Hell's Gifts - Complete Series Boxset

by Mark Russo

  She stepped backward.

  When I could see the roof of the building, I decided I was tall enough.

  Emma tried her override skill again.

  Before she could, I growled in her direction and wrapped her abdomen with both my oversized hands.

  She raised both of hers in surrender.

  The kids were grappling behind Akko’s back.

  Emma bowed in my direction; it was over.

  Everyone clapped and cheered us.

  We savored the moment, watching the young people give us another round of applause.

  Akko led the shuffling students inside the building; I saw him use his stick more than once to guide them. We should tell him not to do that. Some of them were mimicking what they had just seen. One guy was slapping his face.

  Emma came by my side and leaned on me. “I did not know how tall you could grow. I got a little scared, I must admit.”

  “It worked with the Marcovians as well. They ran, despite all their anger.”

  “They were only mad at you because they thought you worked with Valu. But that’s not important now. We have to go somewhere.”

  “Are you bringing me somewhere nice?”

  “It can be. I’ve had a vision about a place in the mountains. We should check it out.” She didn’t wait for me to say anything when her hand opened a portal.

  We didn’t waste more time and entered it.

  *****

  The other side of the portal revealed a mountain landscape that would have looked amazing with a sun shining on it. The planes’ merger had turned the sky into a kaleidoscope of weather conditions, so I could not say whether I liked this place. A mild fog covered the area, and its greenish color heightened my senses,

  “So, do you recognize this area?” I asked Emma, cutting to the chase.

  “Yes. That’s exactly it.”

  We stomped on the gravel road.

  “What do you remember of your vision?”

  “I was walking on this very same path. It was very sunny. I did not meet anyone until a certain point where the road turns right.” She pointed in that direction.

  “Okay, so what happens after we turn the corner?”

  “Well, what I saw was Maria. But it was not her. Not our dear friend.”

  “I’m not sure I’m following.”

  “It was just like that. I can’t explain any better.”

  “Let’s just hope we’ll find her here and we can bring her home.”

  She nodded, but her body retained a weird stiffness.

  We moved farther. I’d expect animals swarming in a place like this, but no birds were soaring in the greenish sky, and, if any insects were here, for sure they were keeping away from us.

  “I started thinking Vihkan might have something to do with all this,” Emma stated out of the blue.

  “Well, we do not have enough to say that. But, if you have doubt, we must pay her a visit.”

  When we turned the corner, we did not see Maria but something else—someone else.

  A bald man in a long leather trench coat watched us.

  My heart knocked rapidly inside my chest. A rockjet rustled at full intensity around me.

  Emma grabbed my elbow.

  The man eyed us once more before jumping off the cliff.

  All the energy I had allocated for my skills returned, straightening my spine with renewed vigor.

  Both Emma and I ran to the edge of the path and looked down. A large canyon lay under our noses, a steep granite wall running down for hundreds of meters.

  The man plummeted. His coat, inflated by the air resistance, looked like a semi-open parachute. His body slowed and rose again; he was flying. He glided left and ended his flight at the bottom of the canyon away from our sight.

  “Can we go there?” Emma cried out by my side.

  “How?”

  “Let’s use your board.”

  “Down this ravine?”

  “I won’t let us fall. Let’s go, please.”

  “Why?” I screamed too.

  “We have to talk to him. Let’s go.”

  I bit the bullet, conjured a stone board and hopped onto it. In no time, we were cruising along the mountainside, with only the right extremity of the board biting into the rock. On our left, the depth of the canyon stared at me. I kept my eyes on my objective: the valley below us.

  Emma gripped my shirt with all her strength. If she pulled any harder, the cotton would tear.

  I tried talking to her, but the board’s grinding noise proved too loud. I looked down instinctively; my legs shook, and a shiver ran down my spine. A lot of things came to my mind, but I tried to focus on the good ones. The image of fresh laundry my aunt would hang as I tormented her, running in all directions, came first. I clung onto that. My breath found its rhythm again, and my hands shook less. I fixated on keeping my head straight. With the safety of my thoughts behind me, I returned to the present to see we were still speeding down the cliff.

  The canyon appeared much closer to us but without a trace of the man who had taken flight seconds before.

  My stomach rumbled, as I had skipped my lunch, but I ignored it. We had drawn so close to the valley that looking down would not trigger any dizziness or vertigo.

  When the board stopped and my ear got some rest, Emma dismounted and ran toward the man making some obvious gestures for us to follow him. Laying on the ground by his side was another person, but I could not clearly see them.

  I hesitated from considering the worst.

  5

  Valu

  “Shouldn’t we be running?” Vagras asked over his shoulder. His voice sounded as heavy as if he had been running a hundred kilometers.

  “I said the spider will catch our fugitive. We just need for it to emit the signal.”

  He inspected every single bush and shrub we passed; I was not sure he had heard me. “I see. I’m just looking. You never know if our thief has friends waiting for us around here.”

  I just let him do his thing. He would see for himself once we catch our crook.

  When the high-pitched blare of the spider spread through the air, Vagras’s cheeks lifted all the way up. “Let’s go!” He ran toward the sound like a kid who’s eyed an ice cream stand in the middle of a desert.

  I followed him without quickening my pace.

  We found the source of the racket farther ahead between two nearby trees, their branches entwined in tangled knots. The spider had trapped a feeble creature—either a kid or a tiny adult—hidden by a cloak with a hood.

  I approached our prisoner and revealed his face.

  Vagras grabbed a long stick from the ground and pointed it at them.

  I grabbed our fugitive, and it squirmed a little. Its hood fell, and my thoughts froze. I was holding a tiny Marcovian robot. Judging by its looks, it was older than this planet.

  “What is that? Is this some kind of prank?” Vagras cried out, peeking over my shoulder.

  “No, it’s not. This thing is a Marcovian product.”

  His reaction proved more interesting than the robot itself; he yelled at first then paced left and right. “I cannot believe this. We had a deal with those people,” he said repeatedly.

  “Calm down. This must mean something. Maybe they wanted us to find this robot.”

  “And what for? If they wanted to talk to us, they could have just done that. Talk to us.”

  “I have to agree with that. Maybe we’re missing something.” I inspected the marred piece of technology in my hands.

  Rust covered its joints, and the spider I had used did not improve things. The small automaton had a humanoid appearance, but it was missing crucial details, like mouth, ears, or fingers. The spider had carved two large holes in the creature’s chest. A weird liquid poured from two large holes the spider had carved in the creature’s chest.

  An embossed emblem on its forehead caught my eye. “Look at this. This is not the symbol of the Marcovian Army; however, I still swear they had crea
ted this thing.”

  “Whatever you say. This thing’s old. Maybe they changed their decorations.” Vagras checked the regalia I was pointing at and touched it.

  We heard a slight click. Then everything went dark.

  *****

  When I opened my eyes again, I was not in the Russian woods anymore. I found myself sitting on a metallic chair in a large, squared room. Neon lights brightened the space, revealing a lot of equipment all around me—tables and stools, microscopes, wall computers, and 3D printers. That made it clear; I was in a Marcovian base somewhere. Judging by the tools’ cleanliness, I surmised someone had recently used them.

  I walked to the end of the lab where a large plastic tent hid the rest of the room. My curiosity got the better of me. I squeezed my head through it to see an enormous hangar devoid of vehicles but containing something else. I needed to find a light switch first. I turned my back to the hangar to face the lab again and realized I was no longer alone. “I can’t say kindness is the feature that describes you best.” My voice rose a little.

  “I don’t think you’re in a position to make complaints, Valu.”

  “You know my name. With whom do I have the pleasure to talk?”

  The wizened Marcovian sat on a stool that creaked and scratched the linoleum floor. “My name is Hekran. I am part of the science group. We brought you here because we need you to do something for us.”

  “Wait a second. What is the science group?”

  The brownish humanoid scoffed and looked away. “You don’t seem to know much about my people, but you still decided it was worth stealing from us.”

  “That is what we do. We colonize other worlds. You still did not answer my question.”

  “The science group and the army work together, but we are not a part of the armed forces. Are you happy now?”

  I sat too, the farthest away I could from the four-fingered being. “Why did you bring me here? I don’t think it’s because you need a new friend.”

  He pointed at me with one of his stumpy arms and approached a gigantic wall computer. The device buzzed before turning on then flooded the room with blue light. A tri-dimensional model of a spacecraft appeared.

  “This is one of your fantastic spaceships. What do I have to do with it?” I asked.

  My captor glared at me. “We do not have this yet. Our knowledge in planar travelling is too limited to achieve this.” He tilted his head toward the gleaming screen.

  I exhaled and looked down. “And you want me to help you.”

  “You will help us, because you owe us!”

  “Let’s say we do this. How many of your guys will give me a hand?”

  His body posture relaxed. “We already trained a dedicated team for this. You can start working right now.”

  “Why all the rush?”

  He leaned his heavy body on a metal table. “When was the last time you looked around? These merged planes, everything is dying.”

  I blinked several times.

  “The thing you took from me should revert all this. We can still save our worlds.” The Marcovian engineer touched a few digital buttons on the oversized screen to produce a big graph with lots of data. “Look at this however you want. This algorithm suggests we won’t.”

  I stepped closer to the big numbers and lines. “How much time do we have?” My voice sounded like a lament.

  “Not enough. We will have to work day and night to do this.”

  “Can we bring them? My … friends?”

  “Yes, we’ll make space for them too.”

  My eyes widened. “Great. But next time, just ask me.”

  He grunted something before turning and heading for the door.

  “Where is Vagras?” I asked when his wrinkly hand was already wrapped around the doorknob.

  “He’s safe, and he will be. Don’t worry about that. I’ll send your team in very soon so you guys can start working on the vehicle.” Then he left.

  I went to the chair I had awoken on and searched all my jacket’s pockets—even the tiniest internal ones. They had wiped it clean; I had lost all the artifacts I had on me. I went to the door and found it locked, but I still wanted to check it. I needed to search the hangar. I lunged through the curtains like a projectile.

  I found another door. If I was lucky enough, it would lead outside. I punched it, pushed it, kicked it; the lock just would not break. I paused to gather my thoughts. I spied something I had noticed before on the other side of the hangar—huge metal pieces, probably those the Marcovian hoped I would turn into a planar-travelling spacecraft.

  When I got closer, what I had assumed proved to be true. They were two huge reactors, probably ten meters long each and about a couple wide—a large motor, those they power with the mineral I could never find in this plane. I saw something smaller covered with a large piece of cloth.

  “You’d better leave that where it is,” another Marcovian voice said behind me.

  “Okay, I’ll leave it where it is. I was just getting an idea of what I am dealing with.”

  He almost smiled. “Yes, I am the same. I want to know everything I need to know from the beginning. My name is Nalja, forgot to mention that.”

  We nodded at each other.

  “Hekran said I’d get a dedicated team. I was expecting more of you guys here.”

  He grunted. “Yes, we will have more people with us. I just wanted to guide you through the basics before getting started.”

  “Sure thing. Let’s get to it.”

  6

  Emma

  “Help him! I don’t know what’s going on with him!” the flying man yelled.

  “Do not touch him! Get away from him,” I said in a loud voice.

  “Can we do anything?”

  “No. We just need to stay away.”

  The guy’s eyes watered a little, so he wiped them with his wrist.

  The other person laying on the valley’s wet ground was already shaking as fast as he could. A few seconds later, the shaking body disappeared from our sight.

  The bald man’s jaw dropped. He looked around and brought his hands to his smooth scalp. “Where did he go?”

  “Something has happened, and people are being affected by it,” I said.

  “This was the younger of my kids. Now both have encountered the same fate.” His voice was breaking. He turned his back to us.

  James stared at a point in front of himself, expressionless.

  “Can we do something else to help you?” I asked.

  The man faced me again and exhaled. “You seem to know what’s happening around here. Can you please tell me what is going on with those mountains?”

  I was not sure I understood him correctly.

  “Okay, follow me.” He leaped in the air and took flight above us.

  “I’m afraid we have to use your skateboard again,” I told James.

  He nodded and created one.

  The bald man led us through the canyon curves that unraveled like spires of a snake. The rock wall on our sides grew taller as we moved along.

  “Do you think this guy belongs to another Path? One we do not know?” James screamed to be heard over the whooshing wind.

  “I do not know what to think. Let’s see if we can help him though.”

  The canyon widened after yet another curve and crossed its path with another much smaller one. A small water stream flew through it. When we drove over it, water sprayed much higher than I expected.

  “We should do this more often!” James screamed.

  We finally shared a smile.

  The canyon opened up even more into a large valley; trees covered the sides where the mountains rose high, covering the few rays of light still reaching it. But that was not what struck me the most. The peaks in front of us had somehow detached from the ground and floated meters from the ground. Three giant blocks of rock hovered above us like islands in the sky.

  The bald guy landed by our side. “This is what I was talking about. We live there.�
�� He pointed at the bigger island in the middle.

  “Whom do you live there with?” James asked.

  “Other people like me. Flying people.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” I said.

  “I’d like to show you. You have powers too. Can you fly as well?”

  We shook our heads.

  “I cannot fly, but I can get there,” I said.

  “I think I might get there somehow too,” James said.

  A long furrow appeared on the guy’s forehead. “Okay, meet me in the basecamp. It’s a bunch of tents. You can’t miss it.” His voice was brittle even when talking about camping. He jumped into the air and rose fast from our field of vision.

  “What do you have in mind?” I asked James.

  “You’ll see. See you there.”

  I conjured a double on the highest point I could see of the central island and exchanged my position with her. And that was it; I was there.

  James was still where I had left him—maybe a few hundred meters away as the crow flies. He turned into a giant and ran in my direction. His size grew with every one of his stomps. I could not say how tall he became eventually but for sure big enough to jump on the island. He landed out of my line of sight. When his feet touched the ground, it shook like an earthquake.

  I ran. There wasn’t a beaten path among the bushes and shrubs, so I did my best to maintain my pace. I did not count how many tree branches slapped me or nettles plants stung me, but I made it. I reached James to see had returned to his human shape. “Do you have any idea how you’ll get back from here?”

  “I’ll do the same thing as I just did.” We shook our heads while chuckling. “I feared for a moment I would land on that person’s camp. But I realized this only after having taken a leap.”

  “Good thing you didn’t then. Did you spot any tents around here?”

  “I think I might have. Follow me.”

  We climbed a small, pebbled hill with scattered patches of grass and descended a steep dirt road. A small thicket followed next.

  “Are you sure this is the way we should go? I don’t remember doing this much physical activity in ages,” I asked.

  “Yes, don’t worry. I thought we could use the exercise, you know?”

  “I’ll just ignore that and hope you’re not forcing me to do this just to work on my physique.”