The Deadliest Bite

by Jennifer Rardin

  I said, “Take what you need.”

  He drank again, deeply, like a desert hiker who’s just realized he doesn’t need to ration his water anymore. And then he snapped the demon’s neck like a chicken bone.

  Raoul was already pulling a garbage bag out of one of his jacket pockets. “Here,” he said, “put the body in this. We may need it later.”

  I cleared my throat as Vayl followed his suggestion and he closed the top of the bag with a cheerful red-and-white-striped twist tie. “Do you always carry garbage bags for this reason?” I asked Raoul.

  “Yes,” he said matter-of-factly. “Almost everything here feeds on flesh. It’s nice to have extra around so your skin isn’t the first target the monsters go for.”

  “Oh.”

  Vayl flung the sack over his back and set his cane to the path, and I tried hard not to think about horror-movie Santa Claus similarities as we headed onward, Raoul leading him while Lotus followed and I pulled rear guard.

  Now that I’d gotten over the first shock of brawling with a demon my training kicked in. Despite the fact that my eyes wanted to jump from horror to horror, never resting until they found a friendly face to ease the pain, I saw that the trail was built on a bed of human bones mired in salted earth and red clay. The appendage fields ran as far as I could see in either direction. And each body part imprisoned a diamond-shaped, multi-hued soul that was straining, and failing, to fly free. Without a complete physical form to make it whole again, the soul battered against the body part, flailing helplessly like a tethered eagle. And above them all, just like I’d remembered, a sky so full of fire I couldn’t look at it long without imagining that the whole thing was going to drop down and incinerate us all.

  “If we had a map, what would this particular region be called?” I asked Raoul.

  “You have probably heard it referred to as Limbo,” he said. “It is, in fact, right outside of hell’s easternmost gate, of which there are thirteen. It is a place where souls are stored until they decide what they want out of the afterlife.”

  “That sounds a little crazy,” I said. “I mean, to hear you talk before it sounded like souls could be kidnapped into hell, and that you and the other Eldhayr regularly tried to rescue them. Or that they came here because this was where they belonged.”

  “Yes,” said Raoul. “But some are here because they want it. They’ve done something hideous in life that they were never punished for, and they feel they deserve to be here. Those are the ones Satan admits personally.”

  “Oh. And uh.” I hesitated. Did I really want to know? Yes. Because we’d been to hell together before. And to have shared this horror once meant we had more of a stake in getting it right the second time. “What are you seeing?” I asked.

  He glanced around, his face more pale under his natural tan than I’d seen it in months. At first he stared at me, like he couldn’t believe I’d asked. But then I could tell he understood. And he said, “It’s a great clearing in the jungle. Fires have been set everywhere around it, and on them are big boiling cauldrons.”

  I almost asked him to stop there, but I could tell he had to finish now. So I clenched my teeth together as he said, “Inside the cauldrons are the bobbing heads of those who can’t decide what to do. Their eyes are rolling, Jaz. They’re still, somehow, alive. It may be the worst thing I’ve ever seen. And I have seen so very much.”

  I reached my hand forward past Lotus and Vayl and squeezed Raoul’s hand, tightly, for just a second. And then let go.

  I glanced at Lotus. She’d gotten the shakes sometime during our march. After Raoul’s description I didn’t want to know what she saw. But I could tell, even if she’d started out in deep denial, she’d been unable to keep it up. She was seeing her future and it scared the shit out of her.

  We walked on.

  As we traveled among the undecided dead, Raoul, Vayl, Lotus, and I watched their souls fight. Some of them, I thought, really must have wanted to be free. But they couldn’t get past whatever they’d done in life. They knew time must be served. Maybe even forever. But others reminded me of moths battering themselves against a porch light. It seemed to me, after a while, that all they wanted was to cause themselves pain. And I imagined that even here, outside one of the most remote of his gates, I could hear the Great Taker laughing.

  Only once did Lotus turn to me. Her eyes, wide with horror, begged me to make it stop. I said, “This is hell’s suburb, kid. Think of what it’s like inside.”

  She whispered, “I always knew I had to be punished. I just figured—”

  I said, “When you were sixteen and Vayl’s son, you got your brother killed. That was over two hundred years ago. How have things been since then?”

  She fell silent, a single tear rolling down her cheek as she turned back to the path.

  Finally, after forty-five minutes of watching and walking, we came to the end of the fields and the edge of the great river that surrounded Satan’s domain. It had gone by lots of names over time, the most recent of which was the Moat. Sure I’d read about it. How you get across. Ways to pay the Ferryman. How the Ferryman, who also had lots of names, was one of Satan’s bosom buddies, which was why he’d landed such a swank job in the first place. Fight beside a guy long enough and, yeah, you’re going to get rewarded. Even in a shithole like hell.

  This being sort of the back way in, we didn’t see him. Which meant we’d have to find our own way across water that, in some places, was rumored to be deeper than the Mariana Trench, containing whirlpools, undertows, and creatures so terrifying even catching sight of a fin or claw had been known to drive the dead mad.

  I said, “Looks like it’s gonna be self-serve.”

  Raoul nodded his agreement. “Just keep in mind what happens when we get to the other side.”

  To this point I hadn’t let my eyes or my conscious thought go to that spot, looming like a haunted house on the opposite bank. A gate fashioned to resemble a mastiff’s head, its snarling face daring us to enter uninvited, stood closed against us, taller at its apex than a threestory building. Blood, fountains of it, dripped from a trough that ran along the top of the fence that bordered the gate, emptying out of the dog’s eyes, nose, and mouth and rolling into the Moat, where it was quickly absorbed by the current.

  The fence itself was built to crush the spirit, its black posts sprouting razor-sharp spikes at random intervals and angles so that any thought of trying to climb them was immediately followed by images of self-crucifixion. It ran so far to either side of the gate that I couldn’t see to the end of it. And, even though this had been part of the report Astral had played for us when we wanted to know more about the Rocenz, I still felt my heart drop at seeing the entrance to hell and knowing that what lay beyond it would come for me sooner or later. The worst part was that I still didn’t know how to carve Brude’s name on the black metal face that growled at me like it was alive. And hungry.

  Get it together, Jazzy. Granny May’s warm voice had never been so welcome in my head. I saw her standing on her front porch, hands on her hips, the way she did every time I got ready to leave. Now I understood that she’d always despised those moments the same way she hated this one. But she’d get me through it, just like she’d helped me go back to a home full of raised voices and mistrust. Because I needed her to.

  I turned to Raoul. “I don’t suppose you’ve got an inflatable raft tucked into a secret compartment of your belt or anything?”

  “No,” he said. “But I have this.” He pulled out his sword, banged it against the ground, and voila! It became a long staff that would be the envy of every one of Robin Hood’s men.

  “Did you learn that trick from what’s-her-face?” I whispered, referring to Kyphas’s old habit of transforming a regular human item like a scarf into a locally made and lethally sharp weapon.

  He blushed. “A good idea is a good idea,” he muttered.

  “Okay. But I don’t get yours.”

  He sighed. “And you ran track i
n college!”

  “Wait.” I held up my hands. “You want us to pole-vault over this river?”

  “Not this stretch,” he said, waving at the wide water before us. “But my scout said that it narrows radically down there.” He pointed to our left.

  I looked at Vayl, expecting a slew of logical and valid objections. He stared at me quietly, waiting for me to see the brilliance in my Spirit Guide’s plan. At which point I grabbed the pole and stomped off in the direction Raoul had pointed, suddenly, unaccountably, furious. At some point Astral had jumped from her perch on Raoul’s arm, and now she trotted beside me, flicking her ears toward me as if she wanted to catch every word.

  “He thinks we’re just going to gracefully vault over the water, like we’re Olympic gymnasts or something. Can you believe that? I’m trying to save my damn mind and I don’t even get the respect of a boat ride for my final mission. Because you know what’s going to happen, don’t you, Astral? My pole is going to get stuck in the mud. And if it doesn’t sling me straight down into the waiting jaws of a sharkogator, I’ll just end up stuck there, Jaz-on-a-stick, until I finally lose my grip and slowly slide down into the muck, which is probably worse than quicksand, at which point I will drown. Dumb damn Eldhayr.” And yet I still strode on, because I couldn’t think of a better plan, and part of me thought it’d be great fun. Especially if none of us were eaten alive.

  Which led to Astral’s dilemma. “Can you pole-vault?” I asked my robokitty. She shook her head. “I didn’t think so. Okay, I guess you’ll have to ride. But if you dig in those claws, I will have them chopped off. Just remember that. Now where the—oh. I see.”

  The bank pinched in on itself before me as if it were trying to bite into a particularly luscious piece of pie. Made, no doubt, of four and twenty blackbirds just like in that craptacular nursery rhyme my mom insisted on chanting to us right before lunch every damn day until we finally screamed at her to stop.

  I halted at the narrowest spot, probed the water, and found it satisfyingly shallow while I waited for the rest of our merry band to catch up with me. Vayl came to stand beside me, brushing his shoulder against mine in the way he knew would instantly soothe me. I looked up at him. “I can’t tell you how much this is sucking. Brude is tap dancing across my frontal lobe like he’s wearing steel-soled work boots. I have no idea if we’re going to be able to open up the Rocenz, so my stomach has shrunk to the size of a walnut. And yet my intestines have shifted into full gear, so if I don’t shit myself before this is all said and done it’ll be a goddamn miracle.”

  He smiled at me. “I adore you.”

  “Likewise.”

  “I have no idea how this will all end.”

  “Me neither.”

  “But we have been through other hells and survived. I believe that raises our odds somewhat astronomically. And as long as we are together, I think we can triumph over nearly anything.”

  Even death? I wanted to ask as I gazed into his eyes. And then I decided. Damn straight! Nothing’s stopped us yet. Why should I suppose hell itself could stand in our way?

  I handed him the pole. “You first, twinkletoes.”

  “I never told you I was considered something of an athlete in my day.”

  I looked his broad, muscular body up and down. And then took another, slower tour. My mouth had started to water. I licked my lips so the drool wouldn’t escape as I said, “I’m not surprised.”

  Another quirk of the lips to let me know he knew what I was thinking and felt I should think it some more at a later date, out loud, when he could react in a more physically pleasing manner. Then he backed away from the bank, ran at the sucker like he meant to overpower it with his bare hands, landed the pole in the middle of the water and vaulted himself to the other side without even a grunt to show that he’d exerted himself in the process. He pulled the pole out and threw it across to me.

  “That was a good spot I found,” he called to us. “Do you think you can set it down in the same place?”

  “Absolutely!” Lotus was the one who’d replied. She grabbed the pole from my hand, so happy to have discovered her niche in the netherworld that she’d leaped across the river before any of us could give her a serious lecture about how she should approach this jump. Raoul caught the pole when Vayl sailed it across the next time. He tried to hand it to me but I said, “You go next. I’ve got to get Astral zipped into my jacket just right. Plus, with you three over there to catch, I’m pretty sure I’ll have something soft to land on.”

  With a small grin and a nod he took the leap. Leaving me and the metal cat to consider our immediate future.

  “You got an appropriate song ready for this one?” I asked her.

  She poked her head out of the top of my jacket, pulled her lips back, and said, “Metamorphosis in five, four, three, two, one.” Suddenly she went flat enough to slip down and curl around my belt.

  “Oh, great, thanks for the vote of confidence. Now if I squish you, you’re already only an inch high. Smart move, genius.”

  Maybe it was just my imagination, but I really thought I heard a round of tinny laughter accompany me as I walked to where Vayl had begun his run. Then I gave myself ten extra yards, which put me beside an arm whose hand gently waved in the breeze caused by its captured soul. I stared at it for a second. Then my sick sense of humor got the better of me. “I’d ask you to clap for me, but I can see that’s out of your grasp. Maybe if you just snapped your fingers?”

  When the hand slowly lifted its middle finger I began to laugh. The feeling lifted my feet into the fastest run I’d managed since a satyr named Lillyzitch had chased me through the Mall of America. I knew my speed was perfect when I hit the bank. I had my eye on just the spot Vayl had picked and Lotus and Raoul had followed. I’d aimed the pole true. Then a monster the size of a half-ton pickup rose out of the water, blocking the pole’s path.

  “Shit!” I yelled as Lotus, Raoul, and Vayl howled my name.

  I rammed the pole into the hellspawn, whose slime-covered belly had rolled toward me during its ascent from the water. It punctured skin and muscle, throwing blood so high into the air that I felt the spatter blanket my skin as I flew over the top of it.

  I landed in the water twenty feet from shore, still holding the pole since I knew Raoul would need it as his sword later.

  “Change this pole into something I can use, Eldhayr!” I cried out, and the pole immediately transformed into a, well, a scarf. Damn. Didn’t that guy have any imagination? I tied it around my neck and began to swim toward shore.

  Vayl began yelling, “Fin to your left! Swim, Jasmine, swim!”

  He ran to the bank, his cane sword unsheathed, as Raoul and Lotus slapped their hands on the water twenty yards to his left, trying to convince the creature they tasted better even though they were harder to catch. I put all my energy into carving my arms through the water as if it were a solid mass I could push myself through and paddling my legs like twin boat motors.

  “It is gaining on you!” Vayl called. “Faster now!”

  But I was already pulling top speed. Every muscle in my body was burning. I could sense the creature, hungry for my flesh, zeroing in on the section of meat it would tear away first. I began to wonder how bad it would hurt. Or if, maybe, my brain would be kind and send me straight into adrenaline overload and shock. I thought not.

  Suddenly something splashed right next to me, startling me so much that I frog-jumped at least a foot forward. It was the body of the demon who’d sucker punched me. Vayl had hurled it into the path of the water monster. I risked a look as I moved back into escape rhythm and saw a maw full of jagged white teeth open wide and then sink into the corpse floating beside me.

  That sight was enough to propel me into Vayl’s arms. He held me tight, lifting me out of the water and pulling me so far ashore that my feet didn’t hit land until we stood right next to the fence. I felt him shudder. Heard him whisper, “You are all right. Yes. You are just fine,” and realized he was c
omforting himself as much as me. Then Raoul and Lotus were there, and Lotus was jumping up and down, slapping me on the shoulder. Raoul was hugging me so hard I couldn’t breathe anymore. And Astral spoke loudly from somewhere around my belly button, announcing, “Metamorphosis in five, four, three…”

  “Aaahhh! I gotta get her outta my pants before they rip to shreds!” I reached inside my belt and pulled the dripping robokitty from her pole-vaulting position just as she reinflated. It felt so bizarre to be holding her, like it might feel to hold a bag of popcorn as the kernels zapped into fluffly edible nuggets of goodness.

  Finally I found enough breath to say, “Thanks for saving—” What’s left of my life? Let’s not go there, okay? “Yeah. I’m good. In fact—” I smiled up at Vayl, reclaiming Cassandra’s positive attitude as I said, “When we get back we should probably get a pool and throw a shark or two in it to chase us around just to make sure we’re getting a good cardio workout every day.” When he chuckled I knew we were back in business.

  He pulled me toward the gate to our right, Astral trotting between us, Raoul, and Lotus as he said, “Come. Let us finish this before we discover that hell’s swimmers have grown shore legs.”

  I didn’t quite yip, but I did nod and grab his hand tightly in mine as we hustled toward our ultimate goal.

  I’ll say this about journeys so important that old-fashioned dudes in armor called them quests. Somehow they always end too soon. Standing at the back entrance to hell, I wanted nothing more than to be a thousand miles away from it, still trying desperately to reach it. Because now that I was here, with Brude banging against the walls of my mind like his fists had transformed into ice picks while Vayl stood tall and grim beside me, reminding me of the price of failure, I’d never been so terrified in my entire life.

  I squeezed his hand, feeling the ring I’d given him brush against my fingers, reminding me of the fact that I finally had a future worth fighting for. I’d even allowed myself to picture it in my mind, a dazzling piece of art built on remembered pain and new hope. As I stared at Satan’s bloody gate, I decided I was damned if I was going to let some megalomaniac slash my dream to ribbons.