Knight of Gehenna (Hellsong Book 2)

by Shaun O. McCoy

  Galen didn’t answer.

  “Is that ‘some reason’ a good reason?”

  His father began working at the door. “They say that about a decade and a half ago, an angel was captured by Maab. The angel was pregnant. Maab was going to raise the child, but a man came and took the babe away. They were unable to find him afterwards.”

  “Are you that man, father?”

  Galen did not respond.

  “Is my mother an angel?”

  “Arturus, you have to know that we have good—”

  Arturus stood up. “Who’s my mother?”

  “That’s not a fair question.”

  “Did you steal me?” Arturus shouted. “Did you take me from my mother?”

  Galen’s shadow stopped moving.

  “Did you?”

  “Son . . .”

  Arturus felt tears forming in the corners of his eyes. His heart was beating so hard that he felt his blood pounding in his ears. “Did you steal me from my mother?” Arturus’ voice echoed in the chamber.

  “Maab wanted you, son. She was going to raise you.”

  “Where’s my mother?”

  Galen was still silent.

  Arturus felt his rage boiling over. He stepped forward towards his father, his hands raised. “Where’s my mother?”

  “Turi—”

  “Why didn’t she raise me? Galen! I want to know her. Isn’t that fair since you took me from her? Where is she? Is she still out there, longing for me? Is she still alone, captured by Maab?”

  “Son the less you know, the less they can take from you.”

  “Let them take it! Let them! We’re lost. There’s nothing we can do. This is the rest of our lives, Galen. We’re going to be slaves or we’re going to be dead. Can’t you see that? You keep on trying, searching the walls like we’ve still got a chance. Like there’s some place to escape to. But there’s not. For once, just once, why can’t you just feel something? Why can’t you quit pretending you’re some kind of machine? You can’t keep fighting. We’ve lost.” Arturus felt his legs quivering. “We’ve lost.”

  “Son, it’s been a long time since you’ve slept.”

  “Where’s my mother?”

  Galen’s hands touched Arturus’ shoulders. “Sit down, son, and—”

  “Where is she?”

  “I said sit down!” Galen ordered.

  Arturus felt his legs give out beneath him.

  “And now you’ll listen, boy,” Galen knelt beside him and whispered harsh words into his ear. “It was all I could do to keep you safe, son. All I could do. It was your mother’s wish that you be free from Maab. I loved your mother. I loved her with my whole heart. I loved her like Paris loved Helen, except that in Hell, lovers can’t get very far. I made an oath to her, son. I made it, and I intend to keep it. Now you may think all is lost, you may think that things look bad for you, but trust me—compared to the hell you would have grown up in, this isn’t shit. Maab’s not the only person who’s looking for you. There are other far more powerful forces that want you. Maybe it’s better that Maab gets you than they. Maybe you should have been left behind, but I don’t believe it. I think you love the life that I and Rick and Harpsborough tried to give you. I think you love those first years, and I’m sorry that they had to end. I’m sorry that you’re here facing Hell as it was intended to be, but you’ve got to grow up sometime, don’t you?”

  Arturus’ anger had fled. “My mother, she was really an angel?”

  Galen’s tears dropped onto Arturus’ shoulders. “She was. The most perfect girl I’d ever seen. She’d fallen because of that perfection. Because the things that made her beautiful to me made her ugly in the eyes of Heaven. But they got her, son. Maab got her, and I could not retrieve her.”

  “She’s still Maab’s?”

  “I can’t tell you these things. If they break you, you’ll give up your own mother.”

  Arturus swallowed. “Is she safe?”

  “No, son, no she is not.”

  “Am I your son? By blood?”

  “Yes, Turi. Yes you are.”

  Arturus let out a sigh.

  I’d always thought so.

  “Can we just stop fighting, Father?” Arturus felt weak. His father’s tears ran down his chest, soaking into his shirt.

  I don’t have anything left in me.

  “Your mother’s eyes were blue, son. Her hair was so blonde that her eyelashes looked spectacularly dark. It brought out those eyes—if they watched you now, would you want to give up in front of them?”

  Arturus reached up and put his hand on his father’s shoulder. “We’ve lost, father. It’s okay to give up after it’s over.”

  “In games, sure. But this is no game. It is not acceptable that you lose. That’s the way it is when you have children, Turi. In almost any other enterprise, it’s okay to fail when things are beyond your control. With children, it’s not. In Hell, with our lives and souls, it’s not. Now the people, the universe, the gods and devils who are responsible for torturing your mother and trying to enslave her offspring are still alive. Some of those we never had a chance to defeat. Surely you must have some anger in your heart for them. Surely these things make you unbreakable.”

  Arturus felt his father’s warmth. “Am I?”

  “You remember the rocks as we entered?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you remember anything about them?”

  “Some of the walls were artificial. Some needed repair. Other’s didn’t.”

  Galen leaned back away from him. “Which means they need what to repair the walls?”

  “Rustrock.”

  “That’s right, son. Rustrock is rare. Maab’s got control of the mines where Calimay used to get it from. Now that Calimay’s split, she no longer has access to them . . . and I know where some is.”

  Arturus’ own tears rolled down his face, falling onto his own chest, and mixing there with the tears of his fathers. Even so, he smiled. “You do?”

  “I do. And as long as I have something she needs, and she has something I need, then . . .”

  “Then we can’t be slaves, because if she tries it, she’ll never get the rustrock.”

  “Now she may torture me. She may mutilate me and take all my limbs, but she’ll eventually have to undo it all, or her kingdom will crumble around her, and the devils will find her.”

  Arturus felt exhausted but peaceful. He very much wanted to go to sleep. “I’m sorry I gave up on you, father. I’m sorry. Even if the rustrock thing doesn’t work. Even if we have nothing Calimay needs. I know you. I love you. I should have known better.”

  “Evariel.”

  “What?” Arturus was confused.

  “The name your mother chose, after she had fallen from Heaven. Evariel.”

  “Why did she fall?”

  “Not even the devils know why for certain. She thought she knew, and I had some ideas. But it was Rick who probably had the best theory.”

  “What was that?”

  “I’m sorry to say it, Turi, but your mother was clumsy.”

  Arturus tried, for a moment, to figure out what his father had meant. Then he laughed. He laughed until his chest hurt. He laughed until he cried. And when his father joined him, he laughed some more.

  “They’re gaining on us,” Massan warned.

  Ellen’s foot exploded in agony each time she put it down, and she dared not glance behind her for fear of falling again. She thought she could feel the corpses’ breath on the back of her neck, and her shoulders tightened involuntarily.

  “I’m here for you, honey,” Alice said, pulling Ellen’s left arm over her shoulder.

  Suddenly it was so much easier. They moved together as if they were some strange, three legged beast. Ellen tried to keep her wounded foot back behind her. It felt weak, and tingled in pain each time they took a step, but it was much less painful now with Alice’s help.

  She felt like they were picking up speed. Feeling more stable, she
dared a look behind her.

  Massan was right. The corpses were getting much closer. The pack was less than a hundred feet back. A single corpse had broken away from the main group and was struggling mightily through the roots. It was getting very close.

  “Alice,” Ellen said, “One’s right behind us.”

  “I’m on it,” Molly turned around, leveling her shotgun.

  The blast brought the ringing back in Ellen’s ear.

  “Got him!” Molly reported.

  Massan grunted audibly as he helped push up the back of the canoe. Rick pulled it farther forward over another series of tall cypress knees.

  “I think the trees are thinning out,” Rick said.

  “Doesn’t seem like it to me,” Massan shot back.

  But Rick was right. The patches of empty water were getting larger and the roots seemed, for the most part, to be getting smaller.

  “We’re going to have to pick up . . . speed here in a minute,” Rick warned around his heavy breathing. “As the trees thin out, the corpses will get faster. We’ll need to stay ahead . . . until it’s clear enough . . . to get in the gondola.”

  Ellen had no idea how she could go any faster.

  “It’s okay, hun,” Alice told her. “You and I are going to do this.”

  Alice began to quicken her pace, almost dragging Ellen along with her. Ellen began to let more and more of her weight rest on her. Alice’s face was beet red, and her chest was heaving, but she kept going.

  Massan grunted as he powered the canoe over another obstacle.

  “That’s it!” Rick shouted back to him. “Keep it moving.”

  Molly dropped behind, not because she was tired, but to protect them. She fired another shell from her shotgun.

  “All clear,” Molly called back. “We’re making it. We’re going to make it!”

  “Almost there, Ellen,” Rick called to her. “We’re almost there.”

  Ellen felt a surge of adrenaline. Her heart came alive in her chest and her ankle didn’t seem to hurt so badly now. She plowed ahead, even lowering her hurt foot into the water to help her balance once every few steps. Alice seemed to gain strength, too, as if they really were one being.

  “Almost there,” Alice repeated.

  The forest continued to thin out. Molly’s shotgun boomed again.

  “Now!” Rick shouted. “Get Ellen in the boat.”

  Alice lifted her up. Ellen raised her leg as Massan’s hands grabbed her from the far side, easing her down. Rick returned to pulling the canoe, so Ellen picked up a paddle and tried to help.

  Rick drew his pistol and fired next to his feet. There must have been a corpse down there. The water seemed to be deepening and was up to Alice’s waist. A cypress branch hit Ellen in the face, but she didn’t care.

  “Everyone in the gondola,” Rick ordered.

  Massan came in first, rocking the boat almost to the tipping point. Alice and Molly came next. Rick let the canoe pass him before jumping in towards the back.

  “Molly, Massan, get me some speed,” Rick said. “Alice, shoot anything that comes at us.”

  The canoe began to move forward. The trees disappeared altogether, and they found themselves free in the middle of a lake. Finally, Ellen was able to make out the far away ceiling and distant walls.

  “There,” Alice said, pointing across the lake. “That’s where the water flows out.”

  “Good,” Rick said. “Stop everybody. Catch your breath. We’ll try to make a run of it in about fifteen minutes.”

  Ellen looked towards where Alice was pointing. There was indeed a place where a river left the lake. Some corpses were wandering there along the bank. She watched one walk up to the river. Then it took a step in. She expected it to sink, but it didn’t. It was almost like it was walking on water. It took a few more steps forward, so that it was standing in the middle of the river.

  “Oh God,” Ellen said aloud.

  “Are they walking on the water?” Molly asked.

  Rick shook his head. “There’s some kind of barrier at the mouth of the river. It looks like they’re standing on it. Maybe that’s what’s keeping all the corpses from leaving this room.”

  “There’s more headed that way,” Massan pointed out.

  He was right. For some reason, maybe because it was the closest point to the canoe, or perhaps because the undead had enough intelligence to guard the only visible exit, packs of corpses were converging there.

  “Move,” Rick said. “Get us going. Now.”

  Massan and Molly got back to paddling. Ellen did too. The canoe was rocketing through the water.

  Ellen could see the river more clearly now as they got closer. The river left this main chamber, running through into a smaller tunnel.

  “They’re only able to stand in a single file line,” Rick said. “That barrier can’t be very thick.”

  “What do you want to do?” Molly asked.

  “Ram it. We should be able to bounce over to the other side. Alice, see if you can’t kill all the corpses standing in our way.”

  Alice nodded. “Got it.”

  The canoe picked up even more speed from the power of Massan and Molly’s paddle strokes. Ellen felt the wind in her hair. Alice was crouched down near the front of the boat.

  She raised her pistol.

  “Not yet,” Rick warned. “We’re too far out.”

  Alice fired anyway. And after she’d hit, she fired again, and again, and again, and again.

  She’d dropped all five of the corpses that were in their way.

  Massan looked up from his rowing for a second. “Damn.”

  Alice grinned back over her shoulder before returning to her task. She kept firing, and kept hitting, knocking down the corpses that were trying to replace the ones she’d felled already.

  “Almost there!” Rick said.

  Ellen could see now what the corpses on the river were standing upon. There was a metal grate, just below the surface, keeping the corpses from being drawn downriver. The current had pulled many corpses into the grate. They were five or six deep, just under the surface, their hands reaching up towards them.

  “Shoot into the water!” Rick shouted.

  Alice loaded another clip into her pistol. “I see them.”

  She began firing into the water, sending little spurts of water and black blood flying into the air. The canoe was suddenly over the reaching hands of the submerged corpses—and then they hit the grate.

  Ellen was forced forward, her head hitting the seat in front of her. She heard a crunch. She was aware of Rick jumping over her, moving with the momentum of the crashed canoe. Her eyes would not focus, and she tried to sit back up. The world was spinning around her. The pain coming from her nose was excruciating.

  She reached out to both sides, trying to regain her sense of balance—but the world kept spinning. The canoe was caught halfway over the grate. It toppled. Bullets were ripping through the water, shooting past Ellen. The hands reached up to get her. Some grasped her legs, clawing at her jeans. She felt teeth sinking into her calf.

  Her scream was cut short by water. Instinctively, she fought to get up to the surface. More hands came from that direction, grabbing hold of her. She fought those too. They dragged her back, getting her most of the way over the grate and pulling the corpse on her leg up with her. Ellen tried to kick it loose. It opened its mouth, spitting out her blood, broken teeth and ripped pieces of her blue jeans. A shotgun boomed, and its head snapped backwards. Ellen’s big and middle toes disappeared, turning into a mist of blood.

  Water was in her lungs, but her body went on trying to scream anyway. She couldn’t breathe.

  “Ellen!” Rick was screaming. He yelled something else at her too, but it was lost as her head fell back into the water. She felt metal beneath her, scraping against her back. Suddenly the hands that were on her torso won out and she was dragged upwards. There was more gunfire.

  Molly pulled her onto the bank. Ellen saw Rick standing
on the grate, swinging his paddle left and right. He turned back and shouted something to Molly. Alice was yelling too. The world was still spinning. She tried to breathe through her nose, but it was full of blood. She tried to breathe through her mouth, but her lungs were full of water. She collapsed into a coughing fit so severe that she couldn’t see. Water poured up out of her throat.

  New hands were grabbing her, stronger than the ones before.

  She tried to fight them off.

  Rick was shouting again. The same thing over and over.

  Ellen looked past the hands to her foot. Her toes were gone. Other hands, holding cloth, were grabbing at them. She tried to fight her way free of them.

  “Ellen!” Rick was shouting at someone, “Ellen! Ellen!”

  She couldn’t get enough air. It came and went, and she was breathing as hard as she could, but the air was empty. Her vision was blurred.

  She tried to scream for help, but she couldn’t get the words out.

  “Ellen!” Rick said. “Look at me, dear. Look at me.”

  His face filled her vision.

  “Listen!” Rick was shouting. “Hell heals all wounds, Ellen. You’re going to be fine.”

  The hands were Rick’s hands, Alice’s hands, and Molly’s hands. She was safe. Hell healed all wounds.

  “I’ve got you,” Alice said. “Don’t worry, girl. I’ve got you.”

  Michael looked down the long single aisle of Father Klein’s church. Light streamed in from the Harpsborough chamber, shining down through the open arches near the church’s ceiling and illuminating the pews. The crucifixes in those windows left evenly spaced cross shaped shadows along the sides of the aisle. At the far end of the church was a giant woodstone cross, hanging down from the fifty-foot ceiling. It was at that far wall that the villagers would pray. There was a line of grime where they would put their hands.

  When the church was filled with all fifty Citizens, as it was now, it smelled different than when it was filled with villagers. Molly had called the villagers’ odor desperation, when she was still alive. They reeked of sweat and grime and blood. The Citizens were a far cleaner bunch, and they had access to deodorants, or at the least, to perfumes which could mask their scent—but maybe Molly was right. Maybe a person could actually smell desperation.