Hellbound

by Matt Turner

  A bomb? Vera stared at the Xipe Totec in sudden fascination, aware of her heartbeat thudding in her ears. Such a long way from dynamite… She pushed her way through the passing soldiers and strode toward it, ignoring Seth’s words of warning. It was so large that the tank beneath it was slightly depressed into the ground, allowing her to run her hands over the beautiful imagery engraved on the cold steel. It may have been her imagination, but she could have sworn that she sensed just a fragment of the raw power contained within the weapon—it was utterly intoxicating.

  Even in Hell, it all comes down to the bombs. She smiled to herself. This could be fun. “So,” she called out as she turned to the others, “when do we start?”

  27

  Simon found Amaury sitting on a pile of rubble, idly staring at a chunk of Legion’s flesh that had left a great crater in the city’s pavement.

  “Amaury?” Simon said hesitantly.

  Everything about his son, from his bowed shoulders to the misery on his pale face, reeked of despair. He seemed to take no notice of Simon, not even when he awkwardly sat on the rubble alongside him. For several long moments, the two of them sat there, unsure of what to do next.

  “I think I always knew that this was going to happen,” Amaury said dully. “From the moment that Eve threw her in my cell…it was only a matter of time until the Master took her away again.” He turned to eye Simon. “That’s the worst part of this Hell…the tiny flashes of good that you find.”

  Simon stared down at the pool of pus and fluid leaking from the remnants of one of Legion’s tentacles. In the dim reddish light that radiated down from the empty sky, the puddle shone and glimmered like silver—he could even make out the bright outline of a rainbow shining from the refracted light.

  Whether by accident or design, Amaury shifted his position so that he cast a shadow over the puddle, drowning it in darkness. “They never last.” He sighed. “You have to hate them, destroy them whenever you can, otherwise they’ll remind you of where you really are…and when they’re finally gone, they take a piece of you with them.”

  “I…” Simon swallowed. He had always considered child-rearing to be women’s work, but now that he had an opportunity to do it himself, he found it to be immensely more difficult than he had ever expected. “Amaury, I won’t leave,” he said quietly. “Not again. Not ever again.”

  Amaury shifted his gaze to the distance and said nothing.

  Through one of the tears in his shirt, Simon could make out the outline of scars that the Master had carved into his son over the centuries. “The pieces…” he slowly said. “We can—no, we will put them back together. I swear it, Amaury.” He put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “We’ll find a way to bring her back.”

  “Not just Manto,” Amaury whispered. He turned his despairing eyes toward his father, but Simon saw something else in there: hope. “There are others here too. Eve used to make me watch their suffering.”

  He did not have to say the names; Simon had already feared as much for a long, long time. “Your mother and brothers,” he said quietly.

  Amaury nodded. “Hell is vast,” he confessed. “I never dared to hope I’d be able to find them…but maybe with you and the others…”

  “We will,” Simon promised. “I swear it. All the pieces—we’ll find them all. Maybe we can start again—”

  Before he could react, Amaury leaned over and hugged him. Simon stiffened in shock, utterly taken aback by the soft gesture. His immediate instinct was to shove his son aside, but he forced the thought away—God, he had never quite realized how much he hated himself—and wrapped his arms around his child.

  All the pieces, he vowed to himself as the tears trickled down his face. But first, he’d tear a few pieces of his own from Cain’s fucking face. He swore it by the one thing that he held dear.

  28

  “Get fucked,” Signy snarled, and she squeezed the trigger. The pistol exploded in her hands, again and again, and she grinned in expectation at the thought of seeing all of the freaks’ bloodied bodies at her feet. What happened next took her utterly by surprise—there was a sudden shuddering motion from the weak thing the others had called Despair, and a dark tendril of something splashed across the side of the compartment. For an instant, a wall of pure blackness stood between her and the freaks—it was only there for a brief second, but the sheer void of it took her breath away. Signy’s bullets passed into the emptiness, and then it swiftly retreated back into the dark recesses of Despair’s long, greasy hair.

  “What—” Signy gasped, for the four clowns were still standing before her, completely unharmed. She glanced down at the empty pistol in her hands in utter disbelief. What just happened? Some sort of weapon—

  “Stare into the Void long enough, and the Void stares back,” Despair whimpered. A tendril of mucus trickled down from its haunted eyes. The rough clothsack it wore over its protruding bones seemed to have darkened around the crotch; it looked as though the filthy monster had pissed itself.

  “Right-o, let’s finish her off then,” Denial said merrily. She clapped her ruby-studded hands once together and took a step forward. “Anger, you roast her if she tries any funny business.”

  “It would be my pleasure,” the voice from the blackened armor hissed. The thing inside of it—for Signy was no longer so sure that her opponents were actually human—shifted its grip on the flamethrower nozzle so that it was pointed to the compartment’s floor. “Make her scream.”

  “No,” Bargaining said. The fat man’s eyes glimmered with delight as he mirrored Denial’s motion. “Make her beg.”

  Signy opened her mouth to deliver one of her most hellish threats…and then closed it, for the two figures before her had become something out of a nightmare.

  Denial reached toward her stomach and pulled away the patchwork fabric covering her navel. Just like the rest of her body, it was studded with countless stones and artifacts, some so large that they were nearly the size of Signy’s palm. Denial placed her hands on two of the larger stones—two blood-red rubies—and began to pull. Her face contorted with pain as the pieces of jewelry slowly slid out, revealing the razor blades that had been embedded into her body.

  “Death,” Denial grunted, and at last she tore the two rubies out.

  Signy realized that the jewelry weren’t mere decorations; they were handles for the shimmering clear blades that gleamed in the light.

  The madwoman raised one of the foot-long blades to her mouth and ran her tongue across the blood that trickled down from it. The tip was so razor-sharp that it left a line of red across her tongue, making her giggle sweetly. “Death… By a thousand cuts.”

  Her companion was somehow even worse. The fat on Bargaining’s face bubbled and churned beneath his pale skin, spreading downward throughout his body as though a swarm of hideous maggots were eating him from the inside out. The churning movement became so severe that it shifted apart his layers of robes, pulling his flesh farther and farther apart—and somehow he seemed to be growing, so much that the top of the compartment could barely contain his height.

  Signy took a step back, half-expecting that he was about to explode apart from some hellish inner force. She caught a glimpse of his skull, growing from the top of his head as his scalp tore and fell away. But no, bone wasn’t yellow—and that wasn’t his skull; this was something else. His skin ripped, faster and faster, until it fell away with the remnants of his clothes.

  It was not a man who stood before her any longer; it was a giant made of stone and metal, as lifelike as an old Roman statue she had once seen while living. But statues weren’t made with golden heads, silver arms, or legs that glimmered like iron—nor did they turn and look directly at you.

  “By the gods,” she whispered in horror. “What are you?”

  The giant opened its mouth, and Bargaining’s reedy tone, now deepened and amplified, came forth. “BRONZE,” it bellowed, and it suddenly smashed one of its metallic-brown fists forward.

 
She staggered back, taken totally off guard, and cried out when the giant hurled her back like a ragdoll. Only one of the bodies she had left piled up against the wall prevented her from breaking her spine against the side of the train.

  Signy hacked up a mouthful of blood and gasped in pain. “I—impossible,” she couldn’t keep herself from saying. This isn’t possible, it’s not fair, it’s not right! She was the hunter; they were the prey. That was how it had always been. A lifetime of violence had never prepared her for something as unfathomable as this.

  “IRON.” A flash of metal whirled before Signy’s face, and this time she hit the other side of the compartment with enough force to make darkness flicker at the edges of her vision. She fought and raged against it just enough to maintain some form of consciousness.

  “This was the one the boss was so interested in?” Denial wondered. “A mere human?” She lazily twirled her crystalline knives through the air. “So disappointing. Bargaining, just finish her off.”

  “Gold it is, then,” the metal giant rumbled. It slowly strode across the compartment toward where Signy lay. Each crash of its red soles against the floor made the entire train slightly rumble and left behind a footprint of dirt among the pools of blood.

  He approached, pace by pace, as Signy stared up at the ceiling. How am I supposed to fight that? she wondered. A metal giant? The answer was that she couldn’t possibly stand against it. No one would ever expect her to; not her mother, not her husband, not even her daughter. No more fighting. She wondered what a life like that would be like. Painful, unquestionably. But maybe it would be easier in the end. Just let it happen.

  She closed her eyes, strangely at peace with her decision. A bronze hand wrapped around her foot and slowly began to pull her upright. Sorry, Salome, she thought as her upper body was lifted off the floor. Sorry, Vera—

  Vera. A sudden memory flooded Signy’s mind: of the hell-factory where the Russian had fought against overwhelming odds, even when they had been outnumbered a hundred to one. Signy’s eyes snapped open as she felt the strongest wave of self-loathing she had ever known. “No,” she snarled. “Not fucking today!” She frantically clawed her hands at the floor.

  “And to think they call her Denial.” The giant laughed down at her. He wrenched Signy up, dangling her face right in front of his upside-down golden features. “Know why gold is the most valuable element, sweetheart?”

  Signy leveled the sawed-off shotgun she had scooped off the ground at his face. “It’s the most malleable.”

  Bargaining guffawed again. “You think that’ll work? You really are insane!” He cocked his head back, and Signy realized what he was going to do—he was going to head-butt her with enough force to spray her guts across the train.

  Signy let the shotgun dangle downward from her arms and winked. “And clay is the most brittle.”

  “Bargaining, no!” Denial cried out. “Despair!”

  Time slowed down to a crawl; Signy raised her eyes and saw a tendril of that oily emptiness pouring out of Despair’s body. It rushed toward Bargaining’s feet, clearly intent on protecting them, but Signy had other plans. Acting on sheer instinct, she raised the gun and emptied one of its barrels directly at Denial. The void lurched back on itself to swallow up the cloud of pellets, allowing her just enough time to swivel the gun back down and blast the remaining shell right into one of the giant’s red feet.

  Dirt and dust flew up from the explosion, and Bargaining opened his golden lips in a cry as he lurched forward, suddenly off-balance. Nothing was left of his foot other than a few shards of metal where the iron of his legs had met the clay of his feet, and a few of the ragged edges stabbed through the bottom of the train from the giant’s sheer weight. He toppled forward, Signy still in hand. She smashed the shotgun at his face and plunged the barrel down into his open mouth. Bargaining winced, clearly expecting another blast, and she managed to worm out of his loosened grip a moment before he slammed into the floor. The entire compartment vibrated with the force of the crash.

  “A golden statue with clay feet?” Signy panted. “Even I know that one.”

  “Very funny, sweetie.” Denial smiled. She leapt forward, both crystalline daggers ready to stab and slice.

  Signy rolled away from the first few stabs, felt the floor shift beneath her feet, and dodged to the side just as Bargaining let out a cry of rage and clumsily lunged for her. The giant’s bronze hands brushed against her blonde locks, ripping a few strands of hair away, but Signy was too fast for him, and he very nearly crushed Denial with his weight.

  Signy let out a crow of triumph when she saw her bow and quiver lying on the floor just a few feet away. “It’s been fun, freaks,” she announced as she sprinted for them.

  “Get—off—me!” Denial screeched as she shoved Bargaining aside. She tossed her two daggers away, clearly frustrated with them, and tore out a handful of small finger-long shards from her cheeks. With one motion, she emptied two handfuls of the projectiles directly at Signy.

  But Signy was moving too quickly; their razor-sharp edges only left a web of shallow furrows across the small of her back.

  Blades that tiny are useless, Signy realized. Unless… She felt the blood trickling down toward her buttocks. The spine. She’s trying to paralyze me.

  “Two can play that game, Denial,” she called out. Another cloud of needle-thin blades slashed the air around her, but she had already hit the ground and was sliding for the bow; her hand reached out to grasp it. She cursed when her stomach ran over a body left over from her earlier spree, slowing her down.

  As it turned out, it was the one thing that saved her. A jet of fire coursed forward, utterly incinerating everything in its path. She barely had enough time to wrench her bow away before the inferno swept just past her. As fast as it had come, the flame vanished, and Signy found that her hand was barely a foot away from the giant hole left in the compartment. The tracks whistled underneath the train, blasting in a storm of wind that made her hair frantically twist and wave. They’ve sped up, she realized.

  “Are you mad?” Bargaining roared. He smashed one of his bronze hands against the floor, leaving behind a sizeable divot. “You nearly hit US!”

  “The emptiness took the fire away,” Despair whispered. It buried its face in its hands and let out a sob. “It takes everything away.”

  “No more dancing,” Anger growled. The nozzle in his hands turned a pure white as the fire within it bubbled forward, ready to be used once again. “The bitch is mine.”

  Denial ripped another handful of crystalline shards from her bleeding face. “Anger, don’t.” The anger in her voice was obvious, but her lips were somehow still contorted in a silly grin. “You’ll hit us, you idiot.”

  The suit of armor shrugged. “Don’t care.” Anger lifted the flamethrower nozzle again, just in time for Signy’s first arrow to crash between the gaps in his visor. There was a grating scream of steel, but the suit of armor did not so much as flinch—even with a foot of arrow sticking out from its helmet.

  Of course it didn’t fucking work, Signy thought. Anger let out a single hollow laugh, and then the fire gushed forward again. Pure instinct made her roll to the side, but she already knew it was no use; the cone of flame was too wide for her to dodge—

  She suddenly found that she was tumbling to the side far too quickly. Time slowed to a crawl as she realized that she was falling through the hole that his previous flames had scorched into the compartment. There wasn’t enough time for a scream—all she could do was grit her teeth and reach out for something, anything to prevent her from being dashed to pieces on the tracks below.

  By the time Anger was done cooking the compartment, the walls and ceiling were so red-hot that a few rivulets of liquified steel dribbled down them onto the tracks below. He slammed the tip of the flamethrower nozzle against the floor and chuckled as the steel turned to steam under its touch. “That bitch is cooked.”

  “You should’ve left a body.” Denial smiled.
She pulled out the handful of crystalline blades and began to slide them back into the microscopic holes in her cheeks, one by one. “The boss won’t like that she’s gone.”

  Despair let out a little whimper from its corner. The others ignored it, as they always did.

  “Help me up,” Bargaining pleaded. The broken-off foot had left his ankle a razor-sharp point that had sunk through the floor, and he was having difficulty regaining his balance. The metal giant tried to crawl forward to wrench his leg free, but his bulk made it difficult to move in the narrow space. “I’m stuck.”

  “Just change back.” Denial let out a little squeal of delight when one of her needles slid just a little too far into her face. “Oh—there’s the maxillary nerve!”

  “She’s still here.” Despair moaned. “Under us. I can feel her.”

  Bargaining clawed at the massive hole left in the floor and wrapped both his hands over the overhang. The soft steel twisted and warped as he pulled himself forward, trying to tear his foot free. “I’m missing a foot,” he whined. “You know how much it’s going to fucking hurt if I change back?”

  “Wait a minute,” Denial snapped. She saw something flicker at the edge of the hole—something that had grabbed on to the undercarriage of the train. Without a moment’s hesitation, she leapt forward and hurled a handful of her needles into Signy’s body—enough to paralyze the madwoman a dozen times over.

  Bargaining blinked in surprise. “She was still down there?”

  “Yes,” Denial said. “Just a foot away from your face.” She leaned forward, trying to get a better view of the body—for some reason it hadn’t fallen away from the train, even though she had pierced its flesh with a score of projectiles. Something’s wrong, she realized. Signy had been a blonde, for one thing—why did this weakly moaning body have a head of dark hair? And how was it so tangled up in the network of hoses and electronics in the train’s undercarriage?