King of Hell (The Shadow Saga)

by Christopher Golden

  Magic rushed up through Octavian as he spun around to see a stranger amongst them. Rippling occult energy flared from his hands and an amber aura emanated from him, so that he seemed to be armored in that seething magic. Danny snarled at the newcomer and hooked his fingers into wicked claws.

  "Who the hell are you?" Octavian demanded.

  "Merely a passerby with a friendly word of advice."

  On the surface, the new arrival did not appear to be a threat. Tall and slight, the pale man had a hawk nose and a long gray beard tied halfway down its length round an iron ring. His blue eyes were like ice, conveying a chill despite the smile he wore. In his brown wool greatcoat, thick cotton shirt and heavy trousers over scuffed boots, he reminded Octavian more of some aging hippy college professor than any deadly enemy, but Octavian had not lived so long without realizing things were often not what they seemed.

  Sparks flew from Octavian's fingers and amber mist spilled from his eyes. They were on the Shadowpaths — there were only monsters and travelers here, and few of the travelers would be innocents.

  "I'll ask you again —" he began.

  "Smith," Squire said, sniffing in disapproval. "What the fuck do you want?"

  Octavian glanced at Squire. The ugly, misshapen hobgoblin had come up beside Danny and now stared up at the newcomer with obvious distaste. The bearded man inclined his head in the very slightest of bows.

  "Squire," he said.

  "You know this guy?" Danny demanded.

  Squire nodded. "I know him. Him and all his kin. Meet Wayland Smith, boys. There's one of 'em in every dimension, weaponsmiths and dimension-walkers. Sorta like hobgoblins, only not so pretty."

  "You never quite understood," Wayland Smith said. He tugged on the iron ring in his beard, then combed his fingers through the gray hair. "My brothers and sisters and I . . . we are all Wayland Smith."

  "Ain't that what I just said?"

  "Not quite," Smith replied. "There is no —"

  Squire sighed. "Yeah, yeah. Fascinating stuff. What the hell do you want?" The hobgoblin gestured toward Octavian. "Speak fast, or my boy here is going to melt your face."

  "As I said, I've come with a word of advice." Wayland Smith turned his icy blue gaze upon Octavian, ignoring the others. "All of this tramping around between dimensions is going to lead to no good."

  Octavian glanced at Squire. "What's he talking about?"

  "Nothing. The Smiths just like to stick their noses in."

  Danny rose up to his full height, at least half a foot taller than Wayland Smith, and stared down at the intruder, red eyes gleaming in the dark.

  "What is it you really want?" the devil asked. "Why do you care what we do?"

  Wayland Smith sighed, more irritated than frightened. "I should have known better. People on a crusade never listen. But I had to try, didn't I?"

  "Try what?" Octavian said, the amber magic churning around him slightly diminished. The power in him wanted to be used; over the years he had found that once summoned, magic had an urgency to it — spells wanted weaving, hexes desired to be cast.

  "To send you home, Nicephorus Dragases," Wayland Smith replied.

  Octavian shivered. "How do you know that name?"

  "It is your name, is it not?"

  "My birth name, yes. But I've died and lived again since then, and lived countless days. That name no longer has meaning."

  "Whatever name you choose, you're a son of your world," Smith said. "You're not meant to be in the lands between, whether the paths of shadow or the Gray Corridors walked by Travelers such as myself. It's dangerous for you and young Orias to be here. Every time you cross between worlds you risk drawing others back in after you — perhaps powerful others. There are too many dark-intentioned creatures wandering these paths already. I won't have you polluting them further."

  Squire laughed softly. "Fuckin' Travelers, always trying to act like you're in charge. Look, this isn't my first goddamn rodeo. If memory serves, the last time we had something really nasty slip into the in-between it was because one of your people fell in love and tried to save a whole tribe of —"

  The dagger appeared in Smith's hand faster than Octavian's eye could see. "Hold your tongue, 'goblin, or I'll cut it out!"

  Octavian let the magic surge from his left hand, a spell intended to knock the blade from Smith's grasp. He stared in astonishment as the magic split on the blade, the edge so sharp that it cleaved the spell in two. Wayland Smith had forged a weapon impervious to magic.

  "Put away the knife," Danny snarled, his horns casting strange shadows in the light of Octavian's sphere. He took a step forward and Smith moved back, wary, ready for a fight.

  "Danny, back off," Octavian said. He scratched at the air, fingers contorted, and this time the magic that surged from him struck Wayland Smith full in the chest, knocked the Traveler backward so that he reeled into the dark mists around them. "This is a waste of time."

  The devil leaped into the darkness after Smith and Octavian called out, thinking Danny meant to kill him and would be killed himself. But a moment later the towering young demon hauled Smith back into the light, dragging him by the iron ring in his beard.

  "You called me something," Danny growled. "Something that isn't my name. What was it?"

  Smith grabbed his wrist and twisted, forced Danny backward with a show of startling strength.

  "But it is your name, Orias," the Traveler said, dagger held warily before him. "Just as his is Dragases. You are Orias, son of Oriax."

  Danny scowled. "My demon-father was Baalphegor-Moabites, and he's dead."

  Smith shook his head. "Moabites claimed you, stole you away for his own purposes, but you are the son of Oriax and you would be a fool to go home."

  "What are you . . ." Danny began, but faltered. His eyes narrowed with sudden realization. "Home. You don't mean Mr. Doyle's place."

  Magic still pouring from his hands, amber sparks falling from the power that misted all around his silhouette, Octavian stepped between them.

  "I don't understand you or the things you seem to know," he said, glaring at Smith's cold blue eyes. "But unless you want to try yourself against us, I suggest you move on. Find another path."

  "I only want to dissuade you —"

  Squire barked a laugh. "With a blade. You think I don't have a dozen blades close at hand that could snap yours in two? Your kind can work metals, I'll grant you, but any hobgoblin with half a brain could —"

  "Enough!" Octavian commanded.

  Squire began to argue but Octavian stilled him with a glance. Danny seemed ready to attack, but all Octavian could think about was the time they were wasting. He turned to Smith.

  "Are you willing to fight us to stop us from going on?" Amber magic rippled through him, suffused his body so that he was charged with it.

  Wayland Smith arched an eyebrow and then scoffed at him. "I'm old, Dragases, not stupid. I do my best to dissuade the haphazard efforts of amateurs who manage to slip between worlds, in order to protect myself and my kin. But if reason won't sway you from your course, then I certainly don't have the power to force you to abandon it."

  Danny grunted in approval.

  "Then why are you still here?" Squire asked.

  Octavian glanced over at the hobgoblin and when he looked back, the Traveler had gone. Whether he had stepped back into the shadows or simply vanished altogether, Octavian couldn't say.

  "You never told me there were other races who could navigate the Shadowpaths," Danny said, turning to Squire.

  The hobgoblin shrugged. "You never asked. Anyway, the Smiths are pricks. They think just because nobody else can find their way in the Gray Corridors, somehow that makes them better than my kind, like they're the transdimensional police or something."

  Octavian frowned. "Are you sure they're not?"

  Squire scowled. "You want to get your friends back?"

  "You know I do."

  "Then let's keep moving. Before Smith arrived, I had started reaching int
o this one dimension and I caught a whiff of a horrible stink — like burning kittens or something."

  Squire turned and started along one of the branches that splintered away from the main path. He went more carefully than before, afraid of what kind of world he might fall into.

  "You think it's Hell?" Octavian asked.

  Danny gave a soft laugh. "Not the hell you mean. I'd feel it."

  "No, not Hell," Squire added. "But whatever it is, it ain't Happytown. If we want to find an open doorway to Hell, that's the kind of place we need to be looking for."

  "Then lead on."

  Squire nodded, took a breath and reached back to take Octavian's hand, who took Danny's hand in turn. The sphere of light that had floated alongside them winked out once again and they plunged into the darkest shadows, a place devoid of all light.

  The smell hit Octavian even before light and color returned. He flinched away from the acrid stink of burning flesh even as he felt Danny's grip tighten.

  "My God," the devil rasped, and Octavian thought better than to correct him on the casual prayer.

  They stood in the shadow of a tall building, its architecture nothing like that of Octavian's world. It towered two hundred feet above their heads, bent like a reed in the deep current. Its exterior had a pale rose hue but otherwise seemed to be made of something akin to blown glass, elegantly curving without need of seams or frames or beams. Around them spread a city of such buildings, or it had been a city before catastrophe had claimed it. Corpses had been heaped into piles in the smooth streets and set aflame, funeral pyres that had burned down so that all that remained were flickers of flames amidst the charred dead and huge plumes of lilac smoke that drifted skyward.

  "I don't want to be here," Danny whispered.

  "We have to be," Squire said. "This is the kind of place we . . ."

  The hobgoblin turned away, knelt, and vomited in the street. Octavian and Danny averted their eyes while Squired heaved again and then he crouched, taking sips of the air, steadying himself.

  "Kid, tell me you feel that tug you were talking about?"

  Danny hesitated, unsure. Octavian watched him a moment but then curiosity drew him away. He wandered along the street a few yards, taking in the atrocities around them. Other bodies lay strewn in the streets, humanoid figures that had been flayed open or torn in half. Along a side street, several of the blown glass buildings had come down, but instead of debris they seemed to have melted like candles left to burn. A massive hole in the middle of the street bore investigation.

  From somewhere far off there came a high-pitched scream that sent a shiver along his spine. These people weren't human — not the way he understood humanity — but he sensed that this was no scream of terror. Whatever horror had been visited upon this world seemed to have passed. Instead, the scream rose and fell, a keening wail that could only have been a cry of grief. Of loss.

  He started moving in the direction of that sorrow.

  "Pete," Squire called. "Don't."

  Octavian turned to face his companions as they strode toward him.

  "Can't you hear — ?"

  "Whatever ugliness was going to happen here, it's happened already," Squire replied. "It's too late for you to try to play the hero. You want to stay here and help the survivors rebuild, or do you want to try to save your friends?"

  For several long seconds — an eternity — he could not reply. Allison and Kuromaku were like his sister and brother, but they were seasoned warriors. If anyone could survive in Hell, it would be the two of them. Santiago and Taweret and Kazimir as well, though he had never been as close to them as to the others. But Charlotte . . .

  She'd been nineteen years old when Cortez had made her a vampire. The girl had no family, no place in the world, and little experience as a warrior. In the face of true evil, her spirit might shatter. She might have a noble, courageous heart, but even that would not keep her alive for long. Octavian had taken her under his wing, in a sense, intending to redeem her. He had promised her that she would be a part of his family, just as Kuromaku and Allison were. No way could he leave her to an eternity of torment.

  With one more glance in the direction of that mournful scream, he turned to his companions.

  "Danny," he said. "Is there a way through from here? Did you find a door?"

  The young devil nodded his heavy, horned head, crimson eyes gleaming.

  "I think so," Danny replied. "If you're sure it's what you want."

  Octavian did not hesitate. "Show us the way."

  "Oh, joy," Squire muttered as Danny started off along the street. "Next stop, Hell."

  Phoenix's World

  Manhattan, New York, USA

  The whole frantic drive into Manhattan, Ronni had felt sure that Phoenix would be pulled over, or that the whole city would erupt into chaos around them the way it had done during the Uprising. At first, as night fell, they had seen State Police cars headed north and once they got off the Henry Hudson Parkway, there did seem to be an inordinate number of cops out on the streets, on alert in the event the chaos did spread. But otherwise the world beyond Ardsley seemed unaffected by the events unfolding there. That would change, Ronni knew. Even if the cops up in Westchester were able to get control of the situation and those — demons, she thought, call them what they are — could be killed, word of what was happening would spread like wildfire soon enough. It had been barely more than an hour since she and Phoenix had fled the hospital. The whispers were due to start any minute now, and then the TV news would be all over the story, if they weren't already.

  Unless it gets covered up, Ronni thought. She supposed that was possible, if they could keep it from spreading. The very idea made her wonder how many other hideous, impossible things might have happened in the world that most people would never know about.

  Phoenix turned on 82nd Street and by some miracle found a parking space under a streetlight halfway between Columbus and Amsterdam. Ronni studied her as she parallel parked, doing a crappy job of it the first time and starting all over. They had ridden much of the way in tense silence, only their heartbeats for company. At one point Phoenix had turned on the radio, searched for news of the chaos in Ardsley, and then shut it off again. Ronni had a hundred questions but most of them were stupid, things that Phoenix wasn't in any better position to answer than she was herself.

  "Now's your chance," Phoenix said as she put the car in park.

  "For what?"

  Phoenix switched off the engine and turned to look at her. "To take off. You're in Manhattan. You can get anywhere from here. Hop a cab to Penn Station and get a train out of town. It's what I'd do —"

  "But it's not what you are doing."

  "My father died today. We had a lot of bad blood between us, once upon a time, but we made up for that. He made up for it. I know he loved me. The first of those things that came through . . . it came through him. And there are more, and likely to be more and more and more, and I can't walk away from that."

  Phoenix opened her door and stepped out of the car, so Ronni followed suit. The sounds of New York City reached them, but seemed distant there on the quiet, tree-lined residential block. Autumn had brought many colors to the leaves and the sidewalks and gutters were littered with those already fallen, but it was beautiful there. Serene. Ronni wondered if Phoenix was thinking the same thing that she was — that it was an illusion.

  "I'm not the type to run," Ronni said, smoothing her sweatshirt, feeling stupid in her hospital scrubs.

  "Bullshit." Phoenix locked the car and slammed her door. "Outside the hospital earlier, you knew who I was on sight. You recognized me from all the attention I got after the Uprising, but that happened seven years ago."

  "You're famous," Ronni said.

  "My father's famous. Was famous. I had a lot of attention for a while and yeah, I guess some people might still recognize me from that, but you were . . . you were fascinated. I know you're not some kind of stalker, that you actually work at the restaurant,
but if you've got some weird fucking fetish for the Uprising and you're obsessed with me or whatever, then —"

  "Do I seem like just some fan girl to you?" Ronni demanded, bristling.

  "Then why the hell aren't you running? You don't need to stay with me!"

  Ronni clenched her jaw, pressed her eyes shut, and then sighed as she opened them. She closed the passenger door gently and stared across the hood at Phoenix, who had come around the front of the car.

  "Firstly, I've already told you part of this. Yes, I admired you. If you really don't know how famous you became, then you're delusional."

  "Famous for killing someone," Phoenix said bitterly.

  "Famous for doing whatever you had to do. I saw this one interview you gave and you were in so much pain, but you kept your head up. Tough girl. The look in your eyes was like, I'm in Hell, but I'd do it all again if I had to —"

  "I don't know if I would."

  Ronni spread her arms. "Look around, Phoenix. You may have to. Point is, one of the reasons I'm not running is because of you. Someone's gotta stand by you in this, help you do whatever it is you're going to do. I don't see people lining up for the job."

  Phoenix hesitated, then took a deep breath, and nodded. "All right. What's the other reason?"

  Ronni gave her a humorless smile. "I've got nowhere else to go."

  A taxi rolled by and they had to step out of the way. Phoenix gave Ronni another glance and then started across the street. Three doors down from where they'd parked was a three story building so narrow it seemed to have been erected merely to fill the space between two others. A low black wrought-iron gate ran along all of the buildings on the block and there were unruly bushes and still some flowers in bloom behind the fence.

  Phoenix opened the gate in front of the narrow building and walked toward the small set of steps that led to the entrance.

  "Admit it," she said, glancing back at Ronni. "You just want to meet Annelise."

  Ronni smiled. "Well, yeah . . . but not just."

  With a clank, the front door opened before they reached it and a gray-haired, crinkly-eyed woman in her mid-sixties appeared on the threshold. The older woman pressed a hand to her chest, a baleful sorrow in her eyes. Ronni recognized her immediately. Annelise Hirsch had been one of the mediums whose televised mass séance had caused the Uprising. With Eric Honen and Professor Joe Cormier dead, she was the only one of them left alive.