Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five (34 page)

The first mate, grizzled yet normally jovially grizzled, crossed his arms. The Explorer could feel the old sailor's eyes creeping down over his shoulder like a pirate's parrot. The Explorer's confidant had not liked the secretiveness of the chest which was lowered into the hold at the last minute, and liked even less the strange device which was contained in the wooden box the Explorer lifted the lid on.

“Captain, don't let the men see. They're superstitious bastards of dog mothers, all of ‘em.”

The Explorer rose with the small golden device, a cube of cogs and spinning ornate hands, pointing out star patterns and giving complex testament to direction.

“It's not witchcraft, there's none of that here. It's science.”

The old sailor backed from the whirring shiny machine as the Explorer studied it. “Devil's clockworks is what it is, Captain.”

The Explorer was fascinated by the thing, and didn't look to his friend when he scolded, “Don't curse us. We're barely out of port.”

“Curses and omens ain't to be ignored, Captain.”

The Explorer considered this, but considered too the alternative as he remarked to his superstitious friend, “If you only knew what we were leaving behind, you'd be up all night blowing at the sails yourself to push us away from it faster.”

When the Explorer had double-checked all of his findings, he placed the cube back into its box and locked it away. Only then did his old sailor first mate begin to feel at ease.

The moment didn't last long, though, as both men turned at the same time to stare down the steps into the ship's hold. They could just see the outline of the black chest.

“What's to be happy about out there at ocean's end? You're gonna have me falling off the edge of the world and right into Hell.”

The Explorer began the walk down the steps towards the chest. “Had you seen what I've seen, my friend, you wouldn't be so scared of the imagined monsters there.”

The first mate reluctantly took to the steps and both men stopped at the chest. It was old, and the wood which composed it was black, yet it didn't seem blackened with age. It was simple in its construction and refinements, but as strong and formidable as a king's vault. The old first mate wouldn't touch it.

The Explorer took the key from around his neck, and as he went for the lock, only then did he notice that the same five glyphs from the Minister's table were burned into the wood.

“Ain't it normal to raise the royal banner before the ship sets sail?” The old sailor reluctantly stood beside the Explorer.

“Royal decree, we follow their orders for now. It's just a banner to fly. Why are you so frightened?” The Explorer smiled at his sea-dog friend.

“You call me scared now? I ain't scared of no pansy royal's flag.”

The Explorer laughed as his friend snatched the key out of his hands.

The first mate gave the Explorer a snarl as he pressed the key into the lock and twisted it. “Guess I'll be doing the honors.”

It took both men to push open the heavy lid, and they strained against the rusted hinges. The lid fell back and the box now lay open. The Explorer took the lead, leaning in and staring down at the flag which was to be the symbol of his voyage to an already discovered new world.

The dark flag was folded neatly; it held an ancient and dirty countenance. Across the square which was visible to their eyes were the markings in gold of a tentacle — like that of a squid.

“There,” remarked the Explorer, “Your monster, sir.”

The first mate was quiet as he stared, and when both men's eyes met, they shared a laugh for the first time in many nights of fevered preparation for the voyage.

“Dirty squiddy,” sang the first mate in his rough voice. “A fine way to be representin' ourselves to the savages we're sure to find in new ports.”

The Explorer took the flag from the chest and they turned towards the steps.

“You ain't thinkin' you're gonna send the boy up to raise this flag over the mast at night, are ye'?” The first mate again crossed his arms, and the Explorer knew he was about to hear a sermon on how it was bad luck and would curse them all.

“Actually,” laughed the Explorer as he turned from the steps back to his friend, “I was thinking I was going to send you up…”

The tendril which had risen from the chest was so green it was almost black. It was coated in a mixture of glistening oil and blood. The Explorer had never seen suckers that large on any beast of the seas.

“Blooms as big as the faces of smiling children…”

The Explorer's words were a whisper and the color had surely left his face, because he watched it leave the face of his friend as he turned to see what it was the Explorer was backing away from.

The tentacle wrapped around the first mate as would a starved snake and lifted the man effortlessly into the air. The first mate tried to pull his cutlass, but his arms were locked to his body tight as the unholy thing squeezed the wind from his lungs. The Explorer's old
friend screamed until the final wrap by the tentacle smothered his mouth and face.

Then, when his body was hoisted to the roof of the hold and back over the box, the tentacle began to retreat with its prize. The Explorer pulled his pistol as the men came rushing from their bunks across the hold, and stared in terror at what unexplainable witchcraft was being played out before them. Grown men fell to their knees and prayed to new gods and old.

The bones of the first mate's body began to snap as the fat tentacle began to stuff itself and the man back into the chest.

Men wept as the bones broke and the whole mess of the chaotic frenzy rested for a final moment, coiled and sitting on the entrance to the box.

The tentacle found its way to fit past the confines of the lid, yet not all of the sailor's body did. There was a loud pop; sailors who would give up the sea forever to hide in the darkened corners of portside taverns would say it was louder than a cannon blast.

Blood sprayed over every God-fearing man.

When it had slipped fully into the box, the lid swung up and closed, and the lock clicked shut on its own.

The Explorer had fallen back on the steps which led to the deck and the cold stars above. The flag he gripped in his hands was soaked in blood.

“…thus began the expedition across unknown waters, and once ships had sailed beyond the watchful eyes of those on the shore wishing them Godspeed, the order was given to unlock the chest given by the aristocracy. The Explorer would be responsible for taking forth the dark flag of the Satanic Five and to raise it over the sea, so that its gaze from atop the high mast would be the first eye to stare at its new world.”

~27~

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LISSANDRA STOPPED ABRUPTLY ON THEIR JOURNEY into the canyon and towards the fires when Moon raised her arm — Lissandra bumped right into her and came to a stop. Looking up, Lissandra saw that the forward triangle pattern of soldiers had stopped as well. The camp between the two cliffs where the torchlights and barrel fires burned was still several hundred yards in their future, but Lissandra was beginning to make out the small city composed of tents, metal shipping containers, and what looked to be derelict aircraft.

Moon lowered her arm as she broke from Lissandra and made her way to the forward point of her soldiers. The gypsy could plainly hear Moon's voice, filled with disdain: “You idiot.”

Moon grabbed the forward-most soldier by his shoulders and pulled him back from where he stood. She muttered a curse and pointed to the ground with one hand, and — forcefully closing her hand on the back of his head — pointed his gaze to his boots for him.

Lissandra followed Moon to stand over her shoulder and see what all the fuss was about. Soldiers began to fan out, but would only step forward so far. Lissandra saw the line that was drawn in the black rock sand, which extended fully, as far as Lissandra could tell in the darkness of the cavern, from one side of the canyon to the
other. Just on the other side of the line was an ancient and yellowed horn — long ago retrieved from the head of some bovine creature and refashioned for the use of blowing into.

Moon removed her hand from the back of the soldier's neck, then struck him where she had been grasping with an open palmed blow. Moon was annoyed, and it didn't take her opening her arms in a sweeping motion like a rabid bat to make the rest of the soldiers fan away from her even wider.

Lissandra studied the line, while Moon bent at her knees to lower her body to look more closely at it. “I'm assuming we weren't to have crossed?”

Moon cut her eyes up to Lissandra and nodded. “Just makes what we're trying to accomplish down here all the more difficult now.” Moon reached over the line, took the horn in her hand, and rose up with it.

Moon put the horn to her lips and blew; a low moan crept from the instrument and rolled through the cavern. Moon would blow into it three times before bending down once more and placing it where she had gotten it, on the other side of the line.

Lissandra had been focused on the encampment while Moon played her song. If anything inhabited this place, they weren't making themselves known to their uninvited party of guests. “I'm assuming they'll come now.”

“Oh, how could they not?”

“It seems silly, really. We spent fifteen minutes coming down that lift on the side of the cliff. Surely they know we're here.”

“These are demons, Lissandra. They adhere to the ways of the
old country
. Everything with them is all about the ritual involved.”

“I don't understand why we didn't bring the entire group down here. If what you keep hinting at is true, this could turn horribly ugly.”

“The rest of the group, the mostly expendable portion, is working on tracking what is going to lead us out of here and back up to Texas when we're done.”

Lissandra looked back and could barely see the glow from what seemed such a tiny window, from where they'd traveled from. “What is going to lead us out of here?”

“It doesn't have a name, we call it The Tendril.”

“You're relying on an octopus to get us back to the real world?”

“It's a creature with some of the same properties which were used in the construction of Level 5. We think it's more squid than octopus, but it's not really either thing. It's just a tentacle.”

“Things can't just be a tentacle.”

“Nobody has ever seen its head. Until further notice, it's just a tentacle.”

Lissandra looked back to the quiet village. “You plan to reason with this creature?”

“Absolutely not, there's no reasoning with it. I'm using half these jarheads as bait, and then we're going to track its movements to find the passage back to the main lift.”

The gypsy considered the other soldiers waiting cautiously at the line. “That has to be great for morale.”

“It's not morale that keeps these knuckleheads in line. They get to go fantastic places they would otherwise never get to go and see fantastic things they would never get the chance to see. They also get to firebomb many of those places and kill all those fantastic things.”

“Tell me there's a recruitment video I get to watch at some point.”

Moon looked to Lissandra and raised her finger to her own lips. Lissandra looked from Moon and back to the camp.

There was something odd about the way they walked. Shadow clung with all its might to their forms. Their clothing fluttered about their bodies, they were dressed in long robes and hoods — flowing cloaks danced as they took steps in their drab colors: browns, greens, grays. She counted fifty-one of them, a mixture of men and women.

It wasn't until they had gotten much closer to the line in the sand that Lissandra realized why their walking looked so strange to her — they were walking backwards. They weren't robed at all; the cloaks and hoods at their backs were facing Lissandra and the rest of her party.

At perhaps fifty paces, much of the group stopped and only three approached. At center was a male of impressive height, another male to his right and a female to the left. The one in the center was slightly forward of the other two.

He stopped when the hem of his cloak touched the horn on the ground. Lissandra found it all most unnerving — the imagining of
what the face of a demon would look like, and to be so close to one and not able to look into that face and read what she could off of it as it spoke.

Moon stood with Lissandra just at the other side of the line. The alpha-demon began to speak, and Lissandra was surprised at how pleasant the voice coming from a monster could sound. “You have signaled your arrival with the horn, and this is appreciated. We have drawn a welcoming barrier of clear purpose, and yet one of you has crossed the line before being given clearance to do so. Shall I take this as an act of defiance toward our ancient laws?”

“Certainly not.” Moon had her arms at her sides and spoke calmly. “The one who pressed his foot into your land is clumsy. You should not take direct offense to it.”

The demon was quiet for a long moment. “Then how should I take it? Not for what it is?”

“It is an offensive mistake.” Moon agreed with him.

“You come to us in a grouping of twelve. We find this number highly offensive as well.”

Moon studied the simple and ancient bluish-grey cloak the demon wore. It was a blank and unadorned, as all of them seemed to be. “Perhaps, I can offer a resolution to this offense?”

The head of the demon nodded, or the movement of its hood seemed to indicate that was the motion. “Perhaps that would be proper.”

Moon moved so quickly that before Lissandra realized what was happening, Moon had pulled one of her swords from its sheath and sliced off the head of the offending soldier. It went flying over the line to the feet of the demon. The face on the severed head twitched and still held the shocked expression of what had been done to it. The demon crouched down to take hold of it by the hair and lift it up as he stood.