by E. A. Copen
The tusked guy wasn’t impressed. He pushed me toward the path. Josiah was already several yards ahead, surrounded on all sides by armed guards.
I shook my head. “What am I? Chopped liver? He gets four guards, and all I get is one. So unfair. I’m a Horseman, for Christ’s sake.”
My guard just shoved me again.
“Okay! I’m going! Geez, you know, you could try using your words. People keep telling me violence isn’t the answer. Flies, honey, vinegar. All that.”
He opened his mouth and brayed, the sound halfway between bat wings fluttering against glass and a dying donkey.
I shuddered and started walking. Wherever we were going, I was sure I wasn’t going to like what I found there.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The death march dragged on long enough to be a torture all its own. Dry heat burned my lungs with every pull of breath. Putrid smells left my guts writhing as if I’d swallowed live snakes. Acidic air burned my eyes and nose until I cried tears of blood. More of the same flowed down the front of me out of my nose to stain my shirt. The whip never left my neck, and if I slowed down or turned my head to look around, my escort gave it a jerk to urge me on.
The pits I had initially taken to be lava were full of boiling blood or oil instead. More monsters like the ones escorting us pushed souls into the bubbling liquid by the dozens, watching with grim faces as the damned boiled and screamed like lobsters. A naked woman burst from one of the pits covered in black leeches. When she pulled one off her face, it tore the skin, revealing charred bone beneath.
I squeezed my eyes shut and marched, knowing Naraka would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life. When Charon called it a place of unrelenting torment, he’d underestimated the place.
After the pits, we walked through a valley crawling with snakes. Up on the rocks, huge vultures picked screaming souls apart. Scorpions the size of house cats snapped and stung at souls and snakes alike, not caring which ones they speared and devoured. Twisted, red-eyed demons resembling no animal on Earth sat on the cliffs, shoving their fat jowls full of human meat, sitting on ever-expanding heaps of their own excrement.
On the other side of the valley, the path narrowed. Trees consumed by fire lined either side, burning branches continually falling over the path only to burn to ash. The air and the path were so hot, the air itself burned. My clothing caught fire and the creature escorting me ripped it away. I kicked off my melting shoes rather than let them burn onto me. When I stopped to get rid of them, the whip came away from my neck and struck out, biting into my naked back with searing teeth.
I collapsed on the burning sandy road, face against the hot path. Already, I’d run out of words to describe the pain and misery of the walk. Laying there, burning, feeling the whip crack against my back, it felt like the end, and I was ready to embrace it. But it wasn’t meant to be. No matter how long I lay there, no matter how many times he struck me, the horror of my existence didn’t end.
Eventually, he got tired of hitting me and pulled me up, pointing down the path. Since lying against impossibly hot ground didn’t do anything but make things worse, my best bet at ending the misery was to continue.
I went.
I don’t know how long I walked. After falling, I lost sight of Josiah and his four escorts. The landscape repeated its revolting and painful terrain with minor variations until we came to the gates of a city. Huge, red gates opened, and I was paraded through empty streets, exhausted. Every flat surface invited me to lie down, to rest, but if I even looked at them, the whip reminded me to keep moving.
It felt like I walked for days.
When I was certain things couldn’t get any worse, the unbearable heat died, replaced by biting cold. My fingers, toes, and nose turned black. My insides iced over and blood froze on my face. Still, I marched on over slick ice, thick snow, and empty plains made of icy glass.
Every passing moment was pain and misery with no reprieve. If I’d had a physical form, eventually my body’s self-preservation instincts would’ve kicked in. I’d have passed out because of the pain or gone into shock where I felt nothing. Souls didn’t have that luxury. Despite having no body, every nerve ending felt awake, their sensitivity turned to eleven. I would’ve done anything to make the pain stop if someone had offered it to me, but no one did. My captor didn’t speak to me, nor I to him for the entirety of the trip. What was there to say? If I opened my mouth, I would’ve just burned or froze on the inside, too.
At long last, we came to a golden palace that stood so tall, I couldn’t see the roof from the ground. The gates opened and more tusked monsters rushed out to pick me up. I was too weak to fight them as they dragged me into the palace, up a set of golden stairs and cast me at the feet of a god.
He was an imposing figure with a hard face and long, black hair. A prominent black mustache might’ve made him look comical if not for the stern glare and giant club. The look he gave me should’ve been reserved for mothers who’d just had their teenaged sons come in late. Worry, disappointment, anger.
Somehow, I found the strength to rise to my knees. “You must be Yama. Hades said you were a prick, but he failed to mention the uninspired landscaping. Throw in a couple of water slides, and you’ve got a regular horror theme park out there.”
He tapped his fingers on his muscular leg. “I find your lack of respect disturbing.”
“You’ll have to excuse me, Vader. I’m a little tired from all the walking and the beatings. I don’t exactly have the energy to kiss your ass.”
Yama raised his chin and peered down his nose at me. “Do you think your status protects you here? All mortals must face judgment.”
“Dead mortals, asshole.” I stood on shaky legs. “And mortals who’ve been processed through the proper channels and sent your way, which I haven’t.”
He folded his arms over his bare, sculpted chest. “Do you expect me to believe you were simply passing through on a visit? To see the sights? This is the story your companion told me. Would you like to see how it worked out for him?”
He must mean Josiah. Shit, if Josiah couldn’t talk his way out of this, I didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hell. “Yeah, well if I’m a smartass, he’s a smarter ass. I’m sure he was just overjoyed by the warm welcome. So thrilled he couldn’t think straight.”
Yama stood and used his club to point as a projector screen lowered from the ceiling. “Behold your sins, Lazarus Kerrigan, Pale Horseman.”
An unseen projector kicked on and started playing the movie of my life as recorded by someone looking over my shoulder. The show kicked off with me burning ants in the backyard when I was six, followed promptly by a grade school playground fight I’d picked. The kids had been bullies picking on someone else, and I had enough of it. I figured if they wore themselves out kicking my face in, they wouldn’t pick on the wheezy kid with the inhaler and the peanut allergy anymore. Guess I showed them, right before I rode my bike all the way to the urgent care. I hadn’t wanted my dad to know about the fight, but of course, they called, and he showed up pissed. Belted me good.
The final scene in that sequence was me lying in bed, pushing angry tears away. I remembered well what I was thinking that night. I was thinking of Dad’s .22. It was in the garage. I knew how to shoot it. All I had to do was aim it at him instead of a tin can, and he’d never get to belt me again.
“Bullshit,” I spat. “I didn’t do it. I only thought about killing my old man. You going to judge me for my thoughts?”
Yama didn’t answer. Guess he was a god of few words.
“Man, I can’t wait until we get to the puberty reel.” I cringed. “There it is. Hey, man, I found that by accident on the internet.”
“You found it by accident thirty-seven times in four months?” He raised a bushy eyebrow.
I started to defend myself and realized it was pointless. “You get one guy to stand here and tell me they’ve never watched porn and I’ll find you a liar. I was a kid. Better that than—”
I broke off when the movie changed over to another scene. “Well, what do you want me to say? I had a shitty role model. Not like I was torturing small animals. I was awkwardly getting to third base with a pretty girl. So what? Didn’t realize that was a crime. It’s called being a teenager, pal. Try it sometime and see if you fare any better.”
The highlights reel moved on, taking me to a cold, metal room with a little girl’s body laid out on an exam table. Lydia, my little sister.
I straightened as I watched myself make the biggest series of mistakes in my life. “You can’t punish me for this,” I said, turning on Yama. “I did my time.”
“On Earth, perhaps,” he replied, watching the scene unfold. “But there is a spiritual price to pay as well, and that sum has not yet been calculated.”
The next scene was a fun one. Me, throwing my guts up surrounded by empty liquor bottles. That was after Odette left me. I’d spent two weeks in a booze-filled stupor, pissed off as hell. Looking back on it, I’d wasted all that time. Maybe we’d never stood a chance of getting back together, but I could’ve been a part of Remy’s life from the very beginning. I could’ve helped her more. Maybe she wouldn’t be dead if I’d pulled my head out of my ass long enough to care.
The last scene was recent enough to still hurt. It was of me holding Emma while plotting Morningstar’s downfall. I’d imagined every possible way I’d kill him, or help Emma kill him. In the end, none of those methods would probably work, but it’d gotten me through the moment.
“Fuck you,” I spat at the god. “You want to punish me, then just do it. You don’t need to drag me back through all this.”
Yama struck his stick against a big gong, silencing me. When the sound faded, he announced, “Your principal sin is wrath. You have spent your life hurting other people, hurting yourself, consumed by anger and hate.”
“Great. What’s my sentence? Six months in a lava pit? Pecked apart by vultures?”
One of the tusked men came forward and bowed. Yama motioned him forward, and the creature went to whisper something into Yama’s ear.
The god narrowed his eyes at me. “I will reserve final judgment for later. For now, put him in the arena. Let him fight the other one. If they die in the process, so be it.”
“Fight the other one?” I asked as the tusked monsters came to retrieve me.
But Yama had already turned his back on me. He walked away and didn’t even spare a glance in my direction.
***
The arena they dragged me to was a pale imitation of the one I’d fought in before. It was less than a quarter of the size, more of a pit with stadium seating and a packed dirt floor than a proper arena. That didn’t stop it from apparently being a popular spot. The seats were full of twisted souls, more of the tusked men, and bat-winged creatures with extra appendages, all of them raucous and screaming for blood.
Below, a huge demonic creature with eight arms and blue skin lumbered around the arena, throwing jabs at a familiar skinny, shirtless Aussie. Josiah looked like he’d been beaten to a pulp and then resurrected to fight again. He had a nice bleeding gash on his forehead and a swollen lump under one eye.
Josiah threw a punch below the belt, and the eight-armed demon crumbled. Good strategy. Taking on eight fists was a losing proposition, no matter how good he was. While he was down, Josiah swooped in to take advantage of the demon’s momentary immobility, but the demon recovered faster than he anticipated. Four hands shot out and wrapped around Josiah, each one incapacitating a limb. The demon jerked Josiah’s legs from under him and dangled him upside-down two feet in the air.
The crowd jumped to their feet, half of them cheering while the other half booed and jeered. Handfuls of black engraved coins passed between patrons in the stands.
Well, look at that. I wonder what the all-powerful Yama would think of betting going on in his arena. Pretty sure that was on a list of sins somewhere. If I were a betting man, I’d have put my money on the demon. From where I stood, Josiah looked screwed. A little more effort and the demon would tear him apart.
Unfortunately, I needed Josiah alive to save Nikki and Emma. I eyed the arena. With a running jump, maybe I could—
“A little harder, mate!” Josiah shouted. “I’ve still got a kink in my spine.” The man was insane.
The demon roared and let go of Josiah’s arms, swinging him head-first toward the ground as if he were dead weight. I flinched as he hit the ground. Blood exploded from his mouth, and he lay still as the demon did a little grandstanding, waving his arms around.
The crowd took up a chant: “Kill him. Kill him.”
I started forward, but my escort grabbed my shoulder and held firm. “Wait your turn.”
Something in the air changed. I would’ve been tempted to say the direction of the wind had shifted if there had been any wind in Naraka. The difference was subtle, barely noticeable at first, but built with every heartbeat until others around me noticed the difference too. It started with them falling silent and then glancing around nervously over their shoulders. Soon, the chant died.
Even the demon in the pit felt the unease. He lowered his arms, his expression growing blank. The demon spun back to Josiah and found the human he thought he had beaten on his feet. Words echoed through the arena, chanted from Josiah’s mouth though they didn’t come out in his voice. Josiah blinked, and his eyes filled with a terrifying gold light. He extended his hands and an invisible knife sliced through the air, cutting a hole through reality itself.
Of all the terrifying sounds I had heard walking through Naraka, the shriek that came out of that hole in reality was the worst. It shook the ground and sent rocks tumbling through the panicked arena crowd. The few patrons in the front row that didn’t run exploded when the sound struck them, leaving behind nothing but black streaks of blood like skid marks. Frenzied spirits and demons pushed past me, stampeding for safety, my escort among them.
Blinding white light shot through the open gateway and struck the demon. He screeched, frozen in place, his face twisted in horror as the light touched him. Blue flesh melted from his body like butter under a heat lamp. The light liquified the muscle, flesh, and fat from his bones, and then cooked the bone to ash.
When there was nothing left of the demon, a pillar of fire exploded where it had been standing and shot high into the sky, a tornado of flame.
With a shout and a push of magic strong enough to knock my feet from under me, Josiah pulled the fire back, forcing it through the tear in reality. The hole knitted itself closed by seemingly sucking all the warmth from the air. The golden light in Josiah’s eyes faded. He teetered a moment and then collapsed.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I stumbled down the empty arena stairs to where Josiah lay in a heap on the dirt floor. Scorch marks dotted the ground all around him and the front row. Steam rose from his body, curling into the air. If he was dead, I was screwed. Even if he was alive, we’re still in a lot of trouble. Whatever he’d summoned, this wasn’t going to go over well with the locals.
“Hey, Mad Max.” I knelt next to him. “If you’re alive, say something.”
His fingers twitched. He coughed, expelling a mouthful of blood. “Did ya happen to get the number on the train that hit me?”
Not dead. That was good. I drew my knees up and rested my elbows on them. “You tell me. That was a neat trick. Looks like it took a lot out of you. Need a hand?”
He pushed himself up, arms shaking. “What I need is a decent beer. None of that shit you Yanks drink.” He grunted and sat up, still swaying. Blood leaked from his ears and nose. He wiped it away.
“What the hell was that, man?” I shook my head. “It was like watching the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
He shrugged and pulled out his carton of cigarettes only to find it empty. “Bugger. We need out of this shithole.”
“To do that, we need the key and directions to the nearest gate, which I’m not sure Yama’s inclined to give us.”
“Then m
ake him.”
I shook my head and looked away. “It’s not that simple, Josiah.”
“Look, mate, it is. He’s a god. You’re a Horseman. Either he assists, or you replace him with someone who will. I’m sure there’s someone here who’d be more open to your terms.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. If only it were that easy. Oh, I could rip out Yama’s soul, but it wouldn’t get me far. Those tusked thugs would swoop in and tear me apart before I could do anything else, and it’d just further stain my reputation, causing more trouble down the line. If I started killing gods just because they were dicks, no one would be willing to help me. We’d waste precious time interrogating people and pulling out more souls on that slippery slope.
“Fucking politics,” Josiah mused. “Fine. Do as you like, but let’s be clear on where we stand. I’m useless without a recharge. I’m barely holding on as it is. Once my reserves are fully drained, my body dies. And I don’t come back like you do, mate. I need to go back to Earth before we move to the next place, and soon. I don’t want to die here.”
Dammit, of course, he needed to go back. The spell he’d used to clear the arena must’ve drained him the same way my trip to Helheim had drained me, except he’d need something other than a few houseplants to get back to normal. Whatever it was, I’d have to get it for him, or I could kiss my chance at rescuing Emma and Nikki goodbye.
Movement at the top of the arena stairs drew my attention. Dozens of tusked men marched in and circled the top row, closing off any chance of escape. Two guards stepped apart, making space for Yama to come through. He squinted at us, gave another stern glare, and stepped aside. Another guy stepped through the gap, a lean, squirrelly fella in a plain white tunic holding a clipboard.
The newcomer glanced over the top of his clipboard, frowned and got busy scribbling. “Unprocessed souls in the arena, undeclared presence of a non-human, non-demonic entity, and vending without a license.” He ripped off a yellow copy of the page he’d been writing on and held it out to Yama. “These are serious violations, Lord Yama.”