When the toy doctor was finished with the skull-rape, he took a few brisk moments to close me back up, sewing the wound with what felt like baling wire, then Doctor Teddy and the conference room suddenly swirled and evaporated, as though a drain had opened up and let it all flow away.

I found myself standing outside on the grounds of Flesh Horse, hidden in an ocean of shadow. The great tower loomed so that it blocked even the light from the highest beacons. Still, enough light filtered down to the great house’s main entrance to let me see the host assembled at Eligor’s gate. Any one of the huge, fierce, mounted Purifier soldiers could probably have crushed me by himself, and there were dozens of them, armed to the teeth with strange guns, long spears, and axes with oversized, jagged blades. Their horses were carcasses, skin tattered to reveal yellow bones and drying organs. But what really made me uneasy were the tracking beasts that slavered and pulled impatiently at their harnesses. They were smaller than the horses, although not by much, but so strong and so eager to be after their prey (me, remember?) that several times they yanked bulky handlers off their feet and had to be dragged back by many hands pulling together, as though they were drifting four-legged zeppelins.

In the middle of one such struggle, one of the animals lifted its malformed head and howled, a noise that turned my bones to water. The others chimed in, until the grounds beneath Flesh Horse rang with their chilling cries. I’d heard of hellhounds, but this was the first time I’d ever seen them in their native element, and suddenly I felt more sorry for Robert Johnson than I ever had. As I stood there, my heart beating so hard I could barely stand, I heard the old bluesman’s mournful, doomed voice singing for me and me alone.

And the days keeps on worryin’ me

There’s a hellhound on my trail

As if sensing the hopelessness of my thoughts, the intracubus tugged at the strings of my mind like an impatient driver racing the accelerator, making everything that was in me turn cold. I reached up and touched the back of my head where the unspeakably nasty thing had been inserted. Doctor Teddy’s stitches felt big as shoelaces, crudely knotted, and the incision was still oozing. A little bit of Eligor was going with me, whether I liked it or not.

Bad as it all was, I didn’t really have any options left. It was time for me to run for my life and my eternal soul.

thirty-six

the deeps