by Hunter Blain
Another vengeful wind kicked up, and I may have positioned myself behind the hulking man that barely seemed to notice the torrent. His frame blocked the gust, and I thought that he would make even Ludvig look like Kevin Hart compared to The Rock. Oh, excuse me, President The Rock. Heh, movie stars.
The wind died down and I casually walked over to where Stef was gingerly sitting.
“Sup, champ?” I asked cheerfully.
“What do you want? More people to eat?” she asked, patting the bench seat she was sitting on to indicate the supplies underneath.
“Nah, I’m good. Plus, I think that last one was Mexican or somethin’ ’cause he was spicy. Whew!” I joked, patting my stomach.
Stef looked at me with abject disgust.
“Sorry. Like I said, kinda used to eating folks. Plus, my best friend is a werewolf and eats his people raw.”
Stef rolled her eyes while letting out a gust of air.
“Can I help you with something?” she asked, waving a hand in the air in a gesture that suggested we move things along. She winced as she did, freezing for a moment as I knew thin bolts of electricity were shooting up her spine.
“Why don’t you just eat a little?”
“I’ll be fine,” she barked, pain and frustration giving an edge to her voice.
I decided to try and change the subject, partly to take her mind off the pain, and partly to learn as much as I could from someone with more experience.
“So...tell me about Tar-tar-R-us.”
Letting out another lungful of air in a sigh, she stared off at the valley between the mountains and said, “It’s the only city in Hell. Humans are forced into servitude to the demons, but they’re given shelter in exchange.”
“Doesn’t seem like a fair arrangement if you ask me.”
“That’s exactly why I’m out here, you dolt.”
“Hmm. So if the city is where humans and demons interact, why was ol’ smash face out hunting?” I thumbed over to the very dead snake demon.
“Humans taste better when we haven’t been tortured in a while.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t really know how to explain it to something like you.”
“Well, I know demons feed on suffering. Are you saying that someone who hasn’t been fed on in a while tastes better to them?”
“I guess!” she said, throwing her hands up and wincing again with the movement. I wanted to lambaste her for letting her emotions fuel her gestures which were in turn hurting her. Then again, I, of all people, should not be offering advice on controlling one’s emotions.
“Oh, okay. I think I get it. Humans who live in the city are probably preyed upon often?”
“Yes,” she sighed, annoyed at my simplistic questions whose answers she’d probably had to learn the hard way: through experience.
“That means...anyone out here that hasn’t been fed on probably tastes like a fillet steak versus a fast-food hamburger.”
She thought on my words before letting her head slowly begin to nod.
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s a pretty good way to describe it,” she admitted with a softer tone, as if the idea hadn’t ever really come to her.
“I think I get it.” I turned to look at the snake demon’s corpse. “He was out here hunting the grade A stuff and bringing it back for the top-tier bad guys, huh?”
Stef didn’t say anything as she stared off into the distance.
“Can we expect any other hunters anytime soon?” I asked, crossing my arms as I scowled at the dead demon.
“I don’t know. I doubt it. As you said, we were being hunted for the heavy hitters of Hell.”
An idea began to form as I tapped my pursed lips with my index finger.
“Hey, Jacob,” I called to the big man who was walking between the groups, making sure everyone was okay. He looked up and began making his way toward Stef and me.
Stopping a few feet away, he simply stared at me, waiting for me to explain why I had called him.
“I have a plan,” I said, enunciating the P word, though there wasn’t anyone here besides me that would get why. It’s okay, inside jokes are funny to those in the know.
“Alright, what is it?”
“Hear me out, because I don’t think you’re gonna like it.”
19
The wagon approached the outskirts of the city, with Jacob and the other souls pulling it along. I wanted to feel bad for them for doing all the hard work while I sat comfortably on the bench seat. I mean, they had no idea how hard it was to not snap the reins while yelling with bravado, “Hi-ho, Silver, awaaaaaaay!”
Stef rode in the back cage with the other two souls who had recovered from their wounds by partaking in the people jerky. Death Princess, on the other hand, chose to feel every bump of the desert as the wooden wagon—which had no shocks—moseyed along.
I wore Captain Flathead’s leather and hid my face with a bandana. I made sure to thank the snake demon after slipping his threads over my outfit by saying, “You rock, buddy.” Heh, I am extraordinarily punny. Get it? Be...because Jacob crushed his head with a rock? Anyway...
The edges of the city were under construction, and a part of me understood that Tartarus would forever be expanding.
Souls were clearly working in dangerous conditions as they followed the demon foreman’s instructions. Whip marks decorated exposed flesh as a mixture of both discolored scars and flowing blood. None of them had hard hats.
“Ope. OSHA isn’t gonna like that,” I whispered as we cleared the outer edges.
Jacob knew where to go and led the team of pullers like a buff Rudolph. Each soul in the Trojan horse had fist-sized rocks that we had broken off of the boulder where I had first met DP...I mean Stef! Not that other thing you shouldn’t google.
There was a straight path that seemed to go on for countless miles, with row after row of crude buildings on either side of us. They appeared to be back to back, with narrow roadways between the entrances, reminding me of the punishment cubes where I had first found Dawson. Though I couldn’t see the curvature from how massive the city that was meant to hold billions of souls was, I felt it was probably an enormous circle roughly the size of China.
A thought came to mind, and I wondered how many weeks or months it would take to travel to the very center where our destination no doubt lay.
As an answer to my question, we came to a wider clearing between the buildings that I deduced acted like a highway compared to the neighborhood streets between what I guessed were mostly apartments.
There were thousands of souls walking along the sidewalks, with a modest flow of demons in soul-pulled wagons similar to the one I drove, only much smaller. I quickly noticed that only mine had the big cage and required several souls to power, especially when considering the vast expanse of the desert outside the city.
A part of me wondered if they simply lacked the materials for even rudimentary engines or if they specifically used souls as another form of punishment. Scanning the buildings that appeared to be made of mud and wood, I decided it might be a little bit of both.
A sudden, violent movement caught my attention at a crossroads, and I saw a demon yank a random soul from the sidewalk and begin to torture him while his wagon continued onward. The man shrieked in pain as an obsidian knife ran the length of the underside of his foot, the demon’s distorted face shifting to an expression that clearly read pleasure. In that moment, I became disgusted at all the faces I had ever made while feeding.
I noticed he wasn’t eating the flesh. It appeared that in order to feed, he only needed to provide suffering to the damned souls, of which there was the universe’s largest buffet available.
Passing through the crossroad, the demon and his meal were no longer visible, and I returned my scowling gaze forward.
Several minutes passed as I witnessed random tortures from all around. What was really odd was that the crowd didn’t even seem to notice as one of their ilk was snatched up to be fed upon. Then I
noticed whimpering souls leaning against buildings or down alleyways, all with various degrees of mutilation. I took note, however, that the flesh had only been sliced open and not removed completely. Some had massively disfigured limbs that passersby stepped over, uncaring of the injured, but the arms and legs were not removed. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a rule in place to prevent wanton wasting of a food supply.
We made it to what looked to be a checkpoint on the other side of the highway, and it opened at the sight of our cage. Jacob pulled to the left, his team following his lead, and we entered a gated industrial park with fully armored demons all around. I gulped and kept my head down, trusting Jacob.
We approached a ramp to a platform that had a circle made of at least a hundred human bodies. They writhed and moaned while blood sloshed around them counterclockwise like a lazy river at a local water park. Squinting, I could see chunks of flesh, bone, and even glistening organs flowing through the tight spaces between the bodies. Crimson-coated hands gripped futilely at the air, reaching for anything to pull them free.
Something bugged me about the appearance of blood and organs in the circle. When Dawson had been struck, his soul had been one solid piece, like a man made of marshmallow (or something more creative and apropos), and didn’t bleed out. I filed the question away for later.
A demon regarded us—a mask made from a human face stretched over his grotesque features—and moved to a lever that was at ground level.
Jacob continued up the ramp and onto the platform, barely slowing as we headed for the circle that encompassed the path.
The demon pulled the lever, sending arcing hell electricity over the bodies of the gateway—because that’s what it was, I realized with eyes that wanted to bulge out of my skull. I fought to keep them under control, hiding as much of my skin as possible from the observing demons.
Green, purple, and red lightning danced over the bodies, who screamed with renewed vigor, creating a visceral aura of suffering that I could almost taste in the air.
A part of my mind latched onto the hell electricity and wondered why they didn’t use the magic of this plane to power their vehicles. I decided that the punishment aspect was probably more accurate than I had originally thought, making me shudder. It was unnerving to think that Hell was being intentionally kept in the dark ages simply for the fact that torturing human souls was more important to them.
The space at the center of the writhing circle of bodies shimmered and Jacob passed through the gateway, the rest of his team following without question or reaction.
For a reason I couldn’t explain, I held my breath and squeezed my eyes shut as I passed through the air that wavered with hell magic.
I felt something pass over me, like walking into a grocery store and being hit with the blast of air that was meant to help keep the bugs out.
Opening one eye, I glanced around and had my breath stolen as I saw a truly massive structure steadily approaching. Or rather, we were approaching it. The sheer size of it growing slowly in comparison to the faster-moving buildings around me gave an illusion that reminded me of the full moon cresting the horizon.
I realized that what I saw were the walls of an enclosure that was miles high and stretched as far as I could see in either direction, though I could barely see the slight curvature. Still, the area beyond the walls that surrounded it had to be the size of Houston, easily.
A vertical line of brilliant light began growing in width directly in front of us, and I shielded my eyes as I tried to look between my fingers. It was a doorway that was opening for the wagon carrying fresh meat for the masters.
Jacob continued to lead the group, disappearing into the blinding light. Once again, I slammed my eyes shut while trying to keep my head down, lest I be spotted as a pretender.
A wall of what I can only describe as clean air washed over me. The temperature was pleasant and the aroma of flowers invaded my nostrils. It wasn’t until it was forced away that I realized how bad the sulfur smell had been.
I sneezed three times with loud barks as I tried to cover my mouth, getting snot and spit on the inside of my bandana.
“Gross,” I drawled as I yanked the wet face covering off.
My attention was feverishly yanked away from the bandana coated in my snot to behold a sight that made me want to weep.
Lush green grass littered with colorful flowers waved in a shockingly pleasant breeze. Trees were organized in symmetrical lines on either side of the road with their own pathways that stretched for miles down the length of the rows. There was a distance of about twenty-five feet between the trees, with the same distance separating the rows. As we traveled further down the surprisingly smooth path, the trees seemed to move in geometric patterns that were mesmerizing.
As I looked up and down the trees, trying to figure out what they were, I smelled a faint aroma of eucalyptus intermixed with the floral smells that were heavy in the air. I think I had seen these trees, or a variation of them, when I’d visited Australia. Ghost trees, I think they were called. Or maybe Gum...Ghost Gum. I couldn’t recall the finer details with my dull memory.
White flowers stood in stark contrast to the waxy deep green of the thick leaves. A blue sky tore at my attention and I gawked past the trees at the white fluffy clouds floating overhead. It was all so beautiful.
Birds sang their songs as they perched in the branches or soared in the sky, stealing my breath.
In the distance, a mansion that rivaled anything even dreamt of on Earth grew higher into the horizon. My mind warred with the notion that Hell was either a sphere or there was magic involved. How else could the mansion grow larger the closer we approached?
The castle made from the world tree, Yggdrasil, bloomed to mind, and I remembered how every one step brought the home of the Seelie Court two steps closer. I made up my mind that whatever magic was used by the Fae could be similarly utilized in this plane.
The modern-looking mansion, complete with marble statues from different eras in time, stood at the very center of Hell. I couldn’t exactly explain why I thought I was at the epicenter of this plane other than a feeling in my gut that I was willing to bet on.
White stones that had been rounded into perfect spheres began decorating the path on either side as the ground beneath us gradually transformed from the nutrient rich dirt of nature to the smooth cobblestone belonging to someone of considerable wealth.
A fancy circular driveway wrapped around a glorious fountain that spewed crystal clear water in geometric patterns that paraded as chaotic. It was as if the jets that sent out the streams of water were programed to be random, but with a pattern that felt organized if one were to stop and watch appraisingly.
Jacob followed a smaller path around the side of the house that I assumed the employees and contractors (or hellion equivalent) utilized, and I dropped my jaw at how deep the mansion was. Taking a quick glance down the front of the house before we disappeared around the corner, I casually guessed that it was a perfect square that was one mile long on each side. Looking up, I shrugged as I assumed the height was also the same dimension.
The building was absolutely boggling to look at, especially considering that the tallest building on Earth (prevacationing in Faerie for thirteen years) was that big mamma jamma in Dubai that Tom Cruise climbed in one of his movies. But even that was only half a mile tall if I remembered correctly—damn my nonpreternatural mind.
It took about fifteen minutes for our moderately paced wagon to make it to the back side of the building where another gorgeous scene was waiting to drown me in beauty.
As we turned the corner, still following the path, my head pivoted toward the area behind the mansion like my eyes were being tugged at by an undeniable gravitational pull.
At first glance, it appeared that the grounds were occupied by numerous animals of varying types. Some had long necks to reach the trees that grew organically and without the preplanned placement of the Ghost Gums that decorated the front
of the mansion. Other normally proportioned animals drank from a pristine blue lake that stretched far back, and I was willing to bet some large animals resided in its depths. Birds chirped their chorus as life thrived all around.
“This is Hell?” I asked, awestruck.
“Put on your damn mask!” Stef hissed from behind.
I shook myself out of my stupor and quickly lifted the bandana I had been holding to my face, pausing at the last second to turn it inside out. Clear snot coated the outside.
We approached a well-dressed demon holding a clipboard. He had black robes on that hung from his slender frame with a silk sash tied around his midsection.
The mostly normal-looking demon casually held up a hand, signaling we should halt, as he regarded his clipboard with obsidian-rimmed glasses. I knew immediately that he was probably more of an intellectual type instead of the stereotypical murder machine I was used to dealing with. Oh shit, that meant the dream where I walked on a postapocalyptic Earth and chatted with the demons around the fire had been accurate! Man, I did not want to dive into that can of worms, especially if my vision of the deep-fried Earth was potentially true.
Without lifting his eyes, the demon stated something in hellion that sounded a lot like if Klingon and German had a child out of wedlock; all harsh consonants and guttural sounds. I could tell by his tone, however, that he was probably inquiring about today’s catch of fresh meat.
When I didn’t respond, the mansion worker looked up with agitation growing in his eyes.
I held up a gloved hand with three fingers out before thumbing over my shoulder and nodding once. He squinted at me and I tilted my face down, doing my best to hide my nondemonic eyes.
He barked something at me again, and I could tell it was a question. When I didn’t answer, he stomped over to the side of the wagon and grabbed my arm.
I lashed out with the obsidian blade, slicing his neck to the spine. Wide, reptilian eyes stared in confusion at me as a mouth that was spilling black blood tried to form words. The clipboard clattered to the ground as both hands went up in a fruitless attempt to stop the dark waterfall.
