Knee-Deep in the Dead: A Novel (Doom Book 1) by Dafydd ab Hugh

Author:Dafydd ab Hugh [Hugh, Dafydd ab]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2016-08-08T00:00:00+00:00

18

Abruptly, I remembered where I stood. I leapt off the platform just in time; Arlene had counted the full thirty seconds before following.

“Clear?” she asked as she sparkled into view.

“No,” I answered. “Listen to that.” Light as a cat, she pounced down beside me. The thudding sound wasn’t getting any softer.

“Poke your head around the corner,” she suggested. “I have a pretty good idea what’s making all that racket.”

We took our time approaching the corner. Arlene gestured that she would go first. I don’t argue with a lady. When she glanced back at me, her face was stern. “You’ve been wondering what I call a demon,” she said. “So take a good look.”

I did. And as Gunny Goforth might have said, she wasn’t just a-whistlin’ Dixie.

A whole box of demons marched around atop a two-story platform that looked as though it might lower any moment. One of the “pinkies” started making those pig sounds I found so disgusting. But as I paid close attention to the anatomical details of this thing, I decided the Porker Anti-Defamation League might disagree with my description.

These monsters were the most massively concentrated collections of muscle power in the whole zoo. They were about six feet tall, with mouths that looked like they could swallow Cleveland . . . and probably had. They were demons, all right. She had me there. So long as these guys were wandering the corridors, nothing else deserved the name. Their flesh was a dark pink; Arlene’s nickname for them was accurate.

They didn’t see us yet; but it didn’t look as if we’d be going anywhere if we didn’t deal with them. There were no other doors; eventually, that platform would have to lower so we could ride it up.

They stamped around on short, stubby legs, like shaved gorillas with horns and saw teeth. “Do they have any projectiles?” I asked Arlene.

“What do you mean?”

“Fireballs, lightning, anything like that?”

“They don’t throw anything at you.” She noticed my body relax a little. “Don’t let it fool you,” she warned. “They’re deadly if you get anywhere near them.”

“Can we pop them from down here?” I asked.

“Not likely. You need concentrated force, like a .458 Weatherby or a twelve-gauge at ten feet. I saw an imp go after a demon, and the pinkie took three fireballs in the face and swallowed the imp whole! It burped out the bloody spines.”

Data point: imps and demons, like imps and zombies, don’t get along.

“Fly, if we’re going to progress, we’ve got to lower that platform. There’s no other way to kill them with what we’ve got.”

I noticed I’d been leaning against something hard and metallic. It was another skull switch, just begging to be flicked. I started reaching for it but Arlene butted my hand away with her shotgun. That hurt.

“You don’t know what that’s going to do,” she protested.

“I can’t help it . . . I’m a born lever-puller.” I flicked the tongue. With a loud groan, the platform lowered like an elevator. The demons wandered off.

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