Authors: Eve Langlais
Mother Nature hated it when people dirtied her garden. Lucky for him, though, she didn’t mind a certain devil making her dirty.
He made sure to bring that sparkle back to her eyes. He drew forth that gratingly cute and husky laugh of hers. He made her scream and call his name, and to truly blow her mind, he whispered against her lips, “I missed you.”
Three emasculating words, but she took his shriveled pride, blew on it, and made it worth his while.
Best part of all, he got to keep his boots on. Fist pump!
“Always pay attention to your surroundings lest you lose an eye.” Advice from One-Eyed Henrietta after the drunken archery incident.
For the second time in as many days, Valaska found herself spat up onto a beach. The gritty brown sand abraded her skin while the hazy sky cast a pall over everything.
What a change from their previous jungle paradise.
But at least we’re closer to home.
While she didn’t recognize her location, she did note the familiar scent, if faint, of brimstone and ash. What was out of place was the odd machine hum.
Rolling to her knees, she grimaced as the sand clung to her skin and chafed. Nakedness was all well and good, especially when teasing a certain geeky partner, but in this gray damp, with the sensation that eyes watched her, she would have felt better with some clothes on.
She cast a quick glance around, looking for signs of trouble. No attacking frogmen. A shame. Nothing like an ambush to get sluggish blood moving.
Speaking of ambush, a quick peek behind showed nothing more pressing than sullen waves rolling in to shore. The same waves she’d wager that had carried her and Dex to this place as she vaguely recalled.
“Where are we?” groaned Dex as he came to his knees alongside her.
“Back in Hell, I think, but nowhere I’ve ever been.”
By some miracle, Dex had managed to keep his glasses as well as his pack. Having not had time to dress in all their recent perils, she noted his skin also wore a layer of grit. A pity they didn’t have time for a swim.
Squinting through his damp lenses, Dex peered around. “What is that noise? It sounds like a coal-fired train.”
Chug. Chug. Chug
.
Getting to her feet, senses still attuned to any sudden movement around them, Valaska pivoted in a full circle before stopping and facing seaward. She’d not initially noted the odd contraption in the water, given it sat several yards out. But now that she saw it, she couldn’t help but stare at it.
“What is that?” she asked. Appearing like a giant-sized stove, it had a big metal belly, a steaming chimney, and a bevy of gears embedded in its sides. She’d never seen the like.
“That is supposed to be an impossibility,” Dex muttered as he dropped his pack and waded toward the contraption.
She grabbed her sword before she followed, curiosity and apprehension invading her in equal measures. Machines notoriously didn’t work in Hell, not without lots of magical help.
As for a contraption sitting in the sea, without anyone to man it? That pushed the boundaries of strange even for Hell.
“What is it?” she asked as she got closer and felt the fine hairs on her skin rise. The magic exuding from the thing electrified the air. This close she could see that what she’d mistaken for gears from afar were actually runes. These mystical carvings turned and churned, their purpose unclear until she and Dex waded farther in and reached the front of it.
A portal hung in the air before the machine, perfectly round and large. Larger than anything she’d ever seen, and even more astonishing, it wasn’t shrinking or snapping shut.
Portals took a lot of power. Most individuals couldn’t even call one for themselves, let alone open and maintain one of this size.
And as to the purpose? From it spewed water, briny seawater.
“Unbelievable,” Dex muttered.
“I think we just found the answer as to how the water got here.”
Dex shook his head. “The water yes, but what we still don’t know is, who is responsible for this magical contraption and why? Why flood the wilds?”
“Didn’t Gaia say something about running into a fellow named Nemo?”
“Yes. And a machine like this could definitely be something he might have designed or helped build. However, the magic…” Dex paused and returned to peer at the sides where the glyphs spun. “Even if someone had the knowledge to create this kind of intricacy, no one has this much magic to spare.”
“Not even Lucifer?”
“He might be able to do something like this for a few minutes, but this…” Dex placed his hand on the metal side and sucked in a breath. “This is not natural.”
Valaska couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Obviously. It’s made of shaped metal.”
“I’m not talking about the machine itself, but the magic. There’s a taint to it.” He snatched his hand back. “Give me your sword.”
She clutched it closer. “Why do you want my blade? There is no enemy.” Was there? She peeked around in case she’d missed something.
Nobody approached. She tried not to let her dejection show.
“I need your sword so I can pry open the latch at the front.”
Latch? What latch?
She let him borrow her blade as she followed Dex back to the front of the big stove thing. Distracted by the portal before, which she noted now seemed to waver around the edges, she paid more attention to the actual machine and noted a square inset within the belly. The square sported hinges at one end and a latch at the other, indicating some kind of opening into the machine.
Dex lifted her blade and brought the pommel down on the latch.
“Why don’t you just slide it open?” she asked.
“It’s got magic holding it locked.”
She couldn’t help but raise a brow. “You do realize you can’t break magic by pummeling it?” She should know. She’d tried more than once before admitting defeat. Magical locks needed magical keys, or locksmiths, to open them.
“Ah, but here’s the thing. I have just enough power to focus on your sword hilt.”
“You’re using my blade as a magical hammer?” The shame.
Bang. Pop
. “Yes,” he said, turning to her, one hand holding the sword down by his side while the other pushed his glasses back up.
“What’s in there?” she asked, reaching for the blade that he handed over without question. She stroked it.
Fear not, my precious sword. We’ll soon erase the humiliation of being used as a common tool with blood.
“I have a sneaky suspicion about what’s inside,” Dex said. “But I am hoping I’m wrong.”
A tug on the door to the machine opened it and without even an ominous creak to signal evil portent. And if ever there was a device that deserved one…
At the sight within, Valaska couldn’t help but suck in a breath. “What the fuck is going on in there?”
“Say hello to the batteries that run the machine.”
She blinked, and despite her oftentimes-hard heart, couldn’t help but feel pity. “Batteries? But those are demons.”
Indeed, packed inside the contraption were at least a few dozen demons, their limbs shackled above their heads in chains. Horned heads hung low, skin sagged, their color dull, and, in some cases, sore riddled. Not one of the demonic beings showed any signs of life, even as gray light flooded the space.
“Are they dead?” she asked, letting her sword dip forward to poke one in its belly. Not even a twitch to show it felt it.
“Not yet, but they will be and soon. If my hypothesis is correct, then the manacles holding these demons provides a direct hookup to this machine. When the machine is activated, the demons’ magic is siphoned and used to open a portal to the mortal side.”
“But there’s so many of them,” Valaska said.
“Because the amount of magic needed to maintain the portal requires it. I think this discovery explains why we didn’t find any demons in the wild.” Although she had to wonder how they crammed the bigger ones inside. And where were the bodies of the dead ones?
Did it really matter? Let Lucifer’s scientist unravel that mystery.
“I guess this thing explains the dying demon we found.” Valaska backed away from the machine as the skin on the yellow bile demon in the front began to ooze pus from a spot that appeared on its chest. The flesh bubbled.
And still the demon didn’t twitch.
It was horrifying to the extreme.
“We have to do something,” she exclaimed.
“You’re right, we do.” With that, Dex slammed the door shut.
“What are you doing? Shouldn’t we be freeing them or something?” she asked.
Dex stepped in front of her when she would have opened the door. Sporting a grim expression, he shook his head. “These demons are too far gone. You would only be delaying the inevitable. Also, if you enter the chamber while the machine is still running, then it will start siphoning your life force and magic as well.”
“So what can we do then?”
“What we need to do is ensure no others join them.”
“But how?” She banged the tip of her blade off the machine, the metal clang louder than its chugging. “I can’t exactly chop it to bits.”
“By getting it to explode.”
“You have more bombs?” She couldn’t help a lilt of excitement. Who didn’t like a loud explosion?
“Not quite. But a pressurized reaction doesn’t need chemicals.”
Once again, Dex and the weird workings of his mind were lost on her, so she stood and watched his trim buttocks as he ran to the beach. He dropped to his knees alongside his pack and began scrounging. He tossed a few things from it on the sand before jogging back. As he reached her, he said, “Give me a boost, would you?”
Instead of asking why, she did as he asked, cupping her hands together so that he could step on them. She propelled him upwards until he could toss his bag atop the machine. Then he gripped the edge of the giant stove and vaulted over.
This close she couldn’t see a thing, so she stepped away from the machine and craned her head.
The chimney proved taller than Dex, but only by a few feet. What emitted from the top of the pipe didn’t bear any color unlike smoke, and yet it did expel something. She could see the hazy disruption.
“What is that coming out of the pipe?” she asked.
“I don’t think it has a name because I don’t think it’s been done before. And yet, many have theorized about it. If I’m correct, then we’re seeing the results of an esoteric reaction. In other words, what you get when a demon, or other living being’s life force, is changed into magic.”
Smoke in other words. Demon smoke.
As he shimmied up the chimney, bag looped over one shoulder, she grasped his plan.
Sure enough, he stuffed his handy backpack in the hole at the top, providing a seal. While the pressure and the magical heat would build, the sturdily made bag, reinforced with its own brand of magic, wouldn’t disintegrate easily.
No sooner had he blocked the pipe than the machine took on a hum that grew in pitch.
“Get away from it,” Dex yelled as he slid down the chimney.
Run away and leave her partner behind? Did he know that little about Amazons?
She waited for him.
Legs flailing, as he ran on air for extra distance, Dex leaped off the machine and landed in the sandy surf with an “Ooomph.”
Creak.
Metal groaned as a tremor shook the contraption, and a peek behind Valaska’s shoulder showed the portal wobbling.
But that wasn’t the most worrisome part. “Did a fireball just shoot out of the portal?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t need to ask if he saw said fiery meteor stop in mid air, shiver, and then begin shooting back toward the vibrating machine, or was it looking for them?
Either way, it didn’t matter.
“Stop staring and run,” Dex admonished as he grabbed her free hand and pulled her toward the beach.
Together they dashed, even as the whine from the giant stove pitched higher and higher.
The fireball, though, proved silent.
Until it hit.
With an un-hell-ly scream, and a wail of bursting metal, the machine exploded with a bang that shook Hell and blasted a shockwave.
Valaska couldn’t stop herself from falling, the hard jostle into the wet sand making her lose her grip on her sword. Hands free, she covered the most vulnerable part of her, her head, but a side glance had her eyes widening as she noted Dex cupping his groin instead of his cranium.
With bits of sand, droplets of seawater, and metal chunks dropping all around them, she closed her eyes and lost sight of him.
Slowly, insanity receded to quiet.
No more hum.
The machine was gone, and she lived.
But what of Dex?
It wasn’t her partner that answered. “You fools broke my portal device.”
The voice wasn’t one she knew, and that meant she’d gotten caught off guard.
Again.
The shame made her cringe. While the echo of the blast still rang in her ears, that wasn’t an excuse for not spotting the intruder who’d sneaked up on them.
Lifting her head, she spotted her sword and, without even thinking, lunged for it, only to see it snatched by a webbed hand.
Rising to her knees, Valaska glared at the frogman who held her precious blade. Yet, Mr. Green and Webbed wasn’t the biggest threat. That was reserved for the bearded fellow in front of her, aiming a gun at them both.
“Nemo, I suppose?” she surmised, given she doubted there were many bearded fellows wandering around. Lucifer tended to set trends—by killing those who didn’t follow his lead. “So nice of you to come find us. We’ve been looking for you.”