by Matt Turner
He slammed an elbow into her face, drawing blood.
She sank her teeth into his right ear, ripping half of it away in a warm spray as their ribs simultaneously cracked against the edge of a step.
And still they fell, ferociously fighting each other, as the darkness swallowed them up.
28
Over two thousand miles away, on the edge of the Seventh Circle of Hell, Marc Antony, former Roman, former Horseman, and former Prophet, trudged through the Burning Desert. Cleo, his heart sang as he wandered through the desolate plain. Not even the small scraps of flame falling from the air like snowflakes could dampen his mood.
We will be together again, he vowed to himself. The two new Horsemen—damn it, he should have torn them to pieces when he had the chance instead of letting them escape—had tried to use his old love as a bargaining chip, but they had underestimated the rightful heir of Caesar. Can’t blackmail me, he swore. He was no frail weakling like Octavian—he was a Horseman of Hell, damn it! If his former master thought he could steal away Cleo and get away with it, he was going to pay dearly for that mistake.
We sealed you away in Judecca once before, Cain, Marc thought. A small flame fell on his shoulder, threatening to set his leather armor alight, but he quickly brushed it off with the edge of his gladius. I can do it again.
Maybe this was even a blessing in disguise, now that he thought about it. He hadn’t seen Cleo once in the centuries since the Third Rebellion, not since she had left him for the First Circle. The memory of her passing still soured his stomach, but now there was finally hope for him once again. I will save her. Marc had always been fond of stories, and he couldn’t help but imagine the ending to his…the brave warrior saving his queen, the sweet bliss of their reignited love…
“And all I have to do is go to Judecca and save her,” he said out loud. Even he had to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of that statement; everyone knew that Judecca, buried at the very bottom of the Ninth Circle, was undoubtedly the worst place in all of creation. “Love makes men go mad.”
“LOVE,” a metallic voice suddenly boomed.
Marc cursed and leapt back as the sand dune before him began to shake and tremble. An avalanche of debris and material crashed from its sides as the thing within it lurched upward in a cloud of smoke. For a moment, sand rained down for twenty meters in each direction as the shaking finally came to a stop.
“Ellie,” Marc growled.
The steel giant continued to unfold itself from the sand, extending a metal spider’s leg in each of the four cardinal directions. Four arms emerged from its mighty torso, each lined with rows of machine guns, flamethrowers, and rocket launchers. To compare the steel beast that loomed over him—it had to be nearly ten meters tall, and twice as wide across—to a stiltwalker would have been akin to comparing a hawk to a fly. Massive clouds of smoke belched from its twin smokestacks, thickening the already-burning air. The overall effect was that of a castle that had suddenly sprouted human-like arms, glittering spider legs, and a nation’s worth of firepower. It had been a long time since Marc had seen Ellie’s Ashmedai body.
“A chemical reaction with a half-life of eighteen months, built to ensure the continued breeding of your species.” Ellie’s robotic voice was made even more lifeless and mechanical by the blaring loudspeaker mounted at the top of the massive iron body she wore. “How utterly trite.”
“What do you want, Ellie?” Marc demanded. He slipped his pack off his shoulders and let it drop to the ground behind him. He would need to be as fast as possible to have any chance at all against that thing.
The mist of flame slowly falling from the sky was reflected in the dull sheen of Ellie’s armor. Marc quickly scanned it, searching for any evidence of a hatch or door among the plain of rivets and steel. He already knew he wouldn’t have much luck on that front—Ellie had a habit of literally building her war machines around herself to minimize the presence of any weak points. Crazy bitch.
“Do not call me that, Roman,” Ellie snarled. Even the sound system that artificially amplified her voice could not fully mask the strange mushy way she chewed and spat out each word. “Giles wants me to bring you back to Dis.” The barrels of the machine guns strapped to Ashmedai’s arms began to ever-so-slightly spin. “In whatever condition I see fit.”
“Taking orders from Giles now, Ellie?” Marc laughed. “I never thought I’d see a lady like you taking orders from a man.”
“DO NOT CALL ME THAT!” the war machine screeched. A great belch of fire exploded from its twin smokestacks as it locked its arms into attack position—two flamethrower-tipped ones angled forward, and two machine gun-covered ones reaching up to the skies and angled slightly downward for maximum coverage.
Marc ran.
The sand just behind him melted into glass as a hellish torrent of flame consumed it. The heat was so strong he could almost smell his skin starting to cook—and then the Mark on his left forearm pulsed in warning. He had long since learned to listen to the curse-mark, and so he gathered his strength for one mighty leap into the air. In an instant, he was ten meters up in the air, just as a dozen miniguns blasted at the sand where he had just been standing. In a second, Ellie dug a crater with the sheer volley of the attack.
Marc allowed himself a tight smile, for it seemed that the loose sand and smoke from the flamethrowers had obscured her vision of him. He did a tight combat roll as he flew down into the sand, leapt up to his feet, and swore in irritation when Ashmedai’s torso suddenly swung around to face him.
“You may be a Horseman, but you are still only flesh and blood,” Ellie said. The machine gun arms slowly revolved, attempting to predict his movements.
Marc lunged forward, and then, as fast as he could, kicked himself backward, kicking up a vast pile of sand in the process. Ten thousand bullets traced and screamed into the cloud of sand around him—he changed direction again, sprinting for the field of glass that he had just fled.
A rocket screamed into the ground just in front of him, kicking up a small mountain of molten glass that traced bloody red lines across every centimeter of his exposed skin. “Damn,” Marc swore, still blindly sprinting forward as the machine guns continued to track his movements, tearing fist-sized holes into the sand around him. A loose dune emerged from the desolate plain before him; he made a break for it, hoping that it would offer him some protection from her attacks.
“Look at you, scurrying like the rats you evolved from,” Ellie’s mad voice mocked over the blasting of her machine guns and the tinkling of spent shell casings falling on her steel body. “But little rat, I can move too.”
Ashmedai gave another belch of smoke and fire as the iron claws of its robotic spider legs scrambled forward, churning up nearly a metric ton of sand with every step. One of her flamethrowers blasted again, sending a plume of white-hot fire that scorched the top of Marc’s scalp. Trying to keep me from jumping again, he guessed. It looked as though she were trying to herd him with the machine guns, keep him from moving too much with the flamethrowers, and then—
A steel panel slid back on Ashmedai’s torso, revealing twenty incendiary rockets. Hellfire. Even the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace thought twice about using them on its enemies. Uh oh. He leapt forward, turning his sprint into a breakneck dive at the side of the dune. With his gladius in one hand, he pulled his other back into a fist, and prayed that the power of the Mark would save him.
He slammed his fist into the side of the dune with all his might, just as the Hellfire barrage crashed into the desert all around him, releasing an exploding lake of chemical fire that made napalm look like a bubble bath.
“Got you,” ELIE roared as it brought the Ashmedai to a stop. Just to be sure of the kill, it unleashed both of its flamethrowers over the pool of liquid fire, igniting it to even hotter levels. The sheer temperature was too much for even Ashmedai to handle; ELIE had to bring its metal body fifty yards back from the fire to prevent the tempered steel from melting.
Gi
les wanted a body, ELIE thought as it surveyed the flaming remnants of the dune. Considering the likely liquified remains of the Horseman’s body, that would be a difficult task. No matter. It was a patron saint of the Church of the Fallen Father, after all—working with damaged flesh was one of Prophet ELIE’s specialties. Deep inside the steel tomb of Ashmedai, ELIE reached for the controls to retract the war machine’s offensive arms and extend its two handling appendages.
Ashmedai suddenly lurched forward as something wrenched at one of its legs. “What?” ELIE burst out. It slammed a hand at its controls, shifting the mirrors that it had built into Ashmedai—and revealing the lone smoking figure that had seized a hold of its northern leg.
“Miss me?” Marc grinned. He hurled a chunk of molten glass up at the mirror that angrily gazed down at him from the torso.
ELIE desperately punched in the commands to retract the mirror behind a layer of steel, but it was too late—the ball shattered itself against the mirror, and suddenly Ashmedai had a blind spot.
“Impossible,” Ellie shrieked from within the war machine. Both of its flamethrower arms spun around, focusing on the spot where Marc had just been—but with a mighty heave, he wrenched the Ashmedai’s leg forward. Steel creaked and pipes burst as the spider-leg came partly free of its socket. He leapt backward, gladius still in hand, just as the smoking limb was doused in a torrent of flame from its own weapons.
“Don’t underestimate the Horsemen, you bitch,” he called up to Ellie. A machine gun blindly blasted down at his location, accomplishing nothing but further shredding the flaming appendage.
“Be quiet,” Ellie roared. Ashmedai started to spin around, seeking to get a lock on him, but the twisted wreckage of its leg made the spin turn into a rough wobble.
Marc caught a glimpse of another mirror peeking out at him, and he again made a mighty leap up at the body of the war machine. She swung one of her arms at him, seeking to impale him on the iron spikes that studded it, but a single swing of his gladius tore the appendage in half. He hit Ashmedai’s torso so hard that the entire machine bucked backward from the blow. Marc stabbed his blade into the armor of the machine—even with his inhuman strength, it was just barely possible—and, holding himself up with the impaled sword, swung his fist at the mirror that peeked at him. He had a glimpse of a single bloodshot eye gazing back, and then the mirror shattered against his knuckles. Far too late, a small steel window began to slide shut to protect the exposed viewpoint. He tore it away without so much as a thought.
“Ellie, it’s over!” he bellowed through the open hole into the depths of Ashmedai.
“DON’T CALL ME THAT!!!” she howled, and suddenly the remaining machine gun arm rotated so that it was pointed at the torso of the body that supported it.
She’s insane, Marc realized in horror.
At point-blank range, the miniguns roared.
The armor-piercing bullets tore the hull of the Ashmedai to shreds. As a Horseman, Marc was fast, damned fast, but even he was unable to avoid the sheer magnitude of the volley. Bullets shredded through his body, hurling him forward through the armor into the cavernous belly of the beast. He had a sensation of falling in a cloud of his own blood—and then the remnants of his body crashed into Ellie’s control panel.
Through a red mist, he looked up to see an expressionless iron mask gazing down at him. There was only one opening in it—a small window that exposed nothing but a bulging bloodshot eye.
“I got you.” Ellie’s strange voice was further muffled by the steel coffin that enveloped her entire head. There were no seams, no crevices, not even a slit for her to breathe through—only the single opening that showed off her left eye. A small trickle of Marc’s blood ran down the side of her iron face. “The triumph of machine over mere flesh and blood.”
Above them, the machine guns continued to roar, raining down a torrent of shell casings and scraps of steel. The bullets lanced through one side of the Ashmedai’s torso, then another—and abruptly, the weapons fell silent as the arm limply tumbled to the war machine’s side.
“Christ,” Marc moaned. He pretended to try to raise his head, and let it fall weakly back. It was impossible to tell how many times he had been hit, but if the pool of blood gushing from him was any indication, no one had gotten him this good since the Second Rebellion. Speaking of which… “You ever hear of the Second Rebellion, Ellie?” he croaked.
Ashmedai weakly lurched forward. Doom went one of its feet against the ground.
Her eye flashed red. “ELIE will make you suffer before it returns you to Dis,” she warned. With a gloved hand, she reached for Marc’s limp body to drag him away from the control panel.
ELIE? Marc wondered. Oh right, that… “This one time, Legion and I were roaming near the Phlegethon when we got set upon by a pack of centaurs. The bastards must have got me with a hundred arrows.”
The war machine lurched forward again. Doom.
“The stories of you and the foul one do not interest me,” Ellie or ELIE or whatever the hell it was said. “Only the data your body contains.”
“Then they cut off my legs and both my thumbs.” Marc’s gladius had fallen on the floor, just out of reach. He doubted that he could seize it in his weakened state before Ellie. Ashmedai took another step forward, and Marc had to suppress his grin, for the inside of the cabin was quickly growing hotter. “And you know what I did, Ellie?”
“I told you, DON’T—” she began in a voice livid with rage.
“I fucking killed them all anyway,” Marc exploded. He lunged his hand upward, hoping to gouge out her exposed eye. She began to slip away from his grasp, and so he settled for slamming her steel head down against the edge of the control panel instead. The hollow thud it made was extremely satisfying. “And you think that a few bullets can stop me?”
He twisted around on the control panel, ignoring the pain of his mutilated body, and smashed both his feet against the breastplate that covered her torso. Crunch went her armor, and she fell back with a cry of pain. He rose to his feet and nearly fell as the war machine took another lurching, halting step. Its interior now felt red-hot; he guessed that it was only a matter of seconds until the heat from the lake of fire cooked them alive.
Now worried, he attempted to wrench the controls back into order, but the force of his fall must have damaged them—the machine did not respond to his attempts. Doom, it went as it took another step. Slowly but surely, the walls began to turn red-hot. Marc glanced upward, but his legs were too painful and too weak to try to make a leap for the exposed holes torn by the bullets. “Is there an exit?” he asked urgently.
“Burn in hell,” Ellie spat.
“Do you know how long Hellfire lasts?” he nearly screamed. “We’ll be molten lava for a thousand years if we don’t get out of here!”
Her one eye gazed up at him defiantly. “It’s what you humans deserve.”
“Fuck that.” He slammed his fist against the floor of the piloting chamber. The steel slightly buckled, but it was no good—every second, more of his strength spilled out onto the bloody floor.
“Nociceptive pain,” Ellie said. He sensed that she was smiling underneath her mask. “Caused by the stimulation of the sensory nerve fibers. My studies have found that they are particularly receptive to thermal stimuli in Caucasian males.”
There had to be a back door. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate—Ellie always had another trick up her sleeve; surely there was something. He could hear the exterior armor sloughing off from the heat. He had to think —
She always built herself into her machines.
Marc opened his eyes to see that an empty suit of armor lay before him—there were openings for the arms and head, but the legs themselves were fused together like a mermaid’s, and connected to the floor. He tore them away to reveal a small man-sized tunnel that led downward—a small escape hatch available to Ellie at any time. Marc reached for it, hoping to pull himself in, but had to jerk his head backward as
a torrent of flame shot up through the tunnel.
That evil bitch, he thought in reluctant admiration. It seemed that Ellie had built a flamethrower into her escape tunnel, turning it into a makeshift oven for any who tried to follow her through it. But the steel walls of Ashmedai were melting around him. The heat in the air had grown unbearable; he could feel every hair on his body start to singe. There was no choice but to prepare himself to lunge into the flames, or be consumed by the Hellfire for the next ten centuries.
“Shit,” Marc cursed. He took a halting step back to ready himself. For all his time in Hell, he had never actually been burnt alive before. He was not looking forward to the experience. For Cleo, he thought.
Like a bolt of lightning sent from Jupiter’s finger, something suddenly slammed down from the heavens onto Marc’s shoulder. He jerked in surprise at the sudden weight—and then relaxed at the familiar feel of talons pressing into his skin.
“Stupid Roman,” Podarge squawked in his ear. “You’re about to melt.”
What in the Nine Circles was she doing here? But there was no time for questions—the Ashmedai let out another creak and scream of scorching metal as the lake of Hellfire outside eagerly licked at its limbs. “Get me out, Podarge,” Marc ordered. He scooped up his gladius just before a falling glob of melted steel would have drowned it. “Right fucking now.”
“Still bossy,” the harpy croaked. For a brief moment, she paused, as if unsure of how to proceed, and Marc felt an unexpected jolt of fear. He and the demon had history, true, but the females in his life did have a way of leaving him…
“We fly.” Podarge spread her wings, and with a single downward push, thrust them into the air. The war machine melted and collapsed around them, but even with Marc’s additional weight, the harpy skillfully weaved her way through the maze of cables and machinery. They burst out into the weak sunlight, leaving the Ashmedai far below.