“Report!” a radio squawked, breaking the solemn silence of a defiled church. Bullet holes and blood decorated the sacred space amidst shattered pews and bloodstained bibles. Several bodies lay eviscerated on the cold floor, dressed in black suits and wearing expressions of terror, pistols limp in their grips. White-masked agents moved about the fallen, shoveling guts and severed limbs into black body bags, trying their best to match the loose, indistinguishable viscera to the corpses they’d come from.
A pair of long legs clad in men’s dress shoes stood in a relatively clean spot. Their owner took a deep drag on a cigarette, his sixth today, before replying to the radio. “The target escaped,” Agent Q said. “Seven agents are dead, and one priest – heart attack.”
There was a telling silence from the radio. “And the girls.”
“Gone.”
Agent Q took another drag on his cigarette as the person on the other side failed to respond. The smoke swirled in the air, coiling and curling. Seven good agents dead, and for what? A bloodstained church, a dead priest, and two more missing girls? As he smoked his anxieties and worries away, his partner, Agent C, limped up beside him.
Despite knowing each other for five-something years, neither knew each others’ real names, or if they had families or friends outside the Bureau. It was safer that way.
“Helluva shitshow,” the wounded agent said. She’d gotten tagged by wayward hellfire during the scuffle, and now favored her unburnt leg. “What’d dispatch say?”
Agent Q grunted, clenching his jaw around his cigarette. “Nothing, as usual.” They’d been on the heels of Subject Red for a year now, ever since she’d first appeared on the BPA’s (Bureau of Para-dimensional Affairs) radar. They’d been sleeping rough in motels and truckstops, eating fast food and junk food across the country, all in an effort to catch a whiff of her sulfuric trail. Dispatch had sent them to this podunk town after they’d gotten a report of the strange disappearance of a local teen. They hadn’t actually expected it to lead them to Subject Red, for all the good it’d done them.
“What do you want to do with the civilians?" Agent C asked. The men, women, and children of the congregation were all sitting cuffed and bagged by the church’s entrance. “The usual?”
“Hm. Detain them for questioning then check them over for signs of corruption. I want them neuralized and stuffed back in their cozy homes none the wiser. Pay extra attention to the missing girls’ families. This can’t have been a coincidence."
Agent C snorted. “You got to stop saying that shit, Q. We ain’t the MIB – we don’t deal with aliens.”
“Aliens, extra-dimensionals, what’s the difference, C?” Agent G shrugged. “What do you want me to say? Blow some fairy dust in their faces so that they forget the shit they’d seen? Besides, it’s not like Sony can sue us, seeing as how the government says we don’t exist.”
“True, we don’t get cool alien gear like in the movies for one,” Agent C said. “Anyway, I’m going to send for some coffees. Black for you, right?” she asked, getting a grateful nod in reply. Before she left, the female spook asked. “Say, where do you think Red sent those girls?”
“Hell if I know.”
Clickity-clack, Clickity-clack, Clickity-clack. The sound of a train’s wheels rushing heavily over iron rails woke Lilanna from a slumber. Startled by the unfamiliar noise, the green-haired girl opened her eyes wide in a panic, glancing frantically around the train compartment she’d somehow found herself in. The air was hot and humid, smelling faintly of brimstone. Gas lanterns illuminated the luxurious space, revealing gilded walls, a pair of plush couches, and the fact that she wasn’t alone.
The small girl from the church sat across from her, still swathed in her red coat, while Autumn’s sister, Trian, slumbered heavily beside her, leaning up against a curtained window. An orange glow peeked around the heavy fabric, adding to the soft illumination within the cabin’s interior.
A door rested on the other side of the cabin, opposite the covered window, and shrouded also by a curtain blind. Presumably, it let out into a long hallway stretching the length of the train car.
From where she sat, Lily couldn’t tell if “Red”, as the girl had called herself, was awake or not. The shadows of her red hood let no light, neither soft nor sharp, penetrate its darksome depths. So she was understandably startled when the blood-red-headed girl suddenly spoke, breaking the contemplative quiet. “Good, you’re awake.”
Lily jumped in her seat. “W-what’s g-going on?” she stutteringly asked after regaining some of her wits. “What happened? W-where are we? Are w-we on a train? H-how are we on a train?! Did you do this?!”
“Your questions, I shall answer shortly, but not twice,” the girl said, nodding towards the sleeping goth. “Wake your friend.”
Stowing her questions and curiosity, Lily tore her gaze away from the petite stranger, and reached over to shake Trian awake. “Trian, wake up!” she hissed. The dark-clad girl furrowed her brow, eyelids fluttering at the rough treatment, yet didn’t wake quickly. Autumn’s name fell faintly from her drowsy lips. Her hazel eyes eventually cracked open, slowly focusing on the bottle-glass-green eyes hovering anxiously over her. “Lily? What are you doing in my bedroom?”
Lily flushed. “We’re not in your bedroom! Look around!”
Confused, Trian glanced around the cabin, eventually spotting the red-toned girl sitting leisurely across from them. Red waved. Her eyes snapped to the stranger. The last thing she remembered was touching that red bible, and then…nothing. Nothing until Lily woke her up.
Seeing them awake and focused on her, Red graced the pair with a short smile. “Good. I detest repeating myself. As to your questions,” she nodded to Lily, “yes, we are on a train, and yes, I brought you here to accomplish a task for me. A pair of tasks to be exact. In exchange, I’ll aid you in your quest to find your wayward sister and friend.”
“You said you knew where she was,” Trian accused. Lily placed a quelling hand on the younger girl’s arm. While she didn’t know who or what the stranger before them was, to be able to whisk them onto this train, she must be a powerful and dangerous creature, and she didn’t want to see Trian hurt.
“And I do,” Red reassured them. “She is currently staying in a lovely little city on the Prime Materia. Rest assured, she is quite safe. For now at least. I’m no oracle – I do not know what tomorrow might have in store for her. Or the next day, or the next, so on and so forth.”
Lily blinked, confused. “What do you mean by ‘Prime Materia’?”
“The Prime Materia is the name for the infinite cosmos where all worlds, including your Earth, reside. It has other names, of course – the Material Plane, the Mortal Realms, the Crossroads. Honestly, it is rather tiring returning to that place, never mind bringing unaligned mortals back with me. I could only send you here once you’d taken my bargain.”
Bargain?! A cold sense of dread slipped over Lily’s shoulders like an icy cloak. Had she sold her soul to the Devil? The Holy Bible said the Devil could take on many forms, but she’d expected a loathsome form, not a petite girl with sweet words on her lips. Lily clutched her silver cross tightly.
Trian snorted. “You mean to tell me we’re not on Earth anymore? Pull the other one!”
The shorter girl didn’t seem overly bothered by Trian’s disbelief and derision, simply smiling beneath her hood, looking both like the wolf and the red-riding-hood. “I have no need for lies and trickery. It is the fault of your own for not believing me. Perhaps you should gaze out the window before laying your accusations at my bare feet, hmm? Look and see your home for however long it takes you to complete your half of our pact.”
The pair of girls shared a look before turning towards the curtained window.
Lily gulped. Coiling curiosity warred with cold caution within her slim breast, urging her to look and not look in equal measure. However, before she could muster the courage to make up her mind, Trian moved, opening the curtain with resolute purpose. And as she did, they beheld a terrible sight.
A blasted hellscape stretched out endlessly beyond the train’s windows. The sky burned with hellfire, shining with neither sun nor stars, but an eerie and constant bloody glow. Baleful volcanoes spewed great clouds of diabolical ash and pyroclastic death high, filling the air with an acrid scent of brimstone. The roiling, ashen clouds rained fire and flame and destruction down onto the wasteland of barren hills, broken plains, and low, craggy mountains, marking their infernal fury with smoking craters and the burnt corpses of the righteous and damned alike.
Treacherous chasms defiled the ashen wastes, scarring the land with depthless pits amidst the innumerable fields of skulls and bones from a million million battles. Every gulch, ravine, and gully dotting the land ran with lava and blood, pooling in great lakes of death. Traversal through these dire lands by those not native was difficult and dangerous, if not outright impossible for outsiders.
Great masses of winged devils clashed in the fiery skies above with scores of angels and flying demons, killing and dying in great quantities. Limp broken bodies fell like rain. On the ground, the massive armies of Heaven and Hell skirmished and fought, both aided by mortal mercenaries. Their battles watered the thirsting soil with blood every hour of every eternal day.
“Welcome to Hell.”
Lily’s soul shook with fright. She collapsed back into her seat, ashen-faced and gripping her cross so tight in her hand that it hurt like a flagellation. Her eyes quivered, frantic and unfocused. She’d sinned. She sold her soul for a homoerotic love condemned by both church and God, and had been sent to hell for her wickedness. Quiet prayers fell from her lips as she clasped her hands before herself, begging forgiveness from her Lord.
“Your God can’t hear you down here,” Red told her, swinging her short legs cheerfully as she bounced in her plush seat. “But don’t worry, you’re on the side of Heaven…somewhat.”
Beside Lily, Trian hadn’t been fairing much better with the revelation that they were in Hell, but Red’s words shocked her out of her stupor. “Who…what are you?” she asked, visibly shaken.
“I’m Red, and I’m your friend!” the almost-godly being before them giggled. “Other than that, you don’t need to know. Now, names – we ought not to use your true names down here as the devils can do foul things to you if they knew them. But what to call you two? Let me think about it.” Under her breath, she began muttering a slew of nicknames and monikers, shaking her head with each that passed her lips.
Lily, hearing no succor from her desperate prayers, loosened her painful grip on her cross, and looked up at the red-headed girl across from her. “Is…is what you said true,” she asked, her voice cracking with torment as she pleaded for answers. “That we have the grace of Heaven?”
Red looked up. “Hmm? Oh, yes, technically.”
“Technically? What does that mean,” Trian asked, eyes narrowed.
“It means what it means,” Red said, growing annoyed. “Look, there are more heavens residing in the upper planes than I care to list, and just as many gods. Some righteous, others villainous, and some outright evil. However, there is only one Hell, and although it has many layers and rings, its foul inhabitants are always looking to expand into the mortal realms to claim more and more souls. Now, the heavenly realms don’t want that to happen, so Heaven and Hell have been at war since time immemorial. We are just the latest auxiliaries of Heaven’s might.”
“There is only one God,” Lily said, shaking her head stubbornly. She’d not listen to this devil! There was only one God, and he was good and just, and wouldn’t leave a devout Catholic like her to rot unjustly in hell, even if her heart had strayed from a virtuous path…right?
Across from her, Red snorted in amusement. “That wasn’t even true in your world, let alone out in the multiverse and the planes beyond it. But I’m not getting into a theological debate with you. All you need to worry about is completing the tasks I’ve assigned to you.”
“Which are?”
“Murder.”
Lily recoiled as the dread word fell from the girl’s lips. The air became heavy and dark. It crawled into her frozen lungs like tar, cloying and sickly sweet. For the first time since she’d met the bantam girl, the veil lifted, allowing her to glimpse truly upon the devil-in-red.
A figure terrifying loomed before them like a mountain of blood and skulls, yet somehow occupied the same amount of space as that of her diminutive form woven from ancient memory. Stolen hellmagick, while twisted to her own designs, had warped her form into something devilish and majestically foul long ago.
Her head was that of a ravening wolf, adorned by six gleaming, blood-red eyes, three to either side, and a pair of broken horns that decorated her lupine skull like a violation. Her naked skin was painted crimson with the blood of her foes, so thick that not even a sliver of her natural tone could be seen. She wore not a stitch of clothing upon her bescarred form, save for a gown of shattered chains.
Long hair wet with fresh devil’s-blood draped down her nudity, slipping past her slashed breasts and defiled sex to pull around her padded and clawed canid feet that were carving grooves into the cabin’s floor. A grim smile stretched her scarred lips back, revealing a jaw of sharp teeth and long canines. Rusted bolts had evidently wired her jaw shut once, but they’d long since been torn free, leaving only a history of scars behind.
Behind her, the plush couch she lounged on had turned into a towering throne of skulls made from the untold thousands of devils slain by her clawed hands.
Lily couldn’t breathe. Her mind couldn’t handle what it was seeing. A furious pressure filled her soul, dragging her shame and obedience to oppression to the forefront of her mind. It called her to rage and smash, to rebel and swallow her masters whole, and to bite and gnash and chew and crunch upon their bones.
“But, Grandma — what a terrible big mouth you have!”
In the blink of an eye, the vision faded, and Lily was left staring at the wolfish grin of the pint-sized girl clad in a red cloak. And as the veil descended once more, so too did the aura of blood and rebellion fade, leaving her with a back slick with sweat and lungs that heaved for the sweet succor of air. She shivered uncontrollably.
After a long moment of shock, Trian’s shaky voice spoke up from beside Lily. “You know, that story doesn’t end well for the wolf.”
Lily couldn’t help but admire the younger girl’s composure. She herself couldn’t bear to speak in the presence of the pseudo-god before them.
“Who said I was the wolf?” Red grinned. While the girls shivered at the sight, she continued. “Fret not, you aren’t my lunch today, but my agents. Your task of grim slaughter is to kill a pair of devils for me. Twins, in fact – a brother and sister pair – an incubus and succubus. They’ve been a right pain in my side for a while now,” she grumbled.
“W-why us?” Lily asked, still shaking slightly. Her courage was a fragile thing. “If you’re all…
that
, why do you need us? We haven’t killed anyone before! We’re just high-schoolers!”
Red scowled at the question, making Lily quail. Thankfully, the girl-beast’s ire wasn’t directed at her. “Because they are smart, and deeply embedded in my forces. They seem to have eyes and ears everywhere. If I strike at one, the other retaliates elsewhere. Or they just alert one of the many Arch-devils I’m responsible for keeping in check that I’m preoccupied, allowing them to rampage freely through mine or Heaven’s forces. I’ve got a lot of irons in the hellfire, you know?
“As for why you two? You aren’t the only mortals I’ve thrown at this problem. You’re just the ones who aren’t dead yet.”
“You’re just using us?!” Trian yelled, perhaps foolishly.
“Of course I am!” Red giggled. “Did you think you were
special
? Your impertinence is cute, but don’t forget yourself.”
Cold dread clamped Lily’s heart in a vice. Her lips quivered. “So that’s it then?” she lamented, balling her hands into fists at her side. “You’re just going to throw us to our deaths?! You have to know we stand no chance against d-devils and the like!”
Red rolled her eyes in the dark shadow of her hood. “Hardly,” she huffed. “Dragging you two children to Hell wasn’t exactly free on my behalf, so I’m not just going to throw you to the wolves naked, so to speak. I’ve already bestowed the pair of you with a modicum of my power. Not much, granted – I’m not
that
invested in your survival – but it ought to allow you two to compete with most of the devils you come across, at the very least. Plus, as my personal warlocks, my local forces shall aid you in your quests. Just don’t push it.”
Powers? Warlocks? Lily’s head spun. What had she gotten herself into? “What? I don’t understand!”
“Hellmagick,” Red drawled. “Pew-pew, kill-kill, argh! Is that simple enough for you? Look, it’s fairly intuitive, so I’m sure you’ll figure something out once we get where we’re going.”
“And where are we going?” Trian asked snarkily. “Unless that’s too hard to explain to us mere mortals.”
In a flash, Red flicked a pebble at the goth girl’s chest, faster than the eye could see. Trian slammed back into her seat, gasping as the air was driven out of her lungs. The pebble bounced and clattered across the floor, as too did Lily’s heart skip a beat.
“I can tolerate much, but I am still your patron,” Red said, her voice flat. “You can speak with me plainly and openly, but keep your tongue of disrespect lodged firmly in your cheek, goth-girl. Understood?”
Trian rasped as she sucked down painful gulps of air into her straining lungs. She nodded fearfully. “U-understood.” Lily too nodded sharply when the six beastly eyes fell upon her.
“Good!” Red said brightly, becoming upbeat and sinless once more. “Now, I won’t tell you how to do your tasks, that’s up to you two to figure out,
butttt
, I’d recommend that you two split up to attack the brother and sister individually and simultaneously. You’ll just run into the same problems I did if you don’t. On more important matters, I’ve narrowed down your codenames to a handful.
“What do you think about; Green and Black, or Emerald and Ebony? Viridescent and Atramentous? How about Psittacien and Corvid, or Sagess and Gothess? Or if you wanted to go the warlock route, there is Greenlock and Gothlock? Personally, I kinda like Viridescent and Atramentous!”
Lily blinked, shocked by the whiplash of emotional dissonance. “Those are…”
“Amazing names?” Red beamed. “There’s no need to hold back your praise on my account!”
“Right,” Trian coughed, massaging her chest where she’d been struck by a flying pebble. “Awesome names,” she said, her voice flat in a deadpan tone.
Scared that the other girl would be hit by another thrown object, Lily jabbed Trian in the ribs to shut up, eliciting a yelp and a scowl from the gothically-clad girl. “Um, we’d be happy with whichever you chose,” she said to the amused Red. “They’re all good names.”
“Viridescent and Atramentous, it is!” Red crowed, dancing happily in her seat. “Obviously, you’re Viridescent,” she pointed to Lily, “and you’re Atramentous,” she said to Trian. “Make sure to use those names going forward, even if you think you’re alone. Chances are, you’re not.”
“Great,” Trian said sullenly despite Lily’s glare. “Love it. I really do. But, just a couple of questions – How are we meant to find this pair? What are their names? What do they look like? Do you know where they are?”
“Their names are Kjed Passionbinder and Nadja Lustweaver, no clue which is which. As for what they look like currently?” Red shrugged. “Haven’t a clue.”
Lily blinked. “What do you mean by, currently?”
“Succubi and Incubi are shapeshifters – it's what makes them kinda hard to track down. All I know is that they are somewhere within or around the free city of Havoc. Which, not-coincidentally-at-all, is where this train is headed. Once we get there, the two of you will disembark without me and meet up with one of my agents who is already expecting you. Well, not you exactly, but whomever I send. Their codename is Khan. Use it, and tell them Red sent you. They can outfit you and supply you with more up-to-date intel.”
Before either of them could ask anymore questions, Red fished around in her coat and pulled out a battered music player, slipping the headphones into the darkness of her hood, and presumably into her ears. “All this yapping has made me tongue-tired. Feel free to talk amongst yourself, quietly. I’ve got some tunes to catch up on.”
Music filled the cabin as the train thundered across Hell towards the free city of Havoc and the pair of devils awaiting them.
“When I'm crawling through the night,
“God and Satan by my side.
“And I'm haunted in the dark,
“Sacramentum of the wild.
“Evil born as human child,
“Seed of wolf and man we are~”
“This is the night of the werewolves!
“Run for your life~”