Hell Freezes Over (Hellscourge Book 6)

by Diem, J. C.

  Narrow and cramped, the portal was long and the walls stretched up so high that I couldn’t see the top. Mist swirled around our ankles. It gradually grew higher as we made our way along the passageway. It had almost reached our knees by the time I realized we’d left the portal behind and were now in the shadowlands. Almost instantly, the illness began to recede and I could feel my strength returning. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

  Six pairs of scarlet eyes formed in the darkness as my hellhounds arrived to greet us. The alpha stepped forward and I unthinkingly reached out to stroke his head. The shadowy beast froze and Sam’s breath caught in his throat in fear for me. The hound’s lips pulled back in a silent snarl, but he allowed me to pat him for a few seconds. I wasn’t sure which of us was more disconcerted by my show of affection.

  Sam waited for the pack to melt away into the mist before he spoke. “That was very brave of you.”

  “Brave or stupid?” I countered and shook my head. “I hate to admit it, but they’re really growing on me. I’ve never had a pet before.”

  The look he gave me was incredulous. “I do not think hellhounds can really be classified as pets.”

  “I know, but they’re the closest I’ll ever get to having any.”

  Knowing my hellhounds were guarding us, we trudged through the gloom for what I estimated to be about an hour. My watch had stopped as soon as we’d left Earth. It wouldn’t start working again until we returned. I didn’t need Sam to nudge me in the side to point out the slick black walls that enclosed the next realm. My eyesight was already improving now that we were no longer in our dimension.

  Reaching the wall without being challenged by illusions of the creatures that roamed through the wastelands, I realized that I was already the same height as Sam. My illness was gone and I was changing into my new form even more rapidly than usual. “Hellgate,” I said in a normal voice rather than shouting.

  “What?” a familiar male voice responded. The wall in front of us shimmered and the hellgate appeared. It was fifty feet high and thirty feet wide. Twin stone gargoyles swiveled around to glare down at us. Naked human souls were in various stages of being tortured on the black wrought iron bars that made up the gate. A rudimentary face formed and eyes the size of my head looked down at us.

  “Which realm do you guard?” I asked.

  “I bar the way to the fourth realm,” he replied moodily.

  It was the answer that I was expecting to hear. Fate was making sure my visits to hell were sequential rather than random. I was slowly working my way to the first realm where the Hellmaster lay in wait. “Are you going to open for us?”

  He surveyed me for a few moments and his mouth turned down in a frown. “Why should I?” he replied in a tone that sounded distinctly sulky. “You and your insignificant little sidekick are ruining my fun. I have not had any challengers for weeks. How am I supposed to find any enjoyment when there are no demons for my creations to defeat?”

  “You enjoy pitting the demons against your monsters?”

  His tone turned dreamy. “Of course I do. Their screams of agony when they are torn apart are like music to my ears.” He heaved a happy sigh and I exchanged a disturbed look with Sam.

  “Open up,” I ordered and he had no choice but to comply.

  “This is so unfair,” he grumbled as a crack appeared in the middle of his face. “Can I at least conjure up a small dragon for you to do battle with first?”

  “Sorry, I don’t have time to fight anything right now,” I said with false regret. The only dragon I’d ever seen had been anything but small. I was sure I’d have enough challenges to face without wasting time indulging the hellgate’s enjoyment of pain.

  Each gate had their own personality. This one was more sadistic than the others. Sam and I remained silent until we passed through into hell. My hounds materialized and followed us through. They cast mistrustful looks at the metal barrier as it slowly swung shut behind us. Clearly, they didn’t like being near it any more than I did.

  As always, hell was gray and gloomy. The soil was hard and cracked and showed no signs that moisture had ever touched it. The petrified black trees were more numerous here. Now that I was aware of it, this realm was brighter than the others. It had to be due to the magma that bubbled in the deep crevices in the ground. They weren’t wide enough to cause us any problems. The carriage should be able to carry us over them without mishap. I was sure the nightmares were smart enough not to step into the cracks and break their legs. At that thought, the carriage and shadowy steeds appeared a short distance away.

  “Your chariot awaits,” Sam said and flourished his hands towards the door where my image was on display. My horns were longer and so were my fangs. My skin had darkened even more. I’d become more like a Demon Lord than a captain now. Only my blond hair and side braids remained the same.

  “Here we go again,” I said. “I wonder what delights are in store for us this time?” With a sigh, I climbed on board.

  ₪₪₪

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  It was warmer in the fourth realm of hell. Sulfuric fumes permeated the carriage. The smell clung to my hair and clothes. I grew used to the stench until I could barely even notice it anymore.

  “What is the plan this time?” Sam asked after we’d been travelling for a few hours.

  Tearing my gaze away from a small village in the distance, I caught a fleeting glimpse of my face in the glass before I shifted the heavy black curtain back into place. We’d only been here for a short time and I was rapidly growing larger. Soon, Sam would look almost tiny sitting across from me.

  “The same as always,” I replied and tried not to wince at the growl I could hear in my voice. “We’ll somehow find a way to infiltrate the palace. Then I’ll question the Prince to discover where his section of the object of power is. For the finale, I thought I might chop him to pieces.”

  “Let us hope it will be that easy,” he said with a wan smile. He was still recovering his strength from using his camouflage to get us to the portal without being seen.

  We passed more villages and larger towns to find most of them deserted. I hoped Sophia’s vision of the demons gathering in the ninth realm hadn’t begun yet. With luck, the denizens had merely fled to the inner realms. Only the human souls remained. I could sometimes hear them wailing forlornly at their abandonment. It was almost as if they missed their torturers.

  There was always the possibility that they’d been called on to defend the palace. We’d had to blast our way through a crowd of demons that had surrounded the capital city of the fifth realm. Each level of hell was larger than the last, which meant they held more occupants. The nightmares could use some kind of invisible force field to barge through demons, but they couldn’t keep it up long enough to make it all the way through a large city to the palace that would be at the top of a hill.

  I spent most of my time looking out the window as we travelled. The terrain was harsh and uninspiring for the most part. I could see mountain ranges off in the gloom. I’d only ever seen individual petrified trees before, but now they were starting to clump together. Damp patches surrounded them. They were no doubt filled with a host of hellsnakes that were ready to eat anything that ventured too close.

  This time, we didn’t have to detour around any sandy patches of ground where arachnoids lay in wait. Every now and then, I saw areas of smooth soil with the dimples that announced their presence. The nightmares paid them no attention as they continued to gallop soundlessly and tirelessly. They weren’t going to slow down for anything unless an obstruction was directly in front of them.

  Villages and towns became larger and more frequent as we travelled deeper into the fourth realm. They weren’t empty like the outer settlements. They were instead packed with captains and soldiers and the occasional lord. The lords were easy to identify since they were so much larger than the lesser minions. We kept our distance to avoid notice.

  Something landed on the roof with a noisy c
latter and I exchanged a startled look with Sam. Drawing my dagger, it blazed scarlet to alert me of danger. I pushed my window up and cautiously stuck my head out. I’d grown so large now that I could barely fit. Looking up, I saw the Hellmaster’s pet raven only a foot or so away from my face. Its beak darted towards my eye and I ducked down and yanked my head back inside.

  Cawing in laughter, it took off, heading in the same direction that we were travelling in. “I guess we can kiss our chances of sneaking into the city goodbye now,” I said sourly as I slid the window shut again.

  “Do you think it will be able to beat us there?”

  Our pathway had been fairly direct so far, but every now and then we had to veer to avoid streams of bubbling lava. The bird would be able to fly over the obstructions and it was possible it could reach the palace ahead of us. “Probably,” I said. “We wouldn’t want it to actually be easy to get into the city, after all.”

  “Facing challenges is all part of the fun,” he quipped sardonically.

  As per my unspoken wishes, the nightmares did their best to avoid coming close to the towns. One glimpse of my image on the door would give us away instantly. It became harder to detour around the settlements as we drew towards the center of the realm.

  Hearing a shout as we rumbled too close to a town, I turned to look out the back window. Sam joined me and we shifted the black curtain aside to see a captain staring after us. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he said. He sent me a sidelong look and I realized that I now dwarfed him in size.

  Turning away, the captain shouted something to his five minions. They scrambled for a carriage that was waiting on the outskirts of town. It was pulled by undead gray nags with milky eyes rather than nightmares. “They won’t be able to catch up to us,” I said confidently as we left them behind. Nags were nowhere near as fast as my steeds.

  They hurried in our wake, but they didn’t go far. They stopped at the barracks that we’d sped past a few minutes ago. A regiment of a thousand soldiers were training in preparation to invade Earth. A lord would be somewhere nearby. That would be who the captain was running towards.

  My suspicions were confirmed when a cloud of dust appeared behind us. My eyesight was excellent now, but they were too far away for me to make out how many demons were chasing us. I was pretty sure it was all of them.

  “This can’t be good,” I said. We’d already drawn notice and we hadn’t even reached the palace yet. The raven had flown on ahead of us and now we had pursuers at our rear. I could see us getting trapped and I knew I had to do something about it.

  Sticking my head out the window, I could just make out the red beacon at the top of the palace on the distant horizon. “How long do you think it will take us to reach the city?” I asked Sam.

  He looked out through the other window. “At least four more days,” he replied when we both drew back inside.

  The longer we spent here, the greater my transformation would be. I didn’t want to lose my humanity and become a demon forever. I looked out through the back window to see that the demons hadn’t closed the distance between us. My nightmares wouldn’t have any trouble staying ahead of them since most of them were on foot.

  “I have a plan,” I said and slid the window shut to keep the dust out.

  “Does it involve us not being torn to pieces?” Sam asked as he did the same.

  “I hope so.” But I couldn’t guarantee it.

  “What is your plan?”

  “I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise,” I said with a nasty grin.

  Crossing his arms, he sat back to sulk. After a while, his eyes slid shut and he fell asleep. He hadn’t noticed it yet, but I hadn’t slept at all since we’d stepped through the portal. I wasn’t just taller and far more muscular than usual. I was changing in other ways as well.

  You are becoming more like us, Morax said from within my head. He’d been silent until now, not that I could ever forget that the legion was there. Having souls trapped inside me meant that I’d never truly be alone.

  I have to find a way to stop the transformation before it’s too late, I replied. If I became a fully-fledged Demon Lord, I had a feeling I’d never be able to change back.

  You need to find a way to evict us from you before things go that far.

  I’m working on it, I replied. Sadly, I didn’t have any clues about how I was going to release them from their captivity.

  ₪₪₪

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Despite Sam’s constant pestering, I kept quiet about my plan. Maybe it was the evil that was growing inside me that made me want to tease him. It was more likely that it was just my own annoying personality.

  Sticking his head out the window for the twentieth time in an hour, he looked at the city that we were rapidly approaching. “You do realize that a crowd of demons is most likely barring every entrance by now?” he said over his shoulder.

  “Yep,” I replied then grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him inside. I slid the window shut then checked to see that the convoy of carriages had grown. They’d gathered more with each town that we’d passed. Leaving the foot soldiers behind, they’d made some progress at catching up to us, but only because I’d ordered my nightmares to slow down slightly.

  At my silent command, they slowed down even more. Linked to me telepathically, they’d known about my plan all along. They came to a stop and I climbed out. Sam grabbed the backpack off his seat and joined me. Closing the door, I stepped back just in time to avoid the back wheel of the carriage running over my feet as the steeds took off again. The nearest nightmare flicked me a sly look from its scarlet eyes. It knew how close I’d come to having my bones crushed.

  Sam watched them head towards the city with a puzzled look. He followed me as I jogged towards some large boulders that would offer us cover. A mountain range to our right was surrounded by haze. I could see bright rivulets of lava flowing down the sides of the nearest mountain. Slick black rocks and small copses of petrified trees dotted the area between us and the range.

  “I think I understand what your plan is now,” Sam panted as he did his best to keep up with me. “The nightmares are going to continue on towards the city. They will draw our unsuspecting pursuers away from us.”

  “That’s right,” I said with a toothy grin that he only just managed not to recoil from. “They’ll do their disappearing trick just before they reach the gate to the city, but we won’t be in it this time. We’ll sneak in another way, but we’ll have to be quick and get inside before they can spread out and search for us.”

  “I am not certain that I will be able to run the whole way there,” he confessed. He was fit, but he was starting to lose the strength that he’d gained from being an imp.

  “I can carry you if you like,” I offered.

  “You do not mind?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” I reminded him.

  “At least you do not have to wield a rune that shoots fireballs this time,” he said as I crouched down to let him climb onto my back.

  When he’d settled into place, I took off at a sprint. Wind rushed past me and blew my hair into Sam’s face. He pulled my hood up to hide the shining blond locks that were so out of place in this dismal landscape.

  I’d never really enjoyed running before, but I felt strong and powerful when I was in this new form. I felt as if I could run forever without becoming winded. Reaching a creek made of lava, I leaped over it and felt the heat try to sear me. Then it was behind us and I was heading for the low brick wall that acted as a border for the capital city.

  As always, the palace sat on the top of a hill. Buildings surrounded it on the lower tiers. The highest dwellings were large and almost grand. With each lower level, they became smaller and shabbier until they were barely shacks. That was where the lowly servants lived.

  Approaching the wall, I didn’t even pause as I leaped over the ten-foot height. Sam clutched me tightly as I made my way through the narrow, cobbled roa
ds. I moved quickly and avoided the main thoroughfare that led to the palace.

  Hearing a roar in the distance, I realized that the nightmares had reached the gate and had done their disappearing act. Sam came to the same conclusion. “The demons will be hunting for us now,” he said quietly.

  Rounding a corner, I almost crashed into a group of servants. We were in luck and their backs were to us. Sam reached out to touch the wall and I put him down so we could both lean against it. He made us blend into invisibility.

  “What was that noise?” one of the servants said. She struggled under the weight of a stack of petrified wooden boards.

  “It came from one of the gates where the soldiers are standing guard,” another replied. He carried a stone that he could barely manage to lift. The lowest of the low, except for imps, they were relegated to menial tasks like lugging materials. They were probably being used to make repairs.

  “Hellscourge must have reached the city,” a third said in a scared voice. “The Prince was warned by the Hellmaster’s minion that she was on her way here.”

  I scowled when I heard that. The raven had done its best to ruin my plans once more.

  Exchanging looks, they all reached the same decision. Entering one of the shacks, they put their burdens down then scurried towards the nearest gate. Sam waited for them to be out of sight before releasing his camouflage. “With luck, the entire city will empty out now that they know we are here,” he said.

  “I doubt we’ll be that lucky.” Fear of their prince would keep at least some of the soldiers, captains and lords here. Others would stay in the hopes of being able to defeat me and to make a name for themselves.

  Using a combination of stealth and speed, we made our way to the top tier of the city. Several guards were watching the cobbled driveway where a flood of carriages were entering. The Demon Lords and captains that had been following us were reporting in to their leader.