He bent back his head and kissed her. Kissing was a new thing for him, exciting. All five of the women he’d kissed had done it differently. Maab kissed him like he was a delicate thing that could have been easily crushed. Calimay’s women had all been different, too. Teasing, or confronting, or, as in the case of Calista, submitting.
Kelly was different though. Her small tongue moved slowly in his mouth, tasting him, drinking him in. His ears rang, so hard was his blood pumping through his body. Her hands cupped his face, then descended down his neck, then found their way across his chest, and abdomen, and hips, and farther down until a small part of him screamed that she might do to him what she’d done to Avery. But she kept kissing him, and kept touching him, and that screaming voice was drowned out in the flood of emotion and the beating of his heart and the ringing of his ears.
Martin was out of breath by the time he’d crested the stairs, but he charged into the parlor room anyway.
Michael and Mancini looked up from their wine glasses.
“Jesus,” the First Citizen said, “what’s wrong?”
“Where’s Copperfield?” Martin shouted.
Mancini stood up and set his glass on the table. “Martin, take a few deep breaths, and explain to Michael what’s going on. Things have been happening here, too. Big things, important things.”
Martin nodded and bent over, his hands on his knees. He felt the rolls of his remaining belly fat rubbing against each other. Sweat poured off of his brow. “Where’s Copperfield? I was in the Carrion. No time. We have to build the wall now.”
Calmly, Michael set his own glass aside and stood. “Martin, the Carrion is a terrible place. If you saw an army of dyitzu in there, or a harpy or even a Minotaur, it’s not safe to build a wall. I know it seems terrible, but if we wait, even if the devils come on to our side, they’ll break up in the wilds of Hell. We’ll be able to build the wall in a few days. We have to be smart about this.”
Martin looked all around the room for something he could use to beat a lick of sense into Michael.
You have no idea what I’ve seen.
“What did you find?” Mancini asked. “Report, soldier.”
Even though Mancini was about as far from being a commanding officer as Martin could imagine, for some reason the Brewer’s tone and order gave him a moment of clarity.
“There was a ritual,” Martin said. “There was a man there, who said he was fighting Maab’s priestesses. They had some of them, dead, tied down on stone blocks. His name was Nephysis, he . . .”
At the mention of Nephysis, Michael’s face went pale. He stumbled back, bumping into the table and sending his crystal glass careening off the edge. It bounced across the dyitzu skin carpet, spilling its contents in long streaks up the side of the table leg and across the floor.
Mancini looked confused. “Who’s Nephysis?” he asked.
Michael seemed not to have heard him. He was trying to sit down, his hands waving around behind him in search for the chair’s armrests. Finally he touched one and eased himself down.
“What’s going on?” Mancini demanded.
For a second, Michael put his head in his hands and looked at the ground. Then he sat straight up and took in a quick breath.
“No wonder they’re here.” His head tilted back, eyes wide as if he’d just been struck with a sudden epiphany. “Where’s Copperfield?”
Arturus awoke, shivering, his naked skin pressed against the cold stone. Kelly was next to him. She had put her robe back on at some point. Her body was warm, so he wrapped himself around her. She was holding her left arm up, as if examining it.
She lifted her head for a moment so that he could slide his own arm behind her. Then she snuggled into the crook of his shoulder.
“I’m proud of you,” she said.
“For what?”
“You didn’t break.”
Oh, hell. I’ve got to get out of the Carrion.
But as terrifying as the thought was, there was something dreadfully erotic about the situation—about how she had to be so careful to keep him safe. It reminded him of Maab. Except that Kelly seemed as submissive as Calista. Arturus found the combination intoxicating.
“I have one dark hair on my arm,” she said, holding it over to him, “do you see it?”
“No.”
She pointed at a spot just below her ivory wrist. “All the other hairs are light, but that one is dark. I never noticed it before. I wonder if it was that way in the old world.”
Arturus couldn’t see the hair, and he didn’t feel very motivated to find it. Instead he pulled her closer. She turned on her side, draping one arm over his chest.
She’s so warm.
“Was there any girl back home that you liked?” Kelly asked.
Arturus thought first of Alice, and then he thought of Ellen. “Yes. But she . . . well. I didn’t know anything then. I never kissed anyone, or know what it meant.
Kelly fiddled with his hair. “Was she pretty?”
Arturus smiled. He remembered Alice’s blonde hair, tied behind her head, bouncing as she climbed the Bordonelles. “Yes, she was pretty.”
“As pretty as me?” Kelly asked.
She seemed pre-occupied, her finger tracing strange shapes across his chest.
Hell, even I know better than to say yes to that.
“No,” Arturus said, as if he’d just thought of it. “No, I suppose she isn’t.”
He tried to imagine Alice, to hold a picture of her face in his mind so he could find out who he really thought was prettier, but he couldn’t think of Alice right now. All he could see was Kelly, her black hair cascading down one half-bared shoulder.
God, she is beautiful.
She was about to say more but the black pools that were her eyes looked at the ceiling. Then she jerked up into a seated position. Arturus heard the sound of stone grinding on stone. He leapt to his feet and grabbed his pistol. There would be no time to get his clothes.
Then he heard his father’s voice.
“We don’t have much time.”
“You’ve got her!” That sounded like Johnny.
“Yes, and they know she’s gone,” Galen said.
“There are patrols after me already,” Tamara’s voice warned.
“She’s right, get ready to move out.”
Arturus pulled a shirt over his head and went for his pants. He’d just gotten them on when Galen poked his head in through the door.
“Time to go, Son. You ready?”
Arturus grinned. “Yes, sir!”
Arturus had never seen caverns like these. They didn’t look like they’d been touched by Hell’s Architect, but they also seemed too well polished to be natural. Perhaps they had been smoothed by running water. The tunnels themselves were a chaotic mess of paths cut into the dark grey stone. No one path went more than twenty feet before crisscrossing with another. Small chambers appeared where the corridors dead ended, shaped in perfect spheres, their stone so smooth that they cast back misshapen reflections. Arturus guessed that this place was like some sort of city, and that the tunnels were highways leading from chamber to chamber.
“What is this place?” he asked.
“Once it was a colony of vyn worms,” Tamara answered, “but now they’re all dead.”
She was dressed in brown shorts and a white top they’d made by cutting a neck hole into a blanket. Without her robe, she didn’t seem very impressive. Her determination was there, certainly, but it no longer matched her physique.
Galen was nodding in agreement. “It does look like a vyn colony. I must admit, I did not know of this place.”
“It leads us under the Deadlands,” Tamara said. “Not even the infidels know of it. A Shadow Mother showed it to me when I was still Maab’s. No one will find us here. Not the Minotaur. Not the Infidel Friend. No one.”
Avery looked like he’d just eaten something rotten. “Any chance of running into Maab’s people down here?”
Arturus stopped t
o examine his warped reflection in the smooth curved wall of the tunnel. Johnny limped by him. The hunter hadn’t talked much—nor had he made any jokes—but he was keeping up just fine, and he no longer appeared to be in shock. The night of rest must have done him some good.
“I doubt it,” Tamara was saying. “I never quite got around to reporting this place to her. After we killed that Shadow Mother’s people, Maab granted the Deadlands above us to Nephysis. I doubt he ever bothered to come down here. I doubt he’s even found this place.”
Galen stopped, examining one of the smooth grey walls. “It doesn’t look like any human has been here in some time. You say this will lead us back to the mines?”
Tamara nodded. “This goes all the way under.”
“What’s a vyn?” Aaron asked.
“A worm that can tunnel through rock,” Tamara answered. “We think they come over from Sheol.”
Galen shook his head. “That is not true.”
Tamara shrugged her shoulders. “True or not, they did us a favor by carving this place out.”
“Any chance we’ll run into one of them?”
Galen shook his head. “I doubt it.”
Avery frowned, looking unconvinced. “What about One Horn? You think we ditched him?”
Galen shrugged. “He picked up my trail when I was going into Cul’ Nahedran. Had some wights with him, which was odd—I’m not sure when or how he got those to follow him. Tamara and I ran through a harpy nest to shake him. When we left, his dyitzu were fighting the harpies, and he was fighting a twelve winger. Normally I’d say a twelve winged harpy male would stand a good chance of defeating a Minotaur, especially when surrounded by its wives, but in this case, I doubt it. One Horn is one of the more intelligent members of his species.”
“I thought they were all supposed to be smart?” Aaron asked.
“Most are,” Galen’s voice was gruff. “Others are more—bestial.”
“I heard something.” Kelly said.
Arturus turned around to look at her. Everyone had stopped to listen, except Tamara, who crossed her arms impatiently.
“I told you, this place is abandoned,” Tamara said.
Kelly cocked her head to one side. “I think it was coming from behind us.”
Galen drew his MP5. “She’s right, we’re not alone.” He pointed forward down the tunnel.
A pack of dyitzu spilled out into the corridor ahead, maybe a hundred feet away. Arturus couldn’t begin to guess how many there were. A familiar snort echoed in from farther back down that passageway.
He’s found us.
The corridor was narrow, and they were standing right by a bend, so it was easy for them to move aside to stay out of the dyitzu’s line of fire.
“Take us back,” Galen said to Tamara, firing his MP5 around the corner. “Can you find a way around?”
Tamara sneered at Kelly. “I think so.”
She turned and ran back down the tunnel. Arturus looked to Avery and Johnny. Johnny’s face showed no emotion, but Avery was horrified.
Poor bastard. But he deserves this. He tried to rape my girlfriend.
Arturus ran after her, but Tamara stopped before she’d made it twenty feet.
“Blood of Mithras!” Tamara shouted. “They’re behind us too!”
Arturus took two steps up the side of one of the circular tunnels so he could see over Avery’s shoulder. Tamara was right, the dyitzu were behind them as well. Tamara began running for a tunnel that led upwards.
“No!” Galen boomed. “The Deadlands are up. We go down.”
He led them into a different tunnel whose walls were even smoother than the rest.
Avery followed, his gait uneven because of his wound. “What if it dead ends?”
Galen didn’t answer.
Shit.
The dyitzu filled the halls behind them, and their fire started soaring in. Galen led them back and forth through different passages, keeping them out of the line of fire, and taking them steadily downwards. They came around a tight turn, and Arturus saw light coming from the passageway ahead.
“There!” Aaron said.
But Galen had stopped. Arturus looked back around the bend. Behind them, the pale, smooth faces of the dead had joined the ranks of dyitzu.
Avery leveled his shotgun and fired. Somehow, he missed.
Or did he? Some wights are like Icanitzu.
“Can’t go back,” Arturus warned his father.
With a curse in a language that Arturus didn’t understand, Galen led them onwards. The floor to the cavern fell away, becoming a sloped cliff. The cliff was not made of rock, but of loosely packed earth. It looked like there was a forest of dead trees rising out of some mist far below. Arturus ran up to the precipice. Corpses were moving around down there amidst the trees.
Galen turned to Tamara. “You said we were below the Deadlands.”
Tamara’s eyes were opened wide with terror. “I thought . . .”
“They’re coming,” Aaron warned.
“Climb down,” Galen ordered.
“Into the Deadlands?” Kelly shouted back. “Can’t we climb up?”
But there was nowhere up to go. The tunnel’s ceiling was level with the giant chamber it had dumped them into—a chamber that was so large that Arturus couldn’t see the end of it through the fog.
Galen was the first to start climbing. His movements sent streams of loose earth and stone cascading down the sloped cliff. Arturus and Kelly followed him as quickly as they could. Dyitzu fire screeched over their heads, shooting out into the Deadlands.
We should have known better than to listen to Tamara.
Martin’s arms shook with the strain of carrying the gravel bags back and forth towards the wall—but he dared not stop. As exhausted as he was when he’d arrived, he’d not bothered to rest before he set about working. Copperfield hadn’t even arrived yet, even so, Martin did not care. The gravel could be moved closer. The mixing barrels for the mortar could be readied. It was true that only Copperfield knew how to actually make it, but there was no reason not to get everything set up for him.
Hidalgo, Tucker and Huxley worked with similar abandon. The other hunters and villagers around them could not match their intensity. They hadn’t seen what Martin had seen, nor heard Nephysis’ speech like Hidalgo, Tucker and Huxley.
The workers knew to be terrified, surely. They even fed off the nervous energy Martin and his men exuded, but without having experienced the Carrion themselves, they could not really know how badly that wall needed to be built—nor how quickly.
Sometime after he had lost himself in his work, Copperfield arrived. At first Martin saw that the Citizen was reluctant to match the furious pace of the villager workers, but Copperfield had brought Molly along, and she managed to motivate him. Martin had no idea what it was she had whispered into the man’s ear, but it got him mixing fiercely. Martin had always hated Molly a little, but today he gave her a small bit of respect. If nothing else, she and Copperfield made a good team.
The construction plan was simple. They were going to build one wall closer to the Carrion and another wall closer to their side of Hell. Then they were going to fill the intervening space with gravel. It was the quickest way to build a solid barrier that they knew of. Martin had not been there when the people of Harpsborough had fled from the depths of the Carrion. Martin had not been there when Michael and Rick and Galen and the founders of their village combed through the wilds and repaired all the barriers. Martin had never before understood why the mere mention of the Carrion set First Citizen Michael Baker into fits.
Now he knew.
He lay down his bag of gravel and returned, jogging back along the line of his own workers, Huxley in tow. Together they picked up another pair of bags and jogged back.
I might work myself to death.
But better that than face Nephysis’ army. Better that than face whatever else roamed the Carrion. Better that than face another Kyle-thing.
Martin
deposited his next bag. He doubted he could make the jog back. He shared a glance with Huxley, and it didn’t look like the hunter could either. Somehow they found the strength to do another run, and another, and another.
Martin felt a hand on his arm.
He stopped, panting, his vision shaking. He turned to look at who had stopped him.
Molly’s blue eyes pierced his soul.
This girl has changed.
“What?” he asked her.
“There is a time when working too hard slows your progress,” Molly said.
“The hell there is,” Martin shot back.
Molly didn’t blink, she held his gaze even as she held his arm.
Well, technically she was right. He could theoretically work himself until he fainted, and that would make everyone else stop and take care of him. It might hurt their morale, too. But Molly didn’t understand. He wasn’t the kind of guy who had the willpower to work himself until he fainted. That was the kind of thing that Michael and Aaron could do.
I’m just not that strong willed.
He held up his hand to wave her off. It shook badly.
Oh. Oh, shit.
Martin felt his heart beating in his chest. Sweat poured off his body. Had he ever worked so hard? Had he ever been so motivated?
Am I afraid for myself, or for them? For Harpsborough?
But it wasn’t a they he was protecting, it was a she.
I’m afraid for Katie.
“Okay,” he told the steely eyed Molly. “Okay. I’ll rest.” He turned to his men. “I’m going to take five. Keep up the good work.”
“You earned it, boss,” Marcus said.
Martin grinned at the hunter and followed Molly back to where she and Copperfield were mixing the mortar. He collapsed into a corner, his chest still heaving. Molly handed him a canteen before she returned to her work with Copperfield.
Martin dumped the first half of it over his face. Then he drank the rest. Finally, when he’d swallowed the last drop, he felt sated. The cool stone was a blessing on his back. He wiped the sweat off of his brow. He noticed his hair was drenched.
God damn. I feel good!
The revelation was a surprise to him. He thought he should be terrified. He thought he should feel the horror in his stomach. But he didn’t. The hard work of his men, the hard work he’d been doing with them, it raised his spirits. It put air under the wings of his soul. It made him feel like he belonged.
March till Death (Hellsong Book 3) Page 9