Thomas Sniegoski - A Hundred Words for Hate

Where there had once been sick and wilted vegetation, it was now green and healthy, growing up from wherever they passed or stepped.

They were connected to Eden now, and this connection was providing the Garden with what she needed to fight back, and to survive.

“What happened to your armor?” Jon asked.

“Lost in the belly of the beast,” Remiel answered. “Good to see you, Jon . . . Izzy.”

“Good to see you too, Remy,” Jon said. “But you’ve got to do what we said and get out of here as fast as you can.”

“I can’t,” he said, looking back to the Tree, and to the Shaitan that were trying to escape the Garden’s attempts at confining them. “Something needs to be done about them before . . .”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Izzy told him. “That’s why we’re here.”

The Garden then shook with such force that he almost toppled.

“You’ve got to go now, Remy,” Jon said.

Remiel noticed that both their noses were bleeding, and their ears as well.

“We’re helping her fight, but I’m not sure how much longer we can keep this up,” Izzy said.

Strange, catlike animals were padding from the jungle and going to the Tree, attacking the Shaitan on the other side of the rock wall.

“You need to go and do what you did before for her,” Izzy said, her face squinted up with exertion. “You need to cut her loose by closing the gates again.”

Remiel understood what they were asking of him.

“What about you two?” he wanted to know. “I think I could fly both of you through the jungle and—”

“We’re staying,” Jon said. “Somebody has to make sure that these things aren’t allowed to escape.”

“And with our help, Eden should be strong enough to keep them prisoner here for a good long time,” Izzy added, wiping a fresh trickle of blood from her nose with a sniffle.

Remiel stared, in awe of their sacrifice.

“We’re sure about this,” Jon said, Izzy nodding beside him. “Please . . . get out of here and close the gates.”

He was about to leave when he heard the unmistakable sound of magickal energies being unleashed. They all looked toward the Tree as jagged fragments of rock and hunks of tree root exploded into the air. The Shaitan were learning about their abilities, unleashing them against the forces that attempted to keep them at bay.

Remiel lifted his sword and was heading in that direction, when Jon grabbed his arm in a powerful grip.

“Go,” the man commanded. “We have it under control, but we don’t know for how long.”

He hated to leave them like this, but the thought of the Shaitan getting out of the Garden was even more troubling.

Moving toward the jungle, he passed the sad, mangled body of Adam, and as if in response to his troubled thoughts, he watched as the ground began to draw the corpse down into its embrace, swallowing him up, returning his body from whence it came.

The sounds of heated battle erupted behind him, but he did not turn. He had a mission to perform, and there would be nothing to deter him from it.

Remiel spread his wings, leaping into flight, maneuvering through the low-hanging limbs and vines, flying toward his destination. Eden looked healthier, greener, thicker, and he believed that maybe the great Garden would survive the horrors she had been forced to endure.

And in doing so, keep the monstrous race known as the Shaitan from swarming out into the world of man. He could see the gateway up ahead, and pushed himself to fly faster. As he dropped to the ground just before the opening, so as to not overshoot his goal, excruciating pain exploded in his back as something raked its claws down his bare flesh.

Remiel fell to the ground, rolling over and lashing out with his sword.

A young Shaitan crouched there, licking his blood from its hooked claws, a malicious smile growing upon its monstrous face as it enjoyed its snack. He had to wonder if any more of the beasts had escaped Jon and Izzy, and gradually climbed to his feet. The wounds in his back throbbed in pain so sharp it was as if he were being stabbed over and over again.

He didn’t know whether it was his eyes playing tricks, his senses dulled by the incredible pain, but he could have sworn that the Shaitan was growing—maturing—before his eyes.

Finished with the blood on its claws, it obviously desired more, coming at him with a ferocious hiss. The flaming sword lashed out, but the beast was quick, ducking beneath the swing and darting forward to rake its claws along his side.

Remiel cried out.

It was all proving to be too much, his body shutting down a little at a time, not leaving him enough to work with.

The Shaitan seemed to sense this, moving in to attack again, tatters of Remiel’s flesh still dangling from its claws.

There was no mistaking the sound of gunfire.

The shot hit the beast in the chest, dead center, and tossed it backward into the jungle.

Remiel turned to see Francis, smoldering pistol in hand, standing in the gateway. Was that one of the Pitiless—weapons imbued with the power of Lucifer Morningstar? he asked himself briefly, before the sound of screaming drew his attention back to the jungle in front of him. Even with a bullet hole in its chest, the Shaitan was coming again. Remiel readied himself, sword in hand to fight.

But snaking tendrils of green shot out, vines wrapping themselves around the Shaitan’s thrashing limbs. The creature continued to squeal, struggling as it was dragged backward into the jungle.

A face that he recognized as Izzy’s took form in the bark of a tree nearby.

“Get out of here,” the face of wood commanded. “Close the gates behind you.”

Remiel passed through the gate to the world outside.

Francis was standing there, the body of Eliza Swan lying at his feet.

Remiel felt sadness come at the sight, but quickly pushed it aside to deal with the problem at hand.

“We have to close it,” he said to his friend.

Francis nodded, saying nothing as he went to one of the heavy metal gates, and Remiel went to the other.

There were noises coming from within the Garden, something that told him that more than one of the Shaitan had escaped his friends. They needed to do this, and to do this quickly.

“Ready?” Remiel asked him. “On the count of three.”

The sounds were louder now, multiple things fighting their way through the thick jungle growth.

“One,” Remiel said, taking the cold metal in his hands.

He looked across at his friend, feeling a strange combination of joy—to see him still alive—and revulsion.

He was concerned what that meant, and wondered whether it had anything to do with the weapon he’d seen in Francis’s hand.

“Two.”

“Three,” Francis grunted, pushing on his side, as Remiel joined him.

It was as if they did not wish to be closed again, but the gates eventually gave way, hinges crying out unhappily as they came together with a nearly deafening clatter.

The two stepped back, away from the locked gates as the Garden of Eden was again detached from a particular reality, gradually slipping in and out of focus as it resumed its journey behind the veil.

Cast adrift, and out into the sea of realities once more.

Jon thought he was going to die.

The power of Eden rushed through him like a raging river, threatening to pull him from the safety of shore out into deeper and far more dangerous waters.

“Got to hold ’em,” Izzy said, squeezing his hand all the tighter.

He didn’t answer, choosing instead to focus on the job at hand.

The Shaitan were trying to escape, newly acquired magickal energies shooting out at the Garden that tried to imprison them. A few had managed to escape the clutches of the jungle, but only a few. The majority still remained in their possession . . . the Garden of Eden’s possession.