Holy Sheoly

by Hunter Blain

  A flaming torso fell before my feet as the lava ate the rest of the man, his bottom half already conflagrated into nothing. It took him longer than the smaller woman to burn away, but once the flames had done what flames do, there was nothing left in the boat except the feeling of his hand on my ankle. I reached down and rubbed at it while feeling sick to my stomach. There weren’t even bones left, and I had to remind myself that his body was a metaphysical representation of the man he had been on Earth.

  Something went off in my brain, and I spun around to scream at the indifferent boatman, “Why did you take us this way? Huh? Why did you make me watch that?!”

  Charon didn’t even look down as he continued pushing his pole into the fiery depths.

  Without my realizing it, we’d gone past the other side of the bridge and in open water, as it were.

  With my torso still twisted to face the ferryman, I saw the bridge begin to shrink as I witnessed more souls plummeting to their black eternity—Sheol.

  I flicked my eyes once more to the boatman and scowled before turning around and crossing my arms like a pouty child. Well, I had reasons to feel that way, so fuck that tall skeleton. Fucking fucker.

  The air abruptly changed and a cool breeze caressed the bare skin of my face. A few strands of black hair were pulled back before dropping again, getting caught by my beard like Velcro.

  Running my fingers from my cheeks to the back of my head, I pushed the rogue hairs behind my ears before taking my beanie off and resituating it to catch more of my black locks.

  A snowflake floated in front of my vision before landing on my nose and melting in an instant.

  “What the eleven-herbs-and-spices?” I drawled as I looked around to see more snow beginning to fall the further down the river we went.

  Looking up, I saw blotches of white that grew in thickness and regularity the further up the mountains I looked.

  “How is this possible?” I asked, letting some of the snow land in my open palm. “Did the Cowboys win the Super Bowl?”

  A light that wasn’t coming from the River Styx caught my eye, and I looked up to see a passageway on the left bank. Charon steered us that way, and I once again looked back at the boatman for any semblance of emotion. I wasn’t the best at reading people, but I understood the basics, such as scowling, crying, and laughing. Charon gave me nothing to go on. It would have helped to know if he was happy we were arriving. Heck, I would have even taken an expression that suggested he was nervous, just so I knew what I was walking into.

  The boat hit something and I yelped while grabbing both sides of the small craft, only to realize we had reached the platform.

  I caught my breath, willed my death grip to release from the boat, and carefully stood up.

  Without waiting for the ferryman to say anything, I got out and turned to face him.

  “Any words of wisdom you’d like to impart on me?”

  “Everything we are told is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we are shown is a perspective, not a truth,” Charon rasped with a lipless mouth. Blackened, empty sockets regarded me as the gray flaps of his robe danced in a wind that wasn’t there.

  I stared back, feeling his words act as a needle that injected deeper meaning into the meat of my brain.

  “Th-Thank you,” I said to the ferryman, who responded with the slightest of nods before pushing off the bank with his pole.

  I watched him for a minute as he floated down the River Styx, his own private wind constantly blowing his robe flaps in slow motion. The stoic visage of the ferryman sent a shudder down my spine.

  Another flake landed on my nose and I looked up to the never-ending sky to watch as countless flecks of snow fell to their deaths just like the souls on the bridge disappearing into the lava, which barely took notice.

  Closing my eyes, I let the cool flakes kiss my face as a brisk wind lightly tugged at my hair and coat.

  “I’m scared,” ricocheted through my mind, and my eyes shot open. “Dawson. Joey. I’m coming,” I said with a stern voice filled with determination.

  Turning, I regarded the empty pathway leading into the mountain that whispered like an openmouthed yawn, and began a solid stride into the unknown.

  11

  I wasn’t molested by hellhounds like I was on my first trip down an unknown passage. Only the growing chill in the air kept me company.

  I walked for what seemed like hours as I followed the winding path that led further down a noticeable incline until a thin layer of ice coated the ground. Tiny snowflakes had begun falling from the relatively narrow corridor which only extended six or so feet above me. As time went on, the small specks grew to full-on geometric anomalies the size of my palm that slowly drifted downward.

  As I moved through the air, I created twin, tamed whirlwinds behind me, assumingly caused by my not–so-aerodynamic body plowing through the cave system.

  “Neat,” I said aloud, which sent a plume of white mist from my mouth. At that moment, I did what anyone would do when they first realized they could see their breath; I took a drag of an imaginary cigarette and dramatically blew out a lungful of air. Then I shifted tactics and put on a deep and scary voice before theatrically saying, “I kill where I wish and none dare resist.” I snarled like a dragon and blew my breath out toward an unseen halfling. I almost decided to go with the Benadryl Cucumberbatch impersonation, but I had read The Hobbit when it had first come out and had my own version in my head. The books were always better than the movie.

  The tunnel began noticeably widening and I took that to mean I was nearing the end.

  Piles of snow littered the ground so much so that I couldn’t even see the brown of the dirt any longer. A wind was born from nothing and lightly tugged at my coat, beard, and loose hair. As I approached the opening into a vast cavern, the wind became violent, as if sensing that I was here to take what was rightfully not mine.

  In the center of the large cavern was a man hanging by his arms from chains made of the coldest ice. He had nothing binding his legs because they were missing. Entrails hung below the pale torso, flapping in the wind like the rope from a flagpole. The man’s head hung low, but I could make out the gray hairs at the temples and the goatee.

  “Si-Silver?” I asked as mist escaped my mouth and was devoured by the raging wind.

  Stepping to the edge, I looked down to see the bottom half of his body resting on the snow-covered floor, discarded like so much refuse, yet still within the prisoner’s sight. I took note that no matter how much snow fell atop the legs, they remained within clear view, which I knew to be by design.

  Something flapped in the wind on the ground, and my eyes locked onto a soldier’s uniform that was lightly coated in snow. One of the flaps was picked up in the current and seemed to wave.

  “Oh Lilith,” I drawled. “That-that’s Benji!”

  My brow furrowed as I locked my eyes on the man hanging in the cavern, forever forced to see his dead child.

  “Silver!” I cried out through the howling wind, cupping my mouth with both hands.

  The prisoner’s head bounced once as if he was mustering all his strength to look up, before failing and dropping back down.

  I don’t like this, Baleius admitted.

  What’s to like?

  Something doesn’t feel right.

  Agreed. Let’s stay on our toes. I looked at the nervous Baleius inside my mind and did something that surprised even me. Hey, wanna drive with me?

  Baleius stopped wringing his hands and looked at me for a moment before slowly nodding his head. It quickly turned into a rapid up and down and he got to his feet, happy to do something besides be alone with his thoughts.

  What’s been bugging you, man? I asked, taking a step to the side so Baleius could rest a hand on the wheel that sprouted in front of me at my thought.

  What’s that now? Oh, nothing. I-I’m fine.

  Shrugging, I returned my consciousness to my body.

  “Okay, we gotta get him down,” I
said out loud both to myself and Baleius.

  Without thinking, I willed the first thing that sprang to mind and lashed out with a whip at one of the chains. The wind seemed to pick up, and it blew my manifestation at a ninety-degree angle before it dropped back to the ground.

  With a grunt of frustration, I retracted the whip and instead manifested my wings. I was vaguely annoyed that they were equal parts leather and feathers.

  I, ah, don’t think...Baleius started before I jumped into the air and was immediately bitch-slapped to the ground by a hurricane blast of freezing wind. A plume of hot air escaped my lungs as the deceptively hard piles of snow caught my fall.

  I lay still for a moment as my brain processed where I had gone wrong. Maybe wings in a hurricane wasn’t a good idea.

  You were saying, I grumbled as I got to my feet. I was almost smacked down again as the wind caught my wings, and I had to retract my manifestation.

  “Lilith damn this stupid wind!” I cried out as I willed my flaming gladius to life. Heavenflame and hellfire roiled across its surface seemingly unaffected by the wind, which gave me an idea.

  Looking up, I saw where the first chain was anchored to the rock wall near the ceiling. Hoisting my blade tip to point directly where the binding connected, I gritted my teeth and unleashed a concentrated torrent of flames. As expected, the wind picked up but couldn’t affect my attack, and it struck home. The cavern wall crumbled where my energy crashed into, and the chain fell downward. Only problem with this was that Silver began swinging toward the unforgiving wall from his one remaining anchor.

  “Shit!” I cried out as I blurred forward and leapt through the air like a missile. As I did, I threw another attack at the remaining anchor before dismissing my sword just as my arms wrapped around the freezing, tattered torso.

  Bringing him in tight, I turned and let my back smash into the wall as the other chain fell from the ceiling.

  Silver groaned weakly.

  “Silver? Can you hear me?” I asked the decimated torso that was still alive.

  “Uhhhnnn,” Silver answered as he struggled to lift his face to regard me. “Jo-John?” he asked. I was surprised that there wasn’t an immediate burst of rage and fury from the man, considering I was partly (mostly) responsible for him being in his current predicament.

  “Yeah, man.”

  “Ha-Have you come to...to rescue me?” he asked.

  “Um, I don’t think I can really do that. But, maybe I can get you out of here and you can, I don’t know, hide somewhere or something?”

  “I’ll take my ch-chances.” He winced as he looked down, letting a pale hand glide over tattered flesh that was blackened around the edges from grievous frostbite.

  “Oh, ah, let me get your, um, legs,” I said as I gently set the man down against the wall. His intestines had wrapped around my calf, and I scrunched up my face—like when you’re doing the dishes and a piece of cold, moist food touches your finger—and slowly unwound it while mouthing, “Gross, gross…gross gross gross… groooohooooss.”

  Once free from the rogue entrail, I turned to the center of the room and did a quick leap to the floor below.

  I landed in knee-high snow and sloshed my way through the pool of dense white until I reached the legs. Grabbing one of the ankles, I was about to turn and jump out when my gaze was drawn to the lifeless boy only a few feet away.

  Even though I knew this wasn’t the real Benji, this was the closest I had come to seeing him without it being through someone’s recreated memory.

  I took a step closer, unable to help the desire, and raised myself up on tippy-toes to try and see his face, though I couldn’t explain why I felt the need to do so.

  Not making any headway, I took a few steps closer and craned my neck when the coat flap whipped out and slashed across my face.

  “Hey! Ow!” I cried out, rubbing my face. My hand came away bloody, and a trickle of worry intermixed with confusion began collecting in the basement of my thoughts, like a slow but steady plumbing leak.

  The body began to stir with jagged motions that sounded like bone on bone as the corpse pushed itself up. A child’s head turned a full one hundred and eighty degrees with cracks and pops as dead, black eyes regarded me.

  “Ah, the vampire,” Benji said with a two-tone voice that was part boy and part...something else. It smiled, and fanged teeth gleamed.

  “I was just passing through, and would you look at the time!” I nervously chuckled as I began tromping toward the edge of the cavern. It seemed much further away at that moment.

  “Um...okay?” I scratched my head with my free hand. I turned to see the corpse child get to his feet with his back to me and, with a face that never left my direction, slowly turn his body toward where I stood frozen, his head staying trained on me. That was sooooo creepy!

  Realizing I had the legs in my possession, I turned toward the wall, stepped forward with my left leg, and threw the bottom half of Silver like a baseball player toward his torso. It smacked into the wall and crumpled on top of him.

  “Heh, oops.”

  The wind picked up again, throwing up a cyclone of snow that was the circumference of the cavern, effectively blotting out the edges.

  Whipping around, I crouched down and into the wailing wind as I shielded my face with my lifted forearm in an attempt to see my opponent.

  My opponent? He was just a freaking kid! Right?

  That is no child, Baleius reminded me, not even having to read my thoughts in order to understand what I was clearly thinking. Which, of course, he was right.

  The wind changed direction and tightened around the small child wearing the too big soldier’s coat. His arms went toward the sky, embracing the snow, and I saw his hands were missing.

  At least their attention to detail is on point.

  Focus, please, Baleius chided between gritted teeth.

  The snow began collecting on the child-demon, immediately hiding his features and increasing his size.

  Sensing what was coming, I turned to try and get to higher ground, or at least somewhere where I wasn’t knee-deep in hindering snow, but was halted by the deafening wind that slammed into me.

  Leaning forward, I pressed against the invisible wall and braced my legs, moving one forward a few inches, then the other. My hands were outstretched in front of me as I even used my shoulder to try and move forward. I must have looked like a mime doing their invisible wall gag, but with the added effect of cracking coat flaps, like a bull fighter’s whip.

  Turning my face, I dared to open a squinted eye and saw the ice demon growing thirty feet tall. Wings made of ice gleamed with a razor’s edge while horns protruded from a familiar face.

  The wind abruptly stopped, and I cartwheeled forward into the deep snow with an “Oomph.”

  Scrambling to my feet, I wiped the dense ice off my head and shoulders as I turned to face a horrifying sight.

  The demon was crouched with clawed hands resting on thick thighs. His entire skin was the dark blue of a wet iceberg drifting in the freezing ocean. Insanely thick horns jutted from behind his ears and swooped back and then upward to vicious points. Eyes that glowed the blue of a deep ocean stared at me from the face of a child.

  “Holy shit,” I drawled as I stared at Benji Silver’s face on the massive ice demon.

  Father above, Baleius exhaled.

  What? I asked, sensing something was off.

  I don’t know who that is.

  Tha feck do ya mean? How’d ya not know a monster in Hell?

  I mean he’s not one of my brothers.

  I turned my head inside the control room of my mind and stared at Baleius, who continued to gawk out the windows.

  Returning to my body, I called out, “Who are you, ice giant?”

  “Etch my name inside your barren skull, for I am the first of the giants, the creator of the gods, and your destroyer.” He lifted a finger to point at me. “Know my name is Ymir, for it will be the last you hear.”

&n
bsp; Ymir? I asked Baleius, who shrugged. Teleporting into my information city, I commanded the intern to fetch me anything on the frost giant. Within a few moments (keeping in mind the time dilation inside my own head), the intern brought me a folder and a cup of coffee. I backhanded the coffee out of his hand while scowling before turning my attention to the file. The intern backed away slowly, bowing at the waist every couple of steps.

  You know he is just a personification of you, right? Baleius informed me as he stepped up next to me, watching the intern disappear around a corner.

  I know, just seemed like the thing to do. I, ah, can’t really explain it.

  Whatever you say, Baleius muttered while looking down at the file.

  Hmm. Ymir was, indeed, the first giant in Norse mythology. He created the gods like Odin, who then turned on him, killing Ymir in cold blood. They then used his body to create the Earth, which obviously isn’t true.

  Every story needs a little spice.

  Hey, wait a sec. Norse? Why is a Norse, um-um-um, deity for lack of a better word, in Hell? You don’t think...I asked, letting my thought linger as Baleius picked up what I was putting down.

  That he helped betray the Norse gods to Samael?

  That’s what I was afraid of.

  Stands to reason that Samael would make him a Lord while in Hell if he aided in his goal of ridding the world of the war-hungry Asgardians.

  Well, this is gonna be fun, isn’t it? I moaned while slamming the folder shut. It disappeared in my hand, and Baleius and I returned to my control room.

  What’s the plan? Baleius asked, placing a hand on the wheel.

  Kill him? I mean, at least he isn’t that big right now, right? I shrugged, dropping my own hand in place.

  Figured you’d say that.

  I returned to my body and immediately jumped backward as a hand swiped the air.

  Manifesting a whip, I lashed out to wrap around Ymir’s wrist, and immediately wished I hadn’t. I was yanked, hard, and bit my damn tongue from the whiplash.

  “Ow!” I cried out while cupping my mouth with my free hand. I sensed the unwelcomed metallic taste of my own blood as I flew through the air.