Hell's Gifts - Complete Series Boxset

by Mark Russo

  “We can’t proceed any further with Emma. Her skills have grown beyond our control, and we’ve already been here once. We can’t do it again.”

  “The situation you faced with James was much different, Mr. Sweet. You lost control over him at a much earlier stage in his conversion process.”

  I snickered. “You were not here, Charles. They charged me with those accusations, but it was Aaragul who interfered with the plans. And he’s doing it again.”

  He scoffed. “Those accusations are hearsay. You never proved anything.”

  I jumped off the chair and onto the table. “I brought evidence, but the Great Communion didn’t care. They were looking for a scapegoat, and they pointed at me.” My ridiculous body paced on his shiny desk. “I don’t have enough elements to judge, but we all know the Communion might be harsh.”

  He took a long breath. “Let’s say I believe what you’re saying. What do we do?”

  “Emma’s level of humanity dropped too fast. She improvised a Mindblast.”

  “Oh, dear. How did she even manage that?” His voice became squeaky, and my desire to stab him returned.

  “I have no idea. This human looks just as good as James. They both advanced quickly with their skills.”

  The hardwood floor creaked in front of us.

  “Do you have a way to handle this?” he asked.

  “I gave her a mark.”

  “So, you’ve already decided. We should have discussed this before.”

  If he was angry, I had no intention to handle it.

  “The last time this happened, Charles, we got very close to losing our chance to enter this world. For good.”

  He uttered some gibberish sounds.

  “This is to protect you, school dean. We’ll abandon on our conversion process, but things with proxies are going just fine instead.”

  He nodded. “It would have been better if you had informed me upfront. I can’t do much now, even if I agree with you. To some extent—”

  The door behind my back squeaked, and both Charles and me looked at it.

  “It’s quite a windy day. As I was saying, I only partially agree with you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Emma will become part of Plane K. Aaragul will take her. Did you think about the consequences of this?”

  I hadn’t. but I couldn’t admit to that. “I did. In the long run, if our invasion plan works, she’ll not mean much. She would not be the first human kept prisoner there.”

  We both laughed.

  “Aaragul will see this as a present. It’ll stop him from bothering us.”

  Charles smiled. “That is what he’ll do. He’ll stop acting like a loose cannon and wait for the rest of the Great Communion members before entering this Plane.” Sneider rubbed his hands together. “I’m convinced now. You did a good job. I’ll also ask for your body to be restored to its original shape.”

  “Thanks, honey. I’m in love with you as well.” I couldn’t help it. Making fun of him was just too good.

  We were sharing a mutual-understanding laughter when the window behind Charles shattered, and the beast entered the room. The creature hit Charles on the head, bending and cracking his cranium. Blood exploded from his face as he collapsed.

  A stone worm coiled above me and the Dean’s body. I could not control it; it was not a Mind creature and the Great Communion was still in Plane K.

  It meant I had to fight.

  Having conjured a shitload of Doubles proved very effective, as the gigantic stone cord smashed into them without caring which it hit. It seemed pure, blinkered frenzy moved its actions. It was a harmless but very noisy process. The hellish racket did not distract me, as all students were proxies by then. If all went according to plans, of course.

  The stone worm seemed to resent the abrupt transition to Plane R, the one humans populate. Lesser creatures like that one have very limited room for maneuver when separated from one of the Communions.

  I could have avoided fighting; maybe the creature would destroy the building, but I didn’t really care about that. I was interested in something else. I spammed more mes around the room and prepared for the attack. I wanted to use a Mindblast myself, as Emma did on that Vara. It required lots of energy and a very high level of concentration, given the fact that summoning Doubles heavily limited my powers.

  The serpent bashed down everything that stood in his path. Plane K demons, as Emma calls us, do not get tired.

  Preparing the skill proved harder than I imagined. The monster’s unpredictable movements continuously distracted me, and I struggled to find enough energy to channel only one skill. I tried some lights, again as Emma would say, and evoking those felt much easier and didn’t cause much trouble. It also worked; they hurt my opponent, but their effect appeared limited. They would not turn the fight in my favor. I wanted that fucking Mindblast.

  I focused again while hiding behind an empty bookshelf. It appeared to be the only piece of furniture not damaged or collapsed. I lost my perception of the space around me and only then did I get a clearer view of my enemy—even if I could not actually see it.

  Handling the mind of that creature, or the absence thereof, was very easy. I ordered its head to hit the wall multiple times. Each blow’s strength resonated throughout the entire room—a long series of low thuds. By the time I ended bashing its head, each rock comprising the long fiend’s body lay scattered.

  I emerged from behind my shelter to discover I could see the outside court through a fifty centimeter large hole in the wall.

  The energy giving life to those rocks remained in that trashed office. I wasted no time and prepared my body to absorb it. It felt great. I hadn’t had an energy buff since I had left Plane K, and my body reacted very positively.

  I went downstairs and brought Chunk into the room. The building felt much bigger, since no one was present.

  He brought both his hands to his head, disheveling all the thin hair wedged into his scalp. “Did you kill Charles?” I didn’t think his lips could have protruded more.

  “Nope, Chunk. See the stones laying all around the room?”

  He nodded while emitting an acknowledgement sound.

  “A stone worm came this way. It attacked us in this room. That thing killed Charles. And this is where you step in.”

  “I see. I can do that.”

  He was collaborative. Our job there was almost accomplished. Sneider’s death was a minor hiccup along the way.

  I left the giant to perform his magic on Charlie’s tattered corpse and headed to Emma’s room. I waved casually at Chunk; he didn’t pay much attention to it. It was time to say goodbye to my human. She wouldn’t belong in Plane R soon anymore.

  Outside the office where I fought my last battle, the corridor’s emptiness awaited me. No one was around; the noises the stone creature and I had created hadn’t alarmed anyone. It could mean only one thing—no actual humans remained in the building. They had changed all to proxies. It seemed this time we implemented our plans much better than the previous attempts.

  The stairs to the upper level were empty as well. Not that I took them, I just checked. After I left the elevator, I walked to Emma’s room. The door was open, and that was already quite weird. When I entered and saw everything in its right place, I thought something was wrong.

  She was not here. I searched the floor. I went to Maria’s place, her friend. They recently spent lots of time together. Again, the apartment was empty and in perfect order. I wondered where all the proxies might have gone. The rift in the woods was not much of an issue anymore, so none of them would have needed to be there.

  I searched the entire building. I didn’t meet anyone. Not a single person walked the corridors. I didn’t bother to explore the research facility. What was happening there was not important anymore, and they only granted Emma limited access to the area. She couldn’t have been there.

  I went downstairs and used the tunnel under the main flight of stairs
leading outside that I had showed her a few days ago. I was in the woods again, for the second time in a few hours.

  Something weird was around me somewhere. I perceived a presence, and, whatever it was, it was not from Plane R. Another creature, a demon, possibly had emerged from the rift. Probably having absorbed energy from the stone worm heightened my senses. I crossed the area. I sensed something much more dangerous than what had caused Charles’s death would attack me.

  When I arrived at the rift, I found it almost closed. It would imply nothing came from it—or nothing big and powerful, as my intuition suggested. I left the area and headed back.

  I was still more than two hundred meters from the school premises when a small rock hit the ground not fifty centimeters from me. I stepped forward, and two more stones, this time bigger than the previous one, plummeted to the ground just before my eyes. It was not something happening by chance. That proved to be true when many more rocks fell from the sky in all directions around me.

  I sought shelter under a big pine, hoping the odd rainfall would end, but it didn’t.

  It intensified. Bigger stones dropped at an even faster rate. I had to do something. The tree branches I was using as protection cracked and broke. I ran toward the school, trying to keep the trees’ canopy always protecting me. Only a few pieces of debris hit me by doing that.

  I was not farther than one hundred meters from EIBM’s main door when the soil below my paws rumbled and roared, like an earthquake. The ground broke open, and large sods of turf flung from the underground. Walking became hard, and soon I was crawling. Multiple stones hit me, and my stuffed animal body would not handle it that well.

  The battered soil rumbled again. This time, rock columns rose in front of me, blocking my way. He trapped me.

  “You will not turn my world into a fucking monster’s playground.”

  It stopped pouring cobbles. He was here. He had gotten rid of the Shadow we sent to track him down and travelled all the way here.

  “It’s quite late to stop that, my dear James.”

  “I’m sure you’re doing your damn thing again. I came here as fast as I could, and I will stop it. I’ll kill the human you’re training, if needed.”

  I stood and approached him; I had nowhere else to go anyhow. “No. You really got it all wrong. The human we were using is a goner. I mean, she’ll be soon. She messed up with something much bigger than her. Like you are doing, honey.”

  He also came closer. “Your appearance is much better than I remember. I guess you’re using another of your … people as a dean?” He knew the answer to that question, given that I was a damned teddy bear. “Do you have anything you’d like to share before I send you back to Plane K?” he asked.

  “Let me think. I’d suggest you spend the last days of this world as you know it with your family. But you’re stubborn and won’t listen.”

  He smirked defiantly.

  An overwhelming jet of rock exploded from below me, ripping my tiny and fragile body to shreds. That would be my last time on Plane R for a long time.

  My conscience materialized in Plane K, in an area I couldn’t remember or didn’t know at all. I was back to my original shape. How much had I miss that? A lot.

  I rapidly detached my mind from the impending Great Communion influence. I had no idea if they were pleased with my actions, but I was not very keen on finding out soon. I should have probably remained in hiding. Yes, stay there and wait for Plane R’s colonization to reach the next stage. By that time, I’d have a piece of the action too.

  I was the trainer, and I had done my best that time around.

  9

  Emma

  After having followed Mr. Sweet to the dean’s office and learning they bound me to become a sacrifice to Aaragul, I headed to my room. I started crying, but I stopped right after. Those days really had me become much tougher, almost aloof. I climbed to the building’s top floor, then the roof.

  The view of the surrounding woods and mountains held such a peaceful quality that contrasted with how things were going lately. I didn’t want to jump off the ledge, but I admit I looked down.

  I ran inside and hid in some random storage room that luckily had a key on the inside. I locked myself in, no clue if that would keep me safe. I sat and looked at the only window, a tiny vertical one, as the day lingered toward the blue of the night. I searched the narrow space for something I could use to protect me from the cold and found a blanket to cover myself.

  I heard some loud noises coming from the floor below, like someone trashing a room, but I didn’t care. All that had transpired exhausted me, and I fell asleep.

  My dreams brought me again to Plane K, despite the Vara being dead. I still didn’t understand how life and death looked there. Mr. Sweet had said it’s not that easy to explain, not that he explained what he meant.

  I was not in the cave but in a building. I climbed a spiral staircase that mimicked those in the tower I owned in TL. Better, they were those same stairs. Plane K now resembled the place I considered the safest, the one I would go to when I needed a break or just didn’t want to talk to anyone.

  I climbed; I knew I had to do that. At the top of the stairs, instead of the windows offering a view of the Luminescent Sea, I found an empty room. The only piece of furniture adorning the area was a big mirror, I would have said at least two meters tall and just as wide.

  I approached, but I couldn’t see any reflection. The glass surface was pitch black. I stared at that murky emptiness until I spotted a reflection. I got closer the glass. The mirror appeared smeared, but what I saw was not what I had expected. The normally white sclera appeared yellow. I couldn’t spot any pupils in those narrow, odd colored holes. The rest of my body appeared just as … demonic.

  I should have feared that. In any other condition, it would have upset me, but it didn’t. I knew I was losing a part of my humanity, and Plane K wanted to highlight that. There was no way back, as I’d heard many times in those days.

  I awoke at some point. Rays of lights were knocking on my eyelids long enough for me to leave Plane K once again. My mouth was dry, and I felt like a homeless person. I hadn’t showered in two days and brushed my teeth for at least twenty-four hours.

  I went downstairs while being invisible. It had been so long since I’d activated that skill that I couldn’t remember the last time I had used it. The ghost of me roamed from one room to another. I couldn’t think of anything smart to do, a plan to follow. The area I used to sleep with all the others was silent as it would be during the deep of the night.

  I moved to the recreational area and found my colleagues sitting in a circle close to a meal-cart next to an infrequently used pinball table. My attention immediately went to André. His eyes and jaw were both relaxed; the permanent sneer I remembered as the most prominent facial feature was not there. That was not him. He looked like the person I knew, but he was not.

  It was true then. All of them were no longer what they used to be—and me, sentenced to be a sacrifice to a demon. None of them talked or were doing anything peculiar, just staring into the distance. I doubted Ahmed saw me, as he just blinked—an innate reflex proxies seemed to have kept from their human bodies.

  I remembered Maria. I surveyed the room for a second than a third time. She was not here, and I had to find her.

  I continued to level -2. Once in front of that damn brick wall, I tried to conjure a Double on the other side of it, and it worked. My next step was to exchange my position with one of my doppelgangers, like I had done a dozen times while escaping Aaragul in Plane K. That worked too.

  I knew this was the place to search. If I still had a chance to save Maria, I would have to do it down there. I ran through the darkness of the corridor, a light source emanating from a room at the end of it guiding me. I had no idea what I would find there, but my heart hinted a note of fear with its strenuous attempt to bump out of my chest.

  When I finally reached the opening to the illuminated room, I f
ound myself in front of another of those portals leading to Plane K, shining in their typical green shade, now way too familiar to me. Even more interesting was what stood next to it.

  I have no better description than a pile of meat only remotely resembling a human being. It was much taller and bulkier than the average man. So, I assumed I had another demon in front of me.

  “You have a pending task, dumbass.”

  Not seeing anyone else in the room, the monstrous entity attempted an escape move, seeking shelter in the safe path the portal would have provided.

  I tapped into that Mindblast skill. The very same one Mr. Sweet was so surprised I had learned to use so quickly. I hurled the giant against the wall on the left-hand side of the doorway to the other world.

  He groused as he crashed against the brick wall, but shrieked when he plummeted to the ground. I guessed the fall caused some of his bones to break.

  I made myself visible and moved closer. “You forgot about me, monster.”

  He groaned. “Why do I feel pain? I’m not like you, fragile human.”

  I forced his ankle to twist on itself, again using my powers.

  He screamed.

  “Where is Maria?”

  His ugly and deformed visage expressed doubt. “I couldn’t find her. Only you and her remain. The others are no more.”

  I refrained from inflicting him more pain. “What did you do to the people here?”

  “Followed orders. Blood forge the humans.”

  “This means nothing to me. Give me more.”

  He chuckled. “It sucks to be you.”

  I lifted him again, forcing him to land on his broken ankle.

  He reached a higher pitch this time when shrieking. “I change humans to proxies. Then I add a little something. Enhanced movement devices.” He pointed at a trashed shelf tossed against a wall two steps behind me.

  I checked the ledges of the decrepit furniture and found several boxes. All of them contained the famous Sports Medicine Enhancement Device e-ticket I had purchased countless times in different TL worlds.

  The monster behind me slowly crawled toward the portal.