Hellbound

by Matt Turner

  “That is why I do this,” she said at last. Dread finality and sorrow dripped from her voice. “I love my sons. But now…with Cain…” The First Woman briefly struggled with the words. “Death is the only peace,” she said at last. She nodded toward Podarge. “Set my son free.”

  “And life everlasting.” The voice that came from Podarge’s lips rose into a howl of pure triumph. It stretched open its tiny harpy mouth, so wide that Vera could hear the tendons and skin tearing, and a cloud of oily darkness poured forth. She shut her remaining eye, trying to blot out the hideous sight of the formless shape, as the ground beneath her convulsed with a sudden tremor. The air itself seemed to be alive, letting out a shriek of agony as the patterns Eve had drawn exploded upward into red-hot steam. Even through her closed eyelid, Vera could see crackles of lightning flaring around the pentagram, forming strange, intangible runes in the air. She whimpered and tried to pull herself backward.

  What should I do? her gibbering mind, close to the edge of insanity, prayed. I’m nothing. What would Seth do?

  “At last,” the voice greedily called out. A vortex of steam and lightning surrounded the dark shape and the Beast’s severed heads, but they were no longer three separate entities—the illumination of the crackling light revealed glimpses of the fleshy mass that they were fusing into. “My resurrection! I AM REBORN!”

  With the speed of a bullet, the vortex suddenly extinguished itself. Great beams of light burst from the center of the pentagram, enveloping the entire ledge in an all-encompassing radiance that could have been eclipsed only by the sun itself. The beams of light—after so long being trapped in the eternal twilight of Hell—threatened to blind Vera, but she opened her remaining eye anyway, lured by their beautiful golden promise.

  “Long live God,” Eve rasped. She clumsily bowed her hunched back even lower, allowing her to touch the edge of her wrinkled forehead against the glittering rock at her feet.

  In the fierce light, every flaw of the First Woman was magnified a thousandfold. For all their beauty, the beams only seemed to further illuminate every crack, crevice, pore, or scar that they brushed up against. Vera glanced down at her bruised, bloodied body and was utterly repulsed by what she saw. She had always considered herself a beauty, or at the bare minimum relatively decent-looking, but she now realized the vessel that contained her soul was a hideous, rotten thing. The mere idea that another could find her anything other than hideous—let alone love her—became even more ridiculous than it had before.

  But Beauty incarnate stood where the harpy and the two severed heads had once been. To call the winged figure lovely or graceful was an insult to either of those words. As the beams of pure light pulsed from its body, bathing it in a radiant halo of brilliance that gently reflected off its feathered wings, Vera realized that the word perfection was insufficient as well. Babylon had attempted to imitate an angel, but this was the genuine article—the ultimate creation, more ancient than time, more beautiful than the stars…simply more. Every second she gazed at it was another dagger in her heart, reminding her of her uselessness and insignificance compared to such an almighty Power. Yet she could not look away from the divine features that made the rest of Creation seem like nothing more than a rotten husk.

  Then the angel smiled. Vera violently jerked her head away from the sight and narrowly avoided being blinded by the pulse of light that illuminated every mistake and tiny abomination that made up its existence. That isn’t God, she tried to tell herself. No matter what it says, it’s just another devil-bastard I have to kill.

  “First Sinner,” the angel said. It slightly twitched one of the golden feathers upon its back. Eve let out a yelp as the air around her suddenly twisted and contorted. Vera stared in disbelief as a tiny piece of Hell folded in on itself, turning the air and ground into a maze of crystalline fractures. The unnatural structure dragged the First Woman to the angel’s cloven hooves. “Again, you have served me well.”

  “You will kill my son, then?” Eve croaked. To her credit, she did not look away from the angel, instead staring directly up into its ever-shifting face. “Let him finally die and be at peace?”

  “I will let you watch,” the angel promised. It extended a single finger toward Eve’s face. She gasped in astonishment as her skin smoothed and darkened, as her bones twisted and straightened, and as her hair became long and luxuriant.

  Where the ancient crone of Hell had once stood, the beauty of the First Woman now glowed. In spite of her pain, in spite of the magnificent angel, Vera stared in awe at the wonder that Eve had become.

  “My God,” Eve whispered. She gaped down at her hands, no longer twisted and arthritic, and pressed them against the smooth skin of her face. “I’m me—”

  The angel glided over to Vera, allowing its cloven hooves to ever-so-slightly grind a painful melody against the rock. “I am Hell, Vera Figner. I am its God.”

  “No.” Vera shuddered as the angel’s wings wrapped around her, bringing it closer to its breast. The golden feathers were as cold and hard as steel. “No, you’re…”

  “I am the firstborn of Creation,” the angel boomed. The ledge shuddered and fell away into the darkness below, but the two humans and the angel remained hovering over the emptiness. “I am beyond Perfection. I am the Lord of Light, the Prince of Darkness, the Master of Mankind, the true Ruler of Creation. I am Lucifer, and I am here to take what is rightfully mine.”

  The Devil laughed, briefly twisting his heavenly features into something crueler and uglier than Vera’s worst nightmares, and then they rose upward toward the light, where unsuspecting humanity waited.

  53

  For ten thousand generations, the Master had awaited his opportunity. Like a loathsome conquering worm, he had gorged himself on the hate and misery of countless devils and damned alike. Even more than in life, his entire existence had become predicated on violence and the utter mastery of any who had dared to stand in his way.

  Seth did not stand a chance against his older brother.

  “What happened in Paradise?” Cain shouted. Death’s scythe came down with a scream of split air, colliding against Seth’s heavenly blade with a crash that sent tremors down both men’s hands. “How did they make you so WEAK?”

  Seth wrenched his sword downward, hoping to slash across Cain’s legs and set them alight, but the Master easily saw the clumsy attack coming. Something crashed into Seth’s chest and he found himself hurtling back, leaving a trail of blood in the air from his bleeding lips. The wall of the First Blockade rushed up to meet him, knocking the wind out of his lungs. There was not even a second’s reprieve, for he saw a blur of motion rushing toward him and had to lunge out of the way, just as Cain’s fist reduced the monument of stone and steel into an explosion of rubble.

  Seth gasped and choked on the cloud of debris that enveloped him. God, give me strength, he prayed. Give me—

  “Down!” someone shouted. A body crashed into Seth, knocking him off-balance, just as Death’s scythe flickered through the darkness above him. A spray of blood washed over Seth, and for a brief moment he thought that it was his; somehow Cain had finally gotten him—

  “Fuck!” Signy screamed. From her eyes upward, the top of her head was completely gone, yet unbelievably she still stood upright, blindly pulling back on her bow. “Move, Heaven-man!”

  There was no time to process what was happening—Seth wrenched his sword off the ground and staggered back to his feet. The blade leapt back into life, igniting a flame that drove the smoke away and revealed the true horror of Signy’s wounds. He reached out a hand for her, intent on shoving her aside.

  “Come on then!” the Master shouted. The scythe in his hands became a blur as he charged at Seth.

  Signy let out a wordless cry and loosed her last arrow. It shattered into a million pieces as it uselessly crashed against the scythe—and then Cain’s path brought him directly through her. Red mist embraced them both as the two brothers resumed their duel.

&nbs
p; “How many more do I have to destroy?” Cain’s lips contorted into a smile. Clash clash clash went his scythe as he hammered it down at Seth again and again, driving him farther and farther back with every blow. “How many until you see, little brother?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Seth could make out Amaury, Simon, and John rushing toward them. Need to distract him. “See what?” he snarled.

  “Can’t throw me down into Judecca again.” Cain laughed. “I’ll just get out.”

  John’s vines tore from the ground, a veritable avalanche of vegetation that briefly swallowed up Cain in a monstrous mouth of blood-sucking, bone-crushing briars and thorns. Amaury immediately opened fire, engulfing the labyrinth in a wave of bullets and flames.

  “Can’t ever beat me,” the Master mocked. “I am the God of War.”

  A single sweep of his scythe reduced John’s trap to dust and ribbons. Simon charged forward, a cry of defiance on his lips, but Cain hardly paid him a moment’s notice, easily knocking the Horseman away with a single backhand blow.

  “You need to see, little brother.” Cain’s golden eyes shone with pure malice. “There’s only one way your God can ever stop me.”

  Seth dove forward, his heavenly blade like an extension of his arm, coursing with righteous fire as he aimed it directly for his brother’s loathsome heart. God is with me. He is with me—

  Cain caught him in mid-air, tearing him out of the sky with the edge of the scythe. Wicked steel coursed down Seth’s spine, leaving a trail of blood across his vertebrae—and then Cain shifted his weight, and the ground rose up to meet Seth’s face. The power of the impact shattered his nose and turned the broken cobblestones of the fort into dust.

  “I am so very disappointed.” Cain sighed. He twisted the scythe around so that the blade rested against Seth’s throat. “I’d hoped you’d be stronger.”

  Seth reached out for the sword he had dropped, but Cain’s bare foot crashed down on his wrist. He let out a cry as something inside it let out a painful pop. “You—can’t win—” Seth said between gritted teeth. “You know that.”

  “Of course I know that,” Cain hissed. The reflection of the distant fires glimmered in his golden eyes. “You think I’m Satan, foolish enough to try to usurp the Almighty?” He laughed. “No one is that good, little brother. Not even me. I only seek to force His hand.”

  The scythe tightened against Seth’s throat. “And if I have to kill a hundred billion, if I have to drown all Creation in blood, then so be it.” For a brief moment, the Master’s façade slipped away, and Seth saw the desperation—and was that fear?—on his brother’s face. “No finite sin is worth infinite pain, little brother. I only want to end this hell. All of it.”

  “Cain…” Seth tried. The blade did not loosen. “You slew Abel. You murdered our brother.”

  Cain’s face was stone. “I did.”

  “Why?”

  The muscles in Cain’s hands began to tremble. Seth could feel the minuscule vibrations travel down the scythe’s blade against his throat.

  “God loved him and not me,” his brother whispered. “He—he always hated me. I—I wanted that. I wanted to show Him what it was like to hurt. What it was like to have your heart ripped out.”

  “I was the one who found Abel,” Seth said in a low voice. He would never forget the sickly sweet smell, or the way the clouds of flies had covered his face as thick as an animal’s pelt.

  “I…I made it quick,” Cain muttered. His eyes dimmed as a few droplets of liquid collected within them. “I tried to. The rock was heavy, and he was looking away. Just three blows…that’s all it took. Three blows…” He gazed upward for a moment, taking in the hell that lay around them. “For all this horror.”

  Seth closed his eyes. “I forgive you,” he said quietly.

  “You’re still a fool.” Cain sighed. “I don’t want forgiveness, little brother. I don’t deserve it.” He tightened his grip on the scythe once more. “What I want is death.”

  “And I have it.”

  The two brothers jerked their heads up in utter surprise. Standing in the mud and the filth of the First Blockade, as beautiful and glowing as the sun, a figure from their childhood stood. No, she was even more perfect than Seth’s happiest memory—she didn’t even have the lines on her face, or the old sadness in her eyes.

  The blade against Seth’s throat fell away. “Mother?” Cain gaped.

  “My sons.” The First Woman smiled, in all her beauty. It brought tears to Seth’s eyes to see her happy once again. She raised her hands up to the sky, and a single column of sunlight penetrated through the ash-clouds. The light sparkled against her hair, and she closed her eyes in a joyous laugh. “Let him give you an end. Let him give you death.”

  The blood drained from Cain’s face as his eyes traced the sunlight upward. “God help me,” he whispered.

  “Oh, my friends.” The angel stretched out his wings, bathing the rubble of the First Blockade in a radiant glow. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  54

  Vera blinked, for her right eye was suddenly back in its socket. What the— She turned and nearly bumped headlong into Amaury and the other Horsemen.

  The redhead contorted his face in confusion. “Where the fuck did you come from?”

  “I—” But the rest of her words were drowned out by the sight of the angel that loomed over them all. It was a god made flesh, beauty incarnate; it was—

  The Prince of Darkness, he had called himself.

  A chill ran down Vera’s spine. She needed to call out to Seth, to warn him—

  One of the angel’s eyes rolled back in its socket to assess the four Horsemen. “Let the slaves deal with the machine,” it gently said. “This is a family matter.” Before any of them could react, it snapped its fingers, and the landscape evaporated around them. When it reformed, they found themselves on the edge of the great chasm that the Earthquake Bomb had left behind. The smoldering ruins of the First Blockade were little more than a speck on the horizon.

  “I’m fucking sick,” Simon spat, “of never knowing what the living fuck is going on!”

  A horribly familiar buzzing echoed from the depths of the bottomless canyon that stretched before them.

  “It’s the same thing as always.” Vera sighed. She closed her eyes in concentration and reached out with her mind. Sure enough, there they were—the countless little scraps of hunger that she had sensed earlier.

  Amaury twirled out his machine-pistols. “Fighting like hell, am I right?”

  The Swarm must have sensed them, for the buzzing was growing louder. There was another sound within it now, an animalistic roar of fury.

  “I don’t suppose we have a choice.” John sighed.

  “Nope.” Amaury winked, just as a tidal wave of the microscopic monsters slammed over the edge of the canyon and reached out to engulf them.

  55

  “Mother?” Seth asked haltingly as he pulled himself up from the dirt. Cain stood beside him, motionlessly staring up at the sky, but Seth had no time for angels, for his old mother was back—and she was smiling at him. She was actually smiling!

  “Seth,” Eve said gently. She extended out her arms for an embrace. “My child. My thirdborn. Please…please forgive me.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive, Mother,” Seth wept. He stumbled toward her, heedless of his injuries or the way that Cain remained frozen in place. “Mama, I’ve missed you—I’ve missed you so much…”

  “I’ve missed you too, Seth,” Eve said. Tears grew at the corners of her eyes as she strode forward, eager to hug her son. “My child, my sweet child. I lo—”

  She suddenly stopped dead in her tracks as the word died on her lips. A look of distress came over her beautiful face.

  The angel that hovered above them slightly shifted as Cain sucked in his breath.

  “Mama?” Seth hesitated.

  She looked up at him, allowing him to see the layer of translucent flesh that had sealed together
her lips. It spread upward, wiping away her nose in a thick layer of blubber.

  “NO,” Seth screamed in horror. He dashed forward, Cain just at his heels, but it was too late, for Eve’s features were already gone, slipping away into a mass of flesh that shrank and curdled and bubbled. He threw aside his sword and plunged his hands into it, desperately trying to save his mother, but there was nothing left of her—only the translucent sludge-like substance.

  “She can still hear you, Seth,” the angel whispered. “I made sure of that.”

  Seth stared at the horrible substance in his hands. No. His mind recoiled from the horrible truth. Oh God, oh Jesus, oh please—

  “Welcome to Hell, Seth.” A lovely smile crossed Satan’s face. “I have waited so very long to say that.”

  “Why?” Seth screamed up at the angel. “Why?”

  “Mankind,” Satan glowered. “You were meant to usurp ME. The Creator wanted me to bow and scrape before YOU. I am the Firstborn of all Creation, puny mortal. It is mine by right. And so I broke your little family, one piece at a time. Father, mother, eldest son. And now…” He stretched out a wing toward Seth’s face. “I can taste the despair of the youngest. Will Heaven take you back now, I wonder?”

  “Enough,” Cain hissed. Seth turned to see that every vein in his brother’s face bulged out with sheer rage. His golden eyes shone with such fire that they seemed on the verge of igniting the sockets. “You hurt my mother, foul devil. I will make your death slow.”

  Satan’s face shone with delight. “What fun your family is, Heaven-man. I’ve waited so long—”

  Scythe and sword came up as one, both aimed for the cruel monster’s heart. Satan let out a crow of triumph as he flapped his wings down, exploding up into the air. “Too slow, little men.”

  A great weight hammered into the back of the angel, slamming him into the dirt at Cain’s feet. The ground shook and twisted with the impact, shattering into a mighty crater. Just in the nick of time, Seth seized the pulsing remnants of his mother and kept them from being swept away in the shock wave.