Hell's Pawn (35 page)

The hair on J ohn’s neck stood on end. He turned to find two dozen glass men, all as beautiful as ice, coming toward them. The deities on the outer perimeter had been charged with keeping them at bay, but the gods must have fallen. That, or the Ministers had found another way through.

“Into the ooze!” Dante said, bolting toward the gods.

J ohn followed, calling out warnings. To his relief, he saw the gods had found the entrance, which still looked like a simple manhole. They were struggling to open it, something that J ohn could finally do to help. He slid through goo, pushing away Rimmon’s ineffectual hands.

“Hurry,” Rimmon said. “There isn’t much time.”

Ares growled and charged toward the glass men, Thor at his side. S et followed coolly, dark shadows spinning around his hands.

“W hat are they doing?” J ohn said as he flipped the manhole open. “We can all escape through here!”

“They’re buying you time,” Rimmon said before fire exploded from his mouth.

A P rop crawling out of the hole fell back in. J ohn looked over the edge to see it colliding with dozens more.

“The tunnels are full of Props! We’ll never get through!”

“S tand back!” M anannan commanded. W ith a sweep of his billowing blue robes, M anannan was at the hole and thrusting his hands inside. Then came the roar of water and the smell of salt as the sea god flooded the tunnels, washing away the Props.

“Watch yourselves!” Ares snarled from the front line.

Half a dozen glass men had broken through and were headed for them.

“I nto the hole,” J ohn said, shoving Dante forward. “Keep the water going, Manannan! We won’t drown, and it will get us there quicker.” M anannan nodded, taking a few steps back so they could enter while oceans continued to pour from his hands.

“You realize that we’ll end up wherever the Props do,” Dante said.

The C thulhu creature gave a terrifying wail. I f it shifted even a few feet, the gods would be crushed and he and Dante would be dust. “Go!” John shouted.

Dante pinched his nose and jumped into the hole. Next J ohn shoved B olo in. He felt cruel doing so, but had no other option.

“You next,” Rimmon insisted.

“And then you,” John said, locking eyes with the demon.

R immon clapped a hand on his shoulder, his eyes intense as he struggled to find words. The world around J ohn faded away as he waited to hear what the demon had to say.

“G o, J ohn. E nd this, if not for all the souls trapped here, then for me. And if we never see each other again, just know that every moment spent with you was a reward worthy of Heaven.”

J ohn opened his mouth to respond, but R immon shoved him forward. M anannan’s waves picked him up, sweeping him into the hole and away from the surface. The last thing he saw before the water rushed over his head was R immon breathing fire toward the advancing glass men.

As J ohn fell, he tried to remember where he would land. Ages had passed since he and Dante had made their escape a empt. Dozens of P rops were already ahead of them, and John hoped to remember which direction they should run once they gained their footing. An elephant trumpeted just before he hit bo om. He definitely didn’t remember that!

J ohn landed with a splash, a thick gray leg almost trampling him as it walked by.

Animals were everywhere, sloshing through the knee-high water, many swaying groggily. The animals they had discovered in stasis had revived. W hether that was a result of the conflict above or a side effect of M anannan’s magical water, J ohn didn’t know, but thousands of them filled the area. P rops were scurrying to fulfill their programming and recapture the animals, but not all of the animals were sleepy. A lion leapt over J ohn’s head, engulfing a P rop’s head in its jaws. The elephant nearest to him became enraged as a P rop tried to sting it, knocking it and others aside with its trunk before stomping on them.

“John!”

Dante, drenched and panicked, was beckoning toward the doors. J ohn imagined he didn’t look much be er as he sloshed through the water toward him. O nly one P rop noticed him as he made for the exit, and it was dragged underwater by an alligator.

“Where’s Bolo?” John asked as he reached Dante’s side.

“Over there.”

The I rishman nodded to where the dog barked and bounded through the water around different animals. The lethargic beasts were soon aggravated or panicked by his behavior, their reaction causing even more problems for the Props.

“I think he’s helping,” Dante said. “Or having fun. Either way, he’s better off here.” J ohn didn’t like leaving him behind, but they didn’t know what they faced ahead.

The worst that could happen to B olo here was being put back into stasis. They reached the doors, J ohn’s heart heavy as he gave one final glance toward the dog. First Rimmon, now Bolo. He could only hope this wasn’t their last goodbye.

Together J ohn and Dante ran down featureless gray corridors, and here the plan fell apart. They didn’t know what they were looking for or what they would do once they found it. Had things gone according to plan, ten of the most powerful gods would be here instead of J ohn. They would have divined the correct path and confronted whatever hid at the maze’s center. J ohn had nothing to go by, no godly sense of direction, and no magic to defeat a being powerful enough to control an entire realm.

S till they ran, for they could do nothing else. The halls were silent and empty, as if the ba le raging above had been a fleeting dream. That is, until a loud thrumming noise a racted their a ention. J ohn remembered it. W hen they had fled with B olo to the edges of P urgatory, he had heard the sound of a machine. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now it was the only clue they had.

“Think that’s it?” Dante asked as they paused to listen to the deep thrum, its steady rhythm hypnotic.

“Must be.”

They followed the sound as best they could. B efore long the floor was lost in fog, and soon after so was everything else. The world became a gray cloud, forcing them to slow to a walk. They squinted into the fog, jumping occasionally at shadows passing before them. The thrumming noise was their only beacon, growing in volume as they stumbled after it, a vibration that filled their very being. The floor below slanted so steeply they often slid and fell. Wherever they were headed was deep underground.

W hen the ground leveled again, they saw something new in the fog. B lue flickering light, rectangular. They paused, taking it in and debating if it was a trap. E ventually they crept closer, and J ohn saw it was a door. They could taste the electricity on their tongues as the blue light hummed, and the taste was familiar. This was the poison P urgatory used to numb its victims, except stronger than ever before. The door ahead of them was a barrier that could turn away any kind of soul, be it god or human.

E xcept J ohn was no ordinary soul. His ties to the physical plane would allow him to pass through. He felt this with absolute certainty. The masters of P urgatory didn’t fear the army he had raised or the mighty gods in this realm or any other, but they would fear a person who could pass through this barrier to reach them.

S omething stood, silhoue ed in the blue light. The shape was humanoid, and for one brief moment J ohn thought one of their friends had beaten them here. O ne of the clever gods or maybe even R immon by some miracle, but then he noticed the unnaturally long appendages. W here the tips of a person’s arm would normally end was a second elbow, another forearm a ached to it. The being bounced on elongated legs as it approached, leaning forward through the fog to see them be er. I t was a glass man, and yet it wasn’t. There was something inexplicably feminine about the long, narrow head that bobbed on the end of its stretched neck. The eyes were huge and penetrating, devoid of life one moment and mad with interest the next. The mouth was a long comical “O ” and inside of it something moved. Fingers, teeth, worms. J ohn couldn’t bear to look any longer. He knew it wasn’t good. The creature, having finished its examination, began advancing again, its long arms extending outward.

“S o that’s the guard dog, huh?” Dante grimaced. “Ugly bitch, isn’t she? Think you can get through the barrier ahead?”

“I know I can,” John said. “If you hold my hand I think I can pull you through.”

“I told you I don’t swing that way,” Dante said, but he wasn’t smiling. “You go. I ’ll hold her off. We’ll never both get past her.”

“If we both feint—”

“It’ll never happen. Besides, what’s the worst she can do to me?” A memory of pain throbbed in J ohn’s abdomen where the glass man had played inside him. I f a normal M inister was capable of such atrocities, he didn’t want to know what the abomination in front of them could do. He wouldn’t leave Dante to face that alone.

“I ’m about two seconds away from betraying you to save my own ass,” Dante snarled. “You either go now, or I turn tail and run, leaving you as a snack for this thing.

Go!”

B ut it was Dante who ran forward first, leaping on the creature and wrapping his arms and legs around its torso. J ohn didn’t hesitate. He ran for the barrier, mentally bracing himself to pass through it. The glass creature turned as he passed, but its hands were full of Dante, who was doing everything in his power to be a nuisance. Dante managed to free a leg and kick the thing in the face, sending its head bobbing backward, but it recovered quickly, turning an angry eye on its prey.

J ohn couldn’t watch further. The doorway was directly ahead of him, unobscured except for the electric blue light that sizzled and snapped. The thrumming was deafening now, but John focused only on the barrier ahead.

I ’m alive,
he thought.
I ’m alive and P urgatory is nothing but a ghost to me. T here is no
obstacle in my way. Only light that I can,
will
, pass through.

J ohn closed his eyes to express his apathy toward the object he refused to acknowledge. G iven more time, he might have passed through it effortlessly. I nstead he slammed into the barrier, only half of him squeezing inside like he had run into a wall of electrified gelatin. His body arched and burned, the light coursing over him and demanding he submit, but J ohn’s will was true, his mind clear. An inhuman roar sounded from behind him; stomping followed. J ohn could imagine the creature dropping Dante and reaching to pull him back out. J ohn utilized that fear, let his mind burn with it, and shoved the rest of the way through the blue light.

The thrumming changed, the difference between hearing a muted song outside a nightclub and stepping inside to discover the full force of the beat. J ohn heard it all now, and it wasn’t pleasant. A million drums pounded in unison, their rhythm dominating, enforcing only one subjugating sound, one tyrannizing tempo, one bullying beat. This was the heartbeat of O rder, and it made J ohn want to go running, crying, whimpering back to his comatose body.

The walls were crystal. E verything here was crystal, mathematically perfect in shape and form. The room was small, a triangular chamber without decoration except for three hideous sculptures, one set on each wall. J ohn barely considered them, turning his a ention to the middle of the room and searching for the reason he was here. He saw nothing. He walked to the center and turned on the spot, looking for another door, a mysterious item, the magic button, anything.

“John Grey,”
many voices said in unison.
“You do not belong here.”
The voices were coming at him from every side. J ohn flinched at the sound before giving the sculptures on the wall fresh appraisal. They were like the other M inisters of O rder, except they weren’t beautiful men or crystalline skeletons. W hat hung on each wall were glass corpses, emaciated bodies the color of muddy water and run through with cracks. Their bony arms and legs were splayed wide, as if they had been crucified to the walls. Their zombified heads were fixed in place, too, the dull red points of their eyes straining to keep up with John as he examined each of them in turn.

“Rejoice!”
the voices continued, eyes flaring.
“R ejoice and be free, J ohn, for you are not
dead! Your physical body is in a coma, but you may return to life. You can go home.”

“Already been there,” John murmured. “Decided to come back. Nice try though.” S omething inside each ro ing sculpture beat to the head-spli ing rhythm. No! They
were
the rhythm, the source of the sound. I nside of them something pulsated, throbbing like a heart and in the same location, but they weren’t the right shape at all.

The hearts were rectangular. What were they?

“You meddle in affairs beyond your comprehension,”
the creatures intoned.
“A child
kicking angrily at the parent who has its best interests at heart.”

“B est interests?” J ohn scoffed. “How was being locked up in P urgatory good for me?

Or how about being a brick in a wall of souls? That was in my best interest as well?”

“I t was not your destiny to remain there. We saw that, as we see everything. We foresaw you
gaining your freedom, and it pleased us.”

J ohn scowled. “S o why didn’t you let me go in the first place? W hy all the struggle if I was never meant to stay here?”

“No human willingly embraces predestination. Your egos demand the false belief that every
path taken is forged by your own will. T he fragile ego deludes itself, clinging to its perception of
singular importance.”

J ohn walked as they talked, looking at each of the beating hearts and trying to ignore the uneasy feeling that he wasn’t being lied to, that his story had long ago been wri en from start to finish. How else had they predicted his arrival, trapped his army, and dealt with the gods in such short order?

“You were meant to bring them here,”
the voices continued.
“T he end of the disorderly
realms began long before you came. C ut off from each other and from the minds of men, their
demise has been slow but steady. T hrough our grace we allow them to die here, to embrace their
destiny now rather than fade away.”