Hell On Wheels

by Rhyll Biest

  He forgot his questions as Mnemnos turned and chased after Valeda, glowing hands extended, her blue tunic fluttering wildly.

  ‘What the …?’ Justice watched as Mnemnos disappeared. She juggled the ball of fire between her hands, a weapon without a target.

  Lifting his head, Adriel caught the scents of his brother and Ipos to the east. He hesitated, torn, before running west after Valeda and Mnemnos. ‘Cover my back,’ he shouted to Justice.

  As he ran across the rippled black rock, he cursed his armour, the heavy steel weighing him down and slowing his stride. Unimpeded by armour, Valeda and Mnemnos sprinted far ahead.

  He turned a corner and paused, the forest of stone pillars disorienting him. He raised his head, allowing the scent of ozone and snow to guide him. He ducked into a crouch as two sets of boots thundered his way. They didn’t belong to Valeda and Mnemnos; the footfall was too heavy.

  His hand rested on his sword before he caught his brother’s scent and relaxed. He waited for Hakan and Ipos, knowing he couldn’t catch up with the two she-demons on his own. He needed help.

  They burst out of the stone forest and braked at the sight of him.

  ‘Where are they?’ Hakan gasped.

  Adriel shook his head. ‘They’re too fast and I’m weighed down by armour.’ He looked to Ipos.

  Ipos, a skilled air-walker, could materialise in and out of space without a portal. It was just the kind of skill they needed right now. It would, however, put Ipos at great risk.

  Lungs on fire, Adriel rested his hands on his thighs as he gasped for breath. ‘I have an idea.’ He tore his steel chest plate and back plate off and threw them to the ground. Ipos and Hakan followed suit.

  ‘Where’s Justice?’ Hakan asked.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know, but we can’t wait for her. Ipos, air-walk ahead to catch up with Valeda. Get her to follow you so that she lures Mnemnos back this way. Hakan and I will ambush Mnemnos once she reaches this spot.’

  Ipos nodded, his multicoloured aura flaring as he closed his eyes before vanishing from sight.

  Adriel eyed his brother. ‘How are you for juice?’

  Still puffing, Hakan waggled his hand in a so-so gesture.

  ‘All right, when they run back this way, you trip her with a little telekinetic push and I’ll apply a speed drain.’

  Hakan nodded. ‘I’ll make sure she hits the ground hard so she’s too winded to fire off any electricity.’

  He nodded and they each moved behind a warped pillar of cooled lava on either side of the wide path cutting through the black stone forest.

  Adriel pictured Valeda running for her life. What was she thinking? Did she hope to freeze the enemy solid? She was fast, but Mnemnos and her lightning strikes were faster. She didn’t stand a chance.

  A nearby flash and crackle of lightning indicated Mnemnos was heading back his way and he strained his senses for the sound of Valeda’s footfall, the smell of snow.

  Valeda sprinted by, face set in the same grim lines of determination as when she’d played lead jammer, but he had no time to call to her as Mnemnos also came into sight, the general’s stride fleet despite her ample hips.

  As planned, a hard telekinetic shove from Hakan saw Mnemnos lose her balance and her legs tangled. She hit the ground with a grunt, the ridged surface slicing skin from her knees and hands. As she sprawled he lunged for her. Upon seeing him she raised a hand but he tackled her from the side, knocked her arm down and caught her in a rear choke hold.

  Electricity whipped across his skin, burned as she struggled against his speed drain.

  ‘Watch out.’

  He barely registered Hakan’s warning, let alone understood it, before the dagger plunged into his calf. Searing fire speared his flesh, forcing him to rock back and pull the dagger free. Mnemnos wriggled free from his grip before turning his way, azure eyes filled with ire.

  But before she could strike, an unnatural heat consumed him. The curse. The black rock shifted to grey, and Mnemnos became a white blob of heat against the grey map of his new vision. He blinked and felt a second eyelid retract before the world flattened.

  His skin rippled, crawled, expanded and contracted.

  He was changing.

  Lilith, not now.

  The smell of ozone flooded the air as Mnemnos drew on her power. He scrambled for cover on what felt like six legs and lurched off balance, too big for his own skin. He sprawled, the rippled ridges of rock cutting him, knifing him, as he tried to dive out of the path of her next fastball of lightning, knowing he couldn’t possibly move fast enough.

  Hakan stepped out from behind his pillar, his sword raised to behead Mnemnos in one hand, his other hand raised to give her a telekinetic shove. She toppled over and her lightning went astray, missing Adriel as he convulsed, a mess of limbs and skin and fur. Fur?

  Through new, strange eyes he saw Hakan’s sword connect with the she-demon’s neck. Blue blood splattered the black rock and filled the air with a rich, coppery scent. But as her blood flew in a graceful arc so did lightning from her hand. It travelled up the sword Hakan held and turned it bright white before devouring his arm. His flesh smoked, turning black as the current consumed his arm until he dropped unconscious to the ground.

  For several stark heartbeats Adriel watched his brother’s arm continue to burn as he lay unconscious, the foul greasy smell of cooking flesh overwhelming him.

  Until it stopped.

  A flurry of snow was falling on his brother, extinguishing the fire eating Hakan’s flesh.

  Snow.

  His nose found her before his eyes did. Valeda’s head was peeking out from behind a pillar as she gave away her position to help Hakan. He wanted to call out to her to step back, hide herself, but all that emerged from his mouth was a muffled gargle, somewhere between a whine and a growl.

  Ozone filled the air.

  Mnemnos had regained her feet despite the horrible wound to her neck. Blood bathed the hand she held pressed against her neck but her deadly gaze never wavered from the pillar Valeda hid behind. She circled it, nursing plasma in her free hand.

  His body rippled and convulsed once more and he stared at his fingers. Normal. He stood. ‘Over here.’

  She whirled and a bolt of white and red lightning arced through the air bare metres from him. Adriel shuddered as the air fluxed and pulsed before the lightning hit the ground with enough force and luminous crackling heat to melt the newly formed black stone back into lava.

  Mnemnos screamed her frustration at missing him and raised a hand to strike again, but she failed to summon more than a small ball of plasma.

  All out of juice. About time. Adriel drew his sword and charged her, flung himself onto the back of the she-demon, and gripped her white hair crackling with static.

  He shoved her to the ground and placed a boot on her back, raised his sword. Residual voltage made his hair stand on end and he felt his boots fuse to her back. With a wild surge of energy Mnemnos threw him off and he hit the ground, eating dirt.

  He turned back to face Valeda.

  ‘Adriel!’ Valeda’s voice cried, despairing, as Mnemnos turned her way. A red haze dropped like a curtain over his vision, and pain more incandescent than any lightning Mnemnos threw burst through his body. Bones split and altered. His remaining armour cracked, split and fell from him. His tunic tore and he shook it off. The world became at once both simpler and more complex.

  Flat but full of sound and scent.

  Through his new eyes Mnemnos only registered as a luminous white mass, her details unimportant, only her limbs significant as she raised her hand, preparing to hurl ultraviolet charge. The intensity of the smell of copper, wire and ozone had multiplied by a thousand but his purpose remained simple. Kill and protect.

  He loped forward on silent paws, peripherally registering Valeda’s fear as he bunched his body and then uncoiled, leaping to hit Mnemnos square in the back as she raised a hand. With a single snap of his jaws around her neck h
e decapitated her and flung her head far away as waves of electricity jolted his body. He staggered, shook himself, and raised his nose to sniff the air.

  Snow. The smell of his beloved.

  He approached, pausing as her eyes widened.

  ***

  Valeda held her breath as she stared at him. ‘It’s you, isn’t it, Adriel?’

  He cocked his enormous hellhound head, bloody tongue lolling.

  She would have to take that as a yes and hope he didn’t decide to eat her face.

  Jet black and bigger than a pony, his red-flecked ochre gaze followed her every move as she carefully tended the unconscious Hakan.

  Mnemnos’s dead eyes watched from several metres away where her head rested.

  Valeda frowned as she assessed Hakan’s wounds. His arm looked like charred meat; he might lose it. The thought of its removal made her stomach drift sideways.

  What had she done?

  To Hakan? To Adriel?

  This had not been her plan. Why had Mnemnos come in Paimon’s place? Why?

  She dropped to her knees and laid a hand on Hakan’s carotid artery. Electric current distorted his energy and residual static snapped at her nerves, thwarting her efforts to take his pulse. But she really didn’t need his pulse to tell that Hakan was crashing, falling fast into shock. His aura flickered like a dying light bulb.

  She glanced at Adriel, her brow folded with worry. He was a much better healer than her but he wasn’t doing any healing in hellhound form. How long would he stay that way?

  She scored her wrist and drew a circle of blood in the dirt then stepped inside it. ‘Semya and Cinna, I need you right now.’ She stepped back, out of the way.

  Cinna appeared first, wearing one of her voluminous coats designed for shoplifting expeditions. She stared at Hakan’s charred arm with appalled eyes. ‘Shit balls, what happened? That looks nasty. But what did you call me for? I’m only good with dead things.’

  Valeda pointed at the two distinct parts of Mnemnos. ‘I want her maleficence. Can you drain it out of her?’

  Cinna looked over and gasped at the sight of the hellhound. ‘Whoa, holy crap-cakes, where did that thing come from? It’s huge.’

  Valeda pressed her lips firmly together and shook her head. ‘Forget about that, can you harvest her maleficence?’

  Cinna skipped over to where the head lay and picked it up. ‘Yeah, she’s pretty fresh. What do you want me to do with the juice?’

  ‘Put it in something—a jar, a keep cup—I don’t care so long as it can be consumed.’ Her gaze went to the hellhound that had moved to stand by Hakan and was sniffing him all over.

  ‘Who’s going to consume it?’ Cinna’s tone was cautious.

  ‘Lore.’ Valeda’s gaze clashed with her sister’s fractured straw-and-gold stare.

  ‘What are you up to, sister?’

  ‘You’ll see. But you need to find her for me first.’

  Cinna shrugged. ‘I had nothing to offer before, but once I leave word with the folk in the dead pool that we’ve got this to trade, I can’t imagine it’ll take long for her to get in touch.’

  Valeda nodded and looked over as Semya appeared in the blood portal and calmly surveyed the scene. She looked twice at the hellhound, her green eyes narrowing, but said nothing. Languid as ever, she made her way over to Hakan.

  Valeda frowned. ‘Quick, his breathing has gone all choppy.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Hold your water.’ Semya crouched by him, pressed a palm smeared with something against his raw, burned flesh. Her eyes glowed a deeper green, poison stirring in their depths. ‘I can’t save the arm.’

  Hellhound Adriel whined, licked his lips and then howled, nose raised to the moons.

  ‘Oh, shut up, that’s the last thing I need,’ Semya scowled before refocusing on Hakan. ‘Heal, motherfucker, heal,’ she murmured, her aura flaring into bright green wings. She sat down on the rocky ground, making herself comfortable as she threaded line after line of green strands around Hakan’s flesh, cocooning him in the repair method peculiar to her healing poison.

  When Valeda parked her butt on the ground beside her, the hellhound lumbered over, nudged her with his nose and then flopped down to lie beside her. He wriggled closer until his head rested in the cradle of her lap and then released a long, low sigh.

  Cinna looked up from where she was milking maleficence from Mnemnos into a pink plastic container to stare at the hellhound and Hakan. ‘Fifty Shades is gonna shit a brick when he finds out about his brother.’

  Oh, if only she knew.

  In a daze, the hellhound’s comforting warmth seeping into her skin and drugging her, Valeda watched as Semya struggled to save Hakan. She started when Cinna stood and handed her the sealed pink container.

  Valeda frowned at it. ‘What sort of container is this?’

  Cinna shrugged. ‘It’s for baby food. That’s all I had in my pockets.’

  She couldn’t take it in. All of it was too much. ‘Help me find Justice. Mnemos may have injured her.’

  They searched the stone forest and found the unconscious Justice by a blasted pillar of stone. Cinna and Valeda ported Justice back to camp while Semya took Hakan to the Ronove castle for healing.

  At the camp Valeda left Justice in Cinna’s care while she took charge. Who needed to be contacted? The king, since he’d lost not one but two of his military commanders. He would not be thrilled about that. And he would need commanders to replace them.

  She frowned, glanced at Cinna as she rejoined her. ‘Where did the hellhound go?’

  Cinna shrugged. ‘I dunno. Last I saw it was making friends with that tiny little hellhound that used to hang around you. Maybe they wandered off together.’

  Moloss. Valeda wanted to pull her hair. Lilith knew where Adriel was now, or when he’d be back. Or in what form. Who could she tell?

  No-one.

  Not that she’d know who to tell anyway. She didn’t even know if Adriel had any living parents, a fact that filled her with shame.

  Not as much shame as she felt at the trouble she’d caused, but shame nonetheless. She was a black hole, the lives of others collapsing like stars once they crossed her event horizon.

  What did she do next?

  And how did she ward off Paimon’s circling army?

  It was difficult to focus on military strategy when she couldn’t make sense of what had happened to her husband.

  Adriel had transformed into a hellhound.

  For how long?

  She’d never heard of or, more importantly, read about a curse like it before. Ipos, who’d seen the transformation, she would have to swear to silence. Although, judging by his shocked face, he wouldn’t be talking to anyone too soon.

  What would happen if word got out? The legions might see it as some kind of divine gift of kick-arsery, or they could just as easily interpret it as the curse it was. They would desert. No doubt that had been her brother’s plan.

  She winced as memory clawed at her from the inside.

  Had Paimon lured her into a trap rather than the other way around?

  And if she told Adriel what had happened, would he forgive her? Assuming his change was not permanent and that he would indeed return to his former self.

  Permanent. The thought almost made her whimper.

  But there was no time for whimpering. With both brothers absent, the legions now looked to her for leadership and she rallied them, buried their questions with directives, and soothed their uncertainty with strategy. The roller derby she-demons stepped up to support her, quelling grumbling dissent generated by the more ambitious generals.

  By the time she’d asserted her leadership, the third moon had risen and Adriel had not returned.

  Where was he?

  What was he?

  When she finally located him it was on the edges of a battlefield south to where his brother had fallen.

  He wore an ill-fitting tunic and armour, neither of which was his—the chest plate too small, the belt
too big—and he was tending to a dying hellhound, which was also not his, as far as she could tell. Things were escaping the animal’s belly that should not, and Adriel cupped one hand under its head to provide a pillow, his other hand covered in silver blood where he cradled its muzzle.

  ‘You’re a good boy, such a good boy.’

  The hellhound’s tail thumped the ground softly but where the hound’s breath misted Adriel’s hand it turned his palm red.

  A knot formed in her throat. Adriel could only heal demons, as far as she knew, so he couldn’t help the hellhound.

  The beast whined and licked Adriel’s curled fingers.

  Her own eyes and nasal passages stung. Something wet slid down her cheek. She frowned. What was that? When she saw clear tears run down Adriel’s face she worked it out. Tears. She was crying tears of emotion for perhaps only the second time in her life. It puzzled her. Crying like a baby over a hellhound? No, worse. She was crying with relief that Adriel had come back to her, that his change wasn’t permanent.

  Don’t leave me again.

  The hound nuzzled Adriel’s knuckles before, with a single long sigh, its eyes drifted closed, extinguishing its deep gold stare. With bloody hands, Adriel stroked the dead creature’s sleek coat. ‘You’re a good boy.’

  ‘Adriel.’

  He looked up as if surprised to see her, and his eyes quickly masked their emotion. ‘Valeda.’

  Should she be afraid of him? He’d only hurt Mnemnos, no-one else. Even if she should be afraid of him, she wasn’t. His red-gold eyes had held sentience even in hellhound form.

  She took a deep breath. What to say to him? Hey, how about you turning into a giant hellhound, how neat was that?

  Nope, not really helpful.

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Come with me.’ She took his hand and helped him to his feet. His face wiped blank of its habitual ferocity, the Captain of Bloodshed and Slaughter looked lost. She brought him back to their tent, fetched food and water, and sat and ate with him in silence. She urged him to take a sponge bath using the pitcher and tub.

  He stripped off the tunic that was not his own. Whose was it? Did it belong to a fallen soldier?