Not interested in arguing the point with Kristanna, Lonnie knelt in front of Torri, putting his hands on either side of her. “You need anything?” He wasn’t sure what he could actually do for her, but if it was within his power, he would do it.
Torri seemed to think about it, but then her chin dropped wearily and she shook her head.
“Hey, how about giving her a rest?” Lonnie said, casting an angry glance over his shoulder at Kristanna.
“No, it’s okay, Lonnie. I always get plenty of rest. This is just, you know, an all-nighter, like me and the girls used to have.”
“You and the girls?”
“Yep. Me and the old girls, across fen and moor we traipsed.” Torri held up her hands and made as if she were conducting a big scene. “Singing songs, playing pranks, staying up for days and days. You know, Em’s the only one left of us besides me. She lives in Texas now. She’s so pretty.”
Lonnie gave Torri a skeptical look. “She’s delirious,” he told Kristanna.
Torri patted his chest with a goofy grin. “Seriously, I’m fine. You know what? Maybe get me some black leaf tea. Yeah, I’d like that. The roots are in my room in a tin above the mantle. Just soak the leaves in boiling water for about fifteen minutes. Add some syrup. All done.”
“I can do that, Torri.”
“Thanks. I’ll be right here.”
Lonnie stood, turning to Kristanna. “I guess the big question is, how’s the team doing?”
The ECC operative retreated to the monitor again, and Lonnie followed.
“Great so far. The entry was uneventful. The team set up the temporary return gate and has been scouting around for hours. We managed to get the mapping device working. It has been pulling magnetic readings of the surrounding lands. We’d hoped to get just a small portion in 3D, but something in the physics of the world allowed us to capture roughly a quarter of the planet in vivid detail. The magnetic readings are off the chart.”
“So, you have a map of Hell.”
Kristanna was smiling, tears in her eyes. “Yes. We’re the first of God’s Chosen to ever map Hell. A true map, above and beyond anything we’ve ever had before. Not even the Bible could have given us such an accurate picture. God has truly spoken this day.” She calmly wiped away some tears that ran down her face. “Now the Devil has absolutely nowhere to run.”
Lonnie shook his head, not willing to offer up the idea that he could have told them all about the Rim. But if they’d mapped far into Hell’s Wastes, a place relatively unmapped, not even by Hell’s occupants, that might be something quite spectacular.
“I’m going to get the tea.”
“Thanks.” Kristanna stared at the screen. “God bless you, Lonnie.”
Lonnie left the tent and went into the house. Torri’s room was considerably cozier than theirs. Large and spacious with a big oak-framed bed and fat, hand-carved posts. A thick quilt made of variously colored squares sewn together covered it, one corner lifted neatly back where Lonnie assumed Torri exited and entered. Completely opposite of himself. Whenever L
onnie managed to sleep in an actual bed, the covers ended up in a tangled mess around him.
There was an old dresser made of the same kind of wood, and a chair at both the front and back window. Probably where Torri sat and looked out when the weather was too cold to do it from the porch. Lonnie went to the rear of the house and drew back the curtains, spotting Crash and Ingrid through the window where they were screwing around on the jungle gym contraption in the back yard. Well, Ingrid climbed it, but Crash would collapse the thing if he tried it, so he mostly watched Ingrid.
Lonnie grinned, happy they’d found a moment of peace.
He found everything for making the blackroot tea right where Torri said it would be. He poured some water from a gallon jug into a pot but looked at the cold fireplace like it was the strangest thing he’d ever seen. He had no idea how to make a fire. Would likely burn down the place if he tried. He was relieved when he found her little kerosene camping stove situated on a folding table nearby. Lonnie figured that’s what she probably used most of the time judging by the various cooking tools hanging on the wall behind it.
It wasn’t too hard to get the water heating, and he spent some more time looking around while he waited. She was a neat person. No clothing strewn about, all the pictures on the wall perfectly straight and dusted. Not what he would have expected the first time he saw her, with her scruffy looks and old farm clothes. Then again, he could actually see her repeating some old timer’s saying about ‘everything having its place and every place having its thing,’ or something like that.
The water was soon boiling, and then it was just a matter of how many tea leaves to drop in. There were only seven leaves in the little tin, and he couldn’t imagine putting them all in. He dropped one in to start, and blinked in wonder as the water turned dark in the cup.
He used a tong she had sitting nearby to stir it around, trying to decide if he should add another or not. Lonnie put his face down and took a big whiff, drawing back quick as the pungent, bitter smell assailed him.
“Nope. No more leaves unless you want to kill the woman.”
He found a big mug and poured some of the tea into it, then stirred in a little bit of something that looked like syrup from a mason jar with a spoon he found. Once done, he picked it up, fully intending to take it right to her. But there was plenty more left in the pot so he made one for himself, adding enough syrup to combat the brew’s bitter bite.
Mission completed, Lonnie left the house and went to the ECC tent. This time Todd and Sandra just nodded as he went by, and Lonnie gave them a silent fuck you.
Kristanna hovered over one of computer screens, so Lonnie took this as a sign that he could go right on over. The three operatives he passed hardly gave him a glance. Torri was half asleep in her chair, her shawl having fallen behind her.
“Hey,” Lonnie whispered, holding out the mug.
The hill witch’s eyes fluttered open and, upon seeing what he brought, reached out to take the mug from him. “Oh, great. Thanks.” She sipped it. “Tastes real good. This oughta wake me up a little.”
“How long you plan on doing this? Does it take a lot of focus?”
“Naw, I can sorta drift off and still manage to keep up with what they need me to do. I reckon I got a few more hours until I need to get some real sleep. How you holding up?”
“Me? I’m fine. Just waiting on Elsa to be well enough to move. Thanks, by the way. Whatever you did, it was powerful.”
The woman smiled wanly. “Ah, that wasn’t me really. It was the earth here on the hill, and the Rowan.”
“That’s what Selix told me once. That Earth has places where the magic runs deep, you just have to know how to get it out. She did it once. Back at the, umm, the Roebling Bridge, I think it was called.”
“Yeah, the big blue bridge. I been there before. She’s right. That place has got some power, boy.”
“Okay,” Kristanna said, clapping a few times to get everyone’s attention. “They’re going to move on the ridge.”
Lonnie stood, moving back so he could see the screen better. “The ridge?”
“Yes. There’s a facility at the top where we feel Azarah’s tether is connected.”
“How sure are you?”
Kristanna shrugged. “We won’t know until they’re inside. But it’s the only building within a hundred miles of the entry point. Tell me what you think.”
Lonnie watched as the camera panned along the red sands, then upward, scanning striated rock formations where a man-made structure showed. It was a long, tall edifice with twisted black columns rooted right into the stone supporting a dome with flared eves, and all of it half covered in sand.
Just looking at the thing sent shivers of recognition through his body. The structure, with its overbearing presence and ominous walls—and the fact it was just sitting out there in the middle of the Septune dessert—left Lonnie with a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Bess and her ECC friends may have crossed safely to Hell, but entering that dark, foreboding facility would be a mistake.
“It definitely looks like something Xester’s designers might make. But let me just warn you now, there’s likely to be vicious traps inside that building. Probably things your team can’t handle. How do you know your weapons will even work correctly there?”
“We’ve already field tested some of them. They’ll fire. What we don’t know is what effect they’ll have on your kind in your world.”
“Yeah. I’d probably get them back here as soon as you can.”
“We plan on it. This is just a scouting run. They’ve got another few hours until they’ll need to be retrieved.
“So Torri can sleep.”
“That, and they’ll be coming back with some extremely valuable samples.” Kristanna flashed Lonnie a brilliant smile. “Don’t worry. We’re not in a hurry to get this done. As long as Azarah doesn’t know what we’re up to, then we should be able to scout the area with impunity.”
The tall blonde cocked her head, giving Lonnie an inquisitive look, her mouth hanging open just a fraction of a second as if she thought keeping it shut might be a better option. “You don’t look all that thrilled. Not interested in going back? I mean, I’ve read your file and I know you’re somewhat of an outcast, your whole group.”
“We want to go back, but on our terms. We want to make sure we know what’s waiting for us. We need to find a haven. Hell is a tough place to survive, you know.”
Kristanna’s eyes slid back to the monitor. “No one said it would be easy. We’re just blessed that the Lord has deemed this our time to finally strike at the heart of Satan’s legions. This is our time to go on the offensive. No more sitting back and waiting.”
With a grin that he hoped expressed to her just how ridiculous that sounded, Lonnie gave his head a big, long shake. “Ain’t gonna happen, lady. No matter what kind of weapons you have. No matter how many ECC commandos you have and, believe me, you don’t have enough, you’ll never just waltz into Hell and do whatever you please there.”
The other operatives looked up from what they were doing, drawn by Lonnie’s rising volume. He didn’t realize how loud he’d gotten. Glancing over his shoulder he saw Todd dip his head in.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, we’re good,” Kristanna said, clasping her hands behind her back and turning stiffly toward the door.
“Okay, ma’am. Just holler if you need us.”
After Todd ducked back out, Kristanna leaned closer, smiling the smile of an overzealous cheerleader, unfazed by Lonnie’s warnings. The woman had all-American looks and some serious grit. “I didn’t know you cared so much about us, Mr. Worthington.”
“Look, I just don’t like watching people walk into a pointless slaughter. Because that’s what this is going to be whether you like it or not.”
“Fair enough. Then help us.”
Lonnie saw that damnable faith in Kristanna’s eyes. Could see her drawing him into a fight he wasn’t sure he wanted to be in th
e middle of. It was the ECC’s war with his grandmother, and Hell, and he had no single loyalty to anyone but the gang. Who gave a fuck if the world blew itself to pieces?
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to take a little peek, would it? The ECC had been careful so far. They were still alive. And the curiosity was certainly eating at him.
To feel his power again. How different would he be now? Would it be just as easy as the day he left? Would he be able to call his runecraft whenever he wanted?
What the fuck was happening in Xester these days?
He remembered what he’d told Selix back in the Under River. That he wanted to find a nice place and get better. Take some time and let all the memories come. But he knew they might never come now. He might not want them to come. He was a different person now, a different person without Selix.
He needed to do what this new person wanted to do.
And they may never get another chance.
Lonnie gave Kristanna a short nod. “Okay. Show me what you have so far.”
Chapter 19
Bess laughed an exhausted, elated laugh, shook her head, and put it between her knees. The first time Lonnie had ever seen the ECC commando so damn disgustingly happy.
“It was incredible,” she said from where she sat at the top step of Torri’s porch. Alex and Kristanna and a couple other commandos stood around, while the others who’d gone on Mission One held their own little story sessions all around the camp.
Their excitement was palpable. A little childish, Lonnie thought, but contagious. Even for him.
At the news of the party’s return, Crash and Ingrid had come out to the porch. None of the ECC folk had given them a second glance, not even Alex. And while the soldiers ate rations and celebrated with prayer sessions and, yes, mini bottles of holy wine, Torri had thrown on a pot of stew for the rest of them before retiring to bed.
The stew was pretty damn good, Lonnie had to admit, and he had himself a second helping, Crash finishing off the rest.
Tavia had left them another nearly dead rabbit outside their door, which Elsa had greedily devoured. The entire time, Ingrid’s eyes remained fixated on the blood dripping down Elsa’s chin. Ingrid would need to be fed proper, and soon, or she’d start feeling like he was feeling now, out of cigarettes and agitated as hell.
