Yeah, well, I’m dead.
I managed to focus all my Time Manipulation powers on Enil, but that just meant he was moving at me at a runner’s pace and I was already dead. Ironically, that gave me a sense of slowed-down time in the more traditional metaphorical sense. The whole, “when your life flashes before you” moment. There was absolutely nothing that could stop Enil from tearing me to pieces and, honestly, I wasn’t entirely sure I didn’t deserve it.
Who knew that asshole in the bathroom was the son of the second oldest vampire in the world? It was a stark reminder that everyone you killed had a family somewhere. Jackson certainly hadn’t thought anyone would miss Damien or that he’d end up getting murdered by a friend of mine on the eve of saving the world. A friend of mine he hadn’t thought of as a threat because he’d known him as a dorky kid from high school.
A friend I’d made into a killer.
I wasn’t about to just let Enil kill me, even though I was sure there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I was going down, but I was going down swinging. Lifting my claws, I bared my fangs at the guy. Lucinda struck Enil with a massive hail storm of shadowy arrows as well as an enormous fist made of Stygian darkness. Mina lifted an anti-tank rifle one of the vampire posse had possessed. Lucien the dragon, became a dragon again, and breathed out fire akin to a space shuttle’s liftoff. Wyatt’s people all fired pistols and shotguns at Enil. Even David lifted a trash can and threw it at him.
Yeah, that didn’t do much.
Thoth, meanwhile, clapped his hands together and slapped them down on the ground. The entirety of the amusement park around us became a fiery, distorted Silent Hill-looking version of itself as we were suddenly inside an enormous Enochian circle. Which, in simple terms, meant there were all sorts of crazy glowing runes on the ground around us, and it looked like it was barely keeping out hell itself.
“Thoth, what did you do?” I asked, trying to keep Enil slowed down. The ancient vampire had his body shredded to pieces only for it to twist and deform into a blackish mist that swirled into a Lovecraftian collection of eyeballs, teeth, and tendrils. It also grew and became eleven and then twenty feet tall.
“We are in hell now,” Thoth said, simply. “The power to open and close the gateways between worlds is restricted purely to those who might be human.”
“I have no idea what you said beyond we’re in hell!” I yelled back at him.
“It is the only place where Gog can be defeated!” Thoth shouted.
“Fool!” Gog shouted, laughing. “I am at my strongest here. I may be imprisoned upon your world, but this is the world of nightmares upon which I may rule all.”
“It is also the place Enil can force you to return his son’s soul,” Thoth said, simply.
That was when the twenty-foot-tall monster turned around and threw itself at Gog. The tiny homo erectus man was consumed by the hideous malformed thing, and they both disappeared into the cracked smoldering concrete beneath us.
Sam felt her head and fell to her knees. “The horrors around us. I feel all of it. The pain, the suffering, the terror! My husband’s soul is here, I can feel it.”
I could feel her making a connection with the horrible energies of the place. Outside of our protective circle, I saw burning people banging on the air around our circle. Some of them looked familiar, and for a second, I saw the jealous and hateful eyes of my brother. He mouthed a few words at me and shook a fist, furious at the fact I was alive and immortal.
“T, tell me this place is full of illusions,” I said, looking at Damien. “That I can’t trust what I see.”
“You can’t trust what you see,” Thoth said, clasping his hands together.
“You need to return us to the physical world,” Lucinda said, turning to Thoth. “Let us abandon Enil and his master in the prison all our kind are condemned to.”
“I am trying,” Thoth said, sounding more than a little stressed.
“Trying?” Wyatt said, waving around his gun at the spirits around us.
I could see the gathering souls around us included people I’d killed, people from the Wild West, knights, and more. There were a few BOSS agents and vampire hunters too. I was only making a guess, but I suspected the souls we’d sent here were interested in having a rematch. Given your average vampire killed at least one person a year even if they were of a genuinely kind sort, I didn’t want to think about what that said we were likely to encounter here.
That was when the ground shattered beneath me, and an enormous frigging worm burst through the hellish ground. I mean, I’m talking full on sandworm of Dune sort of massive thing, complete with enormous mouth and thick slimy body that I could see nightmarish wings sprouting out of.
“We have worm sign!” I shouted, charging at the creature because I was too scared to run away. No, I wasn’t sure about the logic behind that. “Is this Enil or Gog?”
“Both!” Thoth shouted.
I will wear your race’s flesh like my own skin, Gog’s voice spoke in my mind. With the power of this ancient blood, I will enslave the vampire race and make you gather the millions of sacrifices necessary to awaken my brethren. I will—
I started slashing at the base of the worm with my claws and biting chunks of it out with my teeth.
Peter, that’s just pathetic, Gog said.
“Screw you,” I said, attacking the monster with a vicious frenzied fury. “If you’re so badass, why do you live in hell?”
I don’t know what it was about that statement that ticked Gog off but the demon possessing Enil let forth an inhuman scream and fire started flying up from the ground around us. I saw the Viking Dude, Odin, scream as he was incinerated. Wyatt fired a revolver repeatedly into the enormous monster. Each of the bullets struck with an explosion of lightning, ice, and fire. However, being a cowboy wizard didn’t mean much as Gog spun around its enormous body and swallowed him whole.
“No!” Thomas, the Blade wannabe, cried out before charging at the monster and burying his sword into its side. It resulted in the vampire being carried along like a fly on its back before being thrown past the edge of the protective circle. What happened next was the vampire getting torn to pieces by the legions of the damned outside of it.
Thoth tossed me his blood-sword, which I managed to catch. In my hands, the illusion dropped and the item he’d been using as a cane returned to its true form: The Tooth of Azazel. It was a big sword made of a demon’s literal tooth that pulsed with inhuman demonic power. Which, it turned out, was every bit as useful against demons as holy power.
“Distract it!” Thoth shouted.
“Wait, what?” I shouted.
Mina kept shooting at the thing with her anti-tank gun like she was in a video game and trying to cherry tap the thing to death. I had to admit it was kind of hot. Even hotter was Yuki running up the back of the creature and slicing across its side.
“Yeah, I think she should be using the sword!” I shouted back.
“Do it!” Thoth said. “Or we’re all going to spending a very long time with all the people we’ve killed.”
Dammit.
Lifting myself up in the air with my flight abilities, I felt a strange new sense of control as I surged forward and sliced against the side of the monstrous worm. I spun around and sliced it again and again, maneuvering with much greater skill than I ever had before. It took a second for me to realize that was because I had a goddamn pair of bat wings growing out of my back. I’d also developed a nasty set of hair all over my face and arms.
I was in hell, had wings, and facing an enormous worm. At that point, logic went out the window and I charged to impale the Tooth of Azazel into the bottom of the creature’s massive jaw, shouting, “Nuh, nuh, nuh, nuh, BATTTMANNNNNN!”
The very pissed off giant monster hit me with a kind of weird psychic blast which sent me tumbling down out of the air. I thudded to the ground as the bones in my body shattered all at once. The worm above me opened its mouth, the Tooth of Azazel sticking out of the bottom of its jaw and descending upon me.
“Dammit,” I muttered, unable to move or slow the creature down.
David grabbed me and carried me away from the oncoming doom. It landed a few feet behind me, tearing up the ground around us. I owed David my life at that moment, and I vowed to make that up to him.
“Thanks, man,” I said, glad I wasn’t literal worm food.
“I’m trying,” David said, lowering his head. “But it’s not working.”
The giant worm raised itself high, only to find itself bound in enormous thorny vines made of shadow that I assumed came from Lucinda. I noticed Lucien flying around, blasting it repeatedly with its dragon breath. He was badly injured, blood running down from a missing leg and one of his wings had a huge hole in it. Apparently, not enough to keep him down but a sign of this fight’s stress.
“We are not winning this,” Lucinda said, looking like she was concentrating with every fiber of her being.
“No shit!” I shouted, wondering if Yukie was doing any better. Looking over, I saw her on the ground and not moving.
Mina moved over to her side and checked her pulse, shaking her head. Apparently, she’d run out of ammunition. She was soon joined by Sam, who’d done approximately jack all during this fight and I was doing my best not to resent.
I’m sorry, Peter, Sam said, mentally. I think I know how to help now.
Now would be a good fricking time, I replied.
“Ah hell,” I said, unsure of what was going to happen next. “Thoth, if you’ve got any magic tricks left, now is the time to use ’em.”
“No more rabbits out of my hat, Peter,” Thoth said, missing an arm. “I can seal its power or get us home, but it will just ride back with us.”
I looked over at him. “Kill this fucker.”
Lucinda looked over. “It has been an honor sharing part of eternity with you, husband.”
David looked over, and there was a look of happiness at that. As if the prospect of imminent death wasn’t something to be feared.
Thoth nodded and cast a series of spells in a language I didn’t understand, invoking that same terrible noise that was apparently Gog’s true name and then another name that sounded like two rocks banging together. I could see why Enil changed his name. No sooner was the spell over that the worm creature smashed its way out of Lucinda’s cage of thorns.
“I shall take an eternity to know your pain!” Gog’s all-too-human voice came from the giant worm.
Somehow, Gog didn’t feel quite as intimidating as he used to, though. He didn’t feel as powerful as Enil either. I didn’t know, exactly, what sealing a possessed vampire’s power meant but I guessed it wasn’t good for the thing. With any luck, Thoth’s spell meant we could kill both, and his statement that he didn’t have enough juice to get us out of hell wasn’t true. I knew Thoth and he always had another plan.
He dissipated the protective circle around us and let in all the hundreds of thousands of souls surrounding us. If I had a wall, I would have banged my head against it.
Sam pulled out a pocket knife and cut Yukie’s arm, causing a glowing white light to cover us all.
It burned like a mother.
Above our heads, I saw an ocean of souls sail over our heads, grabbing the side of Gog’s worm form and biting into it. Gog thrashed and screamed but was torn into thousands of pieces, devoured alive. It let out nightmarish wails while it died, exaggerated by the fact it was an inhuman beast. Then, in an instant, the souls parted, and there was no sign of the creature. I would have rejoiced if not for the fact we were still in hell.
Much to my surprise, Sam and a now-human shaped Lucien picked up the slack and cast the exact same spell Thoth had used to transport us here. I was stunned they knew spells to get a person out of hell but, then again, both were Thoth’s Bloodsworn apprentices. This might have been a day trip for them.
The dark red skies of hell vanished, and the twisted parody of an amusement park reverted to its previous form. The ground, utterly torn up by the giant earthworm we just fought (weird even by my standards), was left completely pristine. For a second, I saw two final ghosts stare at us with judgmental eyes. One was Enil, and the other was a handsome, depressed looking boy who I suspect was the real face of the guy I’d killed in the bathroom. Neither of them looked like they were happy to let me go.
But go we did.
“Like a Bat Outta Hell” by Meatloaf started playing on the Halloween Island speakers and I burst out laughing.
“I think we’re going to make it,” I muttered.
David collapsed on the ground and started rotting.
“No!”