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Authors: Edward Lee

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BOOK: City Infernal
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“What’s that mean?”
Via sighed. “It means we’re not invisible anymore.”
“What!” Cassie exclaimed.
“It’s the only ritual in Hell that could counter a Hand of Glory.”
Cassie was outraged, but then she put two and two together. “Then that must mean that the Constabulary—”
“Is waiting for us,” Via finished.
Hush pointed frantically beyond the low branches, to the wasteland that stood between them and the train depot.
At least a thousand demons were waiting for them.
Chapter Fourteen
(I)
They ran panicked back up the trail.
“I thought you said they wouldn’t be here when we came back!” Cassie shouted.
“Well I guess I was
fucking wrong!”
Via shouted back.
It went without saying, though: their only option now was to abandon everything and go back through the Rive, to the safety of the Deadpass.
“Goddamn Xeke must’ve told them where the Rive is!” Via complained further. “It’s the only way they’d know!”
But then—
“SHIT!” Cassie yelled. They all stopped cold on the trail.
“What
in
God’s name
is THAT?”
“Flamma-Troopers!” Via yelled. “Duck!”
An orb of fire the size of a beach ball rocketed toward them. Via ducked just in time to avoid being struck in the face. The fireball exploded against a stout tree and burnt it to a pile of ashes in seconds.
As the three of them crouched in a gully, Cassie looked closely at the two
things
standing less than fifty feet ahead of them.
Their human heads sported horns, but they walked on three legs and had no arms. They wore shiny slate-gray uniforms which were crisscrossed by heavy black straps. On either side, hooked to the straps, were dull metal tanks, like scuba tanks, and tubes from the tanks led up under their jaws.
“They’re Hybrids,” Via said in a rush. “A type of Terrademon that they make for Lucifer’s special forces. They vomit fire....”
Another flaming orb crackled down the trail. Cassie could feel its intense heat as it passed only a foot over their heads.
“Jesus! They’re blocking the trail! We can’t get back to the Rive!”
“No duh,” Via said.
Now the two unearthly figures were coming down the trail. One’s scorched voice ordered, “Etheress! Come out and your friends will be spared.”
The other: “But if you don’t, our orders are to incinerate you all.”
“That’s bullshit,” Via whispered. “They need to take you alive. But me and Hush ...”
When Cassie projected at them, another fireball intervened, and Cassie’s most violent thought was stopped in its tracks and burned up. “I can’t get to them!” she shrieked in frustration.
One of the Troopers took a deep breath, leaned back and opened his mouth. But just as he would belch another fireball—
“Who’s that?” Cassie exclaimed.
Two knights in coal-black armor jumped down from the trees. The first Flamma-Trooper’s head was promptly covered by an iron pot at the same moment it would vomit its next fireball.
The Trooper exploded into flame.
The second one was beheaded with a single blur of a black knight’s sword.
“Get behind us, Holy One.”
“Huh?” Cassie replied.
“That means you,” Via chuckled. They walked around behind the knights. “They just saved our asses. They’re soldiers with the Contumacy....”
Cassie watched in relief. The two knights affixed a strange iron pipe to the beheaded Flamma-Troopers stump—a make-shift cannon. One knight held the limp body out straight while the other injected something with a syringe.
“We’re ready, Holy One!”
A plume of fire shot from the pipe, stretching a half mile all the way down the hill. The flame splattered like napalm across the first row of demons. It was like hosing them down with fire.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Via said.
Cassie looked down the hill and saw the figures thrashing in the flames. Black smoke rose in the air. Dozens had just been burned alive.
But there’s a whole army of them down there,
Cassie realized.
The front lines were regrouping quickly. A demon on some horse-like beast raised a sword and yelled, “Charge!”
And now the army was trotting up the hill.
The pair of black knights drew their swords. One said to Cassie, “Our eternal duty is to protect you, oh holiest Etheress.”
The gesture was flattering, but Cassie yelled, “You’re just two guys! There’s a whole friggin’
army
of demons coming for us!”
“I think they just might have something up their sleeves,” Via suggested.
Then came the queer sounds. Cassie had heard them before. Bizarre popping sounds followed by a loud:
Sssssssssssssssss-
ONK!
Sssssssssssssssss-
ONK!
Sssssssssssssssss-ONK!
Sssssssssssssssss-
ONK!
Nectoports,
Cassie remembered.
Four of the strange green blobs of light appeared on the field, two ahead of them and two more behind the demonic army. The blobs grew, tinting much of the field in their eerie, throbbing green. Then the churning channels formed.
When she’d witnessed this phenomenon the first time, it had been regiments of Lucifer’s Mutilation Squads who had rushed out of the channels.
This time, though, it was regiments of the black-armored rebels.
“Talk about front row seats,” Via remarked.
Cassie just stared at the spectacle.
“It’s the Contumacy,” Via said. “The same rebel forces we saw tearing up the Mephisto District on TV.”
“We have allies, in other words.”
“Yep. The Satan Park Contumacy is the biggest revolutionary force in Hell. Their army is half a million strong.”
“We’re much larger than that now,” the lead knight corrected. “Three to four million.” He pointed his huge sword downfield. “Behold the wonder of Ezoriel....”
Cassie doubted that
wonder
was the best word to describe what came next. In only a matter of minutes, the army of a thousand demons was completely surrounded by the rebel soldiers, and what followed looked more like a threshing operation. Demons were mown down like wheat by the whir of insurgent blades. The screams alone sounded like a coming earthquake.
In the end, the vast circle of black knights joined lines completely, having butchered everything in their way.
Then the cheers rose up.
“Wow,” Cassie muttered.
The entire field was now a pile of meat. Ushers, Golems, and Conscripts alike all lay dead in a long mound yards high. The generals and sorcerers had been slaughtered, too, without bias. It was a wall of dismembered corpses.
“Praise Ezoriel,” one of the knights whispered.
“Hey,” Via asked him. “How did you guys know about us?”
“Ezoriel has Diviners too. Our war against Lucifer knows no bounds. It is written in the Infernal Archives that one day the true Etheress will walk in Hell and bless us.” The knight’s black-visored face turned to Cassie. “You.”
Cassie felt a chill walk up her back. “I’m just ... here to find my sister,” she peeped.
“Then you shall, Holy One, even if it means that every soldier in the Contumacy be slaughtered in your name.”
“Well ... I hope it won’t quite come to
that.”
Via tapped on his black armor plate. “We need to get to the Commission of Judicial Torture. Can you help us?”
“We would freely drain our blood into the mouths of Cacodemons to assist the Etheress and her confederates. We would willingly bathe in the Lake of Fire—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Thanks. But we need to get
there,
and that’s not gonna be easy with every Warlock and Diviner and armed Conscript in Satan’s legions gunning for us.”
“Come and meet our commander,” the knight said, “and all your worries will be allayed.”
The knights led them down. Via explained the details : “The Fallen Angel Ezoriel is the leader of the Contumacy. He was one of the Angels, like Lucifer, who rebelled against God and got cast out of Heaven. But—”
“Ezoriel realized the error of his ways, repented?” Cassie guessed.
“Exactly. Unfortunately, once you’re in Hell, you can repent your sins all you want but you still stay here. Ezoriel is Satan’s greatest enemy. The rumor is that his rebel army is hidden in a secret place beyond the Outer Sectors, a place called the Nether-Spheres. And over the last couple of thousand years he’s been able to not only train and equip his army, he’s developed his own sorcery and has been able to steal a lot of Satan’s technology.”
“Like the Nectoports,” Cassie figured.
“Right. You can bet that Lucifer was royally pissed when he found out about that. Nectoports were one of his most guarded secrets, his pride and joy. But now the Contumacy has the ability too. Their ultimate mission is to burn down the Mephisto Building and depose Lucifer.”
That sounded like a big job to Cassie. All she wanted to do was find her sister, but she’d take any help she could get.
When they came fully off the trail, the field before them fell pin-drop silent. The mass of soldiers all stood up at attention and looked at Cassie as she stumbled along in her flipflops.
This is ... awkward,
she thought.
Then someone shouted, “Holy One!” and the rebel army cheered, raising their weapons and waving flags.
“See what a big hit you are,” Via said.
But Cassie whispered back, “Yeah, but it’s almost like I have an obligation to them.”
“You do. They saved your life.”
Cassie couldn’t disagree, but ... “I know, but, look, I’m just a Goth girl from D.C. I’m not into all this Etheress stuff. All I want to do is talk to my sister and then go back to where I belong.”
Hush grinned up at Via, as if sharing a joke.
“What?”
“Cassie, you have incredible powers. With the Contumacy behind you, you could really change things around here. Don’t be so selfish. With power comes responsibility. You think George Washington
wanted
to fight the British? No. But he did anyway ’cos it was his responsibility.”
“I’m not responsible for people in Hell!”
“Take my word for it. The longer you’re here, the more your powers develop. Pretty soon you’ll be spending more time in Hell than you do in the Living World. These people are right. You really are a holy one.”
Cassie slumped in frustration.
I don’t want to be a holy one. I just want to listen to Rob Zombie and read Goth Times!
But at least Via seemed a lot more confident now about finding Lissa. Another Nectoport opened on the field and out filed several hundred pretty girls. They wore sheer white dresses and had flowers in their hair, and they all skipped happily along the line of butchered demons, retrieving their fallen weapons and stripping off all armor. Next, a white-cloaked Wizard appeared, holding a pair of crystal balls. He was chanting something, and when he clacked the balls together, they shattered and all at once the nude bodies of the dead burst into flames.
“Magnificent, isn’t it, Holy One?” the knight remarked.
“Uh—yeah,” Cassie replied, wincing at the mammoth burst of flame. It rose upward in a booming mushroom cloud. “That’s, uh, some slick trick.”
“Disgrace to Lucifer. Death to all enemies of the Angel of Repentance. May the souls of those who died here tonight be consigned forever to the bodies of Excre-Worms.”
In moments, the dense black smoke began to block out the scarlet twilight overhead. The long fire roared and crackled. Distant shrieks could be heard from the blaze, from the few demons who were not quite dead yet....
Many of the black knights now began to retreat into the radiating Nectoports. Next, several platoons of queer-looking Dentatpeds—giant mouths walking on human tegs—began to eat the smoking corpses.
“So,” Cassie said, getting a bit impatient. “Where’s this guy, Ezoriel?”
But then a voice that could only be described as bright light issued behind her. “Here am I, Holy One. I live forever to serve you.”
Cassie turned with a start and found herself facing a figure who must’ve stood eight feet tall.
“It’s ... him!” Via whispered in awe. Even Hush seemed shocked as she looked up. All Cassie could thinkwas, Holy SHIT....
Ezoriel, the Angel of Repentance, the Defier of Lucifer the Morning Star, looked back down at them with luminous blue eyes. He wore a battle tunic akin to a Roman legionnaire, strapped with black leather armor. His sheathed sword was a foot wide and five long. Behind him were the stems of his once-great wings, little more than a web of bones, charred by his fall from Heaven. He wore a classic Greek helm of highly polished brass.
BOOK: City Infernal
3.39Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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