Guardians (Chosen Trilogy Book 2) (12 page)

Ken knew that with every step they
traveled they neared the first circle of hell, the Pit. It was there that the worst fiends that ever existed dwelled in all their fiendish depravity, and where Dementia and her crazy brother awaited, and where the very worst king of demons, Lucifer, lived.

No longer a terrifying legend. No longer a horror story. The Devil was coming back, and planning to make
Earth his bitch.

So Ken sought out Felicia, already tired of hearing Eliza quiz Lilith as to her origins. The demon Samael was a
strong opponent, but Ken refused to be overawed. The odds were stacked against them but he’d faced worse. Admittedly that was mostly in ‘Frisco’s pick-up bars on a Friday night, but it was all the experience he had to go on.

“You okay?”
he asked.

Felicia sniffed the air. “For now
we are. We’re fine. Why?”

“No. Are you okay?
You?
”

“Ha. Oh, Ken, just because we boned doesn’t mean you have to show affection for me. It will never work between us. I’d rip you to shreds
in the end.”

Ken saw that as a challenge, but then a new
, emerging, man took over and spoke for him. “You don’t have to be alone. We could . . . you know . . . look after each other.”

Where the hell
did that come from?
He clammed up fast before he said anything he might regret.

But Felicia now eyed him as more than just a previously boned meal. This was curiosity. Even attentiveness.

“You getting soft on me, Ken Hamilton?”

He didn’t know. All these feelings
. . . these caring, affectionate
responsible
emotions were as far removed from his normal behavior as black was to white these days. But . . .

What the hell,
he thought.
Go for it.

“I like you. Is that a crime?”

“Might be.” Felicia shrugged amiably. “Depends what the governments come up with.”

Ken had to admit that was a possibility. Image the offspring
—a surfing, pot-smoking werewolf.

“I could think of worse matchups.”

“Oh yeah.” Felicia cast a disgusted glance over at the vampire brethren. “Those guys and their
shades.
”

Lilith made her way beside them. “Can you sense a change coming?”

Felicia squinted and tested the air. “I can smell . . . water? Is that right? A large body of water.”

“You’re kidding
,” Ken said. “All that crap about Charon, the ferryman of Hades who carries the souls of the dead across the rivers Styx and Acheron.”

Felicia
’s eyes widened in surprise. “Wow. Where did you learn that? Not at school, I’m betting.”

Ken shrugged. “Chris De Burgh’s best.
Don’t Pay The Ferryman
and
Spanish Train
. Maybe we could challenge that old Devil to a game of chess.”

Lilith pointed ahead. “Over the rise there lie the rivers. I do
not know their names. They run down from the hills and join to form a great lake. Once over the lake we will find the entrance to the first circle of hell.”

“And this
ferryman.” Eliza had been listening. “Does he require some form of payment?”

Lilith blanched a little. “Murder.”

Now Ken lost some color of his own.
“What?”

“Only if he sees you commit murder
or even fouler deeds does he allow you to cross. After all, the first hell is not a place for good people, my friends. To get in or out you have to commit the sins that put people there in the first place.”

“Can we slip across unnoticed?”

“No. Charon guides the only boat.”

“So we have a big problem.” Ken said as the continued to walk. “We have nobody to murder.”

Milo smirked nastily at him. “There is always the weakest link.”

“Well, that would be you, fat boy.”

“Be careful with your tongue, little human.”

“Or what? You
’ll eat me?” Ken immediately regretted his choice of words. The vampire was ferocious enough and looked hungry and large enough to do just that.

Milo showed his fangs. Eliza cowed him with a glance. “Stop your nonsense.
Act like the supreme being you are supposed to be and not a ludicrous human.”

Ken grinned at the abruptly leashed vamp
ire and made a whipping motion. Milo’s expression changed from one of anger to one of condescension, as if now aloof from such trivial concerns.

Felicia brought their attention back around. “Ken has a point though. How are we going to fool this Charon?”

“We won’t have to,” Lilith said. “The shores of the River Styx and the River Acheron are piled high with the dead, most of whom have been murdered. We merely each place a coin in one corpse’s mouth as is custom and present that body to Charon. Then we accompany it across.”

“The debt is paid
,” Ken mused. “Where do the bodies come from?”

“They are the souls of the dead. Condemned to dwell in the first circle of hell.”

“Lawyers,” Ken said with a grin. “Bankers. Dirty cops. People that hurt kids.”

“No
,” Lilith grated. “They have their own pit of fire reserved right under the Devil’s throne. Literally, in the bowels of hell.”

Ken grimaced. “So
hell at least does something right.”

“There is no place anywhere for those
that would abuse the weak. Not even in the first circle of hell.”

“And again,” Eliza breathed. “I would ask how you come to know all this.”

“Been here a while,” Lilith said breezily. “Know a lot.”

They climbed the sharp rise, slowing as they neared the top. As he walked
, Ken heard a peculiar sound. It was the wailing of someone in pain, a man trapped in a dark well knowing he would never get out, a woman lost in the crawling dark. It was the sound of uninhibited wretchedness. The wail intensified as they reached the peak, now splitting as though it came from a hundred throats, a thousand.

Ken crept over the top. “Shit
,” he said. “This is the spookiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Felicia crawled to his side. “
Huh. You’ve clearly never been to a Next sale.”

“A what?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Ken stared at the spectacle laid out before him.
An inky black lake filled the horizon, fed by two sludgy rivers that flowed along deep jagged, troughs that looked like they’d been cut with bone saws. There were no waves, no obvious flow to the waters, but a murky rise and fall crept over the beach like heart blood leaking from a dying man. But that wasn’t the worst of it, not by a long shot. Even the vampires gasped.

Bodies were piled in slovenly disarray all across the beach
, reaching up into the foothills. They lay sprawled, slumped and stretched, one across the other until Ken couldn’t tell which torso or which limb belonged to which. There seemed to be no clear path between them, and the stench that rose stung the back of his throat like acid.

“Oh God
,” he said. “Oh my God.”

Lilith had wait
ed at the back, not wishing to see the beach again, and now he knew why. He turned to her.

“You’ve crossed this already? How?”

The young girl shook her head. “Seriously, I don’t know. Desperation.”

“It’s
. . . atrocious.”

“This is the true pathway to
hell. All the rest is wreckage. Junk. The waste of conquered worlds. The first circle is the true hell, where all the bad things live. You think you’ve done well so far? You’ve not even begun.”

Ken caught her vibe and agreed. The prospect of walking through
hell had not been a pleasant one, but the actual act had so far been relatively painless. Yes, they had lost one of their party, they had been attacked by demonic foliage and some kind of fiendish Bruce Lee, but he had imagined worse.

Again he eyed the bodies.

“Ain’t going anywhere,” he said. “Until we cross that water. You guys ready?”

Even the vampires eyed him with distaste.

*

Ken led the way down the high hills, picking his way with care. At this point it didn’t matter who saw them. The scene was hard enough to take in anyway, but now a great, h
igh wooden boat or ship had arrived, seemingly constructed from jagged beams and black ichor. It was four stories high, and impossibly clumsy on the water. Its sides jutted every which way, giving it the appearance of a spiny dinosaur. There were no windows, no decks, just the structure itself and a curved, pointed bow. At the head of the bow a figurehead protruded—the carven face of Lucifer. At the tip of every rotten-looking timber sat a human head, eyes flicking from side to side in fear. Thousands of them covered the ship. As it drifted in and came to a stop, a gangplank extended, striking the beach with a thud. The first off were the desolate ones, shambling beings wrapped in robes, staring at the ground and crying out with every step they took.

“Nails in their feet
,” Lilith confided. “Doomed to wander forever.”

“Crap, I didn’t need to know that.”

Next off was a variety of terrors. Demons, flying devils. Imps and sprites. Unnamable creatures that lurched forth on many legs, their teeth heavy mandibles snapping at the air. White hairless shapes that somehow managed to ooze forward, tentacles waving and suckers gaping madly. For a few moments the beach was full, busy, then the various creatures began to disperse.

Lilith held them all back. “Wait.”

Eliza frowned. “But shouldn’t we—”

A
great gong sounded and Lilith started forward at pace. As they rose many other creatures came into view. All had been hiding and were now aiming for the beach and the great ship. As Ken climbed down to a path that led between bodies, he turned cautiously to Lilith.

“So we just grab one? And take it to the boat?”

“Yes. Don’t be squeamish.”

Ken shook his head hard. Squeamish wasn’t the word.
Sickened
and
appalled
didn’t quite come close either. He stared at the closest body, then picked on the easiest one to grab. The white arms were outstretched and pointing toward him as if they were asking him to save the person from drowning. The head hung back at an impossible angle, the mouth was wide open in the rictus of screaming death. Ken started digging around in his pockets.

“So. Any coin? Are we talking some kind of currency here?”

Lilith glared as if he was mad. “Just put a coin on the tongue, close the mouth and walk with it.”

Ken grumped as much as he dared. “I was only asking because I know some people just hate those Scottish pound notes.
Can’t get rid of ‘em anywhere.”

Felicia tapped his shoulder. “Can I borrow a quarter?” She tapped her pockets. “Don’t have any money.”

Ken half-smiled. “Ha. Bet you wish you cared a little more about materialist things now, huh?”

Ken rattled out some change,
and tentatively reached up and dropped a silver quarter into the cavernous mouth. Then, with the stench of bodies and the constant, disembodied wailing surrounding them, the little group pulled their chosen corpses from the countless piles and hefted them across their shoulders. They trudged toward the lake.

Weighed down, disgusted, Ken felt more wretched than at any time in his life. This wasn’t heroism. Glory. This was nothing short of utter torment. Each step caused the dead body to rap against him, the dangling hands striking the backs of his thighs. By the time he’d cleared the rotting heaps he was totally freaked out.

He reached the beach, and the great ship sat silently and motionlessly before him. The gangplank was already full of creatures, all carrying different forms of the dead. The procession onto the boat was also made in silence, in despair. Ken halted, and wavered.

“I
. . . I don’t think I can do this.”

Milo smirked and hefted his own body, but said nothing. Eliza stared at him with pity. “It is not for you to decide. You do this for your people. Their children. You are a soldier now and only you can help them.”

Felicia patted his arm. “I’m going,” she said. “Me. The girl that would rather die than be trapped. I love my liberty, the freedom of the run, but I am going through with this.”

Ken bit his lip. “Why?”

“Because I know that my friends back there,” she gave a nod of her head, indicating Miami and beyond, “are fighting and dying and struggling to save us too. And I will not fail them.”

Ken felt a glow develop somewhere inside, a feeling unknown to him.
“How do you know they’re not dead already?”

“In here
,” Felicia touched her heart, “I know they fight on.”