“God damned bitch!” With a sudden chop, Joey brought the sword down upon the man’s neck. The head popped off and rolled as if trying to escape. Joey kicked it, sending it high into the air and over the edge of the ridge.
“Score!” he shouted, grinning. He’d always wanted to do that.
His ire forgotten, he held up the fur. A lucky find. It would be dark soon, and he hated the prospect of another frozen night. He pierced the fur with his sword, cutting two armholes, then tried on his new coat. It stank as bad as a harpy, but he didn’t mind. He strutted about, arms outstretched, showing off his attire—but the damned dogs weren’t even watching.
“What in hell are you two looking at?” He stepped behind them and gazed down the rocky slope.
The severed head lay motionless halfway down. A few feet from it, he saw a black and purple mass.
Joey scowled. Leave it alone, he told himself. You know better than to look too close at anything around here. But his curiosity was strong. “Come on, boys. I might need some back up.”
He and his companions made their way skidding and sliding down the steep slope. Joey kept his balance by using the sword as a walking stick. He pulled up when he realized the mass was a pile of shredded flesh. He stared, a cold sensation creeping into his stomach.
Goodman did this. But she was just a little thing. How could she do it—physically or emotionally? This went beyond killing. This was insanity. Her rage went deeper than his own.
A shudder coursed through him, and he became aware of the dogs’ watchful eyes. He forced a swagger into his step.
“Hoo whee, boys. You seeing this?” Joey circled the mess. With his sword, he prodded the juicier bits. He guessed it was a hound only because he wore the skin. There were no indentifying marks—no head, no paws. In fact, there were no bones at all.
Why would she take the bones?
A thought struck him—she was trying to prove herself, playing a game of who’s the craziest. She hoped to impress Satan. She wanted Joey’s job.
“Argh!” He brought the flat of the sword down with a splash in the grisly remains.
It made sense—how else would she get her and her brat out of here if not by bargaining? Well, he wasn’t going to truss her up and hand her over to the big guy only to have her take his place. He’d have to incapacitate her, that’s all—hack off her arms and legs, maybe her head. Let his deal with Satan be damned.
After a moment, Joey spotted the severed head he’d kicked down the hillside. It blinked at him, mouth agape. He picked it up by the ear and nestled it among the ropy, purple entrails.
“The harpies will be along shortly to clean this up.” He gave it a pat. “Tell them I said hello.” Wiping his hands on his fur coat, he sat beside the hellhounds.
In a low voice, he said, “I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to weasel out of anything, but from here to the lake is nothing but hills. There’s no way I’m going to catch her, even if I ride at full gallop. I don’t suppose you could help me cheat a little. We both know where she’s going. I just need to get ahead of her, is all.”
The hellhound stared. Joey held his breath. He felt an electric tingle at the back of his neck. “Use the passage,” the disembodied voice intoned.
“Passage?” Joey screwed up his face.
The hellhounds rose and walked to the foot of the hill. They followed the valley, forging a path around boulders and loose shale.
Joey tagged along, perplexed. There were no passages, or he would have found them. He knew the wastelands better than anyone. But as he caught up to the hounds, one of them walked directly into the side of the hill and disappeared.
“What the hell?” Joey ran his hand over the rock. It felt hot and gritty. Normal. Then he reached a spot that wasn’t there. No rock. No fingers.
He yelped, pulling back. His hand looked fine. The hillside looked fine. What was going on?
Behind him, the hellhound gave an exaggerated yawn.
He was looking a fool. Back straight, Joey strode forward. At the last moment, he threw a protective arm over his face in case he struck stone—but he passed through the hillside as smoothly as if it weren’t there.
He took a deep breath of cool air, blinking while his eyes adjusted to the dimness. The passage ran in a straight line, apparently cutting beneath the hills. Flaming torches dotted the walls at intervals. He couldn’t see the end.
“Shit,” said Joey, wishing he knew about this place earlier. “Do you have many more of these?”
The hound snorted, bringing him back to himself.
He had a mission and now the means to accomplish it. He would get ahead of Goodman. Cut her off.
Then they would see which one was Satan’s favorite.
FORTY
Emily and Brother struggled to the top of the last hill before the lake of fire. A stiff wind peppered them with cinders. Pings and loud popping sounds punctuated the inferno’s continuous roar, and boiling lava spat at the air as if in contempt.
Eyes smarting, Emily looked down on a red-lit plateau. Creatures paced the bank—the sentries Gun mentioned. They reminded her of centaurs—the body of a horse merged with the torso of a human. But while mythology held centaurs as beautiful beings, these were grotesque. Their faces appeared distorted by bulging jaws. They had wings similar to locust wings, which beat furiously, emitting a buzzing whine heard over the thunderous flames. Their hindquarters were segmented like scorpions, and thick tails curled over their backs like stingers.
Inside the fire pit, Emily counted three interior ledges. People crowded the roadways like ants, scurrying over one another, carrying rocks and boulders on their backs. Some of the boulders were so large the workers had to roll them. She glanced about for the demons that fostered the rock-moving charade, but heat shimmer made it difficult to pick them out.
Sparks and orange-tinted smoke rose from the pit. Through the glare, Emily saw the black, medieval-looking castle. It was as large as a city. Harpies circled the turrets.
Her daughter was somewhere inside.
At a faint whirring noise, Emily turned to see a caretaker crest the hill. She froze, hand on her knife, but the wraith took no notice of them. Its ethereal robes fluttered, and stones stirred beneath it as it glided away.
Eyes on the creature, she crept down the hillside. The wind dropped, and the temperature fell in the shelter of the valley. From behind a large rock halfway down the slope, Emily watched the caretaker.
Brother hunkered beside her. “Why do you study it so?”
Distracted, she whispered, “It’s riding something.”
He craned his neck, peering over the rock. “This is important to you?”
“Yes.” She could think of no other way across the lava.
“Then I shall retrieve it.” Hefting his pitchfork, Brother ran down the hill toward the caretaker.
Emily yelped. “Brother. Stop.”
The caretaker paused, turning toward her voice. She could not see its face, but its stance radiated surprise. It lifted an arm as if to bat Brother away.
But Brother had gathered momentum and could not be stopped. He ran straight into the creature, knocking them both to the ground. First to recover, he rose to his knees and plunged the pitchfork into its chest.
Emily stared. The motionless being lay like a pile of rags. Brother lurched to his feet, pulling out the fork.
To the side, a second caretaker glided around a stand of rocks.
“Look out,” she yelled.
She ran full-tilt down the hill. With one leg coiled beneath her and the other outstretched, Emily leapt at the caretaker. The blow caught its mid-section.
It was like kicking a curtain. Its robes billowed, tangling her leg and sending her sailing. She hit the ground hard. On her back, she looked up into its face.
It was bone-white and eyeless with a dark, puckering mouth. Its breath was sickly sweet—a mixture of rotting fruit and burning sugar cane. It reared back, one arm up, and its sleeve fell away, revealing a short, black wand in its hand.
Emily scrabbled backward, trying to gain her feet. The caretaker swung its wand as if to strike her, but Brother leapt between them and it hit him instead.
He screamed, arching his back. His body appeared pixilated, like a poorly rendered computer image. Light shone from his mouth and eyes. Sparks enveloped his skin, dissolving his flesh. Seconds later, he stood as a skeleton—then his bones fell like salt.
With a growling yell, Emily grabbed Brother’s pitchfork and plunged it into the caretaker. It gave a high-pitched squeal and deflated into a pile of rags. She stabbed again. Glancing about, she snatched up the wand and jabbed. Nothing happened. She located an indented button on the side of the wand. Pressing the button, she thrust the wand into the body. The puddle of gossamer robes disappeared in a wave of sparks.
She looked where Brother fell. His remains swirled. “I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry. I wanted to free you, but not like this.”
No one should die because of her. No one. Tears filled her eyes, thick and sticky. Alarmed, she realized she was too dehydrated to cry. She tucked the pitchfork down the back of her coat with the tines sticking up from her collar. Wand out, she approached the first caretaker. Its skeletal body was easy to miss in the voluminous robes. She located its wand and stowed both in her quiver.
Taking hold of the garment, she flapped it free of its former owner. Indecision warred within her. The robe might make a good disguise, but she couldn’t bring herself to wear it. Blood drenched the gauzy fabric. Besides, its roominess would become cumbersome if something forced her into a fight.
The sound of a shifting rock garnered her attention. She looked around and found a man crouching in the shadows watching her. He looked familiar. After a moment, she placed him as one of the caravan people she saved from the pack of hellhounds. He wore the skull of a hellhound like a helmet, and she wondered if he butchered the hound she skinned.
“Here.” She tossed the tattered robe in his direction.
It fluttered like a wounded bat. The man made no move to retrieve it.
Emily searched the ground and found a silvery disk. She picked it up. It was close to three feet across, yet weighed next to nothing. The only markings were two foot-shaped indentations.
This was what the caretakers rode to appear they were gliding. She slid her feet in place.
The disk rose.
Emily threw out her arms. It was difficult to keep her balance, but she soon got the hang of it. The controls were easy—lean forward to go, lean to either side to turn, shift back to settle to the ground. After a few practice runs, she felt confident.
She would fly over the lake of fire.
On the disk, she glided to the top of the hill and down again to the plateau. She kept close to the rocks, hoping her black coat and sooty face would keep her from being noticed. The centaurs were spaced about twenty yards apart. She doubted the disk would outrun them, but if she waited until they looked the other way—
A snuffling growl interrupted her thoughts. It sounded like a wolf laughing. Emily turned to see a demon behind her. He was huge, at least eight feet tall. For a frozen moment, she thought of the demon she killed, so small and thin. This one was twice its size. He had heavy horns on his triangular head and yellow, cat-like eyes.
Emily fell off the disk just as the demon lunged for her. She whipped a wand from her quiver and jabbed it into the bastard’s chest. It clanked as if hitting something solid, and she remembered their exoskeleton. There was no soft spot like on the smaller hellion.
With a roar of either pain or anger, he grabbed the wand and snapped it in half. Emily backed away so suddenly she fell again. Why hadn’t the wand worked? Were hell-spawn impervious?
The demon dropped to his knees, holding the spot where she hit him. She hoped to see light shine from his eyes, hoped his flesh would disintegrate, but it did not. He leaned back, panting.
Grabbing the fallen disk, Emily ran for the lake. A pair of centaurs turned. Their massive jaws revealed lion-like teeth, and their scorpion tails stood straight up. She skidded to a halt in the middle of the plateau thinking she was doomed.
A cacophony of voices rose behind her. A crowd of at least fifty people crested the hill and ran toward the centaurs. Many were armed with bones, waving them like clubs. The leader wore a hellhound skull as a helmet and a bloodied robe. He rode a caretaker disk—the disk she left behind at the place where Brother died.
“Go,” he called to her. “We will draw them away.”
As if his words were prophecy, the two centaurs galloped to meet the melee, leaving her path free to the lake of fire.
FORTY-ONE
With the flying disk beneath her arm, Emily rushed to the burning lake. She looked toward the fierce battle between the two centaurs and the bone-wielding mob. The centaurs used their scorpion tails to sting and swat, but the people kept fighting. Their fury bordered on insanity, as if they had no regard for their own wellbeing.
She tore her gaze away. Down in the chasm, the cliffs fell about a hundred yards to the surface of the lava. She positioned the disk on the edge, and then pulled the pitchfork from the back of her coat and held it before her like a balancing pole. Her arms trembled. Eyes closed, she took a deep breath.
Her head snapped up at the sound of panting. She glimpsed the dark shape of a running hellhound an instant before it knocked her to the side. The dog barreled into her so hard, it overshot and had to slow to turn around.
Emily sat with her back to the fire, scrabbling for the pitchfork. She pointed it at the hellhound with the handle braced against the ground. When the hound leapt at her again, she caught it in the tines and pitched it over her head.
The momentum ripped the fork from her hands. Both the hellhound and the pitchfork fell over the cliff into the lake of fire. Emily gazed at the fork in dismay. It lay on the surface for a moment, and then sank. The lava festered like an open wound—black scabs, blood-red cracks, geysers of molten rock pulsing like severed arteries. She wondered if it was possible to get across.