Hellfire by Jeff Provine Read Free Book Online Page B

Kemp, on Wilkinson Street,’ I believe?”
    The air in Nate’s lungs burned. He forced the old out. His new breaths were cold and chilled him.
    “There’s not much you can do about yourself, but it is well within your power to ensure nothing happens to her.”
    Nate shuddered. He looked down at the wooden planks. “All right. You leave her alone, and I’ll tell you everything I saw.”
    Ticks let out a soft chuckle. “You have my word.”
    Nate shifted into a sitting position, leaning his aching back against the cedar walls of the airship storeroom. He settled himself and said, “There was a thing in the firebox.”
    “A thing?”
    “A monster. I don’t know. It was something horrible.”
    “Anything different about the fire? Would it start properly?”
    “No, it was a bad fire…” Nate looked up at him. “Why would you ask that?”
    Ticks’s mustache twitched. “Never mind. Tell us about the thing.”
    Nate stared up at the ceiling, trying not to picture it. Still the thing passed before him in the shadows. “It was horrible. Claws, tentacles, eyes, like nothing I’d ever seen. It was evil. Don’t ask me how I knew it, but I knew it from the first.”
    “What happened to it?”
    “I had to destroy it. I took the rest of the catalyst and threw it in the fire.” Nate paused and squinted. “The catalyst was wrong, too. It didn’t act like it should’ve. It blew up instead of burning hot. I used it to blow up the thing.”
    Parvis made a high-pitched grunt.
    Ticks cleared his throat. “What exactly happened?”
    Nate shook his head. It ached as it moved. “I don’t know.”
    Ticks stamped on the floor. “Of course you know. Tell us!”
    “I don’t know!” Nate blurted. “The locomotive went strange.”
    “Strange? What does that mean?”
    “It was wrong, weird. It looked like the waves coming up from a sand pit on a hot day. Things started coming out from the fire. More things, with wings and eyes. And they sounded bad, all whining and screaming.”
    The sound rang through his head. Nate gagged. His stomach turned itself inside out, and he spewed out a wet, reeking pile onto the floor. He tried to pull away from it, but his wrists caught against the shackles chained to the wall.
    Ticks grunted. “Disgusting... What else?”
    Nate shook his head. The foul taste lingered in his mouth. “I separated the cars, and the locomotive went runaway with all the things writhing over it. It must’ve crashed, but I don’t know how… the track should’ve held at the speed we were going.”
    “Very well,” Ticks replied. His boots thumped across the room. “Throw him from the balcony. The fool jumped when he tried to escape.”
    The short hunchback grabbed Nate’s shackles.
    Nate gasped. “What?”
    Ticks shrugged. “We’re finished with you. You’ve given us all we needed from you.”
    Parvis unhooked Nate’s shackles. The short hunchback was strong, and pain shot through Nate’s arms, but Nate tried to pull away anyhow. Parvis dragged him forward.
    Nate couldn’t get out resisting, so he went slack. Parvis looked down at him through the dark glass of his mask, pulling him along more softly. Eventually the hunchback’s grip loosened.
    With a swift motion, Nate jerked his shackles toward the short hunchback. The chain slipped through his gloved hand. He pushed, bowling Parvis over.
    Nate turned to dive for the door.
    The other hunchback, Biggs, was already there.
    Nate lowered his head and charged, slamming into the giant’s chest.
    Biggs grunted, but didn’t move. He caught Nate up in a bear hug and squeezed.
    The air leak out of Nate, gurgling in his throat as it went. He tried to breathe back in but couldn’t. Dull sounds of joints popping ran through the insides of his ears.
    The huge hunchback carried him out of the room and into the narrow hallway that ran the length of the airship. Nate tried to wriggle, but the hunchback’s grip was too strong.
    His body stank of spoiled meat.