Hell's Heroes (td-1) by Darren Shan

Author:Darren Shan [Shan, Darren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_horror
ISBN: 978-0-316-12633-5

AN UNHOLY QUARTET

I roar wordlessly, filled with horror and hate. Bec’s face is lit by the glow of thousands of burning souls. She looks awestruck and damned.

“My beloved,” Lord Loss gurgles, running a sticky hand down the side of Bec’s face. She doesn’t respond. She’s staring into the flickering glow of the Board, transfixed. She does nothing to stop the massacre, even as the bodies topple and writhe around us. I’ve never seen someone consciously turn to the path of evil. If it wasn’t so sickening, I’d be fascinated.

“What the hell’s going on?” Shark yells. He’s torn off the snake’s tail and sucked out its entrails. It’s dead, but most of its body remains stuck in his arm.

“She killed them!” I scream, trying to climb up the wall after Bec. It’s the only stretch of wall left, standing like a pillar in a huge, corpse-strewn room.

Shark looks at the falling humans. “No,” he moans, struck hard by the appalling tragedy of it, even though he’s seen so much in his time.

“We have to stop her,” Kirilli says, stepping forward and flexing his fingers.

“I think it’s passed beyond that,” Timas says, squinting up at the Board. “A most remarkable device. I’d love to know how it works.”

“I’m going to kill you,” I vow, pointing a trembling finger at Bec. “You can’t stay up there forever. As soon as you come down, you’re dead.”

Lord Loss laughs. “You’re such a brute, Grubitsch. You think mindless violence is the answer to all the universe’s troubles.”

Bec blinks, then stares into the Board again. I don’t know if she’s heard anything we’ve said, if she’s even aware of us. She watches the souls burn but takes no pleasure from the slaughter. This is destroying her. Her human emotions are burning away with the spirits of the dying.

“Why?” Kernel mutters. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“She wants to prove herself to her new master,” I snarl.

“But Lord Loss didn’t ask her to kill them,” Kernel presses. “He asked her to kill one of us. There must be another reason why she targeted them instead of you or me.”

“You were always smarter than your burly companion,” Lord Loss says. “Not as clever as sly young Bec, but definitely several rungs higher up the IQ ladder than the somewhat dense Master Grady.”

The last of the humans hits the ground, but the Board is still glowing. It’s a dark glow and it pulses steadily, a gloomy, grey, shadowy throb.

“It’s Death!” I shout, realization coming too late to be of any use.

Wispy tendrils rise from the Board and snake into the air around Bec. From a distance you might mistake them for smoke, but this close I can see that there’s nothing natural about the sinewy strands. They have the same consistency Death had when we faced it before. It looks like our shadowy foe has found its way back. The humans were slaughtered so that Death could stitch together a new body from the fabric of their souls.

With a scream of failure, I unleash all of my power in a ball of magic.

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