Blood Magik- A Cold Day In Hell

by Corwyn Matthew

  “No shit?”

  “Yeah, man, I think he likes it!”

  Smoke held the head steady and the boy reached for another helping.

  “He’s hungry too… Probably hasn’t ate since yesterday…”

  Kalon was both surprised and a little suspicious. He decided on asking the boy a couple questions to see what he was made of.

  “You gotta name, kid?”

  “Mmmm… Messalum.” He declared his name through a mouthful of soft tissue and veins and Smoke got a strange sensation at the sound of it. He immediately knew something was different about him but didn’t know what.

  “Messalum? …That’s a pretty fucked up name…” Kalon’s feelings toward the boy’s name, on the other hand, were obvious. “Where’s the sick fuckers who named yer sorry little ass that, huh? Where’s yer parents?”

  The kid reached up for another bite of meat and answered right before he put it in his mouth. “In Hell,” he offered casually.

  Smoke looked over to his father, wondering if he’d heard what he thought he had. Kalon squinted under his bloody rag at the boy’s answer, not yet sure of what to make of him.

  “In Hell? You mean somebody killed ’em, right?” Smoke thought the kid might’ve overheard someone say it when they butchered his parents in front of him, but had a gut feeling leaning toward taking him more literally.

  “No… That’s where we live. I was the only one smallest enough to fit through the cracks. But more will come.”

  Smoke somehow knew the boy was speaking true. He could smell it on him now and see it in his eyes. Before, he thought the scent was coming from their surroundings, or the stench of trauma marinated into the boy’s flesh. But once he heard him pronounce his name, his gut told him he wasn’t of this world. He just wasn’t sure of it until now.

  “You mean you were born in Hell? There’re people born in Hell?” Kalon never thought of Hell as a place with actual people living in it…

  “I’m not a people… I’m a gorrorgorde.”

  “What the fuck is a gorrorgorde?”

  Smoke was intrigued by this tiny, little creature of Hell and wanted to know more, but the kid just shrugged and hummed an “I don’t know” sound over his mouthful of dead meat. He was too young to answer his questions directly.

  “Are they all like you? Ugly, little, and stupid?”

  “Uh-uh,” he shook his head. “We grow up.”

  “To be big like me?”

  “Uh-uh… Big like those.”

  The boy-creature Messalum pointed out Smoke’s passenger window at a two-story building they passed.

  “What, like the fuckin’ building?”

  He nodded.

  “Holy shit.” Smoke’s interest was piqued to say the least… “I like this kid. I think I wanna keep ’im. What d’you think, kid? You wanna be my pet gorrgo-whatever-the-fuck?”

  The boy nodded enthusiastically.

  “Nice. Let’s stop by a pet store and get ’im a spiked collar.”

  Kalon wanted a little more information before deciding to treat the little demon like a pet gerbil.

  “So, what do you ‘gorrorgordes’ do?”

  “We guard the King,” he chimed.

  “The King? What, you mean Lucifer?”

  “Nooo…” he shook his head. “Not the God King. Our King. …The Gate King.”

  “What gate? The Gates of Hell?”

  He nodded and reached for more of the head Smoke was still holding.

  “…Here, just take the whole thing, you greedy little leach.” He let the head go, so the creature eagerly accepted it and tucked it under his arm to dig in.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be fuckin’ with this kid. Sounds like he might have friends in high places…” Kalon was still thinking like a living, human being and Smoke just dismissed him with a shake of his head.

  “Fuck that. What’re they gunna do, kill us?” He had a point. “His king will bow to our queen. She’s probably already got him by the nuts, anyway. How else could she raise Hell on Earth if not through the Gate King? …No. I’m keepin’ the little fucker. His folks abandoned him just like you assholes abandoned me. I’ll raise him as my own. Teach him to be a man… Or a giant, two-story fucking monster or whatever… At least until he pisses me off or starts talkin’ too much.” He noticed a curve in the road up ahead so he spoke up. “Turn the wheel to 2 o’clock for about five seconds then straighten her back out.” His copiloting skills were practically second nature by this point and his father absorbed the input with hardly a thought. Every once in a while, Smoke would have to grab the wheel and swerve around an impenetrable obstacle, but for the most part he just let the speed and solid build of the car push all the little things out of their way. “One thing I don’t get, though…”

  “What’s that?”

  “What’s with the kid’s clothes and the stuffed Elmo under his arm? They gotta Old Navy in Hades? A fuckin’ Baby Gap for demons?” He looked back at the boy who was scraping the insides of the skull clean. “Where’d you get the gear, kid?”

  “What’s ‘gear’?”

  “The clothes and the stuffed monkey? Where’d you get ’em from?”

  “From a dead boy.”

  That would’ve been his second guess…

  “I’m hungry…” Messalum dropped the hollowed-out head on the floor and proclaimed his unappeased apatite with a whine.

  “Fuck…he’s startin’ to bug me already… You just ate, you little bastard, how much food you need?”

  “…I want him.” He pointed his pudgy, bloody finger at Kalon and Kalon smiled knowing exactly what the little demon was asking for.

  “I got plans for him; he’s not on the menu.” He sighed. “…Maybe pickin’ the little shit up wasn’t a good idea after all…” He gazed out the window in thought but snapped his head back when he heard his father scream in pain.

  “AAAHHhhhrrrffFFFUUuuck!!!”

  Messalum had unlatched his seatbelt and clamped his jaws around Kalon’s trapezoid, biting into his flesh with a snarl.

  “FUUUCK!! GET HIM OFF!!!” He pulled against the wheel and slammed on the brakes, spinning the Camaro in the middle of the street, whipping the boy’s body around with his teeth still dug into his upper shoulder. “SONOVABITCH!! LET GO OF ME!!!”

  “I got ’im, I got ’im… Relax!”

  Smoke grabbed the boy by his scalp and yanked him off his father, large chunk of muscle tissue and all. He threw the boy against the backseat and the g-force from their spin kept him pinned while he swallowed the fresh meat with an invigorated quiver. The car finally came to a stop and Smoke kept his eye on the boy, sensing something was changing in him. Messalum’s eyes flared in blue and he clenched every muscle in his body with the swell of vitality surging through him from the consumption of living, human tissue. He shook with his jaws fastened shut and groaned against the strain of growing new bone and muscle fibers.

  “Shit…” Smoke had a pretty fair idea of where this was going. “…I think Popeye just found his spinach.”

  Messalum sprung forward uncontrollably, lashing with his teeth for another taste but Smoke was fast enough to grab him by his neck that’d swelled up to twice its size.

  “Get outta the car, old man… Little dude’s not gunna be so little for long.”

  Kalon snapped out of the shock from the pain to hear the miniature sub-creature snarl behind him. He blindly felt around the door for the handle then stumbled from the car, crawling to the curb.

  Smoke looked the exploding creature in its ravenous eyes as it clawed at his forearms with growing hands and long, boney fingers bigger than his own. Messalum growled against the metamorphosis, getting larger with his every breath, filling up the entire backseat of the car, head crunched against the bulging roof…

  Smoke realized he wouldn’t be a
ble to hold him for long, so he released his grip from his throat and backed out, retreating through the passenger door. He stumbled clear with the force of the creature’s booming maturity. The Camaro’s frame whimpered under the stress of the weight and its sheer size, and eventually its roof gave-way and was torn from the car’s body.

  “GRRRRRAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”

  A dominant grumble forced Smoke back further from the wreck of the car – it nearly flattened under Messalum’s gaining mass. It seemed that living human meat was all it took for the child-demon to become the nearly full-grown gorrorgorde that darkened the street in front of him.

  It huffed in a show of dominance as its slate-gray, nearly transparent skin rippled with veins and sprouted coarse, black hairs like those on a spider. Its face was skeleton-like with a thin layer of skin stretched over its relatively small head until it reached its practically lipless mouth. Its gums were the blue color of blood and its teeth jagged and numerous, nine to twelve inches apiece. It had no eyebrows or nose, but pointed bat-like ears nearly reaching the top of its slightly elongated skull. When it finished growing, it stood hunched at thirty-five feet tall, with long arms and fingers whose knuckles nearly touched the ground. Its feet were like a vulture’s talons, with three claws spread out to the front and one in back; their nails giant, charcoal ice picks cutting into the surface of the road.

  Messalum took in a deep breath at his full size and unleashed it as a roar at the red sky. His call was an announcement to Hell that he had made it to Earth and could exist where he naturally shouldn’t. Those observing in the underworld would be pleased with the test results made apparent from the development of the first of their Hell’s scouts.

  Smoke stared up at the creature knowing it’d be a challenge as soon as it remembered that living, human meat was close by. He wondered how his strength would compare against a beast this size. Would it squash him like dog shit under a bootheel, or would he prove a formidable challenge for the Hell’s guardian? He figured he’d find out soon enough since it didn’t take it long before the smell of Kalon’s blood enticed its senses.

  It sniffed the air twice then effortlessly found the source of the pungent aroma, glaring down at the little human with a growl and a river of drool flowing from its pallet.

  “YO!!”

  Smoked gave it a holler as soon as its attentions found his father, but it didn’t seem to care enough to respond. The gorrorgorde turned to face its soon-to-be evening snack, and Smoke rapidly scanned his surroundings for something to help grab its attention. He surveyed the flattened wreck of his once proud trophy-ride, and saw the wooden handle of his ax sticking from what was left of the passenger’s door frame. He used his speed and strength to slide it quickly from the heap, then hopped over the car’s remains and swung for what would pass as the gorrorgorde’s ten-foot-long pinky toe. He didn’t want to damage the beast permanently – after all, they were like family; he’d practically raised the little tyke – so he didn’t swing with unrelenting force. He got the feeling he could’ve taken the thing’s claw clean off, but just dug into it as deep as the ax-blade above its middle knuckle.

  “I said, YO!!” His second holler was with a force and tone the creature recognized. It growled against the pain of the blade in its foot, but before it lost its cool, tilted its head to gnarl back at its aggressor. “I told you; he ain’t on the fucking menu!”

  Smoke’s eyes swirled in layers of magenta as he removed the ax from its foot and the beast finally paid him mind. It turned away from Kalon to stand squarely in front of its challenger. Smoke figured he was in for a fight, but Messalum just stood there as if waiting for something important to happen.

  “Why aren’t you tryin’ to kill me?” He was confuddled by its lack of action.

  “YOU…ARE…SOVEREIGNTY.” His snarling voice boomed with extradimensional vehemence.

  “…The fuck you talkin’ about?”

  “You’re yer mother’s son, ya fuckin’ retard!” Kalon yelled though his pain from his place of collapse on the curb, figuring he’d help his kid get up to speed.

  “MESSALUM……SERVES.”

  Smoke was still a little stunned by the changing tides but tried to play it off. “Damn fuckin’ right you serve, you ugly fuck.” He quickly took to the way this whole ‘bloodline thing’ was turning out for him. “You smashed the shit outta my Camaro, Messalum. You’ve made daddy very fuckin’ irritated…” The creature just stood at attention, awaiting orders. “Pick me and the old man up. You’re gunna take us to the cemetery.” Messalum reached down and swooped them both into his hands, and Kalon groaned against his own weight being jerked around. “Remember, the geezer’s fragile… We need him alive for the Queen.” It cupped them both with its long fingers so it wasn’t squeezing the piss out of the lowly, bleeding human. “And hurry the fuck up… The Camaro could’ve got us there in another five min—”

  His words were lost to surprise when the creature turned and jumped into the sky. It leaped hundreds of feet through the air, tearing past the red mist that filled the city. With one hurdle, it soared five blocks. Three or four more bounds like that and Smoke might actually get his father back to his mother in one piece… He just hoped Kalon wouldn’t die of blood loss or shock in the meantime.

  The last thing he wanted was to fail his mother on his first assignment. He was royalty now and suddenly felt the responsibility of taking the end of the world as a burden on his own shoulders. Everyone has to grow up sometime. It seemed time for Smoke to start taking his undeath a little more seriously. Who knows? Maybe his mother would make his father the Court Jester and decide to honor him as King. They could rule the planet together while his father juggled his swords for their amusement.

  Mother and son… King and Queen… Husband and wife?

  Fuck it! It was the new Hell! A little pinch of Twisted couldn’t hurt to kick this thing off. Worst-case scenario: he could marry his cousin Alex and rule on the other side of the hemisphere. They’d serve Marty up as pot-roast for the wedding banquet and consummate their perverted, joined lineage over emptied plates of his devoured carcass. Dear ol’ dad could do the honors of performing the ceremony, and mom could impregnate his sultry new bride with the first demon spawn ever to be born of a human mother on Earth.

  The joyous possibilities were endless and his mouth watered at the thought of their ultimate family reunion. Soon, he and his mother would have their victory over his brother and that little human slut of a cousin, and he’d finally have a real family to call his own. He was so proud and eager he could almost cry anxious tears of his own thick, black blood…but was way too macho to display that kind of sentiment. Instead, he’d try his hand at patience and maybe invade another of Alex’s dreams in the meantime. She felt so close now he could savor her flesh on his dry tongue, his stomach rumbling in anticipation of her skin’s sweet perfume…

  Miles away, Alex shuddered in the backseat of the cab when a perverse chill climbed up her spine…

  Dead Bed-Fellows

  From hundreds of feet above the cemetery – if giant sky-worms had eyes or even cared for taking in a view – below they’d look upon colossal red, yellow, and orange towers reaching upward, stabbing at the bottoms of their slithering bellies. Blood-magik sigils branded into the earth like crop circles laid claim to every human soul under the crimson sky, demanding allegiance from any undead who rose from cursed soil. The fifth or maybe sixth wave of dead soldiers reached from their decades-old graves and dug through blood and dirt to taste despoiled air, while those more recently laid to rest were nearly ready to join their ranks.

  Imala’s soldiers had been selective when choosing the bodies they buried and only planted those who seemed individually intimidating enough to join their hordes, whereas the rest were completely eaten or cast into the giant cocktail of corpses at the center of the graveyard. A rivulet of arterial excretions flushed through the heart of the c
emetery, overflowing the cement canal built to divert water from storms and intersecting the massive grave at its middle, feeding it fresh death and human sacrifice intravenously.

  Tens of thousands of dead-men now walked among the living while just as many were buried in their place, soon to be ripe for resurrection…

  A new Hell was closer than most would care to know.

  A growing pile of stolen weapons bulged behind the citadel, hundreds of guns deep, confiscated from the armed cops and other victims who were killed. But no dead-man felt the need to fill his grips with manmade metal just yet… But because they didn’t, didn’t mean they wouldn’t. The military wouldn’t be expecting a firefight when they arrived to confront Imala’s armies, and for that reason would be caught off guard when black bullets tore through the flesh of their surrounding comrades. These demons may be demons indeed, but were conceived from the bodies and minds of human soldiers, and will fall into line like armed forces when the time came for combat.

  The tops of trees in the cemetery still burned endlessly in roaring flames, and Jean-Claude stood at the roots of the brightest and hottest, his piercing gaze fixed on the gleaming structure his queen fashioned her cathedral from. He wondered what miraculous magics and meticulous mayhems she’d prepared for the world while her New Hell grew hotter around her. What sort of monsters would crawl from the fiery pits of Lucifer’s cage and call his queen their master? What was is it she was doing inside her castle at this very minute and how would it favor her becoming a goddess? He only wished he could peer through her fortress of flame to see, even if only to lie his undead eyes on her powerful figure just once… Her demon elegance was awe inspiring, and even his black heart wasn’t immune to the thrills her wiles invoked in men.

  But there would be time for her worship later. The hour approached when the US government and their forces would be hopelessly moving to invade, and Jean-Claude planned to be somewhere else entirely, marching with forces of his own. While Imala’s servant-demons fought for the land they’d taken, J.C. would be out hunting for something that meant so much more than victory: an immortal vendetta. His competition with the mere man, Marty Grimson, didn’t end with their deaths, but instead grew a fresh, undying passion, and would be a battle ten times that of those who would fight for survival alone. Their fight would not be for honor, freedom, or integrity. Their fight would be for the pure sport and pleasure of battle – two undead warriors whose rivalry outlasted their own mortality.