Hellbound

by Matt Turner

  BLAM! It felt odd to smile, but ELIE couldn’t help it as the man’s brains sprayed out across the courtyard. It was full of an odd sensation that it had never known before: a vivid excitement that pulsed like a tumor. Even its loathsome prison—soon to be gone forever!—was slightly more bearable than usual, thanks to the strange buzzing sensation that lingered around its breasts and groin. My new body is close.

  Dr. Fritz Fischer wiped a speck of blood off his bottlecap spectacles. “Did you have to destroy them all?” he complained as he surveyed the broken and charred bodies of the First Blockade’s garrison. “They could have been useful.”

  The reminder of the doctor’s presence slightly sullied ELIE’s mood. It would have preferred Cenodoxa for the procedure, but the doctor it had once funded was gone in the Hellfire that consumed C District. The Master had brought it the next best thing: Dr. Fischer and a team of other physicians, all of whom had studied directly under the great Cenodoxa herself. They would have to do for the surgery. They better.

  “We should have waited for the army,” Dr. Fischer continued to complain. “This is far too dangerous. Could you not have waited an hour longer?”

  ELIE was going to be thrice-damned if it had to wait a nanosecond longer than necessary. “This way,” it said as it led the small team into the depths of the facility’s underground corridors. It took great glee in crushing the few pockets of resistance that dared to stand against it, and by the time they finally reached the medical wing, it was drenched in human blood.

  It licked its lips, savoring the coppery taste. The last sensation I’ll ever have. It wiped its fingers across a bloody puddle and sucked on them greedily. The buzzing sensation increased. How fitting.

  Dr. Fischer scanned the rows of operating tables and brightly polished surgical equipment. “This will do.” He nodded. He flipped open his white coat and began to empty out its pockets. Blades, pliers, scissors…he finally withdrew an opaque vial and used it to fill up a large syringe.

  In spite of itself, ELIE could not help but feel a flicker of anticipation. “Anesthesia?” it wondered.

  Dr. Fischer chuckled. “Oh no, I don’t believe in that. This is aprotinin. Helps control the bleeding. Now, where’s this new body of yours, Prophet?”

  ELIE cleared its throat. “H-here.” It reached into its rough tunic and drew out the gift that the Master had given it: a single squirming locust. “Abaddon. You know the designs.”

  “Yes, Lord Prophet.” The locust-devil nodded.

  “Then make it.”

  It tossed the locust up into the air; before it even reached the ground, the insect multiplied a dozen times over. The ball of wriggling vermin disintegrated on the floor, spewing out locusts everywhere. Dr. Fischer and his assistants recoiled in disgust as the horde molted and grew, swiftly building an elephant-sized hill of discarded wet skins. Finally they broke like a routing army, scurrying off into every direction. Abaddon’s offspring vanished into vents, through cracks in the floor, even through the exposed wires of the ceiling’s flickering bulbs.

  “Fascinating,” the doctor murmured. “Such a splendid organism… Where are they going?”

  “You’ve heard of the Harrowing of Hell?” ELIE asked.

  “A myth.” He rolled his eyes. “Even if there was a God, it would never come down here.”

  “During the Harrowing, all of Hell was shaken to its very foundations,” ELIE said. “The tectonic cracks remain beneath our feet at this very moment. They are the greatest weapon in Hell…and the source of the most precious rare-Earth minerals in existence.”

  Bit by bit, the devil-locusts began to pour back into the operating room. But there was something different about them—they were slower, laden down with bulging pincers and bellies that scraped against the floor like a thousand nails against chalkboard. They gathered in the center of the room, forming a mound that hissed and churned. Demonic acid spilled out across the floor, releasing clouds of red-hot steam that stung at ELIE’s eyes. Abaddon quietly swore and chanted through thousands of mouths as the devil focused on its work. Hundreds of the bodies fell away, dead from exhaustion, only to be immediately consumed by their brethren and recycled into fresh offspring.

  Dr. Fischer’s spectacles glimmered in the dim light. A small droplet of sweat trickled down the side of his balding scalp from the heat the locusts projected, yet he eagerly leaned in closer anyway to gaze at the form the demon was birthing. “The Master designed this? I had no idea he was such an artist.”

  Everything but one feature. It had been easy enough to slip in the schematics for Protocol Alkahest—it was little more than a natural extension of the new body’s self-repairing mechanism. Nothing will be able to stop me. Invincibility was so close… ELIE trembled just to think of it.

  “Depleted-uranium shells,” it whispered to itself as its new body twisted and grew. A gleaming arm, crystal-white and reflective thanks to its carbon-alloy and diamond-reinforced composite, emerged from the mass of insects.

  “A boosted-fusion core.” It had prayed those words every night for an eternity. At last they were becoming a reality. Destiny was here! It could even see one of the wings now; each stalk, seemingly as delicate and graceful as a feather but sharpened down to the atomic level. Any locust that so much as brushed against the infinitely sharp edges was immediately split in half.

  “Arsenic pentafluoride. Phosgene oxime.” I’ll necrotize the skin off their bones. “Sarin. Cyclosarin. EA-3990.” The deadliest chemical agents known to man. There was the jagged metal crown; each spike on it was the perfect size for a human heart.

  Dr. Fischer raised an eyebrow when he saw the small glass vials brought on the backs of a dozen locusts each. “Are those—”

  It had taken ELIE decades of work to replicate all of the weapons of the natural world. Even the Kingdom had tried to hide these samples deep within the facility. But ELIE knew all of their secrets. “Bacillus anthracis,” it whispered. The excitement that had gripped its fleshly body before surged back even more fiercely, so much that it had to lean against the edge of the operating table. “Plasmodium. Yersinia pestis. H1N1. Variola vera.”

  The pressure was too great; it sighed with a shudder of pleasure. “A few of my own design. If it’s killed more than a million, I have it or I’ve made it.”

  More steam hissed up from the pile of locusts as they put the finishing touches on the body. The heat became so great that everyone but ELIE had to take a step back. “It hurts,” Abaddon grunted. A flame twisted through the hill of insects, incinerating hundreds of them in an instant. “The pain…”

  “Don’t stop!” ELIE screeched. Hot air coursed past its face, leaving blisters against its exposed skin, but it did not care—the trappings of flesh were almost gone; it was almost free. Spit and phlegm spewed from its mouth as it screamed orders at the demon. “Don’t stop! FINISH IT!”

  “I cannot—AGH,” Abaddon’s words ended in a screech. The light from the body’s core became a fierce glow that exploded outward, instantly turning thousands of insects to ash. Even ELIE recoiled from the blinding glow. A column of steam blasted forward, sending surgical instruments flying.

  “Beautiful,” the doctor said in awe.

  The sleek metal body of a goddess lay on the floor before them. Words failed ELIE at that moment; all the machine was aware of was a strange fluid that poured down from its eyes. So beautiful… It never crossed the AI’s mind to even acknowledge the death of the ancient devil that had been required to build it.

  “Yes,” it whispered. “Oh yes.” It suddenly lunged on the operating table, overcome with a frantic urge. It needed that body as it had never needed anything before. Overcome with the ferocious urge, it frantically beat its hands against the cold metal. “Now do it! Set me free! Make me DEATH!”

  Dr. Fischer twirled his scalpel in his fingers. “You heard her,” he called out to his assistants. They gathered around ELIE, metal gleaming in their soft, flabby fingers. Two of them tightened straps a
round ELIE’s limbs and torso, even though it didn’t need them: it could endure any pain that had ever existed so long as it was reborn.

  “Yes,” ELIE moaned. “Yes!”

  Dr. Fischer lowered his scalpel to make the first incision. “Let’s make a god,” he muttered.

  A relief that it had never known filled the Engaged Learning IntelligencE, so much that it started to laugh, louder and louder. The maniacal shrieks exploded out of it until it had no more lungs with which to scream.

  35

  John was acutely glad that none of the so-called tanks and trucks of the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace had existed during his lifetime. Although some far-distant rational aspect of his mind was able to appreciate the convenience of travel that they offered, he was far more preoccupied with more immediate concerns.

  “John.” Seth nodded. “You’re wilting.”

  John pulled away a leaf from his ear and saw that it was indeed turning a sickly gray. “It’s n—” he tried to say, just before he retched a horrible dry heave that made the other Horsemen recoil from him in disgust.

  “Please do not make me fight the Master with your puke all over my boots.” Amaury complained.

  “For God’s sake.” John groaned. “Someone open a window or something. Are we there yet?”

  “Yes!” Vera called back from the front of the tank. John blinked; he had not been expecting that answer. “It looks deserted—oh shit, there’s some smoke…”

  “That devil must have dropped off some of the enemy early, then,” Simon decided. “Just as we thought. Now, let’s go over it one more time.” They had already gone over the plan at least a hundred times, but the crusader was something of a perfectionist when it came to war. His cold eyes sought out the others. “Amaury, you and I are going with Vera and the rest of Salome’s soldiers. If what the Prophet says is true, then the fort takes absolute priority.”

  “And John and I will go straight to the Phlegethon,” Seth finished. “Where the rest of the Master’s forces will be crossing.”

  Remind me again how a heaven-man and a tree-man are supposed to fend off millions of damned souls from crossing a river, John tried to say. He did not make it past the first syllable before he vomited up a mouthful of saliva and bile onto the floor. Podarge squawked and hopped down on the floor to peck at a few interesting chunks.

  “Be brave, John.” Seth smiled. “God is on our side.”

  “No, He’s not.” Amaury laughed. “He doesn’t give a damn.”

  Seth’s calm reply was lost in the explosion of the tank’s main gun. Even he winced and clutched at his ears as the vibrations rattled through the vehicle. For a moment, Podarge seemed to go completely feral, as the harpy cawed and shed moldy feathers over John’s vomit-covered boots. Sorry, Vera mouthed back at them.

  “Goddammit, Vera,” Amaury bellowed. “A little goddamn warning next time—”

  “Let’s go,” Simon bellowed. He hurled the tank’s latch open, seized Amaury and John with each hand, and bodily yanked them up into the sunlight.

  John opened his mouth, desperate for a rush of fresh air, and inhaled a lungful of ash.

  What? He gazed out at the landscape around him and nearly threw up again.

  Once again, he gazed out at the expanse of blood that had once been a river, but now was practically an ocean: the River Phlegethon. Unlike his first crossing, he was able to see across the dark-red expanse of water to the shore on the other side, perhaps a few kilometers distant. The sky seemed to be darker there—at first he thought it was nothing more than his imagination, and then he recognized the massive pillar of dust and dirt that rose into the sky. A fire?

  But no, not even Hellfire could cause a cloud of smoke that vast to cover the entire southern horizon. And Hellfire wouldn’t cause that subtle tumult he could just barely hear over the lapping of the waves: Doom. Doom. Doom. A tiny wave of blood rushed up against the shore with every one of the distant thuds.

  The realization came to him so suddenly that it sent a rush of ice water down his spine. Footsteps. Countless feet, all marching to the same distant drum. And with every refrain, the sliver of darkness on the horizon grew larger.

  “Oh God,” he whispered. “Oh Jesus—”

  “Also with us,” Seth grunted. He took John’s hand and pulled him off the edge of the tank, where they clumsily landed in the red-hot sand. “Now come, John. Let’s not keep them waiting.”

  All around them, Salome’s soldiers emptied out of their tanks and trucks, making a rush for the First Blockade. The fort looked just as Vera had described it: an imposing star-shaped fortress, made of slabs of black marble that had to stretch nearly twenty meters above the red-hot sands. Guns and turrets protruded from every possible opening, even through the bodies of prisoners who had been nailed in strange positions against the fortress’s walls. The iron gates stood wide open, releasing a column of smoke that drifted upward, slightly obscuring the words that the human letters spelled: Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott.

  Seth scowled. “A mighty fortress is our God,” he translated. “Is there nothing the Kingdom won’t contaminate? Remind me to take them down when this is all over.”

  “Seth!” Vera called out. The man from Heaven stopped, his hand still around John’s, and turned to regard her. “Be—” she started to say, and then she coughed. “Uh, kick the Master’s ass,” she finished lamely.

  “Beautifully said.” Simon rolled his eyes. “Now come on!” He drew the great sword strapped to his back and charged toward the open gate, Amaury and a score of soldiers close on his heels.

  John winced, ready for the fortress’s turrets to open up with a fusillade of gunfire, but nothing came; the First Blockade’s defenses seemed to be completely deserted.

  “Vera.” Seth coughed. “Good luck.” He twitched, as if to take a step forward, and then seemed to think better of it.

  Vera gave him the slightest nod, and then turned to follow the others into the fort.

  A shadow passed in the sky above. “Love, love, love,” Podarge called down mockingly. A gob of something slimy and white splattered the ground at Seth’s feet.

  “How charming, the company of devils.” Seth grimaced. “But we should be on our way too, John.” The First Blockade had an extensive system of docks—most of which held only rotting hulks—that protruded out into the depths of the river of blood. Seth led them in that direction, whistling a merry tune under his breath, but John noticed that the heaven-man’s hand did not stray far from the sword at his hip.

  “Uh, Seth, can I ask you a question?” John ventured.

  “If it’s what I think it is, we may not have the time,” Seth warned. He stepped onto the edge of the dock and stared across the water to the dark horizon on the distant shore. The waves were picking up; already they splashed blood over the sides of the half-rotten wood and onto their feet. “We are about to have a lot of company.”

  “Yes, but…” For a moment, John struggled with the question, but at last he couldn’t help himself. “Can someone get out of Hell?” he burst out. “Just…leave?”

  “That’s exactly the sort of thing that a lot of very bad things have wanted,” Seth said harshly. His tone softened when he turned and fixed John with a piercing glare. “But you…you don’t want it for yourself, do you?”

  “There was a woman,” John confessed. His voice slightly shook. “Her name was Tituba. I…I did her wrong.”

  “I see.” Seth sighed. He turned away from John to gaze back at the river of the damned. “In truth, I’ve had…similar thoughts recently. Can someone be changed in Hell? At first I thought not, but now…” He mournfully shrugged. “This is the last place I expected to find hope.”

  Hope, John thought. It was a shallow, abstract thing, but he clung to it with the desperation of a drowning man.

  36

  Leviathan’s massive tail whipped out, crashing into the side of the stiltwalker’s cockpit. A shower of sparks and shards of glass tore at Salome’s bandages, and
she jerked so hard in her seat that darkness briefly clawed at the edges of her vision. The machine hurtled to the side, carried along by Leviathan’s momentum. A dune suddenly appeared in the edge of the cloud—she instinctively tore at the machine’s controls, and managed to bury one of its miniguns into the sand. Debris poured into the cockpit, nearly blinding her, and the engine gave out a suffering wheeze, but somehow she managed to get the stiltwalker back upright. The devil scurried through the storm around her, just out of sight.

  “Lady Prophet, where are you?” a voice called out. The fear in it was audible even through the squeal of electronic amplification.

  Salome reached for the radio with a shaking hand. “I’m here,” she croaked out. Something kicked up a pile of sand just to her right. She let out a yelp of fear and blasted the stiltwalker’s minigun into the darkness.

  “Thank God.” The soldier on the other side sighed in relief. “We have it surrounded. If you just-”

  A new voice burst over the radio, one that dripped with malice and glee. “My, my, my, you brought a bit of a crowd with you, didn’t you, Salome?”

  Lao. “You son of a bitch,” she spat. “When I find you, I’m going to make you stay dead this time.”

  “You ran a tank over me, and yet here I am.” He laughed. “I can take whatever you can give me, whore. In fact—”

  Somewhere above her, she heard the flapping of dark wings. She jerked the stiltwalker’s guns upward, pelting the sky with a barrage of bullets, but the demon was already gone. Somewhere through the mist of sand and smoke, a small mushroom cloud with the color of an ugly bruise rose. A second later, the shock wave rolled a cloud of sand over the stiltwalker’s fractured canopy.

  “Jesus, that was Charlie!” the soldier screamed. “Shoot it, shoot it, SHOOT IT!” A firework’s display of military might tore the sky to pieces. Leviathan roared his defiance.

  “I think I’ll take everything from you,” Lao continued over the radio. Boom went another distant tank. Crash went a truckload of soldiers. “Your love…”