by E. A. Copen
Why was it every Hell was a bleak, dark place with hot, stuffy air? The place was called the Nightlands, but in my experience, the night was so much more than darkness.
In New Orleans, nighttime was the best time. All the neon came on in the Quarter. Street performers kicked it up a notch, creating two smiles for every frown. On the best nights, the moon shone bright, the peepers came alive in the parks and down by the river, and the music drifted like a lazy cloud, calling up old memories.
But not in the Nightlands.
The Nightlands were oppressively dark and empty. Even with Josiah’s spell lighting my way, there wasn’t much to see. Black ground, black air, black everything. And not normal black, either. This was a thick, palpable black that pushed back against my every step. My light, which had previously been bright enough it hurt to look at, seemed dull and inadequate. I worried it would sputter and go out if I lingered, so I hurried.
My footsteps echoed from every direction as if I were walking through a big, empty tomb, but I saw no walls for the sound to echo from and found no doors. The ground never rose into a hill or fell into valleys. It was simply flat, black, and dead nothingness.
Some distance in, I began to doubt my direction and halted. In the darkness, how did I know I was headed in the right direction? I could be walking in circles. My heart fluttered into a panic. What if I never got out? How long would Josiah’s angel fire last? A day? Two? I tried to swallow the fear, but it was caught in my throat like a bone.
Legs skittered in the darkness. I spun and stretched out my pathetic light, but that left my body shrouded. Something cold and gelatinous curled against my leg only to retreat when I moved the light. All I saw of it were the clawed suckers, the kind that belonged on a tentacle. I shuddered, thankful for the light, and moved on.
From that point on, things moved at the edge of the small puddle of light, testing it. Legs on spiders the size of cars darted in and out like needles. Tails swished, only ever letting the studded, bony ends slide into the light. Eyeballs attached to nothing winked in and out of existence, always watching. The sounds of moving, twitching carapaces and buzzing insect wings joined a sloppy, wet chorus of boneless flesh flapping against solid rock.
A howl pierced the darkness, coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. I turned toward it and watched as the angel fire burned down low. Christ, please don’t go out.
I took a step back and bumped into a soft wall. Please don’t be a living thing. I squeezed my eyes closed and stuck my free hand out behind me, feeling the wall. Soft, cold, and gave under pressure. Something moved under the skin when I pressed on it only to spring back. It was like probing a dead tumor. I almost threw up.
And then it moved.
I scrambled away with a surprised shout and turned around to face the growth. It was huge, spanning higher and further than my light would reach. Pink like the flesh of a newborn, but riddled with weeping, open sores. Sections of it stretched thin enough to see through while others were thick and gelatinous. Body parts were trapped inside the growth. Hair, teeth, bones, and eyes…hundreds of eyes, all of which blinked and focused on me.
I doubled over and vomited blood, which should’ve been impossible since I was just a soul.
A wall of invisible energy struck me and burrowed into my mind, choking off the stream of vomit and driving me to my knees. The power settled over me, crushing, and I fought it until my muscles quaked and my bones ached. Unseen hands jerked my hands behind my body and forced my head back. Fire crawled in through my eyes, nose, and open mouth, searing its way into my brain where it planted images. Skeletal children in bunks still trying to smile at the camera. The aftermath of a bombed-out shanty town patrolled by American soldiers. Dead fish floating atop green nuclear waste seeping into seawater. Sunsets over a dead city. Castles and monuments crumbling to dust under a full moon.
I don’t know when the power withdrew from brushing against my mind, or how long I lay crying afterward with my knees drawn against my chest, but it must have been some time since the vomit was dry.
The fleshy growth in front of me shifted and spasmed before expelling a body. If it had ever been human, it was no longer. Twisted and deformed, the creature walked hunched over. Its arms were long like an orangutan with fingers dragging on the ground. The creature’s head was hairless and extended into a twitching tentacle. Huge, lidless fisheyes stared at me.
“Trespasser.” It spoke with a high-pitched voice interlaced over an impossibly deep one. “Interloper. Being of small mind. Your very existence is an insult, your body good only for meat and dust.”
I spat blood and rose with a grunt. “Please tell me this isn’t going where I think this is because the last movie I saw with a tentacle monster didn’t end well for the other guy.”
“We speak for the Old Ones.” Its fingers twitched. “Our voice is for those whose minds have not yet evolved to understand their speech. You may call us Mask.”
“Right, so you’re going more for Eldrich horror and less hentai. I think you missed the mark, buddy.” I looked down at the angel fire still burning in my palm and extended the light slightly so that it brushed against Mask.
He recoiled with a hiss.
Well, at least I wasn’t completely helpless. “Not a fan of the light, huh?”
“Light is the antithesis of darkness,” Mask hissed and backed up a step. “It destroys us. All of us.”
“Then let’s make this simple.” I lowered the light so it wasn’t shining toward him. “You know who I am and why I’m here. Just give it to me and let me pass and I’ll be on my way, taking the light with me.”
Mask lowered his arms from protecting his face. “You misunderstand. We mean no harm to the Horseman. He is a piece of us, just as all are.” He spread his arms wide. “You stand on the precipice of Creation, Horseman. It is from this darkness that beings such as yourself were born. A mating of the light and dark. Shadow. Once, they lived in harmony, but the light forgets us. Those messengers we have sent do not return. Our anger festers.”
I held up my hands. “Could you be a little less cryptic, buddy? I’m a being of small mind, after all. Speak clearly. What is it you want?”
The flesh wall rumbled, drawing Mask’s attention for a moment.
“The Archon you seek,” Mask said, drawing his long fingers over the backs of his hands, “it was born here. A messenger sent into the world to learn and report. Only he has made no such report.”
“Wait, you’re telling me this is where Archons come from?”
Mask nodded. “It is where all life comes from. Angels, demons, gods…It all began here. Little more than germs expelled in a great sneeze. Gods are only gods as long as they have power and souls who worship them. Some gods have slipped into obscurity. Some men can become gods. The Old One wishes to know if you seek godhood.”
I tried to hold back the laughter but couldn’t. “Are you kidding? Every god I’ve ever met was a pain in the ass. Politics, infighting, constantly scrambling to hold onto tiny scraps of power. Doesn’t sound like a good deal to me. I’d much rather go back to being the broke necromancer I was. Power sucks.”
Mask nodded but said nothing.
I glanced at the flesh wall he was calling the Old One. “So, are you going to kill me or give me my key so I can go?”
“Do you not fear us, Horseman?”
“Pal, you ever seen a constipated baby poop?”
His face twitched. “No, we can’t say we have.”
I jabbed a thumb into my chest. “I have. I’ve been puked on, shit on, peed on…I have seen things come out of my child that you wouldn’t believe. This one time, it was coming out both ends and…Well, you ever seen The Exorcist? It was like that. I swear to God.”
“Stop it.” Mask’s lip quivered.
“Stop what?”
“Pretending not to be afraid of us.” If a primordial fish-man could look uneasy, Mask did. Guess he wasn’t used to people not cowering in fear before him. “
We could crush you where you stand.”
I took a deep breath and stood tall. “I’ve got a three-month-old daughter at home. Nothing you and your Elder God wannabe can do or say is going to scare me. Either crush me or don’t. Otherwise…” I stuck out my hand, palm up. “Key. Now.”
Mask exchanged a look with the flesh wall, which quivered in response. He turned back to me, made a hacking sound, and doubled over. When he stood, he offered me a big key. I hoped the green was just oxidized copper and not some sort of horror slime. And maybe the red streaks were ketchup and not blood. Both were equally likely.
Mask dropped the slimy key in my outstretched palm. “You needn’t worry about the blood of a Titan this time. The only one here was…consumed long ago. The key is all that remains of him.”
I closed my fingers around the key and winced. It felt like bone. “Thanks. Now, which way to the gate?”
Mask turned and hobbled back toward the wall of flesh. It shuddered and shifted, lifting just enough to let us pass under it. “Do you know why we help you, Horseman?”
I shrugged. “Nothing better to do? Seems like being an Old One isn’t that exciting.”
He turned on me so fast I didn’t see him move. “You are an agent of chaos. Wherever you go, destruction and disorder follow. What you are about to do is the most irrational thing of all. You will throw the entire underworld into chaos. Heaven itself will seek to enforce order and find none. The Earth will be a playground for us once again.” Mask choked on a giggle.
“A playground, is it?” I took a step forward, the angel fire ahead of me, forcing him back a step. “Well, recess is canceled. If I see you or your boss or anyone that even sorta looks like either of you in my world, this little spark in my hand is going to seem like nothing. I will call down so much holy fire it’ll burn the eyes right out of your head.”
He flashed sharp teeth at me. “You don’t have that power, necromancer.”
“No, but I’ve got friends who do. What’ve you got?”
He glanced at the fire and recoiled. “No matter,” Mask snarled, turning around. “Your world is of no consequence if Loki has his way. The real conquest is the one down here. No more little kingdoms, squabbling over scraps. No more forgotten gods. There will only be the living and the dead.”
It sounded like Mask was talking about a god war focused on Hell. Not necessarily my problem, not yet. For now, it was just talk, and I couldn’t do anything about that but maybe call War and get his take on the situation. Like the soul shortage in Irkalla, that was something I’d have to deal with later. If it came down to it, I wasn’t sure I could take on these Old Ones. The flesh wall we’d passed under might’ve had a soul, but I was too terrified to look at it. When it reached for my mind, it almost killed me, and it hadn’t even been trying. Not even with all the other Horsemen and several gods on my side did I stand a chance of taking on one of those things, and Mask had implied there was more than one.
He brought me to a structure that seemed to be built of squirming, skittering things. They fled as soon as the light came near, revealing they were perched on a steel gate secured with a chain. More standard than I was expecting.
I lifted my light higher. “This is all that stands between the Nightlands and Earth?”
“Madness is not a far journey.” Mask grinned. “Now that we have kept our end of the bargain, there is one more thing we must discuss. You will take a message back with you, won’t you, Horseman?”
“As long as it’s not the same message the last guy wanted me to deliver.” I rubbed my stomach, remembering the punch Nibo had given me. At least I’d been able to deliver it to Kriminel.
“When you see Lucifer Morningstar, tell him that Mask sends his warmest regards.” Mask bowed and stepped into darkness.
I slid the key into the chain holding the gate and turned it. With a loud clang, the chain fell away, and the gate swung open.
This is it. I stared into the blackness beyond the gate. I’m really doing this. I’ve made it through six hells, and I’m about to walk in to kick the Devil’s ass, save Emma’s soul, and maybe do something right for a change.
For however long it lasted. Between Loki’s war against the gods and the creepy Lovecraftian terror squid’s warnings of civil war in Hell, I was going to have my hands full playing the Pale Horseman in the future. Maybe there wouldn’t be any time to tuck Remy in and read her a book every night, or to take Emma on a proper date. Maybe the real Hell was my life, and there’d be no escaping it.
Either way, Emma deserved a second chance, and I was going to give it to her.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“So, you’ve made it this far,” said Baron Samedi.
He stood with his back to me in front of the statue of Andrew Jackson in the center of Jackson Square. I’d come into the square between two well-trimmed bushes. It was twilight, the sky alight with the familiar pink glow. Fireflies lit up in dizzying patterns while crickets chirped in the bushes. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen fireflies in New Orleans. With all the spraying they’d been doing for mosquitoes, it’d killed most of the little bioluminescent bugs too.
I reached out and scooped several fireflies from the air and held them in my palm, watching them blink. “You didn’t expect me to?”
“You’re a hard one to predict.” The Baron folded his hands behind his back and turned to face me. “You know, when Pony first told me about you, I didn’t think you’d last six days, let alone six months. Not with that mouth of yours, boy. I expected the underworld to chew you up and spit you out. Ain’t every day a boy goes down into the underworld for a girl. That’s the kinda thing they write poems about, boy.”
“Yeah, my life is real poetic.” I released the lightning bugs. “Besides, I had a lot of help getting this far. Might’ve gotten here sooner if you’d been useful.”
“I told you that it was forbidden. But then, so is descending into Hell to retrieve a damned soul.” He brought his hands out in front of him and planted his cane against the sidewalk to lean on it. “Clearly, you do not understand the meaning of forbidden.”
“I understand it just fine. Thing is, I’ve got this problem with authority. Tell me not to do something or that it can’t be done, and you can all but guarantee I’m going to do it. Especially if not doing it hurts someone I care about.”
I looked around, expecting something to jump out at me or for him to zap me with a spell. The Baron didn’t take disobedience well. The old guy was used to getting his way, and I’d defied him enough times now that I should be paying for it.
Instead, he sighed and walked over to a metal bench. The Baron sat and leaned forward on his cane. “On your journey, I’m sure you encountered some things that gave you pause. Things are not going well for the gods. Loki will have his war, no thanks to you, and if you kill Lucifer Morningstar, there will be war in Hell too. His generals will rise up to overthrow his daughter, whom many view as weak and too human.”
“You don’t have to worry about Khaleda,” I said, sitting next to him. “I think she’s done with Hell and demons. I found her in Naraka. Took her back to Earth. She was in bad shape.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Really? Sympathy for the Devil’s daughter. That’s unexpected.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t get any ideas. There’s nothing between Khaleda and me. I think she’s an entitled bitch who’d probably fit right in as the new Devil if she wanted, but that doesn’t mean I should turn a blind eye to her suffering. She helped me when I needed it in her own way.”
“I see.”
For a long moment, we sat together and watched the fireflies blink.
“You realize things will not be the same after this,” Samedi said. “Wars and power vacuums aside, the gods now know you are a force to be reckoned with. Some will cry foul, say that you broke the rules. There will be a contingent calling for your removal. A few gods may take it upon themselves to execute you for your trespassing. Because you disobeyed my order
to drop this, I will be able to do nothing.”
“I don’t want your help, Samedi.” I glared at the side of his face. “I want Lydia’s soul released, as well as any other innocent souls you’re holding. No more contracts called in. No more leverage. You want me to keep doing this Horseman gig after this, you let me do it my way. I’ve proven I don’t need your help, so stay out of my way.”
His eyes widened and flashed red. “Boy, I made you. Do not tempt me to unmake you.”
I leaned back and sighed. “You want to know what I realized on my trek through all these hells? One day, my body is going to die. My soul is going to leave my body and live out a tortured existence somewhere until it gets broken down enough to go into a sludge river until it’s mixed with a bunch of other souls and crammed in another human. Nothing I do is going to change that.”
“I don’t see what bearing—”
“I’m not finished. I used to be afraid to die. I thought I was terrified of confronting my own mortality, but that wasn’t it. I was scared to die. So scared, I couldn’t even fathom a world without me. You know what that is? It’s narcissism. Here I am, just one asshole in a world of billions. What makes me so special that I should get to keep on kicking when better people than me die every day? I don’t deserve it, not after everything I’ve done. I’ve got so many sins, it’ll take decades in the deepest pit for my soul to shed them all, and that keeps on getting longer every day. Unless I get my act together. I’ve spent so long wanting to be a better person that I forgot that I could do it anytime.”
I stood and slid in front of him, arms open wide. “So here I am. Beat me, stab me, kill me if that’s what you want to do. I can’t stop you. Even with all my power, I’m just one more asshole today. But if you don’t, if you let me live until tomorrow, I’ll be the asshole who killed the Devil, and I’ve got no reason to stop there. I’m going to start taking out the trash in the world, make it a better place for my kid, and her kids, and the kids that come after. I’m sick and tired of assholes like you, and like Loki, treating Earth like your ant farm. I’m not a fucking ant, Samedi. I’m a Horseman, and I will kick you in the teeth if you continue to fuck with me.”