by Sawyer Black
The white queen came out, sliding through the gap left by the king’s pawn. To the edge of the board, she lined up with Henry’s king, and Henry groaned.
Satan folded his hands together. “You are not in a position of strength, young son. I am still willing to keep my original offer extended, even as you are in check.”
Henry scanned the board, his eyes roving frantically. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Do not express such weakness, young son. Your panic strengthens my strategy.”
“Shut up.” Words bitten through gritted teeth.
“Your friends are nearing the top of the stairs, young son. Time is inexorable.”
“Shut the fuck up, old man!”
His king hopped forward, and he looked up into the swirling depths of Satan’s gaze, holding his terrifying eyes until Henry’s guts quivered with an arctic dread.
Satan grinned, and his teeth ran with blood. “Now it is a game. Truly.”
The white queen slid sideways, again lining up with Henry’s king.
“In check again, you have nowhere to run, young son. I will allow you into my home, but what is mine remains mine. Can you take it from me?”
Henry’s king jumped in front of his bishop. Now in a pawn’s square, he stood in the front ranks of the battle. Exposed.
“Still denying my terms. Very well. If not what I ask, then what do you offer?”
The white bishop came forward, sliding through the gap in the king’s defense to sit diagonally from Henry’s king. Another Check.
“I am still holding out for agreement, as you have not yet shown me a willingness to fight for what you want. Earn your leverage, young son.”
The black queen’s pawn slid forward to block the white bishop.
“Time to think. Time to plan. You buy yourself only time.”
The white bishop took the pawn.
“My offer is strengthened, and I now may be in a position to demand further concessions. What say you?”
Henry’s king moved diagonally to sit in front of his knight’s pawn. Leading the charge, and his bishop and queen with no defense, Henry swallowed the vomit that frothed into his throat.
Satan leaned back, the corner of his lips rising in a sardonic smile.
“A bold denial, to which I agree.”
The white pawn in front of the king’s rook stepped forward two squares.
“And I will expose my battlements. To my gain? My detriment?”
Henry slid the opposing pawn forward, mirroring Satan’s move.
“Precarious, yet I see the need. Now, I will sow the seeds of false agreement. Be wary, young son.”
The white bishop in the center of the field ranged across the board to take the pawn in front of the black queen’s knight.
“And with the break in your line, I will offer one soul for you to take. The daughter or the mother. Your blood or Adam’s?”
The black bishop took the white bishop, and Henry’s line was restored, but the gap around his queen widened.
“It seems you have chosen the daughter. Very selfish, young son, and as you have experienced, selfishness requires punishment.”
The white queen slid over one square. In line with Henry’s exposed bishop. A single diagonal square from his king.
“In check, you see the error of your ways. Of your decisions. What do you now offer?”
Henry’s king ran from the danger, moving over one space to the edge. Blocking his rook. A pawn in front. His king had nowhere to go.
“So it is both souls or neither, then.”
The white queen’s pawn rocked forward, dragging two spaces to sit next to the opening white pawn’s position.
“I will take time to consider your offer, young son. Can you sweeten your plea?”
The black pawn in front of the king’s knight came forward. Slow and reluctant. It seemed to strengthen the king’s position, with a pair of pawns in front of him, but Henry saw the empty space behind and covered his fear with a fierce glare.
Satan nodded. “A strong rebuttal. Still willing to negotiate, even as your king suffers. I will counter, then.”
The white queen attacked, rushing forward to sit in front of the black bishop. She was poised to move on Henry’s king, and he saw no defense. Only his own queen sitting behind the lines.
“There is a way out for you, but you are only a few moves from checkmate, young son. If you kill the pastor, voiding his control over my intent, I will grant you entrance into Hell, and I will release the trapped souls of your daughter and Adam’s mother to you. Everything you have asked for.”
His bottomless eyes rolled to the side, and the devil turned his head to stare at Samantha. “Of course, she will die, but you will be free of the pastor’s control. My offer stands, and there will be no further negotiations.”
Henry couldn’t hear her, but Samantha’s form rocked with her sobs. Her eyes roving with fear and helplessness. Her mouth wide in a wail of grief and rage. Her eyes locked onto his, then swung to Amélie’s. His daughter held her hands out, but there was no contact. Or comfort.
He could finally save his daughter, but the cost was his wife. More dear than his soul, how could he agree? He looked back at the board, and suddenly realized he wasn’t the king. He was one of the pawns.
Was Owen his bishop? And Amélie his rook?
Henry’s breath came in hitching gasps. This was the choice that Mandyel had warned him about. The one he had felt coming since his death. The hardest choice. To save the world from prophecy made worse by a false profit. The price too dear.
But Pastor Owen had named Henry the false profit.
Henry was a Paladin. The pastor was the false profit.
Henry looked into the torment of Samantha’s eyes.
And you are my queen. Dear God. No!
Her eyes widened further, and she looked at the board. Satan leaned forward, his eyes intent on her face.
Henry swept his arm across the board, but his fingers passed through the pieces like brick colored smoke.
NO!
Satan pointed at the table. “Unless the queen was sacrificed. Coming out in the defense of the black.”
Amélie’s voice joining his screams, bouncing through the vast echoes of Satan’s dark words, twining around them like the vines in a tattoo.
The black queen quivered in her square, and Satan reached out to put his finger on the white king’s crown. Like Randall under the Tree before, Satan tipped the king on its side. “The white king concedes, and you are free to meet your end of our bargain, young son.”
The smoke of Samantha’s hands crawled up the table.
Henry couldn’t look away from her face. The beauty and the love etched in the lines around her mouth. Unconditional acceptance of his every fault. He had found her. Somehow, she had been his.
Samantha’s hands solidified as they neared the silver knife next to the plate in front of her. Her fingers closed around the handle, and she lifted it to her neck.
Henry’s breath left in a rush, and the crushing pain of her sacrifice lodged in his throat. He couldn’t breathe.
She smiled as she slashed the knife across her throat.
Blood washed across the table, sweeping pieces off the board.
The air denied him finally filled Henry’s lungs, and he threw his head back and screamed. The spell that had held him shattered in the face of his agony, and he rose from the chair, hurtling back toward his body, the devil’s laughter like thunder in his wake.
He sailed into the mist, the light surrounding the Tree dimming to ash. The battle in Solitude swinging out of his sight as he soared through broken buildings of the Forgotten. The trees whipping by as he broke from the fog to fly over the cracked asphalt leading to the broken fort before the open field through the glamour.
The TDVs, crumpled and charred. A glittering pool of expended brass scattered in a shining arc through the sticky, bloody mud. Dead and dying Ravagers. Demons piled from an onslaught greater than preparation.
Samantha was gone.
Henry reached down as he rocketed across the battlefield, and he scooped up the life energy of his enemies. Adam’s enemies. His wife’s torturers. His daughter’s murderers.
The energy filled him, and he stuffed it down to make more room.
More and more energy joined the rush hanging behind him as he slipped through the block walls.
Screaming Ravagers at the base of the stairs, their insanity lit by the gunfire as Henry’s friends tore up the stairwell and into the twisted dining room. Stone bursting through the door with his weapon raised. The others crowded in behind him, their faces stretched with the same horror that split the detective’s mouth in a panicked snarl.
The blood pouring out from Samantha's throat to wash across the table in a slow-motion fan. Pastor Owen’s face naked with shock, staring at her sacrifice.
Big Ben spinning with his hand on the hilt of his black sword.
Petrov Obisev diving under the table.
Blane, son of Botis, pulling leather with a manic grin.
Henry slammed into his body, rocking forward. Driving his chest into the table, he sent dishes and silverware hither and yon. His scream hit like the shattering of a sonic boom. The energy he dragged behind him roared like a gas explosion, and his eyes found hers. As soulfire raged into his body, the light left her eyes. Her smile died as she fell from the chair at Pastor Owen’s feet.
She was gone. Not free.
But Marisol was free. Amélie was free.
Henry was free.
Finally.
Henry lifted his hands over his head. He drove his fist and his coffee can hand down with a roar that tore blood from his throat to mix with the sparks that shot from his mouth. The table split in half, warping like molten steel. He flared, sending every molecule of energy he had captured from his center in an exploding wave of rolling white fire.
It hit Big Ben first, and the heat ripped the skin from his body, driving him back in a splatter of blood and bone. Blane, son of Botis disappeared in a mist of flayed skin and muscle.
Pastor Owen threw his hands up, crossing his forearms in front of his chest, and the energy drove him back, splitting out from his defense.
Henry launched from his seat with his claws overhead, the heat from his roar rippling his vision in a gnarled haze.
The power passed through Henry’s friends, his family in arms. It rolled into the Ravagers crowding into the stairwell, and they split apart from the force, showering the concrete walls with gore. The power slowed as it left the building. He felt it die as he reached the apex of his attack, and gravity brought him down on the pastor.
His claws hit Owen at the base of his throat.
He may have defended against Henry’s flare, but his flesh was no defense against the blow fueled by a demon’s rage. Henry’s claws passed through the pastor’s body, pulling his rib cage away, breaking through the bones in his arms.
The cascade of blood and intestines splattered out to paint Henry’s arms and face, showering his chest with bits of bone.
Quivering meat following his slash to paint the floor at the pastor’s feet with his own life, and the empty body slid down in a boneless heap.
“NO!”
Stone’s anguish tore into Henry’s ears, and he turned to watch the detective slip through the blood, fetching up against his fiancée‘s chair, reaching for her still form.
Trumpets in the distance.
Henry looked up, his head cocked.
Empty of thought and emotion, he stood while Pastor Owen’s life force swirled at his feet.
The flowing black curtain in the portal’s frame distended, and Satan stepped through, his goat’s foot dripping sizzling lava on the concrete floor. A black twist of horns poked through, and Henry turned away.
Aela rushed to Stone’s side. She cast a haunted look up at Henry's face. Dark hollows under her eyes turning blue like somebody diving through freezing water.
Shadows darkening his periphery as the rest of them neared, but Henry’s eyes were on Aela as she took Samantha’s head into her lap.
The trumpets grew louder, and Satan’s hand reached over Henry’s shoulder. He grabbed the pastor’s sinking soul as his hind foot popped free of the portal’s grasp. He pulled it to his snuffling nose and inhaled.
His demonic form swelled, inky smoke spinning around his horns and pulsing wings.
A deep sigh of pleasure sounded like a rock slide.
Henry’s shoulders fell, and he collapsed into the alabaster man in a silk business suit. Neat and dapper. All black. Satan smiled at Henry, and a sparkling light reflected in his ebony eyes.
Henry turned, and Aela’s healing glow flowed from her fingers into Samantha’s face. Spreading out in glistening wings. She bent forward, her hair hanging over Samantha’s eyes. One woman had saved him while he was alive. The other was saving him now. His knees buckled, and he fell into the sticky pool that had been an enemy to Hell itself
Samantha opened her eyes. She looked around, but she didn’t seek Henry with her gaze. Her eyes locked on Stone, and Henry grinned with a nod.
Fucking payment in full.
Satan’s hand fell on his shoulder. Bitter cold that shot through his bones. Seized his muscles and clamped his teeth like a Taser shock.
The hissing voice in his ears. “Not the sacrifice as I had expected, but effective. Well played, young son.”
The portal erupted in an explosion of black liquid.
It struck Henry in the back, driving him to the floor as it spread over him, washing across Samantha’s body as she rolled into Stone’s arms.
It crushed into Aela, and she disappeared in its flow.
The roar of dark power filled Henry's ears. He tumbled into its depths and sank to the bottom.
There was no more light, and when he opened his mouth in a panicked bid for air, the burning oil flowed into his mouth, choking his will as it filled his lungs and coated his mouth with the bitter suffering of a million lost souls.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Henry opened his eyes.
He pushed himself to all fours and looked at a red carpet threaded with gold. The black smear of oil from his face under his eyes. Grunts and groans behind him.
Draped in dripping pitch that barely covered the blood, they all made it to their feet, leaning into each other and holding on, trying to recover from the entry into Hell.
The large room was exotic wood. Dressed panels on the walls and ceiling. Contrasting grains and species, the expanse on each wall broken only by a single door. Three were hand-carved, with intricate vines surrounding the sculpted faces of suffering. The fourth opening was filled with the twin panels of an elevator. Wrought iron decoration, a vintage arrow pointing to the floor. Vines entwining a zero of black metal.
Henry stood and scanned for Samantha, but she wasn’t there. Wide eyes stared back at him from filthy faces, but none were hers. He didn’t see Stone or his war buddies, either.
What the fuck?
The elevator dinged behind him. Henry spun around, slinging bits of sticky black from his hair and fingers. The arrow stopped on ‘1’, and the doors slid aside. Satan stepped into the tasteful lighting and approached Henry with his hands behind his back.
He stepped forward with his fist raised. “Where’s Samantha?”
Satan stopped with his heels pressed together and smiled. “This is hardly the place for humans, young son. They have many years left in which to make the mistakes that will send them here.”
“And where the fuck is here?”
Satan’s smile widened. The seeping oil glistened at the corners of his mouth. “This is my Edifice. Below us is Hell. Above us is your escape.”
“What escape? We had a deal.”
Satan’s mouth split in a dripping grin. “And so we do, young son, and as a gift to you, I have made it so that your precious Samantha is back in her life with no memory of her time with the pastor.”
Henry’s fist
fell to his side, and he sagged with relief. “She’s back?”
“Oh, yes. And she has spread her arms for her returning hero. A life lived together because of you.”
Henry reached up to wipe at his tears, but his sticky black fingers soured his mouth in disgust. “Where is Amélie? Where’s Adam’s mother?”
“They are ready to be freed.”
“The fuck does ready mean?” Henry growled.
Satan closed his eyes in pleasure, as if Henry’s anger satisfied a craving. “I must have something in return, young son.”
“And what is that, fucker?”
Satan laughed, his hands coming from behind his back to clap in front of his chest. “I have decided that only one of you must make it out. Then I will free the souls you so desperately seek.”
Henry opened his mouth, but Satan lifted a finger to forestall his protest. The mirth left his face, and Henry rocked back from the rotting devil’s breath. “No, young son. Negotiation is over. Escape the Edifice, and the souls are released. However, if they, or Adam, ever venture from Solitude …”
Satan rushed forward, and Henry drew back, but the devil had his hands on Henry’s face before he could draw breath. His hissing voice filled Henry’s ears and mind. It echoed from the wood panels, multiplying to compress the space with his words.
“Our contract will be at an end, and I will fill that place with every despicable torture I can muster to my command for all of you. There will be no place safe from my gaze, and the souls I have given up to you will be drawn back to pay.”
Henry blinked his stench away, and Satan stood with that soft smile, his hands behind him. “And I promise you, young son. You will all pay.”
He turned on his toes, and walked back to the elevator. The doors swept open at his approach, and Satan turned as he nestled into its depths. “Mind yourself, young son. Your power may be your downfall.”
The doors closed on his smile with another ding, and the arrow slid to the bottom of the scale as the elevator descended to Hell.
Henry turned, and they all stared at him still. He held his hand out to Aela, and his throat closed with the fear that she would leave it hanging there. She took an unsteady step and held her arms open. Relief choked him, a sigh of pleasure fighting his constricting fear. She pressed into his chest. He could smell her even through all the filth, and his anger and fear fell away.