Chapter 82 – The Black Lady

  Strong hands grabbed Cole and pulled him back. He looked up to see Roxy focused on saving his ass, and not the gigantic, man-eating dragon preparing to attack. As soon as he could get his feet under him, he turned and burned the last charges of his ability to wrap his arms around Roxy and launch them both back as the dragon pounced, slamming into the pool where they’d stood less than a second before.

  “Ohholyfuckshit!” shouted Roxy, completely unprepared to suddenly be fifty feet in the air.

  Cole twisted his neck, looking at the dragon tracking them through the air and stretching out its wings to take flight. It surged, directly over Besson, despite the man hammering it with his machine gun, and despite Nutmeg clamping her jaws on its tail so hard it ripped the back three feet of the appendage completely off.

  The dragon’s jaws gaped, unhinged like a snake as if to swallow the both of them part and parcel.

  A swirling mote of purple energy appeared in the air near the dragon. Before Cole could even register what it was, it resolved into the shape of a hooded and cloaked person, who shot directly over the airborne dragon and swung a massive sword in an uppercut arc as they passed, only to turn back into a black mote and shoot back toward the ground.

  The dragon continued flying toward them on sheer momentum for a few seconds. But it had stopped flapping, and when it fell, the head fell separately from its body. A cold rush passed over Cole, and Roxy, too, apparently, as she gasped in his arms. And then they hit the pools, kicking up a wall of water all around them.

  “Did you see that shit?” asked Howie.

  Much closer than I would have liked, thought Cole. He climbed to his feet, helping Roxy up and then seating a fresh magazine. He was completely soaked through from head to toe, bruised, and bleeding from the smaller dragons’ claws and teeth. But he’d live.

  Standing next to the dragon on the ground, the figure who had dealt it the fatal slash used her over-sized sword to slice apart the dragon, hastening its ablation. The hood fell back, revealing raven-black hair that was beginning to go strawberry blonde at the roots. Cole approached.

  “Beth Black?” He asked.

  The figure flinched as if struck. She looked back to reveal a teenage face with dark, sleepless bags under her eyes, but who otherwise perfectly matched the picture—aside from the ragged, torn clothing (and not in the chic metal concert way), the spiky armor, and the giant fucking sword. She brought said instrument of death around, holding it between them. The tip pointed at Cole. Despite the thing’s massive size, it didn’t waver a milimeter.

  “How the fuck do you know my name?” she demanded through grit teeth.

  “I’m Amos Colton, US Department of Otherworld Rescue. We’ve been sent to find you.”

  The tip dropped by a hair. “For real?” she said, scrunching her face. “That’s a thing?”

  “It is,” said Roxy, stepping up on his side. “I’ve been where you’re standing. I know how hard you’ve had it. We all do. We’re here to help you out of here,” she said.

  “Out of here?” she asked, looking around. “Isn’t this Hell? I always figured I’d go here when I died.”

  “You’re very much alive, and a victim of a supernatural abduction,” said Cole. “But we’re here to help get you back home.”

  Beth turned back to the ablating dragon, planting the sword in the ground as she reached inside the creature. “Fuck that,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere, except to the next floor.”

  Howie came up on Roxy’s other side, along with Besson. “She’s gone native,” he muttered.

  “No she hasn’t!” hissed Roxy.

  Cole didn’t need a field guide to know what that meant. Beth had apparently integrated with Babel. Thinking herself dead and in Hell, she’d coped by throwing herself at it, deciding she belonged to be here. “You don’t want to go back to your family?” he asked.

  Beth ripped an enormous sword of what looked like bone out of the dragon, hefting it. She glanced back at her old sword, planted in the ground, and karate-kicked it over before tossing a glare at Cole. “Back to what, my meth-head Mom stealing my tips to get high and her pervert boyfriend trying to climb in the shower with me?” she shook her head, scoffing. “The best part of this place was they weren’t in it. Yet. Nah. No fuckin’ thanks. But if you’ve got any cigarettes… God damn, I’d kill for a cigarette.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Cole wasn’t sure what to say. His Grandfather was a hard son-of-a-bitch sometimes. But he’d never taken a thing from Cole, except his pound of flesh when Cole was being a little shit and very much deserved it.

  Roxy shot Cole a pained look and then fished under her breastplate and produced a half-full pack. Beth’s eyes lit up like Christmas as Roxy tossed it over, along with a cheap lighter.

  “Oh, at least one of you is cool,” she said, pulling one out and lighting it. “What’s your name, big sis?”

  “Roxy.”

  “Don’t you mean Riot?” asked Howie, elbowing her. He grinned. “I’m Howitzer, that’s Tyson, the pooch is Fury, and our fearless leader is Airborne.”

  “Cause you’re diseased?” asked Beth, sucking on the cigarette like she had a grudge against it.

  “There’s also Blink, but you probably won’t see much of her.”

  Nona’s voice crackled on the radio. “Cole, the mist gate is starting to come down.”

  “Alright, bring it in,” he said. He pulled his spear out of the ablating dragon, then stowed it and turned to Roxy. “We don’t have time for this. If she won’t come with us, we’ll go with her. Maybe you can talk her down.”

  “Good luck with that,” said Beth. “But you can tag along, if you can keep up. The last losers… well,” she looked at the ablating dragon. “I’m pretty sure I had to dig through them to get to this sword.”

  Nona and Artian joined them. “Ah, Lady Black! You’re looking hale,”

  Beth looked over and grinned. “Artian! You’re still alive.” She looked around. “Where’s your asshole retainer?”

  “Late,” said Artian. He glanced back toward the gate. “As we might be, should we dawdle here overlong.”

  “I didn’t plan on camping out here,” said Beth. “I was just waiting for my spell charges to come back, then I was going to kill the dragon.” She glanced at Cole and the others. “At least you distracted it, so you’re not totally useless.”

  Shouts and cries of alarm mounted in the distance. Cole looked back to see a flood of people charging through the dissolving mist, many of them bloody or burned. They fled from the sounds of combat, ringing steel, and the screeches of the great apes grew louder, as well.

  Silhouettes began appearing at the top of the walls of the caldera to either side of the gate. A familiar ape with a staff made of wood, bone, and human skulls looked down at them, roaring and waving its staff. The spellcaster they’d fought before, back with more friends. Way more.

  Beth saw them as well. “Ooh, more free loot.”

  “There’s more than even you can handle,” said Cole. Howie and Nona were collecting loot from the fallen nymphs and sucking up residue. He whistled for their attention, but they had already seen the apes too and left the rest where it lay. Cole turned to Beth. “There’s a massive swarm coming. Get to the next floor. We’ll be right behind you.”

  Beth watched as more and more of the apes crested the cliff face and began descending the sheer wall. Dozens became hundreds, and she got slightly pale and backed up a few steps. “You know what? Yeah. Maybe there are a few too many.” She turned and started jogging away. “Come on, I found the next level while I was trying to avoid the dragon, but it was blocked like the exit.”

  Cole started to follow her, leaving behind the remains of the dragon that dissolved into a small fortune of the ephemeral marks. No wonder the Tallorax boss comes and has his guys clear this thing when it spawns. Other challengers had already pushed in, and several were stopping to sweep up the precious resources even with the monsters hot on their trail.

  Beth looked at the pile. “Don’t we have time for…?”

  “No,” insisted Cole.

  “What the fuck are they doing?” asked Roxy. She made to turn around, but Cole grabbed her. “We can’t save everyone. Focus on the ones we can help,” he said. Then he put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Faces of the other climbers turned toward him.

  “Next floor is this way!” he shouted, waving them on behind him. Many of the groups shifted course. For some it was too late, and the apes that had reached the pools started to encircle and cut the laggards off from retreat. Cole fired his rifle into the tide as he backpedaled. Roxy guided him, only turning herself to deflect a fire spell with her shield.

  Nona and Howie moved alongside them, watching their flanks while Nutmeg moved back and forth, snarling and barking at the monsters that drew too close. They closed ranks as more started to push in. Other groups offered resistance, slinging spells of their own, slicing with swords, or even firing otherworld firearms—though the most advanced one Cole saw was a revolver from a team in dusters and tall caps. But it was a losing battle. These monsters were in a frenzy, drawn by the congestion of powerful climbers and whipped into even further frenzy by the Beast Cult mages.

  Beth stopped before a yawning pit, almost perfectly circular and glowing with ominous, orange light. “This is it!” shouted Beth.

  “Doesn’t that go down?” asked Roxy. “I thought we were going to the next floor up.”

  “You don’t climb up in Hell,” said Beth. “You descend to its deepest, darkest pits.”

  Without another word, she stepped off the edge and disappeared into the chasm.

  “Shit!” swore Roxy. Before Cole could say anything, she leapt after Beth.

  Well, if Cole had been feeling any trepidation about stepping off into an abyss as an escape, seeing Roxy swallowed up by the portal to the next floor shoved that doubt aside. Around him, other challengers were running and jumping in, though a few hesitated at the rim. Others were pushed in by the crowd—which had already dwindled noticeably just as the population of monsters in the caldera had steadily increased.

  Howie was, of course, one of the ones hesitating, even as Nona, Besson, Nutmeg, and Artian jumped down. So, Cole became one of the ones pushing, grabbing the man and taking them both over the edge as Howie screeched out of more fear of the fall than the apes that would have torn him limb from limb.

  Cole just hoped they were right about the monsters not being able to chase them between floors.