Kobal
Arriving at the bolted, smooth, rock door, I jerked at the handle, but it remained unmoving within my grasp. Lifting my fists, I pounded against the door. “River!” I shouted. “River!”
“Kobal, come on. We’ll find another way in,” Bale said.
“You don’t know if there is another way in.”
“Magnimus would always have another way in and out,” Corson replied. “He’s a pussy, but he’s not stupid.”
Magnimus. I’d peel the skin from his body one leisurely inch at a time if the last surviving demon of illusions hurt River in anyway. Magnimus had once been one of my strongest and most loyal supporters. He’d once stood proudly beside Corson and Bale as he helped to wage war against Lucifer and his cronies.
Then, one day, he’d abruptly pulled out of the war and retreated to this corner of Hell where he’d spent centuries weaving his illusions. I didn’t know why he’d retreated, he’d never said, but I’d only seen him a handful of times since. Every time, he’d walked away from me without a word.
If he’d joined Lucifer’s side, I would have killed him. However, though he’d pissed me off, and I thought more of sludge than I did of Magnimus, I could not bring myself to kill someone because they became too cowardly to fight anymore. I could kill him without blinking if he touched River.
“He’ll know she’s your Chosen,” Corson said.
“Is that going to be a good thing or a bad thing?” I grated through my teeth.
Corson opened his mouth to respond before closing it. At one time, the answer would have been clear. Now it was not. None of us knew who Magnimus was anymore, what side he stood on, or what he was thinking. All we knew was he enjoyed luring others into this corner of Hell.
I’d never stepped into Magnimus’s domain before, but he was known for his illusions of grandeur and horror. Known for his ability to drive souls and other demons who stumbled into his trap insane with his grueling torment. Few escaped, and most of those who did ranted about unimaginable monsters, of gruesome games, rooms that were not rooms, and things that came to life.
My breath heaved in and out of me as I turned away from the door. I was brought up short by half a dozen lanavours floating only feet away. “Now is not the time,” I snarled at them.
Lunging forward, I closed my hand around the throat of one and lifted it into the air.
Its voice filled my head when its hands gripped my wrists. “You’re not good enough for her, you never could be. Even with her heritage, she is innocent and you are the son of Hell. Look at you fighting for the throne of darkness while she suffers because of you. She will die and you will be the one who brought her that death.”
I shook its voice from my head as it fed my fears back to me. Thrusting its head to the side with my thumb, I shoved its limp body away from me before turning to the next one. I didn’t give this one a chance to try to read me. I clasped its head and spun it on its thin shoulders, tearing it away in one motion. Taking the head, I heaved it at the next lanavour in line, smacking him on the forehead with it.
The lanavour fell back as Corson leapt forward and slashed it across the middle, effectively slicing it in half. I spun to face the rest of them, but Bale and Corson had already taken them out.
“Kobal.” Turning to face Bale, I froze when I realized the thick door had opened a crack.
I grabbed hold of the door and thrust it open. Stepping into the room, I barely noticed the creatures sprawled around it as I searched frantically for River. She was nowhere to be seen amongst the blood and carnage.
“She did some damage,” Corson said as the door closed behind us.
I spotted another door in the center of the spinning contraption across from me. “What is that thing?” I demanded.
“A carousel,” Corson replied. “Humans use them for entertainment.”
“That looks far from entertaining,” Bale murmured.
“I don’t think Magnimus intended it to be,” Corson replied.
Striding forward, I barely registered the high-pitched strains of music as I climbed onto the glass floor of the carousel and headed directly toward the door.
***
River
“I always knew carnivals were a creation of Hell,” Hawk said as he stared at the booths and rides spread out before us. Except these rides were nothing like I’d ever seen as a child.
I didn’t know what I’d been expecting when we’d gone through the carousel door, but it certainly hadn’t been the giant clown hanging over the gates before us, or the silver turnstiles glimmering in the flickering lights wrapped around the poles of the gates. It all seemed surreal, but it was as real as the boots on my feet.
“Really?” I asked as I tried to ignore my sweating palms and the blood rushing through my ears.
“Where else would clowns have come from?”
Despite the tension gripping my body, I couldn’t help but chuckle as I knew he’d wanted me to. “We’ll get through this.”
“We will. Just start torching things now. You can start with anything wearing too big shoes and a red nose. I imagine, in this place the only things clowns like to twist into animal shapes are our intestines.”
I winced at the image his words conjured. The first clown who came at me was going to take a fireball to the face.
Something moved in the darkness ahead of us, drawing my attention to the man strolling toward us. The shadows crept over him in such a way that it seemed as if he were a part of them. I swore one of the shadows caressed his face before it was chased away by the light.
A rock settled into the pit of my stomach as the man stepped up to the red booth set up beside the turnstiles. He was shorter than I was, but he exuded an aura of power that made me realize there was far more to him than met the eye. He raised a megaphone to his mouth.
“Come one, come all to the greatest show of them all!” the barker called. The man, dressed in tails and a top hat, spun a silver cane in his nimble fingers while he spoke. “You can see the bearded woman, the two-ton gallapos demon, and the fifteen-foot salavandor demon. Enjoy the rides, the games, the food. There’s something for everyone. Come on in!”
The barker’s black eyes shone with merriment as he leaned toward us. His face had a sheen to it that made me question if he were real or some wax figurine brought to life in this vile place. His black hair had been slicked back from the hard angles of his face, a face that was far from handsome in its ruthlessness.
“I’ll share a secret with you. You can’t stay on that side,” he placed his hand against his cheek as he whispered conspiringly to us. “If you do, the worms will eat you.”
As if on cue, something moved beneath my feet. I jumped back and glanced down as the ground shifted to reveal a large, round, brown thing slithering under me. Segmented like an earthworm, I felt as if I were standing above an earthworm’s much larger and far less friendly cousin as it slashed its tail upward, flinging dirt over us.
Behind Hawk, another one rolled over, and I caught a glimpse of a round mouth full of three-inch-long, pointed teeth. Hawk shouted and jumped to the side when it snapped at him before it dove beneath the ground once more.
The two of us exchanged a glance before we ran for the turnstiles. The carnival had to be the lesser of the two evils, or at least the one that wouldn’t kill us right now. The cool metal of the turnstiles pressed against my palms. It clicked as it turned in place and I stepped into the carnival.
“Welcome! Welcome!” the barker greeted. I glared at him as Hawk stepped through the turnstile to stand beside me. “Good choice! I guarantee you’re going to have the ride of your life in here.”
The waxy-looking man grinned at me with a heart-sinking knowledge in his beady black eyes. He stepped away from us, vanishing into the shadows as if he’d never been there. I strained to see him, but nothing stirred the air where he’d once been.
“I suppose we continue,” I muttered to Hawk.
“If it keeps me from being worm shit, I’m all for it.”
My eyes ran over the game booths lining the concourse as we walked. I refused to look too closely at the one with a bunch of fishbowls lining the back wall. I was certain those weren’t fish swimming in there, and from my brief glimpse, I got the impression of leeches behind the glass.
The air didn’t stir, not even a breeze wafted through here. Dirt, instead of the solid black rock we’d encountered so far in Hell, crunched beneath our feet. It was as if we’d stepped into an entirely different universe, or stepped into something outside of Hell.
It was different than what we’d experienced so far, but I still felt the pulse of life flowing into me from the ground. I longed to set fire to everything, or blast it with life, but nothing had attacked us so far. No matter how much I hated this place, I couldn’t start torching it for no reason. I may unleash a whole horde of misery onto us if I did.
A man at a game leaned over the booth to hold a glass ball with what looked like blood inside of it out to us. “Win the pretty lady a bear,” he said to Hawk as he flipped the ball in his fingers.
My mouth went dry when I spotted the “bears” hanging from the hooks in the ceiling. I had no idea what they were, but they most certainly didn’t look like any bear I’d ever seen. Unless that bear weighed fifteen pounds, had the claws of a wolverine, the snout of a pig, and red eyes. The only thing bear-like about them were their thick brown coats. Jagged fangs hung over their bottom lips and blood seeped from the hooks dug into their backs.
I gasped when one of them swung out an arm, clawing at the air. “They’re alive,” I breathed.
“Of course, no stuffed bears here,” the man replied with a crooked smile.
I took a step away from the revolting creature as it continued to bat at the air.
“Come on now, win your girl a bear,” the man cajoled Hawk as he spun the ball faster in his deft fingers. The man’s head tilted to the side as he studied me. He inhaled deeply when his gaze fell to my neck and the mark on my shoulder that my shirt had slipped down to reveal. “Marked,” he breathed. “By—”