Hell's Pawn

  “They’re beautiful,” John murmured.

  R immon frowned. “I don’t know how to convince you that nothing will come of your attraction toward me.”

  John swallowed. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “I know, J ohn. I ’ve known since after the vampire a acked me. I felt the intensity of your emotion, and it healed me more than simple sex would have. I know that you love me, and I ’m sorry.” Now the demon’s voice was gentle. “I should have told you then, given us both time to talk it through rather than let you be hurt the way you were, but I suppose I was in mourning. I was so happy to find a friend in you and so sad to think that emotion would drive you away. And it did, but much sooner than I expected.”

  “It’s not fair,” John said.

  “No, it isn’t,” Rimmon agreed, “but then love rarely is.”

  “No, I mean the reason is unfair. You don’t know why I love you, do you?” Rimmon shook his head.

  “W hen O siris weighed your heart, I was stupid enough to touch it. B efore then I was reasonable and sane. S ure, I found you a ractive and cared about you, but the second I touched your heart, I knew you. You must think my feelings are superficial, considering how li le we know of each other, but they run much deeper than you might expect, and it’s not fair. I wish it could be undone, that there was some way for you to take these feelings back from me.”

  “Do you?”

  John sighed. “No. Not really. But I wish you felt the same way about me.”

  “But you also wish I was different,” Rimmon said.

  J ohn was momentarily confused. “You mean my reaction to the goddess? Yeah, I blew it. I wanted to play it cool, to show you that I could handle your occupation, but it’s hard to feel secure when you’ve never belonged to me.”

  “To be fair, having my affection didn’t make my boyfriend feel any more secure than you do,” Rimmon said.

  John rolled his eyes. “Him again? Can’t it be just about me and you for once?”

  “I’m just as much a victim of my emotions as you are.”

  At least some satisfaction could be found in that. R immon didn’t have the superior position here. B oth of them were heartbroken, unable to be with who they truly wanted.

  “L ook,” J ohn said, “he’s going to love you no ma er what. As much as he might hate your profession, or your nature, or whatever you want to blame it on, he’ll still love you. I f you and I can’t change the way we feel, then neither can he. Find him again, Rimmon, and then for god’s sake, change.”

  “Sorry?”

  “C hange who you are. I know, everyone thinks that they should be loved for who they are, but that’s not how it works. E very relationship is dysfunctional, because no two people are a perfect fit. The ultimate expression of love is to come together as much as possible, to change for each other. You need to resist straying as much as possible, and he needs to find new ways to satisfy your needs. The love is already there between you two. You might as well make the best of it. Do anything you can, absolutely everything in your power, Rimmon, but never give up.”

  “You’re phenomenal.”

  “I know, and it’s your loss. Now if you don’t mind, I ’d like to go back to feeling sorry for myself.” J ohn gave his best smile. “L ong-distance relationships never work out anyway. I could hardly expect you to wait until I finally get around to dying.” John reveled in the shock on Rimmon’s face.

  “They told you?”

  “No. Asmoday doesn’t even know that I know. I didn’t just take off in the steam coach to spite you. I wanted to see where I belonged. Now I know.”

  “But how did you manage to come back, to resist the allure of your body?”

  “How can you resist, that’s the real question.” J ohn grinned. “No, I was very tempted to stay, but there was too much unfinished business. That, and I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to Dante, B olo… you.” J ohn felt his emotions rising. “L ook, I ’ll probably always find you irresistible. O nce love is there, you’re stuck with it. The best I can do is try to tame it into being the love of friendship. I t won’t be easy, but if you’re willing to forgive the occasional relapse, I think we’ll be all right.” R immon shook his head. “You never cease to amaze me. I ’m looking forward to seeing what becomes of you, John, both in life and in death.” J ohn broke his gaze, unable to handle his feelings anymore, and looked to his feet.

  Far below a blue star awaited them.

  “The old man who created the construction vehicle is a friend of mine, and he’s in trouble. I think I can help if you can get me close.”

  “Getting close has never been our problem,” Rimmon said.

  B efore J ohn could retort R immon grabbed him and flipped in the air. S oon they were nose-diving, not slowing even when P urgatory became planet-sized again.

  Demon and spider alike leapt out of the way as they plummeted toward the excavator.

  R immon’s aim was good, the cabin of the vehicle directly ahead and nearing. The only obstacle in the way was one stubborn P rop whose arachnid arms were raised, ready to attack.

  “Go!” Rimmon said, tossing John aside before tackling the creature.

  J ohn fell the rest of the way, crashing painlessly into the excavator, just inches from the cabin door. He looked up to where R immon was fighting, relieved to see the ba le going in the demon’s favor, before returning his a ention to the task at hand. J ohn threw open the cabin door and was promptly beat over the head with a baseball bat.

  “O w! S top that!” J ohn scolded the old man who was still in the midst of a ba le cry.

  “And next time try a sword or something sharp.”

  “I ’m sorry!” J acobi stu ered, the bat disappearing from his hand. “B less my stars! I can’t believe it’s you!”

  “L ong time no see.” J ohn grinned as the old man threw his arms around him. J ohn hugged him back before pushing him gently away to examine the cabin. “You built all this?”

  J acobi nodded enthusiastically. “I t took a few a empts, but I think I ’ve got the hang of it. I ’d never seen an excavator before, but other souls in P urgatory told me of their times and I did the best I could. I t functions primarily off will and desire, but intention is also crucial or else the actual purpose is lost to form, or at least—”

  “M aybe you could explain later. R ight now it’s important that you keep going. We need a hole big enough to bring our army in. We’ll take care of the rest after that.” J acobi hurried to the seat, which didn’t include any sort of controls. I nstead he sat perfectly still, sticking his tongue out in concentration. S lowly an arm of the excavator moved forward and dislodged a few more souls. Demons and spiders in ba le occasionally blocked their view, but the arms continued to work, one at a time.

  “Can’t you use all four at once?” John asked.

  “I had hoped to,” J acobi admi ed, “but it’s rather more difficult than I anticipated.

  That terrible numb feeling from the dome conducts along the arms like electricity and makes everything more difficult.”

  “Let me try,” John offered. “I always had an easier time with that.” And it felt good to know why. He was a soul half in this world, half in another. J ohn understood his advantage now, and as far as P urgatory was concerned, there would be a reckoning.

  John hopped into the seat. “How does it work?”

  “That’s what I was trying to explain earlier,” Jacobi complained.

  “I guess now would be a good time, then.”

  W hen wanting something done in life, the process began with the brain, which then told the body what to do through a series of electrical impulses. There was no such system here, so the will had to be flexed as muscles once were. S imply desiring an arm of the excavator to move forward wasn’t enough. J ohn also had to imbue his desire with intention. O therwise the arm might move through the souls without ever touching them, for outside a realm’s borders, physical law did not exist. J ohn made a couple of fal
se starts, but when he did get it right, he sent dozens of souls flying.

  B uoyed by his success, he tried again, this time with two arms. S imultaneously, they tore into the blue barrier, freeing more souls than ever. The spiders were left behind, grabbing at nothing before being set upon by demons.

  J ohn dug back into the barrier, adding more instructions to his intentions and more oomph to his will. He was an engineer. He understood concepts like structural integrity, how an entire building could crumble with enough damage to just the right area. J ohn called on these principals, willing all four arms into motion and focusing on his goal. The hole was large now, revealing the gray mist below. All four arms of the excavator reached into the hole, hooked onto the edges of the dome, and pulled.

  And it happened. The entire barrier crumbled into pieces and dissolved, millions of souls coming alive again for the first time in a century. V oices filled the air, excited, puzzled, and babbling about the different realms they each saw before disappearing.

  They had done it! They had breached Purgatory’s defenses.

  * * * * *

  The gray sky above was a bandage wrapped suffocatingly tight around the soul.

  P urgatory had only one park, a space devoid of fauna or flora. O nce an old man pretended to be these things, but he had disappeared long ago. S ome still gathered here, weary individuals who could no longer bring themselves to rush mindlessly along the streets or play games that earned useless points. They came here to stand in silent defeat, to let time wash over them.

  B ut today there was something new. For the first time in decades a breeze blew through this concrete garden. A few looked up, awakened by memories of leaves ski ering across the ground, of autumn, a time of death and a harbinger of change.

  B oats and wagons came from the sky, some pulled by beasts, others guided by chariots. A dark wooden coach, covered in bronze pipes that hissed with steam, was the first to alight. Then the coach was still, waiting as its companions chose places to land.

  The cobwebs of the mind were brushed away as once dull eyes took in the joyous sight of something new. M any gasped as the door of the rickety old steam coach swung open and a figure stepped out. He was dressed in a suit of jade that covered every inch of him, even his face. The jade helmet turned as it swept the crowd before an arm shot into the air.

  O n this signal, thousands of clay soldiers poured from the wagons and boats to gather around him. G ods and goddesses threw back their cloaks, revealing themselves fully, the power of their auras changing the air around them. S unlight, love, passion, rain, soil: Each embodied something long-since absent in Purgatory.

  L ed by the man in jade, the army began to march. The citizens of P urgatory fell in behind them, laughing and leaping with joy as bards from the C eltic tribes began playing their songs. Flowers began to rain from the sky, summoned by the goddess Flora. Demons swept through the air on leathery wings, nipping at the flowers playfully and spinning around each other like dancers in the air. Next the sun came to P urgatory in the form of the goddess Amaterasu, who glided above their procession like a beacon of hope. I n only moments the visitors had won over the people of Purgatory, awakened them from their lethargy and rallied them to their cause.

  The parade of people and cultures flooded the streets, an unstoppable display of unity and strength. P urgatory would fall this day and the voice of humanity would be heard! Nothing could go wrong or stand in the way of the crowds, who cheered their support as they continued to join the procession.

  Then the buildings began to tremble, and all hell broke loose.

  Chapter Sixteen

  B eing back on the streets of P urgatory felt like returning to school as an adult. J ohn had once been sent to pick up his niece at school, and walking along the rows of beaten-up lockers had felt surreal. M emories had come pouring back, some good, many bad, but mostly J ohn had felt relief that the whole ordeal of public education was behind him. He only wished he could say the same for P urgatory. J ohn had returned to this school not to visit, but to burn it to the ground.

  Their plan was a good one, devised by the god of war himself. To J ohn’s surprise, Ares had not suggested brute force, but a strategy that involved subterfuge and cunning. They were facing an unknown enemy here. The extent of P urgatory’s forces and the preparations they had made for invasion were both unknown. The best Hell’s army could do, Ares insisted, was to walk straight into the most obvious trap.

  J ohn’s part in this plan was to lead his terraco a troops in an a ack on the administration building. As the only centralized source of intelligence on P urgatory, it was the most public locale they could advance on. This was, no doubt, exactly what the enemy expected them to do. Newly arrived souls were led through administration to reinforce the belief that this was their headquarters, but Ares felt this was only a farce, a false target designed to a ract a ention. The real ba le would be fought elsewhere, but in order to keep their true plan a secret, they had to show the enemy what they expected to see.

  The parade wasn’t a spontaneous celebration. They wanted to make their presence instantly known, a show of their numbers and diversity. As calculated as this move was, ge ing lost in the spirit took li le effort. The delight of being outside their realms, of mingling with other cultures, made the gods feel elated, and their joy was contagious. J ohn hoped that they wouldn’t be met with resistance, that the light they had brought to P urgatory would be enough to liberate it completely. He wished even more that his friends were there to share this moment with him, but they had a more important mission and he was alone.

  Aside from Yi Yi, that was. The li le soldier beamed and waved at the crowds when not looking back at the man in the jade suit. All of the soldiers did this, their fixation on J ohn not allowing them to look away for long. As long as J ohn wore the suit, he was their leader. He felt enormous responsibility, even though he didn’t understand if they were souls, too. Perhaps their po er imbued them with life as they were sculpted and given individual details and names. J ohn wasn’t sure, but he was determined to take care of them and not to treat them like toy soldiers. Nor would he let the people of Purgatory stand by while his army took all the risks.

  “Do you want freedom?” John shouted to the crowd.

  The answer was less than impressive, so he repeated the question until he roused a healthy chorus of “Yes!” from them.

  “What do you want?” John roared.

  “Freedom!”

  The crowd was falling in line, becoming part of the army.

  “What you want?”

  “FREEDOM!”

  “What do you want?”

  “FREE—”

  A tearing noise filled the air, the buildings on either side of the street trembling.

  Facades that housed nothing resembling their outsides began to crack and split. From out of the dark crevices, P rops appeared, only a few at first before they began to flow like water onto the street. At first the P rops remained humanoid, but soon they shifted to other forms. M any became spiders, but others took on new shapes, thin arms forming skeletal wings that flapped and lifted the creatures into the air. S ome remained upright on two legs, but their hands were replaced by stingers, buzzing with stunning energy.

  The nearest of these struck out, stinging a citizen and a terraco a soldier simultaneously. The citizen went still, instantly subdued, but the soldier wasn’t affected at all. As one, the li le clay faces turned to look at J ohn, awaiting instruction.

  He hesitated no more.

  “Arm yourselves!”

  Weapons of light blazed into the hands of the terraco a men. S ome held bows and arrows, some swords, others long staves with curved blades on the end. W hat to do now? C itizen after citizen was falling, the P rops having turned their a ention away from the soldiers they couldn’t affect. O ther P rops had become four-legged creatures that were rushing toward the rear.

  “Protect the people!” he shouted.

  His army leapt in
to action. Three, sometimes four soldiers at a time would a ack a P rop, cu ing off limbs. They dismembered as quickly as they could before moving to their next target, but still more P rops poured from the facades. S creams filled the air as panic increased, the citizens of P urgatory running in all directions. This was good.

  Word of the battle would spread, which is what they wanted.

  B ehind J ohn all manner of magic was being unleashed. Too many of the four-legged P rops had made it through their defenses. The power of the gods was supposed to be reserved for another enemy, not this initial wave of assault. S ome of the citizens tried to fight, but they weren’t prepared, their bare hands ineffective. M ost of them retreated to the middle of the army for protection.

  J ohn needed the archers to take down the flying P rops and those scu ling toward their flanks. To J ohn’s surprise, all it took was a thought from him and his troops responded. Half the archers turned their a ention upward; the others began picking off P rops as soon as they began to shapeshift. The arrows didn’t have a tranquilizing effect on the Props, but they could sever wings or pin those earthbound to the wall.

  B odies began to stack up, to block the rifts in the buildings. New P rops couldn’t rush them anymore. The tide had slowed enough that J ohn was able to lead his troops forward to another block. C ontinuing with this strategy would allow them to reach their target.

  The buildings here also ruptured, but they were prepared this time and able to stem the flow of P rops much quicker. J ohn was about to give the signal to move forward when gravel rained over him. A smacking noise followed, and more gravel showered down. The P rops had changed their strategy. I nstead of stingers, their hands had become mallets that they swung wildly. W henever these hammers connected with a soldier, his terraco a body sha ered. S ome lost their heads or an arm and kept fighting, but these were easy targets for the Props, who soon reduced them to rubble.