DIRE : HELL (The Dire Saga Book 6) Read online

  “I kinda feel like this is a Here’s Johnny moment,” Delta said.

  “Never mind that,” Gamma insisted, “aren’t you supposed to be on the outside, Doctor?”

  “SHE HAS ALTERED THE PLAN. PRAY SHE DOES NOT ALTER IT FURTHER.” I stood, brushing off gobbets of flesh. “BESIDES, THE DAMN THING’S FASTER THAN IT LOOKS. TENTACLE-WISE, ANYWAY.”

  “You made a Vader reference? Here? Now?” Vector pinched his nose. “Oy. Come on, we’re not far from the main nerve cluster.”

  The wind whipped back and forth as we moved, whistling through the tubes and structures of this thing’s organs. Were these its lungs? I didn’t want to ask Vector, the man got pedantic whenever his primary field of study was involved.

  And most of it would be wasted on me, to be honest. Sharp as my mind was, it couldn’t hold information about biology, or process thoughts on organic structures worth a damn. I’d done that by my own hand, I figured. But that was past business, and I had a future to see to, so I turned and led the way deeper into the abomination that we’d boarded like an airship.

  We were perhaps a thousand yards deeper into the thing’s airways, when my sensors detected motion. I raised a fist up, and heard the group behind me clatter to a stop. “MOVEMENT. KHALID?”

  “I know little of these beasts, save for their purpose.”

  “VECTOR?”

  “Parasites, maybe.”

  “PARASITES?”

  “These creatures are part of the local ecology, huge, and don’t have any internal defenses once you get past the maws and acid. It stands to reason that smaller scavengers would flock to them, to— ”

  A split-second’s warning was all I had. I twisted and threw my arms to the right. The corridor wall on that side burst and shrieking maggot-lampreys, each twice as long as a man was tall threw themselves at me, multiple jaws biting and slimy bodies twisting.

  What the heck was it with the critters in this place having multiple mouths?

  My fist collided with the first one, kept on going as ichor sprayed, striking through the soft bodies of more behind it, but they were many and momentum kept them going. My foot slipped on smooth organ-meat, and I went down.

  Khalid was there, blade flashing as he danced around them, carving with strength and dodging with grace. For centuries he’d been fighting and studying swordplay, and every ounce of it was on display here, as the Last Janissary whirled and cut down hellspawn three at a time with every stroke.

  I stood, armor smoking because of course these things were acidic, and laid into them as well, raw motor-driven strength and titanium gauntlets letting me strike with as deadly an effect as his alchemically-forged blade. To the side I was aware of my Chorus, moving with a synchronicity unmatched by any living thing as they coordinated their defense with the local close-range network they’d cobbled together down here. To the parasites, it must have been like fighting one fast, strong, fearless beast with five independent bodies.

  Vector, thankfully, cowered in the corner and stayed out of it. The man was vital to our plan, too vital to risk in a situation he was ill-suited to help with.

  Besides, I rather liked the guy. We’d pledged to change the world for the better, if we could only get back to it.

  As it turned out, the parasites didn’t have much stomach for slaughter when they were on the wrong end of it. They withdrew back into the blood-smeared wall. The flesh where they fell back looked different, I noted. Blackened, pus-smeared, unhealthy. They’d burrowed in here, made a nest long ago, by the looks of it. How many more nests were in this great beast? I couldn’t say.

  Eventually we’d need to investigate that and deal with them. First things first, though, and I turned to gesture back down the passage. “WELL, THAT WAS FUN. VECTOR, KEEP METAL BODIES BETWEEN YOU AND THE WALLS.”

  “I’m starting to dislike this place,” Delta said. “Something to do with the ten-foot leech maggots or the way acid blood scores my finish, can’t quite put my finger on it.”

  “They call it Hell for a reason,” Alpha said, head moving back and forth as he fell back to the rear and searched the darkness beyond our lights. “You’re not supposed to like it.”

  Khalid shook the ichor from his blade “Then the sooner we are done with it the better. Doctor, if you will?”

  I nodded in acknowledgment and resumed my stroll.

  Twice more we were attacked, though none of the worms were as large or as numerous as the first bloom. A few times we passed areas full of what looked like muddy bones. “The parasites dump their waste here, probably,” Vector commented, and I could have lived a full and happy life without knowing that I’d been trudging through worm shit.

  Finally, the corridor became a vast chamber, the size of a football stadium. In the center the smooth floor rippled and rolled as unknowable organs churned. My sensors registered heat rising from it, palpable and oppressive, though within human tolerances.

  “VECTOR?” I asked.

  “This is the spot. Most of its vitals are combined in this... heart... for lack of a better term. It should suffice.” He patted the rucksack he’d been carrying all this way. It shifted as the thing inside it moved.

  “THEN WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?”

  “I need to check to see if the serum’s made its way this far,” he explained, getting to his knees and crawling out onto the membrane. “A sample from the center should do.”

  I floated alongside him the whole way, waving the others to take up guard positions in a semicircle at the edge of the chamber. There were literally thousands of tubes connecting to this room, and danger could come from any one of them. It had been a struggle to get this far, and I doubted the rest of this would be any easier.

  To my absolute astonishment, I was wrong.

  Vector jabbed a knife into the center of the membrane, took a sample from the wound with a needle built for horses, and ran the goo through a few vials of chemicals. “We’re good,” he declared, and opened up his rucksack.

  Inside, a thing of pulsing flesh, wires, and electronics wheezed air through its breathing holes and twitched barbed tendrils restlessly. Vector reached in, and batted tendrils away as it tried to latch into his arm. With a smooth motion the biologist dumped his experiment onto the membrane, right where the cut he’d made oozed blood.

  The reaction was instantaneous. Tendrils sought the wound, burrowed down into the flesh. I gave it a few minutes as it writhed and rocked, then nodded in satisfaction as the LEDs that Epsilon had built into the side of it flickered and turned green.

  “We’re online,” Epsilon reported. “Mapping neural networks and flight mechanisms.”

  The chamber shook around us, and I grabbed Vector, held him steady as the great bird-beast felt its violation, felt its control going as the tendrils of Vector’s home-brewed parasite robbed it of its own body. Something rumbled outside, distant, forlorn. I knew that it screamed, and I laughed to hear it.

  Let it scream. All of Hell would scream soon enough, if it barred my way.

  Finally the spasm was done, and I deposited Vector back onto the floor below. He immediately checked over his experiment, fussing like a parent with a child. Minutes passed before he looked up, and offered a wan grin. “We’re good.”

  “GENTLEMEN, LADIES,” I turned, to regard my friends. “WE HAVE ACHIEVED TOTAL CONTROL.” I spread my arms, in triumph, gesturing at the grisly walls of flesh surrounding us. “FEAST YOUR EYES UPON OUR NEW VILLAINOUS LAIR!”

  CHAPTER 2: INTERNAL AFFAIRS

  “From her high vantage point did the great teacher look down and see the first players. And lo, did she deem them worthy of characters.”

  –Excerpt from the first chapter of the first book of the Chronicles of the Shared Lie

  Through the vengeance of a petty, malicious supervillain that I’d thoroughly humiliated and defeated, I’d been sent to Hell. Literally.

  Fortunately, I’d been joined on the trip by an alchemist with lifetimes of mystical lore, the best metahum
an biologist in the world, and five of my automated minions. So we weren’t exactly in a hopeless situation. It was a troublesome situation, but far from hopeless.

  That said, it wasn’t going to be an easy trip, even if we did manage to make it through. But we’d agreed that we’d handle it one step at a time and avoid despair.

  Which was really fucking hard at the minute, as I wearily trudged through every inch of the creature’s inner workings, mapping out every twist, tunnel, and turn I could, slaughtering any parasites I came across.

  Around the other quadrants of the beast my Greek Chorus was doing the same thing. But unlike me, they didn’t have to worry about fatigue. I’d been locked into my armor for days, unable to emerge because of the air quality of Hell, enduring painful sleeping positions, the increasing rankness of my own sweaty skin, and no real way to eat anything. I had water, at least, from my internal hydration mechanisms and reservoir and about a day of nutrient paste left. But I had no real way to get new food until Vector had a chance to treat me... which he couldn’t do until I’d shed the armor.

  I was pretty goddamned tired. Vector probably felt like crap, too.

  But as bad as we had it, the Janissary had it worse. His alchemy kit had a bit of water in it that let him get by, but no food. And the facesucker symbiote that kept his lungs from turning into black jerky drew from his body’s reserves. He’d lost weight visibly since we’d arrived. I would have shared the paste with him, but again, no way to get it to him without decanting from the armor.

  So I worked without complaining or shirking. Khalid was withering before my eyes. The sooner I finished the job, the sooner we could see about fixing that.

  When in Hell, let no friend fall further. That sounded like a good quote. I checked my memory for sources, found none. Then again, I hadn’t exactly done much reading on the place; theology wasn’t my bailiwick at the best of times.

  “Doctor?” A burst of radio static, as Alpha called.

  “Here.”

  “We’ve got a potential safe room. Vector’s cleansing it now. Give it ten and come on back to quadrant three.”

  I sighed in relief. That lasted about all of three seconds before a chittering swarm of maggot-young charged me from out of the darkness. “OH NO YOU DON’T, YOU LITTLE SQUIRMERS!” They scored my boots something fierce before I was done, but they squished like all the rest.

  I gave it another twenty minutes, instead of ten, just to make sure I wouldn’t have to return and do this whole thing again. No clue how fast hell-worms breed. That was a fact I really didn’t want to introduce into my eidetic memory. Come to think of it, this whole trip would probably be grounds for serious therapy later.

  “Suru, make a note,” I whispered to my digital assistant. “When we get home, she needs to kidnap a psychologist.”

  “Confirmed, Doctor,” Suru whispered back. “Please be informed that the calendar is inaccessible. GPS synchronization is—”

  “Failing. Yes, she knows. Endure, Suru. Endure.” That was more for my benefit than hers, really. Suru frankly wasn’t that smart. I kept her around more out of sentimentality than utility.

  Finally, the area was reasonably clean. Probably could have done a better job if I gave it a few more hours, but it would have yielded diminishing returns at best. I activated my gravitics and wound my way back through the lungs of the beast, great winds flowing and blowing around me. I passed roomlike cavities as I went, organic caves that went from bathroom-sized to house-sized and back again, as the creature breathed. Not quite what we were looking for. Hopefully the safe room was in a more stable part.

  It was. I stared at the chamber, easily as big as a high school gymnasium. Black junk lined the walls, and bones poked through them. It looked scabrous, hideously unhealthy...

  ...and unlike most of the tissues we’d been crossing over or wading through, it looked dry.

  Vector glanced up from where he was spooling out bundles of gauzy tissue from a makeshift chemical bath. “There you are! A little help?”

  “WHAT’S THE PROJECT?”

  “You can fly. I need you to hang drapes, basically.” He gestured, hands full of bunched membranes that did look sort of like curtains. Curtains made out of mucus and jellyfish goo, but curtains nonetheless. They overflowed the twisted swatch of cured hide that he’d turned into a cauldron and filled with chemicals and compounds. As I watched, more filmy material oozed out, and he pulled it free, holding the bath steady so it didn’t spill.

  “DO WE HAVE NAILS NOW?”

  “I’ve synced the curtains to the beast’s tissue. They should adhere with a bit of pressure. If not, I’ll think of something.”

  It took more than a bit of pressure, and it was fairly slow going, but finally we got the two entrances walled off with shimmering whitish-yellow curtains of goo. Khalid helped where he could, his eyes weary above the slimy symbiote that covered his lower face. Finally Vector declared it done, dumped the bath into a rounded corner, and called Khalid over. A quick conference and Khalid handed him a few vials. Vector poured them into a hollow in the ‘floor’, stirred, and dropped in a few tablets. “There. Give it about half an hour.”

  We gave it a full hour to be sure, sitting and resting. I watched my HUD, smiled as the atmosphere got more breathable by the minute, and toxins were flushed out.

  “WHAT WAS THIS PLACE?” I gestured. “NOTHING IMPORTANT?”

  “One of its hearts, I think. Though it’s hard to tell exactly. Beaky’s fascinating. Instead of dedicated organs, he’s got—”

  “BEAKY?”

  “Well, it needed a name, and no one had anything better.” Vector glared, and pushed his spectacles up his nose. “As I was saying, most of its organs are general purpose. In the event of traumatic injury, given a few months of recuperation, other organs will convert over to the missing or damaged organs to help pick up the load.”

  “BEAKY.”

  “I suppose you have something better? Gloomy sounding, starting with D? That sort of thing?” He smirked. “Tough. I already named it Beaky.”

  “He’s right you know. Called dibs and everything,” Alpha said.

  “TREACHEROUS MINION!” I boomed at Alpha.

  “You knew this day would come, Dire!” Alpha boomed back. “Haha! I’ve been lying in wait all this time, just to ruin your chances at giving your lair a cool name!”

  “Our lair,” Delta corrected. “And what’s wrong with Beaky? She’s got a lot of beaks.”

  “I thought it was a ‘he’,” Gamma said, glancing to Vector.

  Vector shrugged. “Actually I’m uncertain. I haven’t found a means of reproduction yet. That study will come later, once we have more free time.” Vector grinned like a kid who’d found himself locked in overnight at a candy store. “I could spend decades on this specimen, and according to Khalid this is just one creature among billions...”

  “BILLIONS?” I turned to Khalid, who sat in the Lotus position, hands on his knees. “ARE YOU SURE YOU ARE NOT EXAGGERATING?”

  Khalid tilted his head, considering. His cowl was stained with acid-spots and torn from his trip in through the maw, I noticed. We’d need to find some cloth at some point and fix that. “If anything, I underestimate,” he spoke, muffled as always from his living mask. “The hellspawn are legion, in form and foulness.”

  “WELL, IF THEY’RE ALL AS EASY AS BEAKY HERE, THIS SHOULD BE A CAKEWALK.”

  “They are not the only things in this pit. Demons and Fallen Angels call it home as well.”

  “Wait,” Vector said, leaning forward. “Isn’t Beaky a demon?”

  “No, it is a hellspawn.”

  “THERE’S OBVIOUSLY A DIFFERENCE, THEN?”

  Khalid nodded, eyes watching the bubbling mess that was slowly cleansing the chamber’s air. “There are generally three types of creatures within Hell, besides the damned souls themselves. The first are hellspawn. Animals and beasts most fierce, which inhabit the wilds and serve as pets to demons. They are mortal, and thus limite
d. And for the most part, unintelligent.”

  “DEMONS ARE A MORE TROUBLESOME MATTER, DIRE ASSUMES.”

  “Very much so. Have you heard of Nephilim?”

  “NOPE.”

  “To simplify the tale, early on, when angels walked the earth freely with men, some took wives and husbands from mortals. The results were Nephilim, half-angel and half-human.”

  “ANGELS CAN DO THAT?”

  “Yes. Although they were punished for that crime, and their offspring were hunted.”

  “HARSH.”

  “Necessary. But to get back to the point, demons were, to start with, the offspring of Fallen Angels and either humans or hellspawn.”

  “Which would seem to indicate that hellspawn were here before the fall,” Vector rubbed his chin. “Assuming your theology is correct— no offense, of course.”

  “None taken.” Khalid spread his hands. “My knowledge, to date, has been gleaned from the lore of secret histories that I have either heard or read, or experience from slaying hellspawn and demons when they emerged into Creation.”

  There was something missing from that list. “NOT FALLEN ANGELS?”

  “No,” he said, simply. “Not Fallen Angels.”

  The silence sat there in that chamber, with the hollow where a heart had once been and the shadows crept up around the edges.

  Typically, Delta caved first. “Well what’s so special about them anyway?”

  Khalid looked at her. “Fallen Angels? They are still angels. Even stripped of the powers allotted them by God’s grace, they are still angels. It is a measure of power against which no mortal can stand.”

  “Stronger than Crusader? Because the boss-lady tanked him pretty well. Twice.”

  “Angels are responsible for the workings of Creation, and all the stresses involved with ensuring it works properly. One does not simply slay an angel, even a Fallen one.”

  Delta waved it off. “Yeah, and we’re constantly inventing new ways to bend and break physics. Whereas you’re running around trying to whomp things with a sword. So you couldn’t do it, but I mean, how do we know a particle beam to the face won’t do the trick unless we try it?”