by J. F. Penn
SINS OF
VIOLENCE
Book Two
J.F. Penn
Of the abysmal valley dolorous
CANTO IV LINE 8.
So far that hardly could the eye contain it
CANTO VIII LINE 6
Which of salvation’s way is the beginning
CANTO II. LINE 30
Sins of Violence
An explosion rocked the air, raining chunks of masonry and glass down from the building above them. Ari and Sibyl dived behind the hulk of a ruined truck, rolling underneath to shelter from the hail of debris.
“It’s getting closer,” Sibyl said, her voice tinged with the longing for battle, and Ari knew she wanted to be back there, fighting deep in Sector 35. The Corps was the only family they now had, a renegade team trying to restore order to one corner of the desolate planet.
“I promise you the war won’t end while we take a few hours off,” said Ari, rolling out from under the vehicle once the dust had settled. Her lithe body was fast as a wildcat and she sprang to her feet, weapon ready, scanning for any danger.
“Time off?” Sibyl laughed as she brushed herself down. “I haven’t heard that expression since before the Contagion.”
“We need to get moving,” Ari said, acutely aware of her surroundings, for they were off their patch, deep into Untamed territory. But she had to risk running this gauntlet now, because it was almost too late.
She had received the message a few days before, passed through the networks that still kept communication alive on this forsaken continent. Elyse was about to be Blessed and Ari couldn’t let that happen. Even though she hadn’t seen her sister for fifteen years, she remembered the little girl’s blonde curls and her laugh, the way her skin had smelled after a bath, back in the days when those were still possible. It was the innocent giggle that had stuck most in her mind, the last thing she had heard before she was led away for her own Blessing. She would not let that happen to Elyse, especially as the message had reported what else was going on in the city, the violent hold he had on the population after 29 years of rule.
“You’ve never told me what happened in there,” Sibyl said, as they darted between the ruined buildings of the Empty Quarter, eyes drawn to every shadow. The area was only designated empty so that it could be written out of any rescue plan, but Ferals lurked here among the Untamed, and plague victims still eked out a pitiful existence in its shattered world. Ari turned briefly, her hand reaching out to squeeze Sibyl’s tense arm.
“I’ll tell you when I come out again,” she said. If I make it back out. “It’s a long story, but I can’t do this alone. Thanks for coming with me.”
Sibyl shook her head, dismissing the gratitude. “Just don’t expect me to shut up about wanting some answers.”
The Empty Quarter had once been a business hub, with high-rise office buildings, boutique shops and restaurants. It had been a centre of commerce in the days when people still had such trifling concerns such as whether they could afford private education for their children, or which new car would get them the most kudos at work. Those were the days when people didn’t have to learn practical skills like how to grow crops or fix equipment, or how to fight and defend themselves and their families. The end of that life had come before Ari had been born, but she had seen its reflection in her mother’s eyes as she stumbled to draw water daily from the public well. Her mother’s naivety in the face of disaster had resulted in her own birth, a child of rape in the days when defence of the country became more important than protecting the innocent within it.
Ari’s mother Beatrice had told her stories of that time, and how the days of plenty had been ended by the Contagion. The mysterious illness had spread from the icy far north, at first considered a wave of extreme violence endemic only to isolated communities. But when ordinary families were slaughtered by soccer Moms and children were found hacking at the disfigured bodies of their school friends, the brutality was examined in more detail by the authorities. It was found to be a virus, a strain unseen before, turning those infected into savage, uninhibited killers.
Found to be airborne, the virus soon reached the larger urban populations of the Northern Hemisphere and it spread quickly, taking millions in its bloody wake. International disputes had erupted in the panic, with blame being heaped on whichever nation was considered a sworn enemy, for humanity has only ever been a splinter away from chaos. It didn’t take long before the first nuclear warhead had been fired, millions more people atomized, wiping out the major cities where most of the infrastructure and knowledge resided. The world was split apart and now humanity dwelled in the ashes.
Ari and Sibyl walked quickly along the edge of the road, where the buckling and cracking was less pronounced and it was easier to pick their way carefully through the streets, using the crenelated buildings as cover.
“Is that his Mark?” Sibyl asked, pointing to a graffitied wall, where a symbol was painted in pitch, its edges dripping like black blood. It was an orb cupped in a bowl on top of an inverted cross, representing the God of the Underworld who had stolen the hope of summer from the earth. Ari looked up and couldn’t help the memories flooding back from the night of her Blessing when that symbol had been seared into her brain. The Fallen Ones had held her down as she writhed, while the sound of a thousand fiendish angels cursed and screamed for her corruption.
“It is,” Ari said, her voice hollow. “He calls this place the city of Dis, supposedly guarded by 25 fallen angels, punished by God for their disobedience, and this Mark encircles his domain.”
The Contagion had separated the remnant of humanity into those who turned from any idea of deity, and those who believed it was God’s judgment for the sins of the world. Perhaps it was strange that the end of organized religion and the so-called death of God had resulted in so many cults flourishing in the aftermath, but Ari knew the reality. There was no God here, only one man’s brutality, and the shadows were ever deepening.
“We need to get moving now,” Ari said, “because the Blessing will begin as the sun dips below the horizon.”
The pair started a slow jog toward the walls that loomed in the distance, where fires burning on the ramparts proclaimed the city’s dominion over the scarred land. Sibyl ran beside Ari, their even breath creating a rhythm born from years together in the Corps. When Ari had escaped and stumbled out of the city, just a child covered in the blood of sacrifice, it had been Sibyl who had found her. The Goddess brought them together and they had joined the Corps, their need to fight for the innocent overwhelming any desire to be free in what was left of the world. Ari had never told Sibyl what had happened behind those fortifications, but now she needed her friend to help save her sister from the same fate.
The city of Dis had grown up inside the walls of an old power station that had been luxurious flats back in the days Before. In the chaos of the last generation, factions had sprung up and people had aligned themselves with the warlords who had fought for dominance. The man who now ruled Dis had a name back then, but now he was only known as the Minotaur, his neck as thick as a bull’s and his propensity for violence extreme. He echoed his name by living at the centre of the labyrinth that the city had become, and he called the prettiest girls to its heart for the Blessing.
As they jogged, Ari glanced up at the trees growing along this stretch of road, their emerging roots thrusting through the concrete, for Nature had thrived as humanity was all but destroyed. These trees had been their refuge most nights, and their home on the Corps mission, code-named Theseus. She craved the security of those branches now but she forced herself onwards.
“What’s that?” Sibyl asked, pointing at thorny bu
shes ahead. They were too far away to see clearly, but the bushes seemed to be hung with scraps of material.
As they drew closer, Ari let out a groan, her face crumpling as she realized what they were. Corpses were hung on the barbs, hooking into skin that had been cut and maimed, now all in various stages of decomposition. They hung along the main road towards the city, traitors or blasphemers against the perverted laws of the Minotaur.
Sibyl reached for Ari’s hand as they stood, surveying the ruined bodies, and tears gathered in her eyes. Those of the Goddess considered life to be more precious after the Contagion but within the boundaries of Dis, life was still expendable. As they walked past hand in hand, gaining strength from each other’s presence, Ari looked at the distorted faces and remembered the ancient story of Tobit from her childhood. The legend told of a man venerated for burying those slain in battle, then punished by a wrathful king due to his reverence for the dead. Ari felt both a resolve to honour these dead as well as a deep sense of guilt at leaving them behind to their brutal fate.
“You were a child when you escaped,” Sibyl said quietly, as if knowing her thoughts. “If you had not, you would have ended up bearing the monster’s children, or dead out here with your own words of defiance carved into your flesh.”
Ari nodded slowly and then noticed a glimmer of colour in the shadows. Even here could be found a glimpse of the Goddess, for at the base of one of the bushes was a single rose, its petals stained red with the blood of the martyrs. Ari bent to stroke its petals and breathe in the faint scent, a hope of new life in this dark valley of the dead.
Walking on within the shadow of the protective trees, they soon came within sight of the guard tower at the gates. They ducked into one of the ruined buildings and Ari took off her pack. Inside was a dress she had found only days before, slightly stained with blood but still cut well enough to make the guards open the door for a closer look. She stripped off the camouflage uniform and pulled on the dress. There was no point trying to get weapons past the guard, so Ari was relying on her Corps training to find suitable arms within.
“That’s hideous,” Sibyl said, her rough hands stuffed deep in her pockets. “And I hate you doing this.”
“The only guaranteed way into Dis is as breeding stock,” Ari said, untying her hair from its scarf and letting the dark curls hang loose. “I know how it works in there and I need them to take me to him immediately.”
Ari pulled her dog tags, inscribed with the symbol of the Corps, an omega above the ohm of resistance, from around her neck. She handed them to Sibyl, whose face darkened.
“I’ve got enough of these from sisters lost, Ari.” She took the dog tags. “Please don’t go. It’s not safe. What if you don’t come out again?”
Ari pulled Sibyl into an embrace, overwhelmed with what she wanted to tell her friend, but these feelings were not to be spoken aloud, not now. After a few moments, they broke apart and Ari knew she must act now or she would give into her fears and leave this place behind forever.
“I’m coming back,” she said, “and I’ll be bringing Elyse with me, so I need you outside to cover our retreat and help me get away. I need you, Sibyl, and inside you’ll be a liability because they’ll split us up. I’m sorry.”
Ari adjusted the top of the dress to show more of her cleavage. Sibyl shook her head and whistled.
“They’re going to want to take you to that bastard right away.”
“They’d better, because time’s getting on.” Ari took Sibyl’s hands again, her eyes serious. “Promise me you’ll move to that tree near the gate after dark, and stay there? If I’m not out by first light, I’m not coming out at all, so you’ll need to get away from here. Get back to the Corps. Promise me.”
“Alright, alright.” Sibyl brushed away tears, pushing her friend away. “Enough of the emotion, just get in and get out again quickly.”
Limping out of the building, Ari feigned weakness as she neared the forbidding doors of Dis. They were fortified from the ruins of conquered enclaves, and now the ornate, triumphal arch had become a portal to the Minotaur’s Hell, where the violent prospered and the weak could only do his will.
Ari recalled the expression of fear on the murdered bodies and painted her own face with it as she approached. The guardsmen came out eagerly, making lewd comments as they surrounded her. One held a ferocious dog on a short leash, its powerful jaws slavering, ready to charge and tear flesh on command. Ari tried to block out their obscenities as they pawed at her body while she pleaded for sanctuary. She was just a woman trying to stay alive and this was her last chance for refuge. It was how so many came and did not emerge to the sun again.
Suddenly, they pushed her forward and she was on the inside. The great doors closed again behind her and Ari felt a wave of panic as they slammed shut. Claustrophobia overwhelmed her as she was hemmed in away from the sight of the sky, out of reach of the Goddess, but it was too late to go back now.
“Take her to him quickly,” said the rough voice of a guardsman. “He’ll be with the young one tonight so he’ll likely send her back to us quick smart.” His leer transformed his face into the mugshot of a demon, for the corruption of the city had devoured the heart of any who stayed within it. “But don’t worry, princess, we’ll take good care of you, won’t we, boys?”
With their raucous laughter echoing behind her, Ari was pulled between two guards into the stronghold of Dis, her footsteps treading ground that she had sworn never to walk again. Entropy ruled here, decay and decline evident in the stink of the overcrowded population, kept wretched by the fear of what was outside the walls.
Ari glanced up to the levels of walkways that stretched into the four great towers at the corners of the city. People were crowded onto them, walking slowly about their labour, too exhausted to even look down at her, too burned out to be curious. The Minotaur used narcotics to keep the population subdued, over-riding the human will with a dull desperation to merely survive each day. The cheapest of the drugs, known as Vir-Gil, was cut with chemicals that burned skin and corrupted blood. Deformity was creeping into the population through its use, which ensured that refugee women were always in demand.
Ari could see the imprint of what the city had once been, but the place had changed in her long absence. The colours here now were a palate of grey and brown, but not the burnt sienna of autumn leaves or the silvery feathers of the mountain owl, for these were bleached versions of what the Goddess had created. The world outside was difficult and dangerous, Ari thought, but wasn’t it better to die in the woods, as the weak sun filtered through the leaves, a moment of pleasure before death? Here, there was nothing of beauty, except the children for a brief moment, before they were ruined even as they bloomed. Enough, Ari thought, her eyes fixed on the back of the guard, counting the minutes before she would stand before the monster once again.
At the heart of the city, a labyrinth was constructed from fragile huts packed with families, so that the jagged paths through the shantytown were near impossible to navigate. It stank of sewage, rubbish and death, for when people had little to trade but themselves, the community could only spiral downwards. People fled at the guards’ approach, shrinking against the flimsy shelters, darting into shadows to avoid the batons that could come down at any point in the savage passage. Ari could see that they were all branded with his Mark, the burns of ownership black and ragged on their skin.
They walked past 16 pits like open tombs, where heretics against the Minotaur were thrown to burn and die, as flaming coals, rubbish and waste was flung upon them. Other pits were ringed with men shouting, betting what little they had on the brawling below, witnesses to a fight that could only end in death. Ari saw the hollowed look in the people’s eyes, the same one she had worn those years ago and she felt a rising fear. It wouldn’t be easy to escape again.
At the edge of the shantytown labyrinth, the guards pushed Ari to climb up rungs o
f steel inside one of the main towers and their lewd comments were soon silenced by physical exertion. Part of her wanted to smash her boot into the face of the guard below, to kick him off into the gaping space so that his body smashed on the ground beneath, giving the pitiful crowd some hope of defiance. But Ari squashed those feelings down, for her ill-tamed bravado could not help Elyse that way.
“Move it, bitch.” The voice came from below and Ari forced her arms to pull her up faster, finally arriving at the top. There was a wide platform that looked out over the city below, a window to the ruined world outside and a single door. When Ari had left, this tower had been an empty space, climbed only for lookout duty. Now it had clearly been converted into accommodation for him and those under the Blessing, far removed from the squalor below and more easily defended.
The guards became quiet and respectful as the one of them knocked on the door, the sound echoing down into the deep shaft below. Ari glanced out of the window to the horizon, the rim of the sun only inches away. Another few minutes and the ritual would begin. Her heart beat faster at the sound of approaching footsteps.
The door opened to reveal a young girl, her eyes downcast, her body hunched as one broken and without hope. Was this Elyse, Ari thought, scanning her features. But no, she would be in preparation, so this must be the one she would replace. For like the Minotaur of ancient Greece, this monster took new life each month to serve his needs, before discarding the girls to the pandemonium below.
“He’s busy,” the girl whispered. “You cannot disturb him now.”
“He will want to see me,” Ari said firmly, stepping forward. “Tell him a lost daughter has returned to beg for his mercy.”
The girl’s eyes flickered upwards, meeting Ari’s green ones with a glimmer of hope. Perhaps they had heard tales of an escapee, Ari thought, perhaps she had provided them with some kind of dream of a future where freedom didn’t mean certain death in the wilderness.