DIRE : HELL (The Dire Saga Book 6)

by Andrew Seiple

  And the children, of course. The children that Khalid had taken into his charge.

  They surrounded him now in a half-circle, sitting in front of him. Eight small heads shifted to look at me as I pushed through the membrane. Most of them turned back to Khalid, but one, a dark-haired girl in a hairshirt, froze, looking up at me with abject fear.

  “DIRE SHALL NOT HURT YOU,” I told her.

  She looked to Khalid, but he didn’t respond. He held his face in his hands, fingers white-knuckled, massaging his scalp over and over again.

  “I broke a pot.”

  “WHAT?”

  The little girl stood, hands behind her back, looking up at me. Three foot nothing, she spoke in Italian, with an accent I’d never heard on a modern tongue. “I broke a pot and did not confess it to our priest. I told no one.”

  “AGAIN, WHAT?”

  “That is why I am here. I lied. And I was damned for it.” She looked down. “And I am sorry.”

  I took a breath, let it out. Five. She couldn’t have been more than five. I knelt down next to her and put my hands on her shoulders, practically swallowing them up with my massive gauntlets. It took a bit to dial down my voice modulator with the ocular cues, due to a burning sensation in my eyes. But I blinked it away and managed.

  “CHILD, WHY DO YOU TELL DIRE THIS?”

  “Because everyone always asks. The good ones and the bad ones.” She stared into my mask, laid a palm flat on it. “You look like an angel, but you are not.”

  “NO.”

  “Are you a good one?”

  “NO.”

  She shrunk back from me.

  “YOU HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR FROM DIRE.”

  The girl said nothing, kicking at the floor and looking down. I closed my eyes and stood again, moved until I was looking down at Khalid. “WHAT IS WRONG?”

  He didn’t answer for a long minute. Finally Khalid looked up at me, his face a portrait of abject misery, almond eyes over a beakish nose, mouth set in a down-turned curve over a neatly-groomed goatee. It was a handsome face or would have been if pain hadn’t been writ into every pore and wrinkle. “Do you have faith, Doctor?”

  “IN A GOD? NO.”

  “Easier that way at times. It has helped you perhaps, blunted the pain of this place.”

  I turned my head. “NOT AS MUCH AS YOU MIGHT THINK.”

  “Yes, it has. Oh, there is pain, because you are a good person despite what you say, and the sight of such suffering gouges at your soul.”

  “DIRE’S HONESTLY NOT SURE SHE HAS ONE OF THOSE.” I couldn’t say why that was so, but for some reason it sounded right to me. Felt right.

  “You do. The general rule of thumb is that if you have ever worried you might not have a soul, then you likely have one.”

  “ACTUALLY SHE’S NEVER WORRIED ABOUT THAT.” I said, shrugging.

  He rolled his eyes. “By their works shall you know them. You have a soul. Never doubt that. Which means that you will end up somewhere after your death. But you do not believe in the Christian God.”

  “OH, DIRE IS QUITE WILLING TO BELIEVE THAT HE EXISTS. SHE MET A GOD ONCE.”

  “A pagan one, from your account. It is... different, with them. In any case, semantics aside, you are not Christian and do not pledge your worship to my God.”

  “THAT IS TRUE.” Ironically enough, I was more or less a humanist. I hadn’t really given much thought to the afterlife before this particular misadventure. I still hadn’t, to tell the truth. Either we’d win here or die trying, and if the latter happened it was all pretty moot. “IF THERE IS CHANGE ON EARTH, HUMANS MUST BE THE ONES TO MAKE IT SO. THERE IS NO POINT IN SITTING AROUND AND WAITING FOR GOD TO GET AROUND TO IT.”

  “The two ideas are not incompatible. It...” Khalid stood, uneasily, leaning against the wall. “It is often said that God works through people. That even those who sin, even those who are hellbound, are part of his infinite plan. But this...” He gestured around, at the chamber, at the silent, staring children, arms encompassing the entirety of this strange world we had come to. “This is—”

  It occurred to me that someone was missing. “KHALID? WHERE IS BETA?”

  Khalid’s face hardened. “I sent him away. I did not need his pity.”

  Okay, this was bizarre. For as long as I’d known the man, which admittedly, amounted to about a week or so, he’d been level-headed, calm, and pretty much an iconic example of taking things in stride. This was not that.

  “Switch to vox, please,” I whispered into his channel. “Dire thinks you’re distressing the children.”

  Honestly it was hard to say. They looked like they ate abuse for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and crapped out PTSD.

  But Khalid took the bait, grabbed my elbow, and nodded to the door. “Come, then. Let us walk.”

  His hand was shaking. I reached across with my other arm, covered his hand with my gauntlet, and walked with him out into the fleshy halls of our lair.

  “They harvest us. The blood in Caym, and the other places along that ring of Hell.” The words poured out of him in a rush. “Down here, the fat.”

  “IT COULD BE JUST THIS ONE CITY—”

  “It will be more than that. A boiling river is perfect for rendering. And back in Caym the fleshmarket harvested skin, hair, organs...”

  “KHALID—”

  “This is God’s plan?” He roared, pulling his arm free from mine, balling both his hands into fists, and shaking them in the air. “Damning children for breaking pots? To have no further use for them than their skin, so that demons can wear supple leather?” Tears poured freely from his eyes now, and he shook in rage.

  Rage.

  I reached down for the heat I’d felt upon seeing Roy’s name painted across the walls below us, and found my anger still hot and fresh. How dare they?

  “THE WRATHLANDS,” I muttered, trying and failing to turn my mind from the open wound of my emotions. “THIS PLACE IS A TRAP.”

  And knowing it, my emotions muted. They were still there, but I could compartmentalize them. They were false, and I was Dire. I would overcome them.

  “Hell is a trap! A grease pit for an uncaring God!” Khalid turned and spat. “I asked them, in the city, I asked demons what sort of punishment the spikes represented! Do you know what they said?”

  “NO, LISTEN—”

  “Lucifer bade them to make a river of blood there at Caym! That’s all! The spires thing was simply the First Lord’s idea!” Khalid’s face was ruddy with rage.

  “STOP!” I seized his shoulders. “THIS PLACE IS CORRUPTING YOU.”

  “No, it has shown me the truth—” he froze, and the red drained from his face, leaving behind paleness. “Oh God.”

  Beta stepped out, from a side-passage. “Your faith has persisted for centuries. It is no shame for it to be tested here. This is not a place meant for any of us, really.”

  “I sent you away,” Khalid scowled at him, then looked down.

  “I know. I stayed behind anyway, out of the way. You were not yourself in there.”

  “I have shamed myself in front of the children.”

  “You have not.”

  I released Khalid, took a step back. Beta moved up and hugged him, winding thin robotic arms around the smaller man. And Khalid cried, freely.

  “I have blasphemed.”

  “Yes.”

  “I have lost my way.”

  “Yes.”

  “I... This... I cannot do this.” He snorted, pulled away from Beta. “Even now that I know it is unnatural, this rage still burns within me.”

  “DIRE WOULD SUGGEST GIVING IT A TARGET, BUT GOING BY THE TRACK RECORD OF THIS PLACE, SHE THINKS IT WOULDN’T HELP.” I sighed. “OBVIOUS IN HINDSIGHT. WE SPENT A WEEK BUILDING A BATH BACK UP IN THE RING OF SLOTH, AND ENDED UP USING IT PRECISELY ONCE. COULD HAVE BEEN ON THE ROAD MUCH SOONER, BUT WE DELAYED, TO NO GOOD PURPOSE.”

  “You are suggesting that each ring amplifies its particular sin?” Khalid blinked.

  “YOU
’RE THE EXPERT ON ALL THINGS HELLISH.”

  “No. I am an expert on fighting demons and driving them back to Hell. As Beta said, this place is not for mortals.”

  “Or androids,” Beta reminded him.

  “Yes, well, that too.” Khalid mopped his face. “Allow me to go reassure my charges, then I shall return to the bridge.”

  “GOOD. TAKE YOUR TIME.” After he’d departed, and we’d gotten a ways down the corridor, I opened the voxlink to the Chorus. “What is it that Khalid does with the children? No, wait, that sounded wrong.”

  “Nothing wrong,” Beta reassured me. “He tells them stories, of how the Earth is now, and how each of the places they grew up in has changed. He teaches them how to write in their own languages, and English for those who want to learn it. Most of them do. He told me once that they want to play the Monsters and Mangonels game, too.”

  I snorted. “That again. This thing is getting silly... but on the other hand, we might be able to use it. If it’s stupid and it works, it isn’t stupid.” I shook my head inside my harness. “One thing at a time, though. Gamma? Epsilon? Everything okay on Sneaky and Squeaky?” I’d stationed them on the other Striges, to help Cassius and Joanna pilot the great beasts.

  “Handling like a dream,” Gamma verified.

  “Are you aware that your recent behavior is outside your norm?” Epsilon asked.

  “It’s under control. But just in case, we’ll need the two of you on hand for negotiations. They evidently respect clear heads down there, and you don’t have any biological ragey bits to get in the way.”

  “They’re not going to negotiate in good faith,” Gamma said.

  “Which is why we’re going to take a few liberties. Get the earworms ready. It’s time we gave them a field test.”

  Twenty minutes later, Beaky and the other Striges descended, heading down to the blood-slicked mud that tracked where my river of gore had run rampant. Next to the newly-filled channel we found a good spot and dove simultaneously from our bound Striges. One by one we slammed into the mud, sending up great sprays of the stuff... myself, Epsilon, and Gamma. Alpha, Beta, and Delta had been left behind to keep an eye on the Striges and their passengers. The Damned were showing signs of increased anger as well, and Delta promised to keep Vector calm.

  As I knelt there, in my three-point pose, up to my knees in mud, I opened the compartments in my legs. “Go,” I whispered, and the earworms obeyed.

  They weren’t microscopic, not quite, but they were the thickness of a thread, agile, and self-replicating. I watched through my armor’s voltaic vision while they flooded out into the mud and obeyed my order, snaking toward the city about as quickly as an average man could jog.

  Their orders were simple; travel there, multiply, stay hidden, and listen. Each of them had audio capabilities when meshed with a few hundred of their companions. It would take time, perhaps a few days, to get citywide coverage. But by the time they were done and broadcasting to my computer-screened vox channel, it would be worth it. I’d be able to sort through the keywords of any conversation held in the city.

  Satisfied with their progress, I stood, slipping free of the ground and switched into hover mode, activating the cleaner sonics to shake the muck from my armor before I closed the compartments. Gamma and Epsilon fell in beside me, and I extended the sonics to clean them as well as we went. Best to appear nice and shiny for the rubes, after all. I had some serious kayfabe to get on and planning the show helped keep me calm.

  We’d knocked down the river gate at least, I noticed as we approached the wall. It hung in shattered pieces, and something about it caught my attention.

  “Wood? Yes, that gate is wood. More than we’ve seen in one place, down here.” I remarked over the vox channel.

  “What?” Vector said. “Grab me a sample if you can.”

  “Could be tricky. I’ll do it,” Gamma offered.

  I ignored their chatter as I marched through the gate. They’d run out their hellions, standing them in the mud and clotted blood that was all that remained of the wave I’d beaten into their city. An honor guard stood to either side of the entrance, their numbers stretching down the street, long spears raised in a salute.

  I kept hovering in silence, cape snapping in the hot wind. Gamma and Epsilon keeping pace on either side of me. Twice now a great nation of Hell had respected parley.

  Granted, I wouldn’t have had a problem leveling the city if they’d resisted me. I rather thought I had the resources to do it. If they were anything like Caym, Wroth was running somewhere near an early renaissance tech level. Caym’s resources had bulked up my destructive options, and we’d come packing for Fallen Angels. Unless one was in the city, this settlement had all the prayers of a fart in a windstorm.

  And they knew it. There was no other reason for what they were trying right now. Which only stoked my fury... if this turned out to be a trick, after all was said and done, I was going to fucking kill some assholes.

  But underneath the rage, below it all, was the faintest whisper of hope. It was that most pernicious of emotions, and it would not let me be. I had so much to say to Roy that I’d left unsaid; after his death and my flight I’d spent hours of wakefulness in cold nights mulling over what I could have, should have said. This was a chance to say some of those things. At least, it was if it was on the level.

  Finally we came to a great square. We’d left the gore behind long ago, and the streets now resembled some sort of parade area, or marching ground. Long, flat buildings that could have been barracks lined both sides of the street and stretched back down alleys, each flying a pennant of deepest black. In the center of it all stood a brick castle, a sprawling, gigantic twisting mass of towers and portcullises and crenelations. I was reminded of Castle Wallenstein, where I’d shot Hitler back in ’42. The memory cheered me up a bit.

  It cheered me more when I realized that I might be able to find Hitler again somewhere around here, and properly kick his ass until I got bored with it. But I filed that away for future thought and instead considered my welcoming committee.

  Six of them all told, hooded and robed, the gaps for their faces showing only blank voids with shifting silvery light wisping around inside. Their hands bore gloves, and not a bit of skin showed on their hunched-over frames. They squatted on stools atop a raised dais of some sort.

  Below and before them, by about ten feet, stood another stool much like theirs.

  “Showtime,” I voxed to my accompanying Chorus.

  I cut off the hover, marched to the stool, wound up, and kicked it over the nearest building. The hooded demons started in surprise, looking to each other and whispering in hissing voices.

  “DIRE BROUGHT HER OWN,” I said, and gestured to Gamma and Epsilon. Without a word they embraced, limbs sliding aside and into new configurations, torsos twisting around to provide a seat and a back. It would have been even more impressive if I’d had all five of them here, but as it was I figured it’d do. I slid into it, sitting on my minions, resting one elbow on the arm guard, and propped my mask against my fist. It was a much-practiced slouch of villainy, a distillation of scorn and disdain.

  At least, that was how it worked for human audiences. Without faces it was kind of hard to read the robed demons.

  We sat in silence for a long moment. Like the chair, this was a power play, a test of my willpower. Even with unnatural wrath smoldering away inside me, I knew I could win this.

  But the show I’d chosen to put on, the character I was playing here... no, winning wouldn’t do. I needed to sell them on an image of me.

  “WELL?” I snapped, my voice cracking out into the windy courtyard.

  “Woman most mortal,” the foremost of them spoke. “Overlord of Caym, slayer of Illwrack whose names are forgotten, you honor our city with your presence.”

  “AND YOU FILL ITS AIR WITH EMPTY FLATTERY. GET TO THE POINT. WHERE IS ROY CARVER AND WHO DOES DIRE HAVE TO EVISCERATE TO FREE HIM FROM YOUR CLUTCHES?”

  “Y
our acumen does not disappoint, Woman Dire.”

  “DOCTOR DIRE TO YOU. WHOEVER THE HERE YOU ARE.”

  “We are—”

  “NO, DON’T TELL HER, SHE DOESN’T CARE. ANSWER HER FIRST QUESTION.”

  Technically true. I didn’t care because I already knew who they were. The Council of Worms, that was their name. Back in Caym, just before the departure, First Whisper had described them to us, and Khalid had identified their demonic capabilities. They weren’t men, they were conglomerations of tiny serpent-shaped demons that ate light and could convert it into more harmful forms of energy. Working together, they might even be able to overload my forcefield and put some hurt into me.

  Not that I’d let them get that far.

  “You presume much, Doctor. If you wish Roy Carver returned to you, you would do well to watch your words.”

  “YOU THREATEN DIRE? YOU?” I roared the last word twenty decibels louder, leaping from the throne, in an apparent fit of rage. “ENOUGH FOOLERY! EITHER RETURN ROY OR FACE DESTRUCTION!”

  “They are smug now,” First Whisper spoke through my vox link. She was watching through the cameras in Beaky’s side, advising me on their emotions through the expression of their body language.

  “You could level this city to mud and ash,” the foremost Councilor spoke, crossing his arms. “And you would find no trace of Roy Carver. We have invoked the Pax Infernum and sent him on his way to Lucifer for final judgment. There, his soul shall be unmade.”

  “All lies,” First Whisper said, and a tension eased out of me.

  Not that I’d follow through with my threat anyway. Theoretically I could level the city, but it would expend resources, damage and deplete my forces, and take entirely too much time. I had no clue where they were storing Roy, if they truly were, and leveling the city would be counterproductive. With my luck he was underground and even though Damned could regenerate from anything, if you dropped a building on them they were pretty much stuck there until freed.

  So instead I let the silence go on, and clenched and unclenched the fingers of my gauntlets as if I were spasming in anger. More satisfied nods from the Council. They thought me overcome by the rage. This was good.