Page 44 of Hellbound

The answer was “we don’t,” but Marian couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud. Tori’s reluctance confused her, but Marian kept pushing. “Leave. I’ll be OK.”

Tori’s distress morphed into a scowl. “Now that’s a lie.”

Ah, right. Marian grit her teeth. There wasn’t time for this.

An idea popped into her head as the Remnant’s silhouette took shape in the mist, a massive, hulking amalgam of horrors.

“You need to go help Lloyd bring me back to life,” Marian said.

Tori nodded furiously. “OK, OK, yeah. I can do that.”

Marian’s twinge of relief was short-lived as the stone bridge beneath their feet began to quiver. The Remnant reached through the fog with a long, barbed limb with too many joints to count.

Marian snarled when Tori’s light didn’t go out.

“For fuck’s sake, get out of here and bring me back to life! I’m not going to let the Remnant take me again without a fight.”

It wasn’t a lie. But Marian realized too late that it was the wrong thing to say. Tori had begun to dim, her presence turning thready. The traveler’s amber eyes flared brilliant yellow.

“Again?” Tori asked just before her figure collapsed.

The traveler was gone, leaving a few amber threads of light in her wake. They floated limply through the air before dissolving into darkness, leaving Marian alone and bereft of a witness as the Remnant stalked toward her.

Alone, her whole body shook with fear as she stared up at the writhing void fanning out around her. It shuddered. A multitude of gnashing faces contorted in anguish as they bulged through its surface. It extended spider-like limbs, anchoring itself to the bridge. Her heart jumped into her throat as stone beneath her feet began to crack. She stared at the monster, frozen with fear.

Incomplete memories sliced through her mind. Pain without a source. Confusion. Countless nights on Earth screaming in fear of this thing, and yet ignorant of what she’d endured in its clutches.

The unknown had come for her, and Marian refused to go back.

“You want me?” Marian screamed at the darkness. “Come and get me, you mother fucking shit cloud.”

Mouths emerged from its all-consuming darkness, snapping and snarling at her before they turned to devour each other. All while long, smooth limbs broke free of its body and reached slowly for her. Dozens of them straining to touch her, to embrace her.

White hot pain lanced Marian’s knife hand, the metal suddenly scalding. The knife thrummed in her grip with a weak, but steady pulse. Its edges blurred as the black metal gave way to shadows and smoke. Wisps of darkness poured forth from its surface and dripped to her feet in a pool of velvety smoke. Light shaped like her scar shone through her braided wristband.

What was happening? The knife burned, its hilt a fiery brand in her palm, and yet she couldn’t let go. She didn’t want to let go, despite the pain. Her intuition coaxed her to dig deep, to find strength and hold on as the smoke enveloped her body in a sinuous aura. Tendrils of shadow caressed her neck before they lashed at the Remnant, severing its limbs before they could reach her.

The cavern exploded into cacophonous screeching, the sound of the Remnant’s anguish more horrible than anything Marian had ever heard in life or death.

A spidery limb launched at her, but Marian raised the knife in reflex. When the blow came, the blade took it. Marian’s knees locked as she fought to hold her ground, all while black static exploded where the Remnant had struck.

Another skull-piercing shriek. The Remnant recoiled, the long, leathery black limb sizzling as it melted away. It grew another. Then another. More than Marian could count.

Her knife hand shook as her scar burned. Two more times, the Remnant struck, and both times, her shadows repelled its blows, destroying a piece of the monster that quickly grew back. Each hit winded Marian until her vision swam and her body swayed.

She couldn’t keep this up.

An impossible sight took the rest of her breath away.

A blood red flame ignited high above the Remnant, a sliver of pitch splitting it up the center. Another split flame ignited beside it. Then another, smaller flame. And then another, until there were a dozen flames overhead, no two the same size. One by one, they extinguished and flared to life again. Blinking in and out of existence. Dread ballooned in Marian’s chest as she realized what she was seeing.

Eyes. They’re eyes.

The air swelled around her with a low, familiar rumble that tugged at something stuck deep in Marian’s mind. Like a fleet of jet engines whirring to life. Wickedly curved stalactites pierced the darkness. Rows and rows of them emerged below the cluster of eyes. Not stone, Marian’s hindbrain shrieked again. Teeth.

It opened its snarling maw and launched at the Remnant.

It all happened too fast. A fang sliced through the Remnant’s core, pinning it to the bridge. Enormous limbs pawed at the darkness. The ground shook and Marian had nowhere to go. She backed up as far as she could, to the very edge of the broken bridge.