Hell's Gifts - Complete Series Boxset

by Mark Russo

  Students cheered but not loudly.

  As they entered the building, Emma drew closer to us with a dour face. “We should pay a visit to our neighbors, the flying guys.”

  “Do you think they might help us with Laura? They did not look exactly happy to see us last time,” James said.

  “I know. Do you have anything better than that? Maybe just me and Vaim should go, better not scare them again.”

  “Okay, Akko and I will bring Laura up here.”

  Akko grunted something, as per his usual.

  James summoned another stone board as Akko ran downhill, and we soon lost sight of them.

  Emma came closer to me and hinted at my so-called magic barrier.

  I activated my energy shield and had it surround us. The transparent ball let us soar in the sky, with the mountain refuge shrinking smaller below us.

  Emma was looking around—mostly beneath us—and seemed to have forgotten all her worried.

  I didn’t talk to her; it was better to let her mind rest. The three hovering rock spurs were something I had never seen before.

  “There!” she said suddenly. “See those tents?”

  “Sure, I’ll land there.”

  When we began our descent, a few people exited their tents to stare at us; I could see them talking to each other. When we finally touched the ground, one of them approached.

  His face did not say much; he had a few patches of graying beard framing his lines in a pleasant asymmetric picture. “Hello, Emma. Nice to meet you again. I see you guys have many different powers in your team. Can I help you with something?”

  “Hi, Andrew. I’m sorry for barging in like this. One of us suffered a terrible injury. Is there a medical doctor among you guys?”

  The bald man nodded his almost perfectly round head. “Yes, we do. He’s taking care of many of us, but I’m sure he might help you guys if this is an emergency.” Andrew left to check on their medical professional while the rest of them stared from a distance but stepped no closer.

  “Why are they looking at us like that? You said they can fly, right?” I asked Emma.

  “Someone with magic powers attacked them in brackets. They do not trust us much since we have those too.”

  “I would argue my powers are not exactly magical, but I guess it’s not the case.”

  Half of her mouth smiled.

  Andrew returned, followed by a much older guy with long white air. “This is François. He will help you.”

  We shook hands with the doctor. I noticed his eyebrows were way furrier than the average man.

  “I was a family medicine practitioner. I will do all I can. I understand this patient’s health condition is quite critical.”

  “Yes. We should go there as soon as possible,” Emma said.

  We got into our bubble again, and François flew with us to Laura’s location in less than three minutes.

  James and Akko were waiting for us; they kept their heads up throughout our descent.

  François approached Laura, and I released the barrier protecting her.

  She appeared to be sleeping.

  James and Akko came by our side, leaving the doctor some room to operate.

  François used an old device to sterilize her wound, but she did not react. He retrieved a few other medical tools from his black leather bag and performed some other activities I did not understand; I was never programmed to be a medical robot.

  The others did not talk while this was happening; we all stared at the hands of the old man—their patience and our hopes.

  12

  James

  The doctor took his time while assisting Laura. He spoke to her, but I could not hear what they were saying. She kept her eyes closed the entire time.

  Emma stood very close to me, but our bodies were not touching each other. Dirt covered our faces, and I was looking for the perfect words to say, but I could not manage.

  When François stood, he grunted and touched his lower back. He came to us while rubbing his hands together. “Guys, there is no easy way to say this. Your friend has lost lots of blood, and she needs a blood transfusion. We can’t do that here, unfortunately.”

  “Can we do anything else?” Emma’s voice trembled.

  “I’m afraid not, Emma. We can make her last hours less painful though.”

  “Is it a matter of hours?” I asked.

  “I can’t say precisely. I cannot assess her level of internal bleeding or the level the sepsis spreading through her system. We just do not have that type of equipment here.”

  “I—” Vaim said until Emma placed an arm in front of him.

  “Thanks a lot for your help, François. It really means a lot to us.”

  We shook hands again, then they flew away.

  Emma waited for them to become two dots above our heads then clung onto me and Vaim. “Vaim, I also thought about the Marcovians. I just didn’t want to share this information with those guys. Do you think they might help us?”

  “I can call them. We worked together recently. They might help us.”

  She brought her hands together. “Please call them. Call them now. Ask them to rush up here.”

  Vaim nodded at her then did something I had never seen him do. His eyes became empty, and I swore I saw a light behind his right one. He remained still for a moment. “Done,” he said after whatever happened had stopped.

  “Okay, okay. When will they be here?” Emma said quicker than normal.

  “It can take several minutes. Their ships are fast, but the closest one is almost five hundred kilometers away,” our robot friend said.

  “Where are we exactly?” I asked.

  Vaim’s brow furrowed. “Strange, I can’t say. My compass does not seem to work.”

  “I’ll wait by Laura’s side to wait for them,” Emma said and ran to her. Emma fell onto her knees and touched Laura’s arm.

  She did not react.

  Emma called her name.

  She did not answer.

  Vaim and I tried to, but Laura never opened her mouth.

  Emma got closer to her and laid her ear on Laura’s mouth. She slowly got up and placed a finger on her neck. “She’s not breathing.”

  Vaim got on his knees too and checked our friend’s vital signs. He rose and stepped backward, shrugging. “She’s gone, guys.”

  Emma watched me with tears in her eyes then looked down at her. “Yes, she is.”

  “Let me take care of this,” I told them both and helped Emma stand.

  “Vaim, you can inform the Marcovians,” Emma whispered.

  “I already did. Don’t worry.”

  “If you guys don’t want to see this, you can go up to the refuge. You don’t have to stay,” I said.

  They both told me they wanted to stay.

  I gathered my energies then summoned a localized rockjet on a small area underneath a tree. The hole I dug was large enough.

  We all lifted our friend’s body and delicately placed her in it.

  I lifted those same stones again and covered the pit so slowly I almost did not cause any noise. “Do any of you want to say something?”

  “We’ll say something tomorrow when we’re all here,” Emma said.

  I gave her a piece of cloth to wipe her eyes.

  Vain stood behind us, hugging us.

  We stayed there a few minutes in silence. It was not raining, and the wind was whistling through the leaves and pine needles. When it got colder, we huddled closely. I don’t remember when we got home, but it was late. None of us was hungry.

  *****

  The floor of the house was cold, despite the students doing an amazing job in cleaning everything and lighting the fireplace. Those embers would keep burning, and I lost track of time staring at them, smoldering and cracking. Many other people were in that room, so when I got up, I trod very lightly not to awaken anyone. I grabbed an old flannel blanket, wrapped it around my shoulders and left through the front door.

  A man stood in fron
t of me.

  My brain was partially sleeping, so I didn’t abruptly react. The moon was quite bright, so I could see he was one of those flying guys, based on his style of clothes. I stepped closer. “Can I help you with something? You know, it’s kind of creepy to stand outside other people’s houses.”

  “James, I’m Vargas. It’s a long story, but it’s me.”

  I circled the guy while scrutinizing him. “Did you shed your old suit? Why? How? I’ve got time to cover all that.”

  “The Marcovians kidnapped Valu and me—not the army, the science group. Don’t bother asking, I still don’t get the difference myself.”

  “What happened next?”

  “They say this plane will not survive the merger. Valu is building a spacecraft for them, something that can travel through planes. They do not know how to do that.”

  “Wait. Was that option on the table to begin with?”

  “No. Ever since this damn merger, we can only travel through this mess the Communion created.”

  I bent my head, like a curious dog would. “So, what is Valu actually working on?”

  “Something that combines their technology and Valu’s knowledge of planar traveling. They think it’ll save us all.”

  “Are we going with them?”

  “That is what he told me.”

  “Do you trust the Marcovians?”

  “No. That’s what I told him.”

  I exhaled while surveying the moonlit, unreal landscape surrounding us. “Let’s say, at some point, they pick us up. Let’s hope for that. What the heck are you doing in this new suit?”

  He exhaled and shook his head. “So, the Marcovian imprisoned me and Valu. I escaped. I tried to contact you guys, but it didn’t work. I was a few hundred meters outside my cell. Something attacked me—something I’d have never seen before.”

  “Something like what?” I cocked my head to the side.

  “It was like a ball of burning light. It was fast and strong. Someone was in there; I just couldn’t figure out who while I was getting my ass kicked.”

  That joke would have made me laugh on any other day but not today. “You still did not tell me about the suit.”

  He looked down. “Well, I’m not proud of that. These two flying guys I had met before basically watched me die. When the creature left me for dead, they flew to check on me. One of them was a jackass. So, I … stole his body. I overrode his personality and exchanged it with mine.”

  I brought my hands to my head to massage my scalp. “You killed one of those guys.”

  “Yeah, you can say I did, but it was only to save me.”

  “How’s that any better? I would be mad on any other day; today, I just can’t.”

  He eyed me as if he expected me to punch him.

  “Let’s say I’m happy you’re alive. Let’s say this is good news. What do we do now?”

  “We look for that thing. Now, I can fly, and I have all those skills from the Path of Mind. Pretty badass, if you ask me.”

  Again, I tried but did not laugh. “Do you still know how to open a portal?” I almost tried to joke.

  “Why do you even ask?”

  *****

  The other side of the portal led to a desolate wasteland. I would have sworn it belonged to Plane K if I didn’t know that was not true. Nothing was around us; it was arid soil with rare scattered trees thrown here and there for as far as I could see. “So, this is the place where someone almost killed you.” My sarcasm was not entirely intentional.

  “Yes, this is it.”

  “Where is this burning monster you mentioned?”

  “Yeah, ha-ha. You make fun of me. How about I look from above and see if that thing left any traces?”

  “Traces?”

  “Yes, it was burning. Maybe there is a trail we can follow.”

  “I like this, Sherlock. Go ahead.”

  Vagras chuckled then took flight; his new suit was much taller than me. He rose then hovered above my head. He swiveled then he flipped a few times just to mess with me a little.

  When I had lost hope we would find anything interesting and thought we were wasting our time, he stopped playing aero-stunts. From his posture, I assumed he had found something. That proved to be true when he pointed in one direction.

  I conjured a stone board and followed him. It was the first full minute I hadn’t thought about Laura every single second.

  We traveled through the barren plateau for a full kilometer, nothing capturing my eye along the way.

  He returned to the ground and showed me from a closer distance what he had spotted from a higher point of view. “See? Something scorched the ground here and went in that direction.”

  “Yes, I have to admit you were right. What do we do now? Do we hunt this thing?”

  “Hey, it’s two on one. We can take that fiery snout. What do you say?”

  I raised my right thumb.

  He bolted in the direction the fire trail led to, and I tagged along.

  It ran in a straight line for kilometers. The whole area proved as monotonous as the previous one, plains filled with nothing all around. At some point, rocks appeared here and there.

  We found ourselves in a depression in the ground; the mouth of a cave lay in the center.

  “Whatever almost killed you went down there.”

  “It looks like that. Why don’t we look?”

  “Do you want to poke the bear in its den? That doesn’t sound like the smartest plan.”

  “Do you have a better suggestion?”

  He shook his head, so we went. The cave entrance seemed like every other cave—dim, rocks in all directions, and slightly moist walls. The tunnel, much as the path of the mysterious burning creature, delved straight into the depths of the Earth.

  “We’ll soon need a flashlight. It’s getting darker by the second.”

  “Don’t be scared, James. Daddy’s here with you.” Vagras created a ball of purple light—the most useless skill the Path of Mind ever had. I couldn’t remember Emma using that, not even once. “Okay, we have some light now. It looks like the path bifurcates there. Let me see what’s on the right-hand side.”

  “Sure, I’ll stay here, ready to fire my rocks if something jumps from the obscurity.”

  “You’re being ridiculous now.” Vagras disappeared around the corner.

  “So, what’s there?” I asked, but he did not reply. I asked again; my question went unanswered again. “Vagras, this is no longer funny.” My voice echoed through the grotto. I waited a few minutes, but he did not return.

  13

  Vagras

  What a petty, dull trick. After I turned the corner, the cave opened into a vertical tunnel. The funny thing was that I was walking on it. Bye, bye gravity. Typical Path of Mind tricks. I strolled down that impossible hallway not even minding my own steps. A light shone at the end of the tunnel. That was a touch of pure genius. The surrounding space looked less like a cavern and more like a corridor of a futuristic secret base. Whoever had done that, they were using my own memories and fantasies to shape the illusion.

  I moved forward. The hallway widened, with walls, ceilings, and floors all made of matt steel. Sure, the Marcovians might have liked that. Countless gadgets, digital tools, and colored-buttoned interfaces were everywhere. I reached a metal door provided with a fingerprint recognition system. My index worked just fine.

  On the other side, I found all the members of the Great Communion sitting on three large chairs. Before them stood a version of myself from the past—Frank Sneider. Nobody seemed to notice or be bothered by my actual presence. I had no other option than to listen to what the materialization of my memories had to say.

  “Vagras, we expect you to travel to Plane R as soon as this meeting is over,” they said in unison.

  “Yes, Milords.”

  My former self kept his head down.

  “We chose a perfect location for our next attempt to colonize that plane. You’ll be the dean of a prestigious
school.”

  Frank nodded.

  I had some questions but did not dare ask them.

  “You’ll act alone in the first weeks there. Are you well acquainted with the concept of time in Plane R?”

  “Yes, Milords.”

  “When the time is right, we’ll send a blood forger. Humans can be turned into peaceful slaves.”

  My old self nodded again.

  “There is more. We’ll train humans on the Paths, but the Path of Mind is too complex for them. We’ll create one specifically for the humans. We see you have lots of questions and doubts. Forget about those and stick to the plan.”

  Those mindreading fuckers …

  “Now, go. Follow the plan strictly. Activities are to begin immediately.”

  My old suit stood and walked away.

  The images—ghosts coming from some area of my mind—vanished soon after. I went to another metal door and pushed it open. The environment changed again. I found myself in the woods outside EIBM on the night before James discovered the meaning of our experiment. That night, I remember trying to address all the questions and doubts he was having. I approached the school’s building found both James and my former self, and they did not seem to see me.

  “I do not get why all of this?” The younger James was red in his face. “Why me?”

  “We covered this already, James. You are special. There is no one else like you. Believe in yourself. I told you already you need a little magic.”

  The past-time James turned his back on Frank and stared right into me but could not see me. “Tell me you’re not lying.”

  The younger version of the person who had just entered the cave with me seemed a totally different person. “I am not.” Frank laid a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get back in. I need to show you something else.”

  They left and disappeared while walking away.

  I had wasted enough time already. There was one thing left to do: find the point where I could leave that stupid illusion and return to that damn cave. The perimeter of the EIBM didn’t prove to be interesting. I entered through the main door. The main hallway was dark and empty. I didn’t remember the statues; I remembered using them while brainwashing Emma, but I could not recall what I had told her about them. A few pictures hung on the walls at the other end of the room. That was a good sign, as those weren’t in the real EIBM.