Flotsam Prison Blues Read online

  He was still smoking one of my cigs. I took it from his mouth and took a drag off it. He growled a little at me.

  “Shut it, fuzzy. They’re mine anyway,” I told the big god.

  In the months since the Abraxas incident, I’d learned that Vidar was afflicted with the Curse of Fenris. In other words, he was a freaking werewolf. I reckon that before he killed the great beast, Fenris got a good bite on the god. Vidar’s leather and metal bracers and boots were actually made with the skin of Fenris and pieces of the chain that held him, Gleipnir. The combination helped him keep the beast at bay until he was ready to let him out.

  Apparently taking a smoke from a nicotine-starved werewolf was tempting a lunar release. Reluctantly, I shoved the smoke back in his mouth. Vidar smiled his thanks.

  “Gonna live?” he asked, patting my back, and I nodded. I felt the Collective doing its work.

  I gestured for a smoke and he gave me one, even lighting it for me. How generous of him. “I’ll need a few minutes more, though,” I said. The god nodded.

  Khurzon came over to us. The Wrath demon was a monstrous orange and black, four-armed mass, with four horns sprouting from her forehead that swept back into a sort of protective helmet around her short hair. She wore a protective breastplate and her wings were tattered from a lifetime of fights. I was surprised she still had them. Most Wrath demons have them amputated to avoid being grabbed in a fight.

  Ah, maybe she kept them to remind everyone she was a full-blood. One that fell from grace. I don’t know what she did, but she’d been stuck running this second-rate ludus for years, training fighters for the bigger games. Arena combat was all the rage in Hell, and since the rise to Earth, they’d brought that bloodlust with them. Humans were too weak in the past, but with the advent of cybernetics, man and demon were on a more even playing field.

  “Nine wins. Not bad. Think you can go for ten?” Khurzon asked rather politely. Hell, maybe that was what she was being punished for; she wasn’t a regular demonic asshole.

  “Not sure. I’m feeling pretty tapped out. What do you think, coach?” I asked Vidar.

  He just shrugged. “Helpful as always, bud.” Vidar gave me the finger as he took another of my smokes.

  “Come on, you know you have another in ya!” came a new voice. Quellius. He was a repulsive little shit. A gold and green demon who tended to have the worst traits of his Greed/Envy lineage. He was the financial backing for this ludus, running the numbers and collecting the bets. He was stunted and little for a male demon—around my height, six feet or so—but he made up for it in treachery.

  “No way Q. I’m fairly certain if I go another round I’d die.”

  “And?”

  You had to admire his general prickishness. The only reason I’d been coming here the last couple of weeks is because Vidar was right. I’d been too reliant on my tech and cyborg speed and strength. Well, I guess learning to fight wasn’t the only reason I was coming here. Running my own barony sucks. That was why I had to come all the way down to this shithole in the Blood Grain district of Ars Amadel. No one knew me here.

  “What’s the record?” I asked the greasy Quellius.

  “By a demon? Thirteen straight victories.”

  “Did he survive?”

  Khurzon shook her head, but Quellius scoffed. “Survive? Well, he lived. For about an hour or so after the fights were over. Until the bleeding in his brain killed him.”

  “Well, that’s less than inspiring.” But Q only mentioned demons. Surely I had to have the record for humans. “What about humans?”

  “I think we both know you don’t count,” Quellius chided.

  “Does the betting crowd know or care?” I asked. Q’s face told they didn’t. “So what’s the record?”

  “Thirty-five consecutive wins with no losses,” Khurzon rumbled.

  Holy shit. Thirty-five wins?

  “Who?”

  “That doesn’t matter. Come on, you are looking healthy. How about I throw a couple of dim-witted hellions at ya? A little two-on-one action? It’ll drive up the bets.”

  “No, there will be no more fighting,” I heard a familiar voice say aloud.

  “How’s it going, Grimm?” I asked the figure as he approached the ring.

  Demons and hellions got out of his way, which meant he had his spooky, anti-demon mojo switched on. Both Q and Khurzon backed away.

  Grimm climbed into the domed arena by the open gate and just stood in front of me with crossed arms. As usual, he was in his homespun ancient black cassock and black leather gaucho hat. He’d come into my life a couple months ago, and together we’d discovered Abraxas was utilizing combined technology and magic to forcefully remove the human soul and transfer that power to himself and his underlings. We didn’t like that. So we destroyed the tech, his building, and him. In doing all that, I was personally responsible for the death of over one hundred thousand people.

  Another reason I was here letting demons knock the snot out of me.

  Guilt.

  “You mind turning off the juice? We don’t need to be making more enemies than needed.”

  Grimm nodded and the demons in the immediate area returned to their normal bloodthirsty selves. “You have responsibilities that need to be seen to,” Grimm told me. If I didn’t know any better, I would swear I had just been scolded.

  “Five more minutes, Dad?” I mockingly begged.

  “Put your shirt on. You have matters to attend to.”

  “Like what?”

  “Vali,” Grimm said.

  “Shit,” Vidar grumbled. Now I know what Grimm was getting at. Vali was drinking again. Which meant Vidar and I needed to go and collect him.

  “OK, got it. Sorry Q, no more for tonight. Khurzon, always a pleasure.” Q shrugged and went off to line up the next fight. Khurzon put out a large hand. That definitely wasn’t a growing trend these days. Decent demons.

  I took Khurzon’s hand and she helped me up. “See you soon. Oh, did you want to really know which human holds the record?”

  “Of course. Who?”

  “Him.” Khurzon pointed to Father Grimm, who was standing in the arena, arms behind his back, taking in the sight of the barbed metal dome.

  Grimm turned back to look at me and winked.

  Chapter Two

  Host’s Normal Day

  After collecting my winnings, I threw on my old sleeveless black Bad Religion t-shirt along with my tech bracers and gear. Soon, I was flying along the Trans-Kingdom Highway on my custom fusion bike. Opening the throttle, I weaved in and out of traffic, heading north, back to the kingdom of Ars Goetia. The cold air felt great in my face. Helmet laws be damned.

  Vali was Vidar’s brother. Together they comprised the last of the Aesir. Can you believe that shit? All the gods from mythology—the Olympians, the Norse, the Egyptian, the Japanese, and so forth—were all real. And they were all the descendants of biblical angels. In one form or another.

  Vali had been drinking himself ragged the last month. Before the events surrounding Abraxas, Vidar and Vali ran the outer town of Midheim. And they were good at it. The town thrived while others fell. Vali and Vidar, the people—hell, the whole town—had a sense of purpose.

  Then I came along, with Grimm, and fucked their world to hell.

  Grimm and I had been searching for answers on the Abraxas issue, and sought out Vidar and Vali for their godly advice. But we had been followed by a cohort of demons and shock troops. We joined Midheim and fought them off, and we freaking won! But we knew they would be back. After some fancy deals and a lot of bloodshed, I got a deal where the inhabitants of Midheim would be moved back into New Golgotha proper and settle on my land. Together we created Löngutangar. I became a land baron and all was well. Until Vali lost his purpose.

  If you know your mythology, then you know that when Loki tricked the blind god Hod into killing Baldur, Odin sired Vali in one night. Vali was born full-grown and killed Hod. He was a born assassin who completed his sole
purpose for existence before he drew his second day of breath. So what do you do with your life when your sole purpose had been fulfilled? Vali filled it with leadership after what he called Ragnarok—what we called G-Day, when God left. And then I came along and inadvertently usurped that role. Now he found his purpose in a bottle.

  “How do you wish to proceed?” Grimm asked me over the comm link. Behind me, Grimm zipped along in his outrider, a combination Humvee and dune buggy with a rollbar and no roof.

  “Carefully,” Vidar piped up, following last on his fusion quad.

  “Big V’s right. Last time Vali damn near took out the whole bar before we took him down.”

  “Before you electrocuted him and Vidar had to break a table over him, you mean,” Grimm corrected.

  “Yeah yeah, details. I noticed you left your part out of there.”

  “I do not know what you mean,” Grimm said, pleading ignorance.

  “You suffocated him in a shield,” Vidar grumbled.

  “Yeah, you kinda did there.” I noticed Grimm had no response. I laughed and I heard Vidar chuckle. I looked over my shoulder at Grimm’s outrider. He was fifty yards behind me. With my telescopic eyes, it was no problem seeing him. He was smiling and giving me the finger.

  I zigzagged around a couple slow hellions and pushed my bike even harder. The cold air whipped past me and I longed for my coat. But that coat had become the funeral shroud for my friend Theresa Spinoli, the cyborg bartender who had betrayed me.

  It’s complicated.

  Long story short, she died painfully and unnecessarily in her sister Caitlin’s arms. My coat was left to keep her covered and protected until she could be laid to rest. After the fallout from the former Archduke Abraxas, Caitlin took Theresa’s corpse to an unknown location. My coat was a small price.

  But at the moment I was freezing my tits off. The cold air felt good at first compared to the humid ludus fighting pits. But a cold November night was not known for being particularly balmy. Well, not that we really kept a calendar anymore, but I liked to keep track. Old habits, I guess.

  I opened a connection to my Collective.

  Collective, you online?

  //AFFIRMATIVE HOST//

  Can you do something to warm me up? Raise my body temperature?

  //NEGATIVE - PROLONGED INCREASE IN INTERNAL TEMPERATURE COULD RESULT IN EXTENSIVE BRAIN DAMAGE//

  Well, that would suck.

  //INDEED - QUERY: WHY IS HOST CONCERNED WITH KEEPING WARM INSTEAD OF THE ASSSAILANT WITH THE ROCKET LAUNCHER//

  The fucking what?

  At the last second, I saw the contrails of the plasma-propelled rocket. I only had a split second. Letting go of the bike’s handles, I fired up my domed energy shields from my tech bracers.

  The rocket detonated just ahead of me, as I was topping out at close to two hundred miles per hour. The explosion threw up huge chucks of asphalt, destroyed my bike, and launched me like a rag doll. All I could do was keep my arms in tight and let the shields do the best they could while I rolled across the highway, eating asphalt. My world spun in an assault of concrete, pain, and noise. I finally lay still and I tried not to puke.

  I couldn’t open my eyes, else the world would spin. I just lay there, unprotected, broken and bleeding while I felt and heard cars and trucks whizzing by me. The outrider came to a screeching halt, spinning out on the highway. Next thing I knew, I heard Grimm yelling.

  “Vidar, find that bastard! I will hold the shield!” my friend yelled. Vidar grunted. “Hold still. We will get you some help.” I tried to nod, but the slightest movement made me throw up in my mouth.

  Collective.

  //ONLINE//

  How . . . bad . . . are we?

  //CONCUSSION, SKULL FRACTURE, BROKEN RIGHT AND LEFT RADIUS, FOUR BROKEN RIBS, FRACTURED STERNUM, MINOR INTERNAL HEMMORHAGING. NOTHING WORSE THAN HOST’S NORMAL DAY//

  I smiled, not wanting to laugh. My Collective’s sense of humor was growing. It made sense. It was part of me, and I it.

  Can you patch me up?

  //AFFIRMATIVE - COLLECTIVE WILL REQUIRE TIME TO MAKE HOST WHOLE. REQUEST: SEEK OUT ASSISTANCE OF TESLA AND CONSUME MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF BASE MATERIALS//

  You got it. Is it safe to go unconscious? I always heard it was bad to sleep if one had a concussion.

  //YOU WILL SURVIVE HOST - COLLECTIVE WILL ENSURE SURVIVAL. REQUEST: AVOID EXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE IN THE FUTURE//

  I had to agree.

  “Grimm,” I croaked. I tasted my own coppery blood in my mouth. “Do your thing man. Put me down for now. Get me to T.”

  Father Grimm placed two fingers on my forehead and whispered one word.

  “Sleep.”

  ************************

  A long time ago . . .

  Reynolds lit a cigarette with a look of boredom on his face as over three hundred human soldiers screamed and died in the slaughter below. From his vantage point, he watched as volley after volley of hell-forged arrows rained down. Reynolds’s long hair was pulled back in a ponytail and his medium-length beard was neatly trimmed. His expensive suit reeked of overpriced cologne and his designer sunglasses were completely unnecessary as the sun was already set.

  His presence stood out in contrast to the horror of the woodland battlefield. But he had to watch them die.

  “Doesn’t bother you?” asked the tall, green Envy demon at Reynolds’s side.

  “What?”

  “Watching your kind die like that?”

  “Why should it?” Reynolds asked as he looked up at the demon.

  Leraje was tall, taller than many demons. She wore light, hell-forged battle plate over her green woodland clothing, custom made to allow her wings freedom of movement. She carried her wickedly curved bow with a slim inferium warblade at her side. Reynolds heard she was once a marquise in Hell, before the Great Ascension. As demons went, Reynolds didn’t mind her company. She simply did what demons do: They killed and enslaved humans.

  Most humans anyway. Those who proved useful, like Reynolds with his weapons, supplies, and intelligence, were given favor.

  “They’re humans. I thought you all stuck together.”

  “The stupid ones, yes,” Reynolds said, turning away from the smiling demon war leader.

  The new war was not like the old one. During the first war, the demons were pure chaos. They fought in packs like animals. They counted on their sheer power and numbers to win. Which they did. But once they learned they could bleed and they could die, their leaders changed their mindset and their tactics. Instead of wanton murder and carnage, humans were captured and enslaved, cast into the working class.

  A couple of decades later, the slaves did what slaves always do: rise up. Many broke free, got guns, and fought back, beginning the second Demon War. If you called localized militia tactics, fractured communications, and disorganized assault “war.”

  But a war nonetheless. And war was good for business.

  This time, though, the demons were ready for a more conventional war. This time, they had something to lose. Loss leads to fear and when properly leveraged, fear meant money.

  “I don’t trust anything that doesn’t protect its own kind,” Leraje said, turning towards Reynolds.

  “You don’t need to trust me,” he said as he fished out another cigarette. “You just need to respect my work and pay me.”

  “You forget your place, human,” the Envy demon said. “But your methods are without question effective. What made you think to put explosives in the militia leader’s sniper scope?”

  “Old trick my people used,” Reynolds said. “When our government wanted to quietly and effectively take someone out, a bomb was planted in an innocuous object.”

  Leraje sniffed. “Just like a human. Rather than just destroy your enemy face to face, you decide to kill like a coward.”

  “Whatever. You want a smoke?” Reynolds asked, pulling a cigarette from his pack and offering it to her.

  The demon took it and laughed as Reynolds l
it it for her. “No wonder the bosses like you. You don’t scare.”

  “You have to love something to be scared,” Reynolds said.

  “That mindset might keep you alive in the years to come,” Leraje said as she smoked her cigarette. “It’s a shame the humans decided to fight back. I really was going to let them live. Provided they submitted to enslavement and returned to work on the great wall.”

  “Well, it’s best to go into business, or battle, with people who are predictable. My credits?”

  “They’ve been transferred,” the demoness said.

  “Are we done?”

  “Yes, human. You did your job. You’re free to go,” Leraje said as she stamped Reynolds’s free-status pass with her seal. “Back to Lemegeton and that nice apartment they put you up in?”

  “That fancy prison?” Reynolds asked. “Yes.”

  “Better place to lay your head than most of your kind.”

  “A prison is a prison.”

  “The way you allow your own kind to die, maybe you deserve to be in prison,” Leraje offered. “If this had occurred before the Great Ascension, you would have got to Hell without a doubt. An eternal prison of torment for the likes of you.”

  The full demon was old enough to remember transitioning from hell. There, they tortured fallen souls with not just pain. They could use sadness, regret, any emotion that caused a soul to suffer. Reynolds wanted to be mad at the Envy demon for her words. But he knew Leraje wasn’t wrong. Perhaps he did belong in a prison.

  Or in Hell.

  Reynolds turned to leave, then paused and looked back for a moment at the demon smoking his cigarette. “I have to say, I was fairly sure you had orders to kill me if the opportunity seemed right.”

  “I did,” Leraje smiled, confirming Reynolds’s suspicion. The Envy demon drew her warblade, the cigarette still in her mouth.

  Reynolds just watched the demon advance on him while he held his lighter in his hand.