Even Hell Has Knights (Hellsong)
Read Even Hell Has Knights (Hellsong) Online
Authors: Shaun O. McCoy
PRAISE FOR SHAUN O. M
C
COY AND
EVEN HELL HAS KNIGHTS
“I read McCoy and enjoy him. If you have an ounce of imagination, so will you. He takes you places you can't go by yourself.”
—McKendree Long, Author of
Dog Soldier Moon
“McCoy has a queer ability to highlight the most delightfully horrific details imaginable. I grimace, suck air through my teeth and squeeze shut my eyes. Then I open just one so I can keep on reading.”
—Fred Fields, Author
“In
Even Hell Has Knights
, McCoy depicts dark landscapes filled with fiery fury. His characters are soulful, at times wonderfully craven, surprising us with their humanity and evoking our laughter in unexpected ways.”
—Chris Mathews, Author of
GARGOYLES
“In preparing for this book, McCoy rampaged across three continents in an indiscriminant pillage of mythology, history and religion. The booty he gained has made for one of the most unique settings in the Fantasy Genre.”
—Monet Jones, Author of
Rehoboth
“McCoy’s world-building is impeccable.”
—Ginny Padgett, President of SCWW
“McCoy writes with a passion for action. He introduces us to graphic characters and takes us on a hair-raising journey through crumbling underground landscapes where battles rage to protect a magical child. This is a borderlands for where the quest for survival has never been so grueling.”
—Bonnie Stanard, Author of
Master of Westfall Plantation
OTHER WORKS BY SHAUN O. M
C
COY
HELLSONG SERIES
Even Hell Has Knights
Knight of Gehenna
Hellsong Book III (May, 2014)
NOVELLAS
Electric Blues
BOOK I
SHAUN O. M
C
COY
SISYPHEAN PUBLISHING
For Cory Wenzel
An Airman
, Fighter, and Friend.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book has many heroes, but my real life hero is my sister. She fights leukemia with more bravery than any fictional character I could imagine.
I appreciate the wonderful help of those who have made the exciting journey of writing this novel with me. In addition, I’m insanely thankful to my father for telling me his multi-epic “bedtime” stories from the moment I was old enough to comprehend the English language—and quite possibly before that; and to my mother for patiently reading to me countless young adult fantasy novels—although for some reason she waited until I was old enough to know what a sentence was before doing so.
Also, Professor Ben Greer, you happen to be the man, and there is very little in this novel which cannot somehow be attributed to your teachings. Mike Long and Bonnie Stanard have been marvelous mentors for me in the field of writing. Also in that regard, there is no one who can replace Walt Oliver—who gave me pink lemonade in my childhood and writing advice in my adulthood.
I can’t fail to mention the Mason brothers, Scott and Jeremy, and their enthusiastic willingness to answer my firearm questions over plates full of General Tso’s chicken. Narayan Boston, thank you for your support!
Lastly, I’d like to thank the
Sisyphean Publications
production team. The bevy of editors: Gabe, Justin, Jody, B-ri, James, Nichole, Amanda, and Leigh. Also, media arts moguls Kirill Simin and Erica Morgan. Without all these excellently talented people, life would be meaningless, and all would be lost. Enjoy!
This is a work of fiction. The damnation portrayed in this novel is fictitious, and similarities between it and any actual damnation are strictly coincidental.
EVEN HELL HAS KNIGHTS
Copyright 2012 © by Shaun McCoy
All rights reserved.
Editor-in-Chief: Gabrielle Olexa
Associate Editors: Justin Williams; Jody Wenzel; Brian “B-ri” Jeffcoat; James Mobley; Nichole Breton
Consulting Editors: Amanda Simays; Leigh Thomas
Title art: Thomas the Younger
Title Layout: Kirill Simin
A Sisyphean Publishing Book
www.ehhknovel.com
ISBN: 978-0615716541
First Edition October 2012
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Carlisle lay dy
ing on the cold stones of Hell. He watched his black blood as it crept across the floor, a muddy river fed by the wellspring in his side. The half-congealed liquid was marked with his own footprints, his lifeblood depressed in the pattern of his treaded boots. On Earth, having suffered such a wound, a man could expect to die after an hour or so of slow bleeding. Here, in the labyrinth, the timing was less certain.
He could suffer for days.
It hadn’t always been this way. He hadn’t always been damned. He’d lain like this, once, in an Alabama cornfield, counting his blessings. For each of those blessings, his grandmother had taught him, there was an angel flying over his head. There had been so many angels then. They’d started to leave him, one by one, on the day he’d betrayed himself with Anna McNamara.
Certainly there were none above him now.
The Infidel was coming. The Infidel was going to kill him.
Rolling over was torture. He clutched at the floor with his blood covered hands, trying to drag himself forward. He failed. The grain of the stone felt slick beneath his fingertips.
He looked about for the Infidel, who he knew must be somewhere in this mile high chamber. With his sight fading, however, he could not find the man. He tried again to move farther forward but managed only to roll back over. Blood matted the hair on the right side of his head, soaking through his shirt at his shoulder and through his pants at his hip. He felt winded and struggled for air with each breath.
He heard his murderer’s approach; the man’s boots clopping at first against the stone floor and then slapping in the blood. Dark red droplets splattered into
Carlisle’s face.
“You’ll fail,” Carlisle said. “You’ll see. I’m not the only one who protects the angel’s get. We love that boy.”
No answer.
The Infidel’s expressionless face filled his vision.
“It’s a liver wound,” Carlisle whispered. “Christ, too, was stabbed in the side.”
He was vaguely aware of the Infidel’s hand as it came to rest on his shoulder. Carlisle might have found the gesture comforting had it come from someone else.
“You’re lucky we didn’t fight on Earth, Infidel.” Carlisle’s anger helped him find his breath. “God wouldn’t have let you win. The angels, they would have helped me.”
The Infidel remained impassive.
Carlisle wiped at the blood around his eyes. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you? I’m telling you there were angels. Angels! You wouldn’t have noticed. They wouldn’t have come to you. They sang to me.”
The hand on his shoulder pulled away, but the Infidel remained kneeling beside him. The pain became intense for a moment, and Carlisle gritted his teeth, squeezing
shut his eyes until it passed. “I hate you,” he managed. “You think we’re the same? We’re nothing alike. Nothing.”
Tears came to his eyes, summoned there from his agony. “You think because God damned us both we’re equal? At least I tried. I tried!” Carlisle’s body shook with his words, hurting him enough to make him sob, but he could not stop himself from speaking. “While you were up there, fucking, loving, gluttonizing, I was praying. I was fighting myself. I failed. But I tried. You just turned your bac
k
. .
.
”
Fatigue forced him to stop and catch his breath.
He noticed the Infidel was no longer kneeling. Carlisle attempted to look up at the man, but he couldn’t focus. He settled for looking at the Infidel’s booted feet. The feet began walking. At first Carlisle feared that he would be abandoned, but he was comforted when he saw that the Infidel was circling him.
“You think you’re bette
r than us?” Carlisle continued. “Because you didn’t deal with demons? Maab had no choice. We had to.”
He could no longer see the Infidel, but he could hear the man’s footsteps
in the blood behind him. Carlisle put a finger to his lips and tasted his own blood. It tasted rotten somehow, polluted—like he remembered menstrual blood tasting.
“I admit it, Infidel.
Raping the women was wrong. Horribly wrong. We couldn’t control ourselves. It was the demons. They made us do it. Listen. You’re no better. Our people are good people. You should have helped us. Even Maab would have loved you. Pyle would have helped you.”
The boots reappeared
.
“I’m dying again, Infidel. My people need you. They’re asking for you. Be our friend.”
The Infidel turned and walked towards the wilds of Hell.
Carlisle reached out after him, but his hand touched nothing. “Don’t leave me. Don’t abandon me like you abandoned God.”
The Infidel paused at the edge of his vision, looking at something, perhaps on one of the chamber’s highest walls. Carlisle tried to see what the man was staring at, but his eyesight was too far gone. Slowly, surely, his world was shrinking in around him.
“It doesn’t matter if I die. I’m not alone,” he said.
Carlisle’s eyesight dimmed further. The Infidel seemed like some distant shadow.
“I would have beaten you,” Carlisle said. “On Earth I would have defeated you. God would have helped me kill you.”
After a moment, the Infidel spoke. “God let His only Son be tortured and crucified. Why would He treat you any differently?”
Carlisle could no longer see the Infidel. He was sure the man was still out there, though, past the edge of his vision.
“Because God loves me!” Carlisle shouted as the black wings of damnation closed in around his soul. “God loves me!”