King of Hell (The Shadow Saga)

by Christopher Golden

  If there had ever been a time for pretending, it had passed. Anything but direct and drastic action was a luxury, now. Even this moment, appreciating the cool touch of the metal door, was an indulgence. When Kuromaku had spared her life she had hurried through the basement, but she'd had no intention of leaving. It had been the work of ninety seconds and two swift but wrong turns to find the dismembered body of a maintenance worker and to wipe the blood off his ID card, which doubled as the key that had let her into the secure stairwell that was meant only for staff. She and Ronni had used the same stairs.

  Ronni, she thought, forcing her eyes shut and pressing her forehead against the door. Regret and grief washed over her. She had barely known the nurse but in the short time they'd spent together Phoenix had come to like and respect her.

  She made her own choices, Phoenix told herself. And yet she could not help but feel responsible. Whatever she did now would be as much for Ronni as it would be for herself.

  There had been no demons blocking her way down in the basement, nor on the stairs. They had all made their way to the lobby to take a knee and worship Lazarus, the sorcerer who was apparently their monarch. That ought to make it easy for her to do what she needed to do. The spirits who'd spoken through Annelise believed that burning her father's corpse would close the door Naberus had opened — that it might close all of the doors that had been created afterward, as if they were all somehow tied to the first one. And maybe they were; this shit was magic, and what did Phoenix Cormier know about that?

  In her pocket she had a blue Bic lighter, the crappy plastic kind available at every gas station and convenience store in America. The maintenance worker from whom she'd taken the ID badge had a pack of Winston cigarettes tucked into his shirt pocket. From what had remained of his facial features and the gray of his hair, she pegged him at about fifty. The good news was he wouldn't have to worry about lung cancer anymore.

  A smile touched her lips and she let out a soft sound comprised half of laugh and half of whimper. Not funny, Fee, she imagined her dead father saying. And he'd have been right. He might have had a serious deficit when it came to his social skills, but Professor Joe Cormier had nearly always been right.

  All she had to do was open the door, go down the hall about fifty feet and into his father's room, and flick her Bic. Her father's corpse had already been doused in gasoline. He would burn like kindling. If she could just breathe, she would be able to move. If she could just grip the door knob and give it a twist. If she could just push her fear down a little deeper. Keep her hands from shaking. Erase the faces of demons that seemed to haunt her mind. If she could just . . .

  If she could just.

  Phoenix knocked her forehead against the door, took a breath, and then peeked through the narrow, rectangular window at the blood-painted corridor where Dr. Song still hung from the ceiling. He had dropped lower, his intestines beginning to sag. Bile rose in the back of her throat and she choked it back.

  "Go," she whispered.

  She waved the stolen ID badge in front of the security pad, heard the lock disengage, and hauled the door open. Sticking the badge into her pocket beside the Bic, she hurried into the corridor. On the floor were the bloody footprints she and Ronni had left behind earlier, and she followed them as if they were a yellow brick road. Lights buzzed and machines beeped and she could hear the muffled chanting of demons from outside and the rumble of the earth, but nothing moved in the corridor. The sound of her own heartbeat and the soft, sticky pad of her boots on the linoleum seemed inordinately loud.

  212.

  214.

  216.

  The demon that stepped out of room 218, her father's room, moved like an orangutan, hunched and grunting, its long arms dragging along the floor. Its flesh sagged on a frame of jutting bones, skin oily black with the wet, shifting colors of an oil slick.

  Phoenix froze. She and the demon stared at each other.

  Should've found a weapon, she had time to think, and then the demon extended its impossibly long left arm and pointed at her. Its mouth opened almost comically wide.

  "Oh, this is perfect," it said. "Malthus, come out here. Didn't I tell Naberus someone needed to guard the door?"

  The thing that appeared in the doorway of room 218 behind it seemed ordinary by comparison — a devil, crimson-fleshed and black-horned. Its eyes glowed a sickly orange and it grinned as it spotted Phoenix.

  "Let's eat her," it said.

  Shit, she thought. She had failed her father again. Her only choices were to run or die, and if she lived, at least she could try to warn the world. With that thought came an epiphany. She had wanted to be the one to purify her father's remains, and close the doorway if she could. But she didn't really have to be the one — an airstrike would do the same thing, if she could manage to get out of the hospital alive.

  She backed up a step.

  Down the hall the way she'd come, the security door swung open. Phoenix spun to see Kuromaku and Allison emerge, and she felt her heart clench. Vampires, she thought, and she sank against the blood-streaked wall.

  Not for the first time that day, Phoenix knew that she was about to die.

  Not for the first time that day, Phoenix was wrong.

  The orangutan-demon, the bag of bones, gave the vampires a wary look. "What are you two doing up —"

  Kuromaku moved so fast that he took Phoenix's breath away, streaking past her with such speed that she did not even see him draw his sword. One moment his hands were empty and the next he had bridged the distance between himself and the bag of bones and his katana sliced a whickering arc across its neck. The blade cut so deeply that its head toppled backward, dangling on a knobby cable of spine. Kuromaku reached in with his free hand, grabbed hold of that bit of spine, and snapped it, dropping the orangutan-demon's head to the floor.

  The devil behind it reached for Kuromaku but something lunged at it through the air, a thing like a lion but with the wings of an eagle. It knocked the devil down, clawed open its chest, and then snapped its jaws over its head, cracking bone in its teeth.

  Phoenix stared as the winged lion — gryphon, she thought, it's something like that — stood on its hind legs and its flesh seemed to flow. A heartbeat later, Allison stood in its place and Phoenix understood that these things weren't anything like the vampires she'd read about in stories.

  Kuromaku stared at her, dark and intense. "You have a plan," he said. "You came up here for a reason."

  She pulled out the lighter, the little piece of blue plastic seeming more absurd than ever.

  "My father's corpse is in that room. The demon with the crown of bones — Naberus — he made my dad the doorway that started all of this. I soaked him in gasoline before. I think if I burn him —"

  "Do it," Allison interrupted, and Phoenix saw a hint of purple light in her eyes.

  "Are you —" Phoenix began.

  Kuromaku stiffened, the same light coming into his eyes as well. "Do as she says. We have a fight of our own. Finish what you started and be quick about it."

  Phoenix took a breath, nodded, and started into her father's hospital room, stepping around the two demon sentries that the vampires had just slaughtered.

  The door at the end of the corridor exploded inward and vivid emerald light shone through, so bright it made Phoenix twist away, but not before she saw the silhouette of Lazarus stepping through the wreckage of the door frame. She glanced up as the light faded and saw the massive, black-hoofed devils that followed him.

  "Go!" Kuromaku snapped.

  Phoenix didn't need to be told. She ran into the room as the vampires turned to face the master whose influence still shone in their eyes. Her father's corpse lay ruined on the bed, his whole belly and chest open, and now she could see a black nothingness pulsing at his core. The door Naberus had dug through her father's body remained open.

  She glanced at her father's face, wished she had time to give his forehead a kiss, and struck the thumbwheel on the lighter. A sma
ll jet of flame arced up from it and she brought it toward his pale, dead, outflung arm, thinking that it would be like lighting logs in the fireplace, needing to ignite one spot and then another. But it caught instantly, the gasoline soaked into the sleeve of his hospital Johnny blazing into flame that roared and spread across first fabric and then flesh and hair, engulfing the last earthly remains of Professor Joe Cormier so fast that Phoenix held her breath.

  In the corridor, something cried out in pain. She heard the sounds of savagery and bloodshed and something that had to be the static hiss of magic. Kuromaku and Allison were fast and impossibly strong and could transform, it seemed, into almost anything, but Lazarus had defeated and controlled them once. They had no chance.

  "Goodbye, Daddy," Phoenix said. Something else she had done more than once today.

  The black pit at his core wavered as his the hungry fire consumed his flesh, and then the whole room seemed to undulate, as if reality had become liquid. The room contracted somehow, drawn toward her father's corpse, and then with a pop as loud as a gunshot, it released. The pit remained, but now she could see it shrinking, falling away into an endless abyss inside her father's chest. Diminishing as he burned.

  Phoenix didn't even hear the black-hoofed demon enter. Huge hands closed on her skull and left arm and then it tugged her off of her feet and slammed her against the wall. Bright sparks of pain lit her up and she knew bones had broken, but then the demon smashed her into the wall again and she felt ribs snap, sharp edges stabbing her deep inside, puncturing and tearing.

  She stared at the demon's sneering face.

  Dying, Phoenix thought. I'm dying.

  When the slender, female hands slid around the demon's head from behind, it seemed almost like a dream. Those hands grabbed it tight and twisted so hard that the demon's head reversed direction, and Phoenix found herself staring at the back of its skull as it fell to the ground.

  Allison stood behind it. "You done?"

  Phoenix didn't even have time to answer as the vampire snatched her up in powerful arms and carried her across the room. Allison twisted as she hurtled them both toward the window, taking the impact herself. With a leap, she threw them both at the glass, shattering it, and then they were out in the October night, falling through the darkness, plummeting toward the ground that was all too close.

  It was kind of Allison, she thought, to try to save her life.

  Too late, though.

  Too late.

  Hell

  Octavian's sword dripped. Blood and marrow decorated the blade and spattered his long coat and the front of his shirt. The toe of his left boot had been smeared with pink brain matter. It had been years since he had felt the bloodlust that was the curse of the Shadows, but in moments like this, when his heart raced in the aftermath of battle and his skin felt flushed, he remembered that hunger very well.

  "Well, wasn't that a party?" Squire said. He produced a cigar from an inner coat pocket and proceeded to light it up.

  "Too early to celebrate, 'gob," Alex said curtly.

  Squire made a pouty face and then shot her the middle finger, puffing on his stogie. He glanced at Octavian.

  "You never mentioned your 'sister' was such a bitch."

  Octavian ignored them, watching Kazimir and Charlotte as they moved through the ornate chamber, checking to make sure that all of the demons they had just fought were truly dead and not just faking it. They had come too far to turn their backs on any hellions who might then get the drop on them. Teucer had led them to one of the temples of Lord Abraxas — a temple that the imp claimed had been ceded to Lazarus. The doors had been open, with hundreds of demons camped outside and legions more approaching. This was the army Lazarus had been amassing.

  "We can't stay here," Alex said.

  Octavian glanced at her. "I'm aware."

  "So what are —"

  "I'm thinking," Octavian said.

  Teucer had led them here along a narrow crevice, a treacherous path that only a spy would ever choose. Kazimir had only managed it by transforming himself into mist and drifting after them, and Octavian wouldn't have made it without magic.

  Massive fists hammered at the doors to the temple. Octavian saw Charlotte flinch. The young Shadow stared at some of the carvings on the walls that showed the kind of torment that the worshippers of Abraxas could expect as reward for their loyalty, and the sound of the demons outside attempting to crash through the door made her rightly nervous.

  Charlotte seemed to sense the weight of his attention and turned toward him with a worried, pleading look.

  "We need to go," she said.

  She and Kazimir had suffered much in the Pit, but Octavian was more concerned about Alexandra. The torture and imprisonment she had endured would have driven most — even immortals — over the brink of insanity. When he'd been similarly imprisoned, he had studied magic and nurtured the spark of it, honing his skills, learning the Gospel of Shadows, but Alex hadn't had anything like that.

  "Hey," he said, moving toward her.

  Alex lifted her chin in defiance, as if she expected some kind of challenge or accusation. "You done thinking?"

  "In a second. Are you ready for this? When we go through there are likely to be hundreds of demons. I don't know how overrun this world is going to be and there are only going to be four of us."

  Kazimir stomped his massive foot down onto the skull of a demon with a wet crunch and then glanced at them. "Five."

  "Four," Octavian said again.

  "You don't think I'm going to stay here," Alex said.

  "Not you. And not my point. It's just going to be us. I need to know you can focus once we're in the middle of —"

  "I can handle myself."

  "You're one of the most merciless fighters I've ever seen, yeah. No question. But I need you there with a clear head."

  Alex stared angrily at him, but then her gaze softened and she nodded slowly. "It's as clear as it's gonna get for a while. Maybe ever."

  The hammering at the temple door became louder and more insistent and Octavian thought he heard stone begin to crack. Teucer sat in a corner, curled into a fetal ball and whimpering. He'd been like that since Octavian and his friends had assaulted the demons inside the temple — what Teucer called pilgrims, because they were on a journey to a new world. The roar and shriek of demon voices reached Octavian and he felt satisfaction at their fury.

  "Teucer," he said, striding toward the imp and crouching beside him. "You know that if we get through this nexus — the gateway Lazarus is using — and I find out you've been lying to me about any of it —"

  The imp snapped his head around and stared at Octavian with its sunken eyes. "The bottle, I know. Oh, why must I suffer? I tell my brother all the time that I was born to suffer."

  "You were born in Hell," Squire said. "That's a start."

  Charlotte and Kazimir had finished the job and stepped across the carnage they had all created to join Octavian, Squire, and Alex.

  "Peter, we've got to get out of here," Charlotte said, wiping her bloody hands on her clothes. "What are we waiting for?"

  Octavian glanced at Squire. "I have an idea."

  "If it involves me in a tutu, you can forget it."

  "Is he ever serious?" Alex sneered, glaring at the hobgoblin.

  "Every other Tuesday from noon to three," Squire replied.

  Deep green fire rippled along Octavian's hands and up his arms.

  "Enough!" he snapped, and turned to Squire. "I have a job for you. That's why I said four instead of five. The more I roll this all around in my head the more I realize we need a Plan B, and that's going to be you."

  Decades past, when Octavian and Squire had first become allies and friends, he had seen many people underestimate the hobgoblin. Squire's penchant for profanity and wisecracks made it easy to overlook his intelligence, but Octavian had never made that mistake. Even now, he saw the dark gleam of suspicion in Squire's eyes.

  "I'm not gonna like this, am I?"
the hobgoblin said.

  "Not in the least. It's not an easy thing for me to ask and it won't be an easy thing for you to accomplish. But if you're willing to try, and it works, it may make all the difference. Whatever world Lazarus has invaded, it may not be the one where I was born, but I'd wager it's still full of life. Parallel dimension or not, people are dying —"

  "You don't have to fuckin' sell me, Pete. Just give me the bad news. What's the job?"

  With the others looking on, Octavian walked Squire a short distance away, stepping over dead demons. Teucer's tiny pink eyes had been alert and attentive and Octavian could not risk the imp overhearing.

  When Octavian had finished, Squire hung his head a moment.

  "Will you do it?" Octavian asked.

  The hobgoblin glanced up at him. "You can be a son of a bitch, you know that?"

  "When I need to be," Octavian said. He turned to the others. "Let's go. Be ready as we go through the gateway. There's no way of knowing how many demons have already passed through. And whatever happens, steer clear of Lazarus. You kill demons and you save lives, and you let me worry about the turncoat sorcerer."

  Squire pulled his axe from its sheath. Charlotte and Kazimir stood together and Octavian approved — they were becoming something of a team, watching each other's backs. Here he was in Hell, building yet another new coven. Maybe, just maybe, they would all be able to keep each other alive.

  "Come on, imp," Alex said, snatching Teucer off the ground. The little demon whimpered.

  Without its tail, Teucer seemed a pitiful creature, little more than a cur with the power of speech, but Octavian knew imps could be cunning, and did not intend to turn his back on the demon, with or without its tail.

  They had been in an antechamber, full of graven images of Abraxas, but now Octavian led the way into a circular room at the heart of the temple. Blue light danced and wavered in the middle of the room, a nexus not unlike the one that he and Squire had passed through before, but with one difference. In the middle of the nexus there floated a small crimson stain, a little puddle of blood suspended in mid-air, undulating with the shimmering of that portal.