by Matt Turner
They did it, Seth thought. They actually did it. But how was he—
The answer came from the tiniest cough, a wheeze so minuscule he could barely make it out over the roaring infernos in the distance.
“Son,” Adam’s reedy voice moaned. A layer of hardened, cracked dust fell away from Seth’s body and crashed against the glass at his feet, fading into nothingness. “Forgive me…”
“Father,” Seth whispered. He clutched at his pockets, searching for the last remnants of Eve’s body that he had rescued, but they were nothing but ash too, dust that was immediately swept away by the wind. They saved me. “I won’t forget you,” he swore to the winds. “Mother, Father, I won’t forget.”
“How sweet.” Satan snickered.
A great talon tore through the back of Seth’s spine and out through the front of his chest. The heavenly blade fell away from his fingers, forever lost. For a moment, he could see his heart caught on the very edge of the barbed claw, somehow still caught on the vessels in his chest even though it was a foot in front of his head—and then the Prince of Darkness stabbed his talon into the smoldering earth. Seth choked on ash and glass for a moment until he was at last wrenched back up into the light.
“Brother,” Cain whispered. His golden eyes were gone, replaced with sockets that wept blood, yet he still gave a nod of recognition to his younger brother. Like Seth, he was impaled on another one of the Great Deceiver’s claws.
“Four out of five.” Satan grinned as he brought the two brothers close. “How long until Abel comes running and I get the full set, I wonder?”
“Don’t beg,” Cain hissed. He locked his teeth into a snarl of animal fury. “Don’t let him win.”
“He doesn’t need another brother,” a firm voice rang out. “He has me.”
What is she doing here? “Vera,” Seth gurgled out through lungs overflowing with blood. “Get out! Run!”
Satan spun his claws about so that Seth could see the lone woman striding through the fires toward them. Her body was encased in a thick shell of bark-like armor, but her dark hair hung free to curl and twist through the wind. The flames crackled past her knees and the invisible radiation steadily hammered away at her armor, but Vera did not flinch. He felt an incredible rush of affection for the sheer idiocy of her bravery.
“Little Vera Figner.” The angel smiled. “My favorite. You shall become my consort, my new bride.” He wagged his finger at her, jostling Seth’s broken body. “Would you like to watch, Heaven-man?”
“Put him down,” Vera snarled. The angelic being stood nearly four times her height, yet she continued to stride forward anyway.
“She has spirit,” Satan noted. “There’s fire in this one. I like that. Makes the breaking more fun.” He brushed a single downy feather against Seth’s cheek, making him squirm in disgust. “You have good taste, Heaven-man.”
“You remind me of someone I once knew,” Vera said. “He thought he could break me too—until I shattered him.”
A tiny frown crossed Satan’s face. “You are scarcely an ape, nothing more. I am like no man you have ever known,” he hissed. “Let me give you your dowry.”
He flicked one of his wings to the sky above.
Seth raised his eyes and groaned, for the great breaking of Hell had only just begun.
61
Too late, Vera realized the godlike power of the one she faced—for above them, hurtling downward, a great mountain-sized chunk of rock and earth shot through the mushroom cloud, dissipating the sky of smoke with the sheer force of its passing. A few skyscrapers still clung to the meteorite like scabs—the last remains of Dis. The city’s destruction was soon to be complete at last.
“I’ll dig your body from the rubble, little Vera,” Satan promised. He raised one of his wings, easily shattering the heaven-man’s burning blade into a thousand shards of metal. “Perhaps this will teach you some respect.”
The mountain hurtled down toward them even faster, moving so swiftly that parts of it caught fire in the blackened air. A scrap of city slammed into the ground just a few hundred meters from where they were. The ash-stained ground rippled beneath them like water as the fallen angel merrily laughed.
“I always wanted to see what your species would make of my Hell.” Satan grinned down at the two brothers impaled on his talons. He motioned to the great mushroom cloud above them and the destroyed city that was nearly on top of them. “You’ve exceeded my wildest expectations!”
Think, Vera thought desperately. Think, goddammit! But there was no time—it was upon them.
Hundreds of truck-sized scraps of flaming debris pounded the ground around them like an artillery barrage. One hurtled straight down for the Devil, and for a moment Vera felt a brief surge of hope—and then it simply passed through him as though he were smoke. The others were all blasted back by the shock wave from the impact. Lucifer laughed at them all with a voice as light and joyful as a summer day, a mere instant before the mountain came down to meet them.
“I am Hell!” the angel bellowed in triumph. His words echoed across every layer of Hell, even above the screams and the infernos that continued to billow out from the Xipe Totec’s aftermath. “I am ALL!”
“You’re wrong,” Vera said flatly.
Satan’s hand flickered, and the meteorite that loomed above them suddenly changed direction. The air split and burned above them as it screeched overhead. The very foundations of Hell quaked with the impact when it finally came to an earth-splitting crash beyond the distant horizon.
“Say that again,” the Devil said in a low voice.
“You’re nothing.” Vera grinned. Fear made the words spill out of her in a waterfall as she tensed her mind, waiting for the inevitable onslaught. “You have nothing, you’re worse than nothing—”
In an instant, the angel was upon her. Fire and brimstone lashed in his eyes as he seized the top of her head with a mighty grip. The protective bark that John had cast around her shattered away at his touch. “I’ll take everything from you,” he raged. “I’ll make you rue the day you were born.”
His mind smashed into hers with the power of an avalanche, sweeping away the pitiful defenses that she mounted. Vera screamed as Satan tore through her memories with the bloodlust of a madman.
Still think you can mock me? The silent words pounded away at every scrap of resistance she threw against him. He gleefully smashed her hopes and dreams and silent fears into dust. What a pathetic little creature you are, Vera Figner. All the evil you did? To think that anyone could ever love you.
Shut up, she pleaded. Get out, get out of my head—
I’m just doing what you did unto others. Lucifer laughed. He eagerly toyed with the memories of her father. He may have been a worthless drunk, but he was always right about you.
The pain grew so great that she cried like a child. “You’re right,” she sobbed. “You’re right.”
She was incapable of love, undeserving of love—she had learned that lesson a long, long time ago.
Unbidden, her eyes shifted toward Seth. She nearly jumped in surprise when she saw the silent words forming on his lips. And Vera Figner knew what she had to do.
But, she desperately pleaded, holding out another memory—I have meaning; I have purpose.
Satan’s eyes widened. “The Revolution?” He chortled. His long fingers slid away from her face. “You think your life with the Bolsheviks gave your soul meaning? You foolish, foolish child.” He slashed his hand aside, ripping Cain and Seth away with the sheer centrifugal force. “Let me show you what your deeds on Earth wrought.”
Still chuckling to himself, he flicked one of his fingers. There was an explosion of light as the air before him twisted and shimmered. Before Vera could fully process what was happening, the angel seized her by the throat and dragged her through.
62
“Welcome home, Vera Figner.”
The voice and the body were that of a man, but the joyful, dancing pupils remained the same. S
atan pulled his coat more tightly about his body and pretended to shiver. “Almost as chilly as Judecca here.”
For a moment, it seemed to Vera that the demon had dragged her all the way to Dis, judging from the rubble of the devastated buildings that loomed over them, and the distant fires that flickered through the empty city. But there was no snow in Dis, nor were there fallen signposts scrawled in Cyrillic.
“This is Russia.” She gasped. She pulled herself up from the snowbank in which she had fallen and stared in awe at her surroundings. Behind them, a circle of light glimmered in the air. She could catch a glimpse of the smoldering remains of the Seventh Circle through it.
“This is Stalingrad.” Satan grinned. “They called it Volgograd back in your day. But since then, your Revolution has made some changes.” He gestured at the battlefield around them. “Smell that?”
She did. Death hung heavy in the air. It was only then that her eyes began to pick out the bodies half-buried in the snow about her. Soldiers, women, and small bundles that could only have been… She knelt beside one of them and brushed aside his bloody hair. The empty eyes of a child stared up at her.
“This is what your life’s work led up to,” Satan sneered. “This is what you helped make, Vera Figner. It’s all your species is good for, really.” His warm hand brushed against the back of her neck. “Do you not see? You belong with me. Forever. All of you.”
“No,” Vera hissed.
“Then shall I take us back to the train you blew up?” the Devil asked merrily. “I’ve already counted all of the corpses you left behind, Vera. Three hundred and twenty-six. Do you know how many of them were children?”
She closed her eyes, willing the tears to go away. They froze into little chunks of ice upon her cheeks. “I’m not that person anymore.”
“Oh, but you are,” Satan whispered. “I’ll take you to every last one of your sins, every last one of your countless crimes, every flicker of cruelty you ever showed another one of your pathetic kind—”
She collapsed down into the snow.
“Don’t tell me you’re broken already.” He chuckled. “Vera, I have all the time in the universe! And I haven’t even begun.”
Vera rolled onto her back. The dim sunlight glinted off the muzzle that she pointed up at his handsome face. “Neither have I,” she agreed.
The pistol exploded in her hands, and Satan let out a squawk of dismay as the bullet lanced across his cheek, ripping out a great gouge of blood and flesh that spattered out onto the snow. He raised a hand to his cheek and stared at the red stain upon his fingers in amazement.
“I’m not in your Hell anymore,” Vera snarled. “You’re in mine.”
“You little BITCH,” the Prince of Darkness screamed, and he dove down at her. She squeezed the trigger again and again, blowing chunks of meat from his body as he slashed and tore at her with his fingers.
But just as he had said, all his power was invested in Hell. Vera easily batted away his clumsy attacks, wrenched him down by the collar of his bloodstained coat, and jammed the gun’s muzzle into his mouth. The red-hot metal singed against Satan’s tongue, and his eyes bulged out in terror. “Wait,” he pleaded, his scarlet lips twisting around the barrel. “Anything—I can give you anything—the cosmos, death, ANYTHING!”
“You talk too much,” Vera growled, and she squeezed the trigger one last time.
The snows of Stalingrad were decorated with a spray of bone fragments as the lower back of Satan’s head exploded. He toppled backward, a few scraps of tongue hanging free from his distended jaw. Vera kicked up at him, felt her boot crash between his legs, and scrambled up to her feet.
“Hefff,” the maimed demon screamed at her. He rolled around in the snow, somehow still alive in spite of everything. She emptied the rest of the pistol into his body and watched with disdain as his struggles began to slow.
For one moment, she stood there over the bleeding, struggling man and raised her face up to the sky. Somewhere up there, dimmed by the dark snow-clouds but shining nonetheless, she caught a glimpse of the sun. She bathed in its glow for the most precious few seconds of her existence. I never realized it was so beautiful.
With a final sigh, she turned to the portal that still glimmered and twisted in the cold air. Just before she entered, she turned and hacked up a wad of phlegm that she spat into the ruins of Satan’s face. He let out a grisly moan in reply.
“Welcome to Hell,” Vera Figner sneered. She turned back to the portal and never looked back.
Five minutes later, Kapitän Fritz Rybka came across the remains of the previous week’s massacre. Fritz watched with bored disdain as his men spread out and began to search the bodies of the dead Bolsheviks. He had no doubt that they would find nothing of interest; the scavengers had likely combed over the dead untermensch two or three times by now.
What a damn waste, he thought as he eyed the empty bullet casings at his feet. There was no point in purging Bolsheviks if they just wasted the ammunition they needed for the other Bolsheviks. Use the bayonets, he had urged his superiors, over and over again. Use the knives; use the tank treads. Just don’t use all our goddamn ammo!
He was disturbed from his thoughts by the whistle of one of his soldiers. “Kapitän, there’s one still alive over here!”
“Bull-shit,” Fritz sneered, but he eagerly paced to where a small group of his men had surrounded a body.
To his amazement, the Bolshevik still was alive—even with the grievous bullet holes embedded in his torso, the shattered remains of his mouth, and the ever-expanding pool of blood pouring out from his body, the dark-haired man was still able to draw in shallow, ragged breaths.
“I’ll be damned,” Fritz whistled.
“They make ’em tough in the Motherland,” someone said.
Fritz gave the assembled men a nasty glare. “They’re just too fucking stupid to know when to die.” He pulled out his Luger. “We’re here to fix that.” He placed the barrel of the gun against the Bolshevik’s forehead and began to squeeze the trigger.
The dying man’s pleading eyes locked with Fritz’s. “Ftzz.” His lips slurred a waterfall of blood. “Hfff. Helll.”
“No,” Fritz decided. He holstered his pistol. The stranger let out a sigh of audible relief, and then sucked in his breath with the kapitän’s next words. “Save your ammo, men. Someone get me a knife.”
One of his soldiers pressed the blade into his hand. “This is dull, Sergeant,” Fritz snapped as he inspected the steel. “Consider yourself on report.”
“Yes, sir,” came the sullen reply.
The stranger’s eyes bulged out in terror as Fritz brought the blade close. “No,” he managed to croak out. Soon enough, he couldn’t say anything at all.
Fritz whistled a jaunty tune to himself as he set to work. “Horst-Wessel-Lied” had always been a favorite of his; the patriotic music always came easily to his lips. It was a glorious day to serve the Fatherland. But it was an even better day to kill Russians.
Do the thing you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.
63
The rest of the Horsemen were waiting for her when she finally emerged. John still panted with every step, and Amaury had to lean on his father for support, but the tough bark about their bodies seemed to have protected them from any further damage.
“She returns.” Amaury coughed as Vera stepped onto the ashen ground. The fires in the immediate vicinity seemed to have finally died away; all that remained around them was a layer of cracked, ash-ridden glass. “We saw everything through the portal. Hell of a job.”
“Good to see you, Vera.” John smiled. He reached out a hand and began to slip a layer of transparent bark to protect her face. “We still have to wear these, I’m afraid. Seth says the radiation won’t die down for a while.”
“Seth,” Vera said. “Where is he?”
Simon nodded to the far edge of the small clearing, where one dark figure knelt over another. “Amaury did what he could,�
� he said quietly. “Adam protected Seth from the full brunt of the blast, but…”
The rest of his words faded away as Vera rushed toward the two men. Glass and ash cracked beneath her feet with every step, and Seth turned his head to see her approaching.
“Vera.” Relief glowed on every inch of his features. He tried to take a step toward her and winced as the monstrous scab over his chest twisted. “You did it!”
“She did,” Cain agreed. His once-powerful voice was little more than a rasp as he weakly raised up his head. He was covered from head to toe in great, weeping sores, and his golden eyes were gone. All that remained of the Master’s splendor was the fierce rage engraved on his dark features. “Seth told me all.”
Vera stared down at his broken body. “What happens now?” she asked in a low voice.
“I exist,” Cain said flatly. Seth reached down and gently wiped away the blood that trickled down from the ruins of his brother’s eyes. “Forever. Until the Last Judgment is called.” He coughed up a few scraps of lung and twisted his lips into a wry smile. He looked so much like his brother that it made a small shiver pass down her spine. “Whenever that comes.”
“Let me help.” Vera knelt by his side and reached out for his scalp.
Cain wrenched her hand out of the air. “What are you doing?” he hissed.
She opened her mind to him, baring the absolute truth of her intentions. “Letting you rest,” she said.
For a long moment, the Master’s bloody sockets stared up at her. At last, the grip on her wrist slipped away. “Rest,” Cain whispered. “Aye…I could rest.” His eyelids slid closed, and he let out a deep sigh as Vera brushed her hand against his scalp. “Good-bye, little brother.”
“Good-bye,” Seth whispered.
Vera reached deep into Cain’s mind, past thousands of years of torture and pain, of such depths of rage and sorrow that it made her cringe and look away, until she found what she was looking for. A single childhood memory of happier times, with a mother and father who adored him, and two younger brothers who looked up to him. She gently coaxed Cain’s consciousness into the dream that she had created for him, and then she let him sleep.