City Infernal (33 page)

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Authors: Edward Lee

BOOK: City Infernal
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Cassie couldn’t help but notice the Angel’s perfect, muscled physique.
That’s some bod!
she thought.
“It is written that you would come ... and now you have,” the voice glimmered. “Your presence here has bestowed upon us the most magnificent blessing, you, Cassie the Etheress, the Holy One from the Living World come to consecrate the Damned.”
“How’s that for a title?” Via said.
The huge sword sang as it was pulled from its sheath. Cassie’s eyes widened. Something unconscious compelled her to kneel.
“It is the greatest honor of my eternal life to dub thee Saint Cassie, the First Saint of Hell....”
The tip of the sword touched her head and each shoulder.
“We are at your command.”
Cassie stood back up, flabbergasted. When she looked around, everyone else on the field was kneeling.
Wow.
...
“So,” she said, “you’re going to help us?”
“With every fiber of our might.”
Great
answer!
“Well, you’re the commander here. What do we do next?”
Ezoriel raised his hand, and another Nectoport opened at once. “We shall strategize now. At my secret post.”
“Cool,” Via said. “Let’s go!”
They followed the Angel toward the port, but then something occurred to Cassie. “Excuse me? Ezoriel?”
The Angel turned.
“Would you mind taking off that helmet? It’s kind of creepy looking.”
Without a word, Ezoriel removed the helm.
Cassie stared.
Jesus Christ! He looks just like Brad Pitt!
(II)
“Tough life, huh?” Via remarked.
Upon their entrance to Ezoriel’s chateau-like fortress, Cassie, Via, and Hush quickly found themselves surrounded in luxury worthy of a medieval queen. They lounged nude in a wide marble pool full of cool, sudsy water; after all this running around in Hell, the baths were well-appreciated. Broad banded feathers formed fans, connected to poles that moved slowly forward and back, a cool makeshift breeze. Exotic flowers floated in the scented water. Cassie just lay back with her eyes closed, enjoying it all.
“And this is
pure
water,” Via remarked. “It’s an extreme luxury, very hard to
come by
in Hell.”
“Where do they get it? Is there a stream or a spring around here?”
“In Hell?” The notion amused Via. “They make it, from those big distillation vats over there.”
Hush’s head seemed to be floating on suds. Her remaining hand rose from the fragrant water and pointed across the long tiled atrium. Knights were indifferently packing chopped-up demon corpses into great iron kettles set over fires and tamping the pieces down with heavy wooden shafts. Then tubed lids were latched down.
“The heat turns all water moisture in the corpses into steam,” Via explained. “Then the steam travels through the tubes, and once it’s cooled—presto. All the pure water you could want.”
Cassie blanched at the grueling sight.
The Nectoport had brought them here straight from the battlefield, and their host, Ezoriel, had extended every regal courtesy. The Angel’s command post extended as a vast stone-walled fortress full of turrets, minarets, and even a moat. A great keep, for prisoners, occupied an entire wall miles long, while the chateau spired grandly from the perimeter’s center. Literally thousands of the black knights comprised the compound’s security force.
“This really is some dynamite crib,” Via said, luxuriating in the water.
Cassie noticed the foggy sky beyond an open, stone-framed window. It didn’t look like Hell’s dark-red sky at all, and the breezy air blowing around from the fans and in through the stone windows smelled enticingly fresh, with no trace whatsoever of the city’s urban stench.
“Where is this place exactly?” she inquired.
“The Nether-Spheres” Via replied. “We’re still in Hell, but you can think of it as a different plane of existence from the Mephistopolis. There are several Spheres, but nobody knows much about them. It’s a secret that only the most powerful Fallen Angels know. According to the legend, Ezoriel won this Sphere from Lucifer on a bet. There’s another rumor that the Nether-Spheres exist on the same line as the Sphere of the Seven Stars. That’s where Heaven is—supposedly, at least.”
“Strange,” Cassie remarked.
“Sure, but who cares?” Via lazily rowed her feet in the perfumed water. “You can’t beat this place for a well-needed change. I could spend all eternity here, no problem.”
“That’d be real nice, but we’ve got quite a bit of work to do,” Cassie reminded, knowing that this gentle luxury would soon be finished. She enjoyed it too, but she also knew she wasn’t here for bubble baths.
When they were done in the spacious tub, more of the white-toga’d flower girls came in, dried them off with soft, newly sewn towels, and dressed them. Next, they were taken to a long banquet room whose tables were heaped with exotic fruits. A second salvo of servants—boys this time, Cassie’s age—massaged them on long scroll couches and hand-fed them the delectable fruits. The boys were all very handsome, like male
models.
“Kind of sucks for you,” Via said.
“What do you mean?”
“You have to stay a virgin.”
Cassie hadn’t thought of that, though it wasn’t exactly foremost on her mind. Being wanted by the authorities in Hell had a way diffusing one’s sex drive. Instead, Lissa remained the focus of her attention.
I’ve got to get Lissa.
But how would they do it?
Several knights escorted them next to Ezoriel’s War Room. The preposterously attractive Angel and his senior officers bowed on one knee when Cassie and the others entered.
This royalty treatment is starting to get on my nerves....
“Holy One. Have your needs been adequately attended?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Then I’d be honored, my Saint, if you will hear my plan.”
“Let ’er rip, handsome,” Via said.
Cassie just shook her head. A huge map, drawn in ink on bleached demon skin, stretched across the front of the room, and Ezoriel raised a long thin wing-bone of a Nether-Bat as a pointer.
“A delayed two-front attack is my suggestion, Holy One,” Ezoriel said in his light-like voice. “The Constabulary will be expecting you to initiate an incursion here—”
He tapped the pointer on the mark for the Commission of Judicial Torture.
“—and I recommend that you do so. After you’ve infiltrated the Commission, we wait. Give the enemy time to focus, let them think a second wave will strike the Commission. It is then that I will lead my largest force here—”
The pointer roved across town, and landed on the Mephisto Building.
“Lucifer would never expect a second attack here.”
Cassie remembered the explanation of the Mephisto Building’s defenses. “But isn’t that a suicide mission? The Mephisto Building is surrounded by the Flesh Warrens. Aren’t they impenetrable?”
“Ordinarily, yes,” Ezoriel answered. “But in this ex
trao
rdinary circumstance? I think we can take a tremendous advantage. The Warrens will be weakened as Lucifer will most certainly divert the mainstay of his Warlocks to the Commission—in hopes of capturing you. This transfer of phantasmic energy will leave the Warrens at a reduced strength.”
“The Flesh Warrens are an organic entity,” Via reminded. “It’s like an immune-system. Think of it this way: at full strength, it will never catch a cold. But at reduced strength?”
“A massive simultaneous attack into multiple orifi could overwhelm its defenses,” Ezoriel projected. “We could penetrate the Flesh Warren and lay siege to the Mephisto Building itself. The first step in deposing Lucifer. The risk is high, but with no risk, there will never be victory, and the Morning Star’s reign will go un
checked as the obscenity it’s always
been.”
It seemed like an awful lot of trouble. “Why not just use Nectoports to go into the Mephisto Building? Bypass the Warrens altogether?”
“Nectoportation won’t work over the Warrens. The sorcery doesn’t exist to achieve such a feat. Air transportation is likewise impossible. We once dispatched an entire division of troops on Nether-Bats to try to fly over the Warrens. The result was catastrophic. Lucifer’s psychic-power generators are much too strong. The only way in is through the Warrens.”
But then another point popped up in Cassie’s mind. “How do Via, Hush, and I get to the Commission? Do we use the Hand of Glory?”
“By now, Lucifer’s Warlocks are well aware of the ploy,” Ezoriel said, “and their counter-measures will render any Hand of Glory useless. Instead, I shall Nectoport you and your friends to the Commission’s grounds.”
This seemed kind of weak. “And ... that’s it?”
“With a hundred of my best trained soldiers to lead your assault.”
That sounds a bit better.
Cassie tried to keep all of the plan’s pieces sorted in her mind.
“Okay, great. We attack the Commission and then you attack the Flesh Warrens—a sudden two-front invasion. But if Lucifer’s diverting so much power to protect the Commission—” Cassie could think of no better way to put it. “Won’t our asses be grass?”
“Holy One, what you don’t yet understand is that you and your two confederates will enjoy the most powerful weapon of all.” The Angel held up the sack of Fenton Blackwell’s bones. “This. The greatest Power Relic to ever be activated within the dominion of Hell.”
“It’s just a bag of bones,” Cassie complained.
“It’s a lot more than that,” Via countered. “That’s why we went to all that hassle to bring it.”
“This Power Relic, buried in the Living World and stolen away into ours, will make you invincible,” Ezoriel said.
“How?”
“You’ll see,” Via said and looked excitedly to Hush.
Don’t worry!
Hush mouthed to her.
Cassie shrugged. Better to just take their word for it.
“Theoretically the only potential flaw,” Ezoriel went on, “regards the supernatural nature of the Power Relic.”
“But you just said it’d make us invincible,” Cassie complained. “Either we’ll be invincible or we won’t. Which is it?”
“You’ll be invincible to any force in Hell save for one: Fenton Blackwell himself. Once you energize the Relic, the real Blackwell will know; he’ll be able to feel it at the core of his damned soul.”
“Like I told you on the train,” Via said, “Blackwell’s in Hell now, and Lucifer transformed him into a Grand Duke. When we start using the Relic, Blackwell will sense it and he’ll come after us. Since the bones belong to him, he’s the only one who won’t be affected by their power.”
“Well that screws up the entire plan!” Cassie exclaimed. “What good is a freakin’ Power Relic if Blackwell comes after us?”
“He’s too far away,” Via said. “By the time he gets to us, we’ll be long gone. He lives on Templar Cape. That’s at the farthest comer of the Mephistopolis. It would take him
days
to find us.”
“Actually,” Ezoriel interrupted, “it would take quite longer than that. Grand Duke Blackwell no longer resides on Templar Cape.”
“He ...
doesn’t?”
Via worriedly inquired.
“He now resides in my dungeon,” Ezoriel said with some satisfaction. “I ordered my troops to capture him not hours ago.” Ezoriel turned on a familiar oval television which showed a ten-foot-tall figure, with an angular head and horns, bound neck to ankles in stout iron chains. Surrounding him was a squad of the black knights on watch, bearing spears and battleaxes.
“Blackwell’s not going anywhere,” Via said excitedly.
“And with Ezoriel’s plan, we get to kill two birds with one stone.”
Ezoriel augmented, “You will be reunited with your sister, and we will strike the worst blow yet against Lucifer and his reign of tyranny.”
Now everyone in the room was looking at Cassie, awaiting her approval.
“Sounds cool to me,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
(III)
The Nectoport ride reminded Cassie of seasickness. It was like standing in a long curving tunnel made of dark-green lights. The tunnel swayed back and forth as it invisibly traversed space; Cassie thought of a snake whipping wildly around, and she was in the snake.
It’s too bad they don’t have vomit bags in these things,
she thought as her stomach tossed and turned.
But Via and Hush seemed to be enjoying the ride. The three of them stood at the rear of the port, behind the battalion of Ezoriel’s heavily armed black knights.
“Groovy, huh?” Via said.
“Uh, no. I’m close to barfing.”

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