Hellhole Read online

  No.

  They worked—as Mercer worked with the prayers his cracked lips recited—to open a door.

  But...to where?

  5

  The Pit of Hell, Karakum Desert, Turkmenistan

  “WHAT’S THE PLAN, Boss?” asked Bunny. His voice was full of cracks. “’Cause if you don’t have one I have a suggestion.”

  “Does it involve dropping a big fucking bomb right over there?” asked Top, pointing. “Because I’m all over that idea.”

  “No!” cried Lizzie. “You can’t.”

  “Why the hell not?” I demanded. “Right now it seems both poetic justice and good common sense to hit this whole area with a whole bunch of Hellfire missiles. I’m pretty sure—foreign soil or not—I can arrange that in under fifteen minutes. One, maybe two phone calls and it’s done.”

  “No,” she insisted, her face going from flushed to deathly pale, “if you do that you’ll kill us all.”

  “We’d actually drive away first,” said Top, forcing a smile onto his face despite the fear in his eyes.

  “You don’t understand,” she said, “if you blow up the pit, if you destroy that book, then you let it out.”

  “Let what out?” asked Bunny. “No, don’t tell me because I probably don’t want to know.”

  She pointed to the pit. “Mercer tore off one page of the book and look what happened. That page, that small bit of damage to the book, did something down there. It opened a door. You can see it on the monitor clear as day.” She looked from Top to Bunny to me, her eyes wild. “Why do you think this book was guarded for all these centuries? For millennia? These books aren’t bullshit church politics or contrary doctrinal points of view. These are books of power. Real power. The darkest power you can imagine.”

  We said nothing.

  “If you’ve dealt with the Unlearnable Truths before, then you have to know how dangerous they are. How dangerous this book could be?”

  “Wait...could be?” I bellowed. “You don’t even know if we can safely destroy it or not? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  Brock and his marines, drawn by our raised voices, began hurrying over, but Top stepped to intercept them, arms wide, shaking his head. Brock slowed and gave us all an uncertain look. He retreated with great reluctance.

  I leaned close to Lizzie and lowered my voice. “You don’t know?”

  “No, Captain, I don’t,” she snapped, moving so close I could smell the fear in her sweat. “And because I don’t know, I can’t let you go off half-cocked and just bomb the hell out of the pit. We need to recover that book. We need to seal that—rift, or doorway, or whatever it is. We need to stop whatever Mercer is doing. Maybe then I can figure out how to seal the book again. Or, maybe I’ll find out that we can destroy it. But I’m telling you right now that your plan has a lot more ways to go wrong than mine.”

  “You don’t actually have a plan,” I snarled.

  Again, she pointed to the pit. “Sure I do. You need to go down there and get the book.”

  Bunny said, “Fuck me.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” I said.

  6

  BUNNY BROUGHT THE pigeon drone up and landed it on the rim, where it squatted, steam rising from it. We all ran for the car.

  The equipment Church recommended we bring included Dragon fire-suits. The company makes a line of body armor for combat in virtually every possible circumstance, from deep Antarctic winter to cities on fire. The fire-suits were ultra-high-tech, costing over a million dollars per set. Lizzie and Brock watched as we stripped to our underwear and began pulling them on.

  The fire-suits are similar to the Hammer suits we wore when going into biological hot zones. They were flexible and durable, perfect for agile movement and physical combat. The skin of the suits was made from a blend of synthetic carbon fibers mixed with spider silk. That irony was not lost on me, by the way. But, fuck it. The suits could stop an ordinary bullet shy of armor-piercing rounds, and the network of air distribution tubes allowed us to regulate temperature.

  “Will those things be enough?” asked Lizzie, clearly skeptical of suits that fit like gloves instead of the bulkier garments worn by firefighters or volcanologists.

  “That’s what it says in the catalog,” said Top as he buddy-checked Bunny’s seals. The answer did little to reassure Lizzie.

  Brock said, “If you have another one of those, I’d be happy to—”

  “Thanks,” I said, “but no. We brought enough for us. But, thanks.”

  He nodded and then lowered his voice. “Look, Mr. Red...I couldn’t help but overhear a lot of this stuff and I know it’s above my paygrade and all, but if something happens and you need some muscle or an extra shooter, then I’m here. I didn’t get an embassy posting because I don’t know which end of a gun goes bang. Three tours in Afghanistan, one in Iraq. Been to a lot of loud parties. I don’t want to just sit up here and play with my dick the whole time.”

  I smiled at him. “I appreciate that, Sergeant, but we really do have only these three rigs. If you want to help, though, watch over Dr. Corbett. She’s important and I need her safe. If things go south, get her the hell out of here and call the number she’ll provide. Talk to my boss. His name is Church. Whatever he says to do, you do it. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, sir, I can,” he said.

  I started to lift my helmet to put it on, then paused. “Tell you what, Sergeant,” I said, nodding to the pit. “We have two cases of weapons and loaded magazines. Lots of fun toys. If you see anything come over the edge of that fucking hole that isn’t one of us, kill it.”

  His eyes turned cold and he gave me a nod. “Yes, sir...I can do that, too.”

  He turned and walked over to his men. I saw them immediately begin checking their weapons. Bunny, who was a former Marine Recon, nodding approval.

  “Semper fi,” he said quietly and then put his helmet on. He opened a canvas gear bag and began taking out long guns. His weapon of choice is a drum-fed combat shotgun that he lovingly calls “Honey Boom-Boom.”

  Top had another of our cases open and was removing rappelling gear.

  Lizzie touched my arm. “Joe,” she said, “is there any way that drone of yours could get close enough for me to see the book?”

  “Maybe. Why, though?”

  “If I could see what he’s reading then maybe I can understand what he’s trying to accomplish.”

  “Does that matter?”

  “Yes. The page he took out first was a kind of spell,” she said. “It’s intended to both summon Atlach-Nacha and also begin something described as a ‘ritual of opening.’ I think we’ve seen what that looks like. But he went down there, and he’s clearly in some kind of trance. And he’s done something that is preventing him from being consumed completely by the heat. Call it magic or weird science or whatever you want, but he’s been down there for days now. Whatever spell or ritual he’s performing must be very complex. If I know what it is, then maybe I can figure out the best way to stop it.”

  “How about I put three rounds into the back of his head?” I suggested. “Wouldn’t that stop it?”

  “I actually don’t know if that would work anymore.”

  I stared at her, waiting for the punch line, but she wasn’t joking.

  Beside me, Top said, “Well fuck me blind and move the furniture.”

  To Lizzie I said, “Have you ever worked a drone?”

  “Sure. My group works in areas where ISIL could be hiding anywhere, so I use them all the time to assess a site.” She named a few commercial and professional models she’d used.

  I picked up the controller for the pigeon drone. “This is a lot like those.”

  She was quick and was able to launch and manipulate the drone with ease.

  “If that one burns out,” said Bunny, “there’s two more in the case.”

  I said, “Lizzie, we’re all wearing earbuds. There’s a microphone on the controller. See? Right there. Lea
ve it turned on. The speaker’s good, so you’ll be able to hear us, too. If you can get eyes on that book and read what Mercer is reading, let us know.” I raised my forearm to show small flexible-panel computer screens. “You can send the video feeds to us on these. But we won’t be watching those feeds unless it’s something important. We’re probably going to be busy. So, pick your moment.”

  “I understand,” said Lizzie. “I promise not to distract you.”

  “You’re not a distraction,” said Top, and she actually blushed. Bunny rolled his eyes so hard I’m surprised he didn’t bruise his brain. Then, in a more serious tone, Top said, “Let us know when we can end that evil motherfucker down there, feel me?”

  Lizzie nodded. “God...be careful. Please.”

  Top gave her a grin. “It’s all good. Just another day on the job.”

  We put our helmets on, grabbed our guns, and walked over to the edge of the pit. Brock and two of his men helped anchor us for the rappelling maneuver. I adjusted my suit’s environmental controls one more time, cut looks at Top and Bunny, then nodded to Lizzie.

  “Good luck,” she told us, and again her eyes lingered on Top’s.

  Bunny turned to Top. “‘Just another day on the job?’ Seriously? That’s the worst pickup line in like...ever.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “I can actually hear you,” said Lizzie.

  Bunny blew a kiss at Top, who shot him the finger.

  And then we were over the edge.

  7

  NO MISSION EVER goes off without a hitch. Not in my experience.

  You try to make it otherwise. You gather as much intel as possible, you plan, you train, you theorize to predict variables, you allow for things to change as the mission unfolds. You even stay mentally flexible in case of mission creep—which is when an operation changes substantially in nature while you’re in situ.

  But things always go a little wrong.

  Sometimes the situation twists in your favor. Or, so I’ve heard. My luck doesn’t tend that way.

  Sometimes thing change and you can easily roll with it. You call in back up, or throw some extra ordnance downrange, or otherwise deal with shit.

  And sometimes nothing is what it seems.

  Case in point...

  8

  WE WENT DOWN into the pit.

  Twenty meters is nothing when rappelling. You drop down on a rope, kicking off from the wall every few meters to slow the rate of fall and keep yourself from gathering enough momentum to slam into anything. The walls of the pit were sloped, so we also had to shove off to keep dropping. Fires burned all around us. Even with the cooling system in the suits, I could feel the heat.

  How the hell could Mercer still be alive down here?

  My mind rebelled at the thought of actual magic. This had to be some kind of science. But...what kind?

  Over the last few years, I’d run into all kinds of things. Genetically-engineered assassins designed to approximate vampires. Lycanthropic super soldiers. Transgenic soldiers amped up with ape DNA. The God Machines built with science that came to its designer from dreams of other worlds. Doorways into other dimensions opened using mathematics from the Unlearnable Truths. So, yeah, I’ve had to expand my mind or go crazy. Maybe it’s fair to say that because I’ve been forced to expand my mind I’ve gone crazier. A case can be made for that. And yet in each case there was science behind it. Every single time. Weird science, to be sure. Radical, possibly alien, certainly beyond my understanding, but science nonetheless. If there was something that fit the literal definition of supernatural, then I haven’t hit it so far.

  But how could science explain how a man with no protective garments survived for days in an actual inferno? How could anything make sense of that?

  We dropped and dropped.

  I looked down at the floor of the pit and saw something else that made no fucking sense at all.

  The floor of the pit seemed to be...receding?

  “Boss?” called Bunny, his voice crystal clear through the high-tech earbuds we all wore. “Are you seeing this?”

  We paused, toes touching the slope.

  “Cap’n,” growled Top, “either I’m losing my shit or that floor is dropping.”

  We watched, looking for signs of structural collapse, for cracks in the ground, for sudden releases of trapped gas, for the tumble of boulders and debris. All of that should have been happening if the pit floor was falling inward.

  That’s not what we saw.

  It’s just the floor was farther away, as if the pit itself had been somehow stretched.

  “I can’t be seeing what I’m seeing,” said Bunny.

  “Keep your shit wired tight, Farm Boy,” snapped Top. “If that’s what’s there, then that’s what’s there. So nut up and deal with it.”

  Bold words. Probably as much for himself as for Bunny. Meant for me, too.

  I checked the line, making quick calculations. “We’re going to have to hit the slope twenty feet above the bottom and walk down.”

  “What if it keeps...um...getting deeper?” asked Bunny.

  “Then we figure it out on the fly,” I said.

  “Hooah,” said Top, and after a moment Bunny said it, too. “Hooah” was the Ranger catch-all phrase for anything from “yes, sir” to “fuck you,” and right now both seemed applicable.

  We kept dropping.

  The floor receded more and more.

  “Fuck this,” I bellowed and hit hard on the slope, unclipped and ran into the pull of gravity. I heard thumps and curses behind me as the others did too. The slope was steep, and gravity wanted to kill us, but we ran into its pull, angling our bodies for balance and to slough off the acceleration. For a wild moment I thought we would keep running and running until we reached Hell itself. The actual hell. The devil and his demons and all of that biblical bullshit.

  This was close enough.

  Goddamn, it was close enough.

  And then the floor was there. Hard and rocky and real. It was stable, too. I don’t know how the bottom got deeper, but whatever it was seemed to have stopped. It was ordinary ground under my feet. I wanted to kiss it.

  Bunny and Top came running down to where I was, and then stopped, trembling, panting—more from fear than the exertion.

  Top unslung his weapon, a Heckler & Koch MP7 with a forty-round magazine, and he had a Milkor MGL 40mm six-shot grenade launcher slung over his shoulder. He had not come to screw around. Bunny had his shotgun in his big hands and was sweeping the barrel around the perimeter.

  He froze, looking behind me, and I whirled, drawing my Sig Sauer fast and bringing it up in a two-handed grip. Top turned, too, and we realized that the pit floor wasn’t the only thing that had gone off its rails.

  “What the?” was all Bunny could manage.

  The drone descended and hovered about his shoulder.

  “Lizzie,” I said hoarsely, “are you seeing this, too?”

  Her answer was an inarticulate croak.

  We were all seeing it.

  I don’t know where we were, but it wasn’t the same pit we dropped into. It couldn’t be. Even with the ropes still dangling above us and the drone having followed us here.

  We stood on a flat space of ground that was much wider than the opening of the pit above. No idea how that was possible, but it wasn’t the weirdest or worst thing about this moment. James Mercer, naked and burned but alive, knelt a dozen paces away, the Book of Uttu in his hands, his blind eyes clicking back and forth across the pages as his lips read words aloud in a dead language. Beyond him was the wall we’d seen in the drone’s camera, with the obscene vertical slit from which poured an unnatural and lurid red light. There were the legions of spiders gnawing at the opening.

  All of that was what we expected to find. Kind of.

  But not the rest.

  Not the dozens of people down there. Thirty or forty of them, dressed in robes of white and red and gray. Robes set with jewels and metals I could not identify. M
en with muscular, bare arms and long plaited beards, like priests from some old temple carvings. Except they were very real and they held tools—axes and sledgehammers. All of them had swords and knives in leather scabbards at their hips.

  They all stood in attitudes of surprise, frozen in their act of attacking the wall.

  Even that wasn’t the worst.

  Far from it. Give me enough whiskey and I could work out some logic to them being down here. That, at least, was close enough to sanity for me to postulate something I could force myself to accept.

  But the spiders? No. Not them.

  And I’m not talking about the thousands of small ones that had survived the hellish heat to climb down here from above.

  There were other spiders here.

  Big ones.

  Strange ones.

  Some the size of rats. Some the size of dogs. A few as big as wild boars. Massive, bloated monsters that quivered on hairy legs.

  And the others.

  Ponderous and improbable abominations with speckled red and black bodies that stood not on eight legs, but on three. Tripodal spiders with too many eyes and mandibles that snapped and clacked and dripped with steaming drool.

  I knew for sure—without the slightest doubt, without needing to lie to myself—that nothing like them had ever before walked on this green Earth. I had no idea where they were from, or how Mercer had conjured them into this place, but they didn’t belong in this world.

  I heard a sound, a high-pitched whimper, and prayed that it wasn’t coming from my own throat. Though it probably was.

  In my ear, I heard Lizzie’s hushed and horrified voice. “Joe...is this real? Am I seeing it?”

  “You tell me,” I said quickly. “You’re the expert.”

  “Not...god, not in this,” she gasped. But a moment later she said, “Those men, they’re dressed like Sumerians. It’s like they stepped right out of a bas-relief carving from one of the ancient temples.”

  “Those fucking spiders, Doc,” asked Bunny nervously, “you got anything on them? What are they?”

  “I don’t...I don’t know.”

  The spiders and the armed men stared at us, surprised for a heartbeat—and that was all it was—by our presence. Of aliens in their sacred place.