by Aaron Crash
A bloodthirsty howl filled the dark halls of the resort above him. The staircase had gone from ski resort wood to industrial concrete—rather military, and entirely function over decoration.
“Ling, tell me you’re not affected by the succubus,” Blaze said as he continued to chase the demon down toward the mine entrance.
Ling came online. “Of course not. Meelah have full control over their procreative impulses. We mix genetic material to create babies, not as a form of recreation. You Humans, so silly and rather gross.”
“Aww, Ling, you don’t know what you’re missing, buddy.” In his display, Blaze found Ling in the east wing, several stories above him. “The succubus is heading down, toward the old Clicker mine. I think it’s the real demon. It’s still tricking Fernando and Trina with telepathic shadows, however. If Fernando and Trina close the deal, they’ll die. We have to hurry.”
“Yes, Blaze,” Ling said. “And I am hurrying. As is Cali. She’s coming for you. Remember, in her state, she remembers every terrible thing you did to her.”
Blaze sighed. And he’d done a lot to that poor girl, both when she was a werewolf and when she was a shy Mormon woman. He, his sister, and Cali had had a love triangle for a while, and no one had escaped the drama without deep wounds. Mostly Cali. And mostly emotional.
Blaze had been clawed to bloody pieces, but that stuff heals.
Elle had gone back in for seconds of the drama. Cali and the Onyx witch had started dating again. Though the sounds that echoed through the ship sounded far more like screaming than dating. Sometimes good screaming. Sometimes bad.
“Elle,” Blaze called through comms, “can you talk to her? I can close her bracelets, but I’d rather have her as a werewolf as long she fights on our side.”
“Talk to her? Uh, no,” his sister said. “We kind of broke up this week. Again. I would only make it worse. Maybe Fernando can talk her down. He was able to reason with her that one time against Xerxes.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. But we do need him in action. Can you leave the ship and find him?” Blaze asked.
A long pause. “I’m not sure I trust myself yet,” Elle said.
And that was the truth. His sister had only been clean from Onyx for less than a week. She had to keep the dark energy in her cells, though; otherwise, she’d die. Physiologically, she’d become dependent on the Onyx, so she couldn’t go cold turkey. They didn’t know what would happen to her once they closed the Onyx Gate. Trina and Cali would most likely die. It was the downside of fighting alongside monsters.
But all three women were willing to make that sacrifice to save the billions of people in the galaxy.
“My ax might wound the demon,” Blaze said, “but we need a snare sphere to capture it. Fernando can do that spell, but right now, he thinks he’s reliving the best night of his life. With you.”
Elle hissed over comms. “Nombre de Dios, that night was such a mistake. Fine, Blaze. I’ll bring my fusion katanas and my pistols, but I can’t cast spells. Are we on the same page about that?”
“Never liked to read,” Blaze said. “And the nombre de Dios thing is my line, Hermana. Get your ass down here and quick. Before you do, download the schematics of the Clicker mine under the resort into my combat display.”
“Will do. Elle out.”
Blaze reached the bottom of the staircase. A ding in his implants told him the schematics for the mine had downloaded. He stopped for a minute to focus on the map. On the surface was the ski lodge. To the east and west of the ski resort, staircases led down through the ice to two central hallways that led to an elevator. That elevator went straight down through miles of ocean to a lobby area. Tunnels connected that elevator lobby to the central control room above the mine shafts. The gunny saw himself blinking on the west access tunnel. Okay, he knew where he was. Time to get back to business.
He bashed through an airlock into a windowed hallway far underneath the surface.
Not a hallway, a tube, an old mining tube underwater that was mostly reinforced glass with views of the dark slush around them. Shenyang Prime was one massive ocean underneath a thick layer of ice and snow. The Clicker miners had fashioned hamster-run-type hexagonal tubes all through the frigid ocean’s depths. The succubus stood at the end of the corridor. How deep will you go, Blaze Ramirez? How deep will you go to get me? The hissing voice pierced his mind.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Blaze said. “I get the double entendre. Deeper, deeper, do me, whatever. Let’s just end this quick.”
It won’t be quick. For I am a Konobus of Nauzea, the archduchess of torture, the mother of joyous pain. And when we tease the divine agony out of your nerves, you will beg for us to take all of eternity to bleed you.
The succubus spread her wings wide. She was a crimson stain at the end of the very bright corridor. Ocean water swirled outside the windows.
I used Cali to seduce you so it would hurt you even more. What if Trina discovered the truth? She would be devastated. Because of your adulterous lust. Life is suffering. Rejoice in the agony! So sayeth Nauzea.
“Glad to hear you have a connection to Nauzea,” Blaze said, striding forward, fusion ax in both hands. “We’ve been taking down Nauzea’s brothers, one by one, and she’s next. How bad can she be?”
Something moved in the half-frozen ultra-salted water of the ocean above him. He turned.
When he glanced back, the succubus was gone.
The door at the end of the hexagonal corridor opened.
And it revealed a slaughterhouse of demon fun, dimly lit to show only the blood, and then the lights went out in the room beyond.
Come in and see, the succubus whispered into his mind. Come in and see and witness Nauzea’s eternal joy in endless suffering.
Blaze went through the door. The light flashed on, and he had to shut his eyes at the torture and bloodshed.
The rage inside him blossomed into a swirling black hole of fury.
These pinche demonic putas had gone too far.
THREE_
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Blaze opened his eyes.
The door on the opposite end of the blood-splattered room opened.
The succubus used her tail and her two hands to hurl three long, cruel, serrated knives at him.
Blaze batted them out of the way with his fusion ax. The succubus slammed the door shut and ran off, cackling.
His ax had turned her thrown knives into slag. The steel dripped onto a floor flecked with bones, brains, and intestines. He wasn’t going to look at the butchered families or the maniacal things the succubus had done to them.
But the succubus wouldn’t have tortured these people alone.
No, the sex demon was about sucking away souls through intimate contact, whether physically or psychically. Normally, succubi weren’t into torture, but this one was a servant, a Konobus, of this Nauzea entity, the archduchess of torture and the mother of pain.
Blaze heard whispers of the thing in his mind, but he couldn’t quite get to them, couldn’t quite bring them in.
This wasn’t just a normal hunt, not when the royalty of hell was involved. Had Ambassador Randi known? Had she lured them into a trap?
Some of the slaughtered families were still moving, pinned to the wall, hanging on hooks, weeping in pain.
There was no saving them. There was no salvaging them. Sometimes the evil was too much, and the only kindness was death.
Blaze checked the schematics of the underwater mining facility. The big freight elevator was in the room ahead. That would take him straight down to the loading area and the Clicker mine proper.
He broke out of the torture chamber and saw the open shaft of the freight elevator. It was the main lift that brought the ore up from the mine. The succubus disappeared down into the wide rectangular hole. The demon had plenty of room to spread out its wings since the walls were a hundred feet apart.
A different female voice filled his mind. It wasn’t the succubus, but the demon she ser
ved. Nauzea. You think you know pain. You think pain is in the flesh. Pain is in the mind, Gunny. Pain is in the mind. The archduchess of torture was down below. The succubus had gone down the elevator shaft to rendezvous with her.
Blaze slammed his fist into the elevator call button. The massive cage, a hundred feet across, rattled down from overhead. The smell of oil mingled with the spilled blood and emptied intestines of the room behind him.
He marched back there while waiting for the elevator.
Blaze plucked three fusion grenades off his bandolier. Bill and Lizzie had come up with the devices, and each grenade held a hydrogen shell. Trigger them, and it was explosion city and he was the mayor. Blaze tossed all three into the torture chamber and then slammed the door tight. The airlock sealed the room and the explosion rocked the entire complex. Bright light filled the murky saltwater around them.
Those unfortunates that hadn’t died from their wounds found relief in the apocalypse of star-fire energy.
The airlock stopped the gushing water from flooding the elevator room, but the corridor he’d crossed from the stairs was gone. It would take his people longer to get to him, but there was an access point on the other side.
The cage came down, two sets of doors opened, and Blaze charged inside. He felt so small inside the open space. He went to the controls and touched the raised Clicker writing, like Human braille. There were three stations: one above, the one he was on, and the one far, far below.
“Elle, you coming? I took stairs down to the upper corridors of the mining facility, but I’m taking an elevator down to the core. I blew the west corridor, but you can take the eastern staircase to get to the elevator. It’s like a goddamn hamster run down here.”
Static buzzed in his ear and he heard the flicker of someone speaking, but then nothing. Long-range communications wouldn’t be affected by the water, so he was certain that it was supernatural interference giving them fits. Regardless of the cause, he was on his own, and he liked that. He’d been relying too much on magic and monsters in recent battles. If his fusion weapons didn’t kill the succubus or this Nauzea puta, he could at least bash on them until Elle showed up with Fernando and a snare sphere.
A memory of the torture chamber hit his head, an outstretched bloody hand, and he seized his shotgun.
These demons needed to die for what they’d done.
He’d lead with his ax and shotgun and let the fusion do the talking. Outside, the frigid saltwater swirled in lights as the elevator plummeted deeper and deeper underwater toward the core, toward where the Clickers had mined the mineral-rich center under the ice and under the saltwater.
It was miles below the surface, and the only reason the metal didn’t buckle under the incredible pressure was because the Clickers had reinforced their corridors with shielding, not unlike the energy shields on the Lizzie Borden.
Blaze tried comms again. Nothing.
He paused, trying to think through the adrenaline flooding his system. The smart play was to wait. But when had he ever been accused of being smart?
Something swam through the water. More shapes followed it. What were they? Some kind of demon fish? He wished he had access to the Lizzie Borden’s sensors. Sure, there was alien life that could survive in frigid saltwater and all that pressure. Even Earth had its amazing deep-sea fish. But these things seemed almost Human-like, long and lean.
The elevator dinged to a stop and double doors opened. Darkness and dust lay beyond. There was no sign of the succubus nor the archduchess of torture.
Blaze walked out into the elevator lobby. His crackling fusion ax gave him light. Above him and next to him, windows gave him a view of the dark slush swirling lazily in the incredibly cold seawater. Across the way were passageways that led to the actual mine itself. The Clickers had fashioned these corridors like their hives, and a million different hexagonal tunnels spread out around him. He checked his schematics and saw that they led to different mine shafts, but there was a central control room in the middle of the hamster tunnels. The control room was like the body of an octopus at the center of dozens of tentacles.
He’d head for the control room. A quick check of the atmosphere reassured him. There was oxygen in the tunnels, so he’d be able to breathe if something happened to his armor.
Nauzea’s voice slashed through his thoughts. Pain is in the mind. Pain is in our desires. Pain is in our memories.
He walked into a hexagonal corridor. Everything was dusty and dark. Lights flickered in the distance and then nothing. A baby’s squeal echoed through the hallways. Blaze felt sweat trickle down the back of his neck. Two minutes later, another baby screamed.
Those babies crying sounded so familiar.
Then he knew why.
From all around him, he heard the recording that had changed the fate of the galaxy a little over thirty years before. “The 0n1x singularity is contracting at an exponential rate. The black hole has become unstable. Abandon the base. I repeat. Abandon the base!”
It was 12:01 a.m., January 1, 2666, and two babies had just been born, one two minutes to midnight, Blaze, and the other just after midnight, Elle. Twins.
The babies continued to cry as they were scooped up by fleeing scientists. Blaze’s mother had escaped with them, but not his father. Miguel Ramirez, Ph.D., was killed when the 0n1x singularity exploded and opened the Onyx Gate.
Blaze stopped. The pain of losing his father was hard, but he’d only been a name, old pictures, and some video. What hurt worse was losing his mother.
From hidden speakers, or from the very air itself, it wasn’t clear, the audio turned to static, until a new recording began. “Phasmida forces have overrun Chiang Mai Prime. Human casualties are in the hundreds of thousands. The IPC fully supports the Union in humanity’s very first intersteller war.”
It was the famous newscast that historians played over and over. Blaze and Elle’s mother had been a casualty. Granny and Arlo had taken care of Maria Sandra Ramirez-Gutierrez and her twins until she was killed by Clicker fire on that far-flung planet in the Huaxia Quadrant. After her death, Granny took Elle and Arlo took Blaze.
Arlo, the bastard, the worst foster father anyone had ever had. And he was their only hope to close the Onyx Gate.
The news recording ended. From farther on in the corridor, where the lights flickered, glinting off the dust, a drunk man’s voice burst out. This wasn’t from speakers. This wasn’t a recording.
“Hey, you little shit!” It was Arlo’s voice in the darkness. “Do you want to get yourself killed, you pinche moron?”
Maybe they didn’t have to cross the galaxy to get to Arlo.
Somehow, Blaze seemed to have found him in the Clicker mines underneath Shenyang Prime’s half-frozen ocean.
“Arlo?” Blaze called out. Could his old mentor/foster father be on Shenyang Prime? Well, if Randi, the Union ambassador to the Meelah, was in league with the archduchess, anything was possible.
Ironically, the Union believed in Onyx energy and supported Blaze while the IPC didn’t. For the Union to be on the side of the bad guys was a real shame. But why else send Blaze and the Lizzie Borden into the death trap that Shenyang Prime had become?
“Remember that time you lost that fight in McCook?” Arlo asked. “Goddamn, I put the beatdown on you. Whipped you with my belt. You had to miss three weeks of school, which broke your little nerdy heart.”
“You broke my arm,” Blaze growled. “You whipped me while I was on the ground with a broken arm. And you said it was for my own good. That it would toughen me up.” The memory was sharp. And when Arlo had beat him that time in McCook, they hadn’t been alone. There had been an audience.
Arlo laughed, but that laughter disappeared down all those dusty corridors, smelling rusty underneath the miles and miles of saltwater above. And above the ocean, miles and miles of ice and snow. For a second, Blaze felt claustrophobia get to him. His breath came fast, and he had to use meditation techniques he’d learned from Ling to slow his
heart rate.
And he had to let go of the memory of Arlo beating on him, an eleven-year-old kid who wasn’t punished for fighting. No, Arlo had punished him for losing a fight, the sick pinche pendejo.
Blaze continued down a corridor, round and low because the Clickers were like stick insects. They mostly walked upright on legs, but they could crawl around on their six limbs—two legs, two big arms, and two small arms.
He came to a conveyor belt, a wide corridor leading from the central shaft back toward the massive freight elevator.
The conveyor snapped on suddenly. Objects came into view. A baseball mitt, but not just any mitt, his own mitt he’d left behind somewhere when Arlo had grabbed him and made him pack his stuff in the middle of the night because they couldn’t pay rent and had to take off. It couldn’t be there. But it was there.
“Come on, you little shit,” Arlo’s voice drifted through the corridors. “Or are you a scared little pussy?”
Pain isn’t in the flesh. Pain is in the mind.
A memory smacked him, a bad one. Arlo had made him crawl through a basement window and out of a window well filled with dead rats and trash. They’d gotten trapped in the basement by a tulpa that had outsmarted them, and it was only because Blaze was small that he’d managed to get out. But the feel of the small rat bodies on his hands had been awful. He felt it all again, remembered the smell, and he couldn’t stop shaking.
A boot made of snakeskin and gold buckles came down the conveyor belt. It was Arlo’s boot, of course. That was real gold. Arlo would buy expensive shit and then when they ran out of money or the creditors took the little cash he had, Arlo could melt down or hawk his silver belt buckle or the gold on his gaudy boots.
Arlo’s voice hissed from all around him. “Come on, Blaze. You need to come and take out the bad guy just like I taught you.”
“Just like you taught me,” Blaze said. “Just like you taught me. And you never called me Blaze, ’cause I didn’t get that name until I was in the Astral Corp. You called me Ramon, or Shit Stain, or you little bastard. But never Blaze.”