DIRE : HELL (The Dire Saga Book 6)

by Andrew Seiple

  They stared down, I stared up, and they wove their hands together in strange, short little passes. Crooning a song that didn’t have words, they gestured as if they were knitting...

  ...and in a way they were, since rods slid out of the rocky lip of the pit, and criss-crossed it in a loose spiral, just like the other metal grates I’d seen around this chamber.

  As soon as it was done they turned and left my sight. I considered my predicament, sat down on my haunches, and chuckled.

  They hadn’t even searched me.

  I’d been in this situation before, over the years. Any professional supervillain who’s worth their salt has to deal with captivity now and again. And when it does come up, you want your plans lined up in advance. This was a twenty-two dash F, I figured, with a few adjustments to deal with the fact that the demons could melt into the surrounding stone.

  My mask’s sensory suite wasn’t as good as the full battery that the armor could bring to bear, but it had a few advantages over baseline human limitations. But before I did anything, I slumped against the wall and dialed up my audio sensors. The first mistake that amateur villains make is to try to escape immediately. Smart captors expect you to be impatient; they’ll keep an eye on you for a bit, surreptitiously, to ensure you won’t pull a runner.

  Sure enough, about forty minutes later I heard scales on stone at the far end of the chamber. Sounded like they were leaving, and I waited until they were out of my instruments’ detection range I proceeded to the next part of twenty-two F. With adjustments.

  I focused the audio sensors on the walls, fine-tuned them, and pushed my mask against the stone. Though I couldn’t be certain, I heard a few things at the edge of my range that sounded like frying bacon. The way they were moving suggested serpentine patterns.

  I also heard something from a few chambers over that sounded familiar. Delta’s voice! But distorted, uneven. Had they captured her? Perhaps damaged her on the way over? But no, she didn’t sound upset.

  Well, so much for the first adjustment. I reached into the hidden sheath at the small of my back and pulled out the monofilament cutter. It was agony to climb up the side of the pit with my knee awash in pain, but I gritted my teeth and pushed through it. I am Dire. I will not be stopped, especially by my own body.

  The cutter did its work, and I caught the metal grating before it could fall on my head. Then it was sweaty, undignified work to squirm and clamber my way out. I tore my clothes a bit on the sharp edges, but I counted it a small price to pay.

  Then I rose and surveyed the cave. Going by the small shifts my directed audio had picked up, every grated pit held a prisoner in it.

  There wasn’t much I could do for them, not right now. The Damned feared demons, in all but the most extreme cases. Or unless they were emboldened by a clear example of the demons’ vulnerability. I didn’t have time to check them for bold souls, or to set up an example of my might, and I couldn’t take the risk that one of them might betray me. So I turned my back and moved to leave.

  The distant explosion hit as I did so, and I got the audio dialed down just in time to save my eardrums. Still hurt like a fucker. Extending the monofilament cutter to knife length, I kept it loose, pointed out, at hip level as I limped down the passage that I thought would take me towards Delta’s voice.

  It took a few twists and turns. Once I was sure the explosion was done I dialed my audio back up again, and that helped quite a bit. Finally I came to what I was searching for.

  Delta wasn’t in the cave.

  A chunk of quartz, wrapped with copper wire formed into thorny looking sigils, was. Delta’s voice, and a faint image of the gaming table in the arena at Caym, flickered in and out in the clear spots of the quartz. I could vaguely make out the forms of First Chain, Delta’s duplicate body, and a few assorted Damned and demons I wasn’t too familiar with.

  They had a television, of sorts. A hell-o-vision? Couldn’t say. I wasn’t surprised that they had something, probably as a surveillance device. Imps only got you so far, after all, and we never did find out how that fat worm back in Caym got word to the Wrathlands so quickly.

  In front of the crystal, coiled up with his mandibled face resting on his fists, looking all the world like a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons, was the runtiest snake demon I’d seen so far. Oh, he was as long as the rest of them, but he was scrawny, underfed and with a back covered in scars.

  I watched in silence, as he perked up his head, reached for a nearby handful of what I’d initially taken to be pebbles, and cast them onto the ground. He was following the ‘action’ on the crystal device, I realized, making hit rolls as the game’s fight went on. I restrained laughter as he drew his hand down a nearby stalagmite, adjusting what he probably thought was a mockup of a character sheet.

  I looked down at the monofilament blade, then back up to him. I could kill him, probably. He was scrawny, and the muscular ones weren’t much tougher than the human baseline.

  I could kill him, sure. Or maybe...

  I turned the monofilament cutter away and tucked it behind my back. Then I walked forward, taking it slow. Once I was within forty feet, I cleared my throat.

  He jumped straight up, landed on his coiled tail, and wailed with despair as his stone dice went sailing in every direction.

  “GREETINGS. DO YOU KNOW THIS MASK?”

  “It is a Doctor Dire mask,” he replied back in flawless English. “Wait. Are you... do you enjoy this game as well? I thought it had not spread down here.” He seemed to frown. “And why is a Damned wearing clothes? Let alone a mask?”

  “SHE’S NOT DAMNED. LISTEN CLOSELY.”

  He slithered in and craned his head down toward my chest. I resisted the urge to knife him, and boy, did it take willpower. We were still in the lands of Wrath, and it would have felt so, so good to kill him. But letting my anger overwhelm my common sense had gotten me here, and lost me a perfectly good suit of armor, so I shoved it down and watched him carefully.

  He straightened up after a minute and looked at me, eyes wide. “You are mortal!”

  “SHE IS DIRE.”

  “But wait, Dire is in Caym. This makes no sense.”

  “IT IS A RUSE. THE DIRE THERE IS A DUPLICATE, AS IS THE DELTA. DELTA IS HERE AS WELL, NOT FAR AWAY.”

  His eyes went wide. I watched those rainbow-sparkling pupils twitch and expand with pure joy... at least, that was my estimate of it. “She is here? The teacher herself?”

  Shit, Pagliacci was right. They were people, just more pathetic than most. No matter how bad the world up above got, there was still hope. Down here? Crushing boredom, casual cruelty, a hierarchy that dumped endless amounts of shit on the weak, and an economy that was mostly made up of people.

  But while pity was one thing, it was another thing entirely to lower your guard or pretend that the demons were no less dangerous for their misery.

  “YES, SHE IS NOT FAR. BUT DIRE NEEDS TO GET TO HER. YOUR LORD IS UNDER THE FOOLISH IMPRESSION THAT HE HAS TAKEN DIRE HOSTAGE. SHE IS GOING TO REMEDY THAT. HE MAY TRY TO KILL DELTA FOR THIS DELUSION.”

  “What? He would! He’s a terror!” The demon’s tail lashed in obvious distress. “You don’t understand; he can’t kill her! Not before I meet her!”

  This was like bribing a kid to give you the keys to his parent’s car.

  “WELL HE’LL TRY. WE’LL HAVE TO STOP THAT. ER... WHAT’S YOUR NAME, AGAIN?”

  “I am Eighty-First Worm.” he looked down with what was probably shame.

  “PLAY YOUR CARDS RIGHT, AND THAT NUMBER WILL BE UP BY THE END OF THIS DAY.”

  “Um... the game uses dice, not cards. And what is a day?”

  “NEVER MIND.” I pointed at the crystal. “WHAT IS THIS AND WHAT IS IT USED FOR?”

  “Ah, it, ah, it is a Lurkcrystal node. By tuning to the aetherwaves and the other crystals we have nearby, it allows us to watch the mines.”

  “BUT IT IS SHOWING CAYM, NOT THE TUNNELS AROUND HERE.”

  He fidgeted. “I
might have found a way to extend the reception and tap into a different crystal chain by riding the leyline channels, and the blood resonance of the nearest branch of the Styx.”

  “DIRE HAS NO IDEA WHAT YOU JUST SAID, BUT SHE LIKES THE NOTION. SO NORMALLY YOU SIT HERE AND WATCH THE MINES?”

  “Yes. I’m not sure why; we are out here in the middle of nowhere.” he fiddled with the copper bindings around the crystal, tracing along them and rerouting them. “There is absolutely nothing... to...”

  The crystal flickered and brought up an image of tunnels packed with screaming Damned, swarming over the few worm demons in their way, bashing at them with rocks. At the rear of them, I caught a glimpse of a big man, a familiar man, waving around a worm demon’s decapitated head with his left hand, and a knife with his right.

  For someone who’d lost his head that was a pretty quick recovery time. But I was glad to see Pagliacci up and kicking, gladder still to see him providing a distraction.

  I loved my species, at that moment, in all their primitive, mob-minded glory. All it took to rally them was a reminder that the demons could die.

  “Oh no! They’ll have to drop that tunnel.”

  “WILL THEY?”

  “Yes! The Damned have gone mad. They must be sealed away before the contagion spreads, and—”

  “NO. NO THEY MUST NOT. DELTA IS BACK THERE, TOO. WOULD YOU MISS YOUR ONLY CHANCE TO MEET HER?”

  “Ah...” he fell silent.

  I smiled under my mask as I watched him wrestle with himself. Dreams versus loyalty was what it came down to in the end. But I knew which side would win. Hope is a pernicious emotion, even in Hell.

  “What shall we do?” he asked, and I knew I had him.

  “FIRE UP THIS CRYSTAL. YOU SAY THAT YOU CAN TAP INTO THE LURKCRYSTALS OF OTHER CHAINS?”

  “Yes, but I don’t see what—”

  “LOOK FOR CHAINS THAT ARE AROUND HERE BUT THAT SHOULD NOT BE.” I had my suspicions, and finally, a way to test them. “FOCUS ON CHAINS THAT SHOULD BE IN CAYM.”

  “All right, but I don’t think we’ll find anything.” He fiddled with the crystal, and copper sigils bloomed and withered as he went. I monitored the emissions through my voltaic vision, trying to figure out what he was doing. I got about half of it, I thought. I needed to study this thing in a proper lab. Hell, for that matter, I needed a proper lab. That might not be too hard to do, if good old wormy here had as much geomantic magic as his peers.

  “This is strange,” he remarked, as the image flickered again. “There is a crystal above, within a few R’lw.”

  “MMHM. PUT HER ON.”

  “Her? Very well.” He waved a hand, and the copper parted like a flower unfurling, an image resolving on the crystal; the upper parts of a pair of oversized breasts.

  I snorted. I knew those tits. They’d been shoved in my general direction at every opportunity. “CAN SHE HEAR US?”

  “Er, now she can.” He twisted a copper strand.

  “FIRST WHISPER,” I rumbled, as I leaned on a pair of stalagmites. “YOU HAVE BEEN KEEPING SECRETS.”

  It was worth it to see her jump. The viewpoint spun, revealing rocks, ash, and a very surprised-looking Khalid. “AH GOOD, YOU’RE NOT ALONE.”

  “I, ah, I, Doctor!” Flawlessly manicured fingers closed around the viewpoint for a second, then her face filled the screen, peering down at me. “What is this sorcery?”

  “YOU HAVE BEEN SPYING. IT’S CUTE. DIRE WAS GOING TO LET IT GO AND USE THAT TO HER ADVANTAGE LATER, BUT SOMETHING MORE IMPORTANT’S COME UP.”

  “What?” Eighty-First Worm was surprised. “That makes no sense.”

  “SHUSH. WHISPER, IS EVERYONE AROUND YOU? THE CHORUS? KHALID AND VECTOR?”

  “Yes, we have gathered together. Most of the Damned from Beaky are here as well. Some probably haven’t revived yet, we are trying to find them.”

  “GOOD. PUT KHALID ON, WE HAVE MUCH TO DO AND LITTLE TIME TO DO IT IN.”

  “What are we doing, now?”

  I filled them in on the plan, my location, and the state of Pagliacci’s current riot.

  “You let the murderclown off the chain?” Vector said, shaking his head. “Bad idea.”

  “MORE OF A FACTOR OF NOT BEING AROUND TO STOP HIM. LET’S JUST SAY HE POPPED HIS COLLAR.”

  “What?”

  “NEVERMIND. GO AHEAD AND TURN IT OFF, WORM.”

  “I... what?”

  “CLOSE THE LINK TO DIRE’S COMRADES.”

  Once it was closed, I leaned in. “RARE METALS ARE WHAT YOU’RE AFTER HERE, RIGHT? THERE IS A VAULT SOMEWHERE THAT HOLDS SCAVENGED METALS, YES?”

  “Well, yes, when we detect them within reach of our magic, we pull them down to the sifters.”

  I holstered my blade and pulled out my Colt 1911 Army Pistol. “SHOW HER THE WAY THERE. SHE’S GOT A FEW THINGS TO SALVAGE FROM THE WRECK OF HER SUIT.”

  CHAPTER 16: UNDERGROUND RESISTANCE

  “In the end, it’s on the characters to remember that there are more ways to resolve a hostile foe than simply fighting them.”

  --Excerpt from the second book of the Chronicles of the Shared Lie; The Monster Master’s Methods

  One painful, hobbling journey, three bullets, and three bleeding demon corpses later, I was staring at a long, obviously-artificially-created cavern full of piles of scrap and salvage, including my suit, and what was probably a good chunk of the metallic debris from Beaky. Not all of it, but then the dragon had probably swallowed a lot of the good stuff. This was what was left after he finished his messy mastication.

  But it was enough. I dug out the portable toolkit I kept taped to my calf with flesh-colored bindings, knelt next to my crushed suit as much as my bum knee would allow, and got to work.

  They’d come close to breaching the reactor, I noted. I was soaking up some rads just by sitting here. Probably not enough to kill me: it was a fusion rig and not one of those fission deathtraps. But I’d probably want to get checked out by Vector or someone down the road once I got out of Hell. Tumors aren’t my idea of fun.

  When I’d just started out, I had cannibalized a dead hero’s suit of power armor, one that was made entirely of recycled junk. I kept the basic functionality, gave it a few extra tricks, and ended up with a battleworthy set of armor that saw me through some pretty horrible times. It had only failed due to treachery, and even then it had been a near thing.

  Now, sitting here in a cave with a box of scraps, I built my suit anew. Couldn’t salvage the reactor. Without the shielding, that would turn a long-term health risk into short-term suicide. But I could rig up a breastplate and greaves combo with a few low-powered gravitic balancers that meant I wasn’t walking everywhere.

  Then came a quick layer of spray-plastic. Nothing fancy, just enough to keep the demons’ metal-crunching powers at bay. Hopefully, anyway. From the readings I’d taken, the answers Eighty-First Worm provided me, and my own estimates, their magic required direct contact between the earth and whatever material they were manipulating.

  After that, I rigged up a basic Tesla Deflector and stripped down one of the particle blasters, turning the arm into a literal long-arm. Without a direct fusion link the whole rig had limited power, but I whipped up a double-set of chemical battery packs using the other raw metals in the room and a few choice chemicals brewed up on the spot.

  “EAT YOUR FUCKING HEART OUT, MACGYVER,” I muttered as I hefted the particle blaster. I’d learned the tolerances of the Worms to energy weapons the last time around. I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. I had things set for highly charged blasts, focused down to minimum length. They’d go through stone, go through flesh, go through demons, without stopping.

  During this hours-long building fest, the distant explosions rumbled twice more. “WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS ANYWAY?”

  “The slave that Lord Shudderworm obtained in the fleshmarkets of Dis. He is the reason that we were able to get out here and set up so quickly.”

  “REALLY?”

  “He is str
ong! Stronger than any Damned or demon that I have ever seen. Er, not that I have seen many demon lords. And tough, too. I do not know how they tamed him, or what keeps him here.”

  “IS HE MAGICAL OR SOMETHING?”

  “No. They say not. I don’t understand how, I think... I think he is one of those new people they talk about. The ones that showed up in Creation a century ago, one of those creatures.”

  I recalled how the Council of Worms had somehow gotten ahold of Punching Judy and how they’d turned her against me.

  It would be the height of foolishness to think that she was the only metahuman in Hell. This added a wrinkle to the plan.

  I checked the chronometer. Time enough to meet the first wave of my reinforcements and adjust the plan slightly. This needed investigation; it had the potential to bite us in the ass if we weren’t careful.

  “CHECKMATE IN FIVE THEN, INSTEAD OF FOUR.” I clicked on my hover mode and rose up into the air, sighed as the pressure left my over-stressed leg. “COME ON, EIGHTY-FIRST WORM. THE GAME’S AFOOT!”

  “What?”

  “JUST FOLLOW.”

  It was amazing how easy it was to get used to the guy, I thought, as I hovered through close corridors and tight turns. I’d known many people back on Earth with much the same attitude toward something they obsessed over. A geek was a geek, whether human or demon. Didn’t hurt that he was basically sorcerous tech support.

  In any case, he was the perfect shadow. The guy hung back, nervously, calling up directions as I navigated the tunnels. We passed through caves full of more Damned, digging at the walls with rocks, and they all ran from me as though their hair was on fire. I couldn’t really blame them. We came upon our first demonic overseer at the end of the cave, chasing after his fleeing charges with a jointed metal lash in his hands. One blast later, he was on the floor, thrashing and leaking in his death throes. I cycled the particle blaster back up, eyed the readings, and called it a good field test.

  “I knew him,” my demonic buddy said behind me. I turned, keeping the arm-turned-cannon pointed nowhere in particular.