It suddenly seemed appropriate and Alaire even hinted to as much in his message. Seeing the Arch-Traitor could also be the most uneventful part of this entire endeavor. Thanks to the ice that interred him, he could not do anything worse than look upon me angrily.
The vehicle moved on for some time at full speed before it finally began to slow. The gears made a mechanical, rattling sound that warned of a breakdown if nothing were done to prevent it. Alaire had yet to find a vehicle capable of withstanding the permanent iciness for very long.
The wipers and defroster had to work without ceasing in order to push away the icy sheet that continually formed across the windshield. I barely made out the great entrance to the main building as the vehicle came to a grinding, then a screeching halt. Before I could respond, the back hatch popped open. Something dark skittered in and yanked out my sword before bolting into the building proper.
In the light beams from the headlamps, I saw a flash of leg. Apparently, a reptilian imp had just stolen my last remaining asset for survival…
“Bloody bastard!” I yelled after it, realizing what this now meant. I was human and now unarmed and in the worst level of the Underground City.
Part of Alaire’s design, to be certain. He knew I could not survive without a weapon especially in my current human state.
I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I had to survive. Lily needed me. I pushed open the door, which creaked on the hinges in the icy air. I shook and flexed my fingers and toes to keep the blood flowing while shifting my legs from side to side. My bare chest ached as the permafrost tried to form on it. My torn, stained trousers scarcely kept the cold off my legs. A lesser man would have been dead already from such an icy onslaught. But even without Donnchadh, I was no ordinary mortal. Druid blood still flowed through my veins and even now, in this place, I drew strength in that knowledge.
I whispered the words of my ancestors and sparked an internal fire to protect myself from the worst cold. Steam rose off my head and shoulders and my body temperature rekindled in response. I could probably maintain my inner fire for some time. But my strength was its only kindling, and such a spell would wear out eventually.
I glanced at the Asylum’s arched gate with trepidation. Even with my advanced skills, the beasts dwelling within it were no trifling matter. I required every weapon, strategy and skill at my disposal in order to make my way back to the Wood. But first I had to arm myself again. As I finally got out from the vehicle, the door creaked shut and the car suddenly pulled away as if it, too, were seeking warmer weather. Hearing the rattling motor, I doubted it would even make the distance back to the checkpoint. Facing the gate once again, I prepared to enter my worst nightmare.
###
There was no escaping the cold. The ubiquitous fog saturated the walls of the Asylum like an icy blanket. The “lobby” was thick with it. I stepped inside one of the massive oak doors and immediately caught the sculpture of a snake. The entrance was rather large, leading to a waiting room of sorts. The space was littered with broken, unused chairs that were piled high or set out in uneven rows. In a few of the chairs sat men and women who were totally covered in hoarfrost. A massive circular desk, heaped with stacks of innumerable files, took up the center. A creature that could have almost passed for human glanced up from his endless tasks and meaningless work. He was filling out charts and filing admission paperwork. Everything was covered in a thin layer of freezing, white ice that hung everywhere.
“Assss I livvvve and breeeeathesssss.”
Through the mist, I watched a creature that seemed to take the shape of a curvy woman. Her body proportions were perfect to the eye, like a well-balanced blade. When I approached, the fog pulled back from the desk, and I saw the fiend for what it truly was.
“Margreet.”
She was the keeper of the Asylum and without her blessing, I would have a hell of a time getting past this waiting room.
She leapt over the desk and approached me with slinking, violent movements. Her figure may have passed for human in the half darkness but the rest of her features were as serpent-like as they could be. Coiling and bundling up her body inside a nurse’s outfit that could have come from Persephone’s wardrobe, her human face reared up into mine.
“You’ve got a lot of ballsssss to dare come here unarmed,” she said, hinting that she intended to take advantage of that fact.
“Mah fight isnae with ye, Margreet,” I told her, holding up my hands. “Ah jist need ta know which way the imp went with mah sword.”
Margreet ignored me for a moment as she balanced on her thick tail and slithered back and forth in front of me.
“What if I help you?” she asked, flicking her very human tongue as she passed by my front. I balled my fists and attempted to channel more strength away from the fire growing inside me in case any violence erupted.
“Margreet, dinnae play gam…”
“Even down here, I hear sssssstories,” she interrupted me as casually as a friend might. “More than a few of them involve Alaire and hissssss plansssss for thisssss ccccccity. And don’t get me ssssstarted on what he’ssss ssssupposedly doing with thosssse Retrieverssssss.”
I raised my eyebrows. Aye, she could have been lying about what she had just said about the Retrievers in order to get my attention. But she never had any love for Alaire and now she sounded as though she were willing to tell me more. “What have ye heard?”
She slinked back toward her desk. Resting against its frozen edge, a short tower of folders cracked and fell to the ground, sounding like glass breaking. One of the bodies near us twisted its head as much as its freezing muscles would allow. Margreet hissed and hurled a block of files at the soul. Turning back to me, she waggled a finger in front of my face.
“I think you know what I want; tell me before I sssssspill anymore sssssecrets.”
I absolutely knew what that old spy desired: she wanted her previous body back. Truth be told, if I were still the master when Margaretha Macleod met her end in front of a firing squad, I would have kept her as a concubine or at least made her one of my own agents. But Alaire, had no use for the woman, much less for her talents, so he cast her into the pit with the other liars and sneaks, dooming her to file the paperwork of the damned. The snake body was just Alaire being an arse on top of it.
“If ye hear as much ye say ye do,” I said carefully, “ye know Ah’m nae the master anymore and, therefore, can’t help ye.”
She shrugged indifferently. “Doessssssn’t mean you couldn’t get me sssssome other corporeal being.” Margreet slithered back over the desk into her chair. “Oooh, well… maybe it’sssss jussssst wissssshful thinking.”
“If ye can point me towards the imp what’s got me sword, Ah will help ye if Ah can, Margreet.”
She studied me for a moment, her unblinking eyes calculating the sincerity of my words. Then she finally nodded. “On one point, all the sssstoriessssss agree, Tallisssss Black… that you are eternally a man of your word.” Then she pointed her scaly arm to my right, indicating an open set of double doors.
“Ah will try tae bring ye what ye desire,” I said firmly. “Boot Ah make nae promises as tae when.” I nodded my thanks to her and started to depart.
“Remember me,” she called out, making me stop in my tracks. “And be careful. Alaire ssssssent a number of hisssss agentsssss down here sssshortly before you arrived.”
I turned around to see her cold smile, so worthy of her reptilian features. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d sssssay he not only knows you’re here, but he has no intention of you ever leaving.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Ye think, lass?”
###
Leaving Margreet, I skirted the desk until I could circumvent the clutter surrounding it. Then I headed into the hallway she indicated. As I walked under the threshold that was labeled “EAST WING” in oxidized bronze lettering, I paused and turned back toward the mist-covered desk.
“Thank ye kindly, Margreet. Ye can
be sure that Ah’ll remember this always.”
With a dismissive hiss while waving a desultory hand in my direction, she returned to scratching on a piece of paper. Taking the hint, I pushed on.
Almost immediately, the people confined in the cells greeted me. Both sides of the hallway seemed to go on forever with padded rooms that were sealed by rusty doors made of ice-covered iron bars. The people’s souls were crammed together and covered with ice. In some rooms, the ice only reached their ankles or shins, and the souls shivered in their freezing nakedness. In other cells, the souls were encased in ice, their pain unimaginable as their bodies suffered the effects of undergoing freezer burn for all time.
Knowing who these souls were in life did not ease the difficulty of beholding their torment as I looked upon them now. Nor was it was lost on me that long ago, when I called myself the Master of the Underground, I had no cares or concerns about anyone here. Empathy was rightly considered a weakness for any man who occupied my position.
Strange to see the necessity for that emotion now.
Drawing from memory, I would soon approach one of the numerous guard shacks. In times past, the rooms would have been occupied by a few Watchers and occasionally, a greater imp in training. The imp would torment all souls with promises of warmth before throwing buckets of ice water over them. Afterwards, the imps would throw warm water over the ice water, effectively allowing the souls to thaw out before gradually freezing them again.
The Watchers would be easy to overcome. Even at my most human, they posed no true challenge. Brittle as a sheet of ice, they broke just as easily. However, a greater imp was a far more troubling opponent. But using my innate speed and natural skill, I knew I could dispatch any of them. If two or more imps happened to be in the guards’ quarters…
The chilly mist cleared away as I approached an intersection. In the frost covering the ground, I noticed a set of tiny prints trailed by a curving line that seemed to be drawn into the ice. No doubt, the markings belonged to my sword and its thief. I crouched next to a crumbling wall beside a room that had collapsed onto itself. Half frozen limbs jutted out of the snow-covered rubble. The limbs still twitched and the fingers grasped at nothing but the frozen air. I peered around the corner to get a better glimpse of the guards’ quarters.
I spotted several Watchers wearing tattered male nurse uniforms, as I expected. But it was not those peons that snatched the breath right from my lungs. It was the three greater imps lounging around a card table in the room that gave me pause. Were it not for their overbites and fangs, along with the fur on their bodies, and their grating voices that seemed to bubble out of their throats, they could have passed for human.
Damn ye, Alaire. I thought to myself. Margreet was nae lyin’ when she spoke o’ yer agents bein’ afoot.
The imps were the closest thing to a standing army the Underground City had. All were demons that originally hailed from the City of Dis. Thanks to changes Alaire made after my time, each level within the city now had its own particular set of imps. The ninth circle’s imps were something akin to the Yeti from the old legends. Even the little bastards I was chasing were stronger than most human men. And I was currently observing three full-sized ones. Curse my bastard luck!
If I entered the middle of the hallway, they would be on me in a matter of seconds. I looked around for anything with which to defend myself. A lengthy piece of rusty rebar stuck out of the collapsed room. Above it, I could see the next floor of the building. All at once, an idea hit me. Mayhap I could travel over the room rather than through it.
Pulling back from one corner, I tested the stability of several lower chunks of rubble from the immense pile standing just before me. Looking around to ensure no one saw me, I put a foot up and hoisted myself halfway up the pile. I took several steps before something caught my leg. One of the hands, frostbitten and raw from the cold, latched onto my ankle. I tried to shake it loose but was not immediately successful. A wailing moan emanated from the rubble. It was loud enough for me to worry that someone would hear it and come down to investigate.
As my terrible luck would have it, something around the corner grunted with puzzlement. No Watcher ever made such a noise which meant an imp would soon be coming my way. I jerked away from the hand, ripping off two blackened fingers as I did so. Scrambling up the pile with haste, I began batting away several other grabby, bloody hands along the way. Something below me snarled and I froze, only moving my eyes far enough to catch the movement from the corner of my peripheral vision.
One of the furry beasts was crouched at the base of the rubble, sniffing the air and making noises. The hand that I escaped from wiggled in its prison, flexing its three remaining fingers. The imp moved closer to the forearm to which the hand was still attached, sniffing it loudly.
I moved slowly toward the loose piece of rebar, intending to arm myself with it. While it would not kill the demon, I could surely incapacitate it long enough to make my escape. The creature shifted along the base of the rubble, sniffing and occasionally flicking out its greasy, black tongue as though it were trying to catch a bit of falling snow.
I pulled a leg up, then my other foot. I was close enough to the top now that I could see down both directions of the hall. No guard shack here, just more cells as far as the fog allowed me to see. I was on the second level’s frosty floor.
The imp howled, making me stop dead in my tracks. Jerking my head down, I fully expected to see the demon charging up the rubble, while breaking or slicing any limbs in its way.
To my relief, the beast only howled in excitement when it found the severed fingers I broke off the hand that grabbed me. As I kept climbing to the relative safety of the second level, the greater imp nibbled on the gangrenous fingers with savage glee. Off in the rubble, someone groaned for their lost digits.
I took the second floor’s bare hallway as slowly as the first. Again, room after room of frozen souls lined both sides. Several times, I passed branching hallways that led to dead ends but my memory of the place kept me on the right path. Still, I’d never entered this place as a mortal and that knowledge kept me looking over my shoulder more often than I was accustomed to.
Ironic that I only ever wanted to rid myself of Donnchadh but now I wanted nothing more than to join him again, if only so he could protect me in this hellish place. Dame Fortuna seemed to have a wicked sense of humor.
I eventually found a grand staircase that led back to the first floor. The staircase was also close to the entrance of the basement, the perfect hiding place where that little imp could crawl in with its ill-gotten loot. As I tiptoed down the rotten, frozen steps, I could hear a creature approaching. This time, I was truly stuck in place. There was nowhere for me to go but back up. There was no other way to get down into the basement.
Heavy, ice-crushing steps approached from the darkness and fog. I crouched against a banister, tightly clutching the rebar I had found in the rubble earlier. As anticipated, a greater imp materialized from the mist. It was dragging a half-frozen corpse beside it and using what looked like a femur to pick its jagged teeth. I needed to move past it and quickly.
I could see a nondescript door that was no more than a few paces away. I needed to reach it and quickly. I could just make out the little footsteps in the snow and the blade-drawn line behind it leading me down.
My attention was fastened on the beast as it began to climb up the stairs, with the corpse in tow. I calculated the distance, taking into account its great height. If I could hit the beast with the rebar on the exact spot of its pudgy nose, my blow would throw it off balance long enough to shove it down the stairs. Which, in turn, would allow me enough time to make it to the door.
I took several deep breaths, and the cold air chafed my throat.
For Lily, I thought before standing up.
“Och Aye, ye bloody codger!” I howled as I launched the rebar at him like a javelin.
The imp looked at me with a blank expression before the metal hit hom
e. The rebar flew straight and true, striking the demon squarely in the middle of its gnarled face. With a pinched growl, the imp staggered back, teetering on the edge of the stair. I seized my moment and leapt off the steps. My legs flexed as I bounded toward the beast, putting my shoulder low and tucking my head in. Throwing my entire body into the creature’s hefty gut, I propelled myself at him, without allowing him any possible chance of regaining his balance.
We tumbled forward together, the imp’s arms and legs flailing as it fell, its corpse snack lost and forgotten on the steps above. The imp hit the ground with a shattering crash. Panels of wood and chunks of masonry exploded everywhere from under it, propelling shards of sharp ice in every direction. I rolled off the furry thing and jumped to my feet, sprinting for the door. A faded exit sign hung above it and as I threw open the door, I noticed everything past it was bathed in black.
I could hear the imp staggering to its feet. It bellowed at me loud enough to shake loose a row of knife-like icicles above the doorway. Diving through the red metal door before it slammed shut behind me, I found myself plunged into eternal darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bill
When you’re a genu-wine guardian angel like me, ya get ta know all there is ta know about bad situations ‘cause you’re forever tryin’ ta rescue some dumbass human from one. Hey, it’s in the job description… ya don’t like it? Do something else. Can’t say I ever loved bad situations, ya knows, but I ain’t gonna grouse about them neither. Still, there’re bad situations, and terrible situations, and fugazi situations, and fubar situations… and then there’s the situation I landed in after Lils left with her care package of grub.
That care package of grub wasn’t exactly ample and I had to rebuild my strength. Yeah, my flabs (fat-abs) looked like a crossed section of a deflated volleyball and a crushed beer can. An’ as for the backside o’ me? I was now definitely in the lack-o’ass camp. No way could I restore my former dad bod on the few breadcrumbs Nips left for me. But the meager eats kept my stomach quietidy for the first time in… damn! How long ago had things gone south for the hell-winter again? Don’t matter anyway. Point is: after pumpin’ some groceries inta my stomach, I could finally start to think straight again.
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