The truck had stopped, but it didn’t roll back.
Bo threw open the driver’s side door and stepped out onto the asphalt. He thrust both hands into the air and let out a whoop.
The truck had carried him dutifully to the top of the hill before its momentum failed. But that was all right. Bo could give it a good shove and then hop in. One short coaster ride later, he’d be on the bridge.
Not that Bo was sure he wanted to be there now that he saw what awaited him.
A hemisphere of purple light occupied the southbound lanes of the bridge over the Red River. That had to be the gate. And, far off in the distance beyond it, Bo could make out a bluish haze that stretched from ground to sky and blanketed the horizon.
“What is that?” the pitmaster wondered.
The answer, of course, was a problem he’d have to worry about later. Time was running out.
Bo braced himself against the truck’s door frame, holding his breath against the smoke, and leaned into it for all he was worth. When the truck began to roll, Bo threw himself into the cab and clutched the wheel. He left the door open, because he could sort of see if he leaned his head out. That let him guide the truck down the highway to stop just short of the weird purple light. This close to it, an unpleasant buzz wormed its way into Bo’s ears, making it hard to hear anything else. Every hair on his body stood on end and prickles of static electricity ran over his skin. It reminded Bo of the time he and his friends had decided it’d be a good idea to take a leak on a cow fence.
That was electrified.
Standing next to the purple light reminded Bo of that split second between the time the pee left his body and the stream hit the fence. He couldn’t shake the feeling that now, like then, he was about to get an angry jolt of primal power.
“I am not sticking around that long,” he promised himself.
STOP THE DEVOURING DEVILS CHALLENGE TIMER
6 Minutes Remaining
GOOD LUCK, CHAMPION!
Plenty of time, Bo lied to himself.
The enormous globe of purple light was growing by the second. While the edges fizzed and swirled like the vapors from dry ice dunked in a swimming pool, the center of the light had become a distorted window into a world that Bo did not want to visit. Things from that world were charging toward the gate.
Big, ugly things with swords and spears. Some of them rode on even bigger, uglier things. They all seemed way too close for comfort.
“Stop gawking and start moving,” he told himself. It was one of his old man’s favorite sayings, and it had never been more apt than this very moment.
Bo raced around to the pickup’s bed. He unhooked the bungee cords and snatched the propane cylinder out of the bed. He hustled to the passenger side to grab the ash bucket with his free hand. The wire handle was nearly too hot to hold, even through the pit gloves he still wore, which was exactly what Bo wanted. He hustled across the last few yards to the purple light and dumped out a mound of red-hot embers.
The next phase of his plan gave Bo pause. He wasn’t sure how long it would take, exactly, and he was a dead man if he guessed wrong.
Of course, he was a dead man if he didn’t get rid of the gate in the next few minutes, anyway. Dangerous as this plan was, Bo couldn’t see any other way to deal with the purple hemisphere of doom.
QUEST TIMER: STOP THE DEVOURING DEVILS
3 Minutes Remaining
GATEWAY ANCHOR IMMINENT
“Screw it,” Bo said. “Time to poop or get off the pot.”
Without further hesitation, he rammed the propane cylinder’s base into the mound of embers. He pushed the squat tank down hard to make sure the whole bottom was in contact with the live coals. Acting far more casual than he felt, Bo flipped the ash can over and plopped it down on top of the tank. The safety release valve would definitely vent propane when the tank overheated, and the bucket would direct all that precious fuel down toward the embers.
Having violated every fire safety rule he’d ever learned, Bo ran back to the truck like a pack of rabid honey badgers had smelled something tasty in his drawers. He grabbed the pistol and the extra magazine off the front seat.
Then Bo ran like he’d never run before.
After the mess he’d already been through that night, Bo was surprised by how much energy he still had in the tank. Running had never been his favorite thing—that was barbecue, as his growing paunch could attest—even before he’d beaten up by a deadly brisket. Maybe it was fear of being blown to kingdom come, but Bo opened up serious distance between his backside and the gate.
He stopped when he reached the north edge of the bridge. The hum from the gate had grown much more intense, and Bo turned to face it as if hypnotized.
Impossibly, he could make out every detail of the figures charging toward his world. Big ram’s horns curled from their skulls. Barbed tails whipped the air behind them as they stampeded across a cracked, black plain dotted with pools of purple fire. Cloven hoofs? Check. Pitchforks? Check. Skin as red as a baboon’s butt? Checkity-check-check-check.
They were devils all right. Bo wasn’t sure if that worried him more than his previous alien theory or not. Aliens he could chop up with his cleaver if he ran into them. Devils might need holy water or weapons blessed like a priest. He strained his memory for some scrap of old Dungeons & Dragons lore about infernal creatures, but a horrific noise derailed his train of thought before he dug up anything useful.
A sound like a shrieking child, if that child was fifty feet tall and hopped up on a candy store’s worth of sugar, had ripped through the night. A shaft of violet light erupted from the orb in the middle of the bridge, piercing the sky and blotting out the alien stars with its brilliance. Seeing that was like watching Lucifer himself raise a middle finger to the laws of man and nature.
QUEST TIMER: STOP THE DEVOURING DEVILS
2 Minutes Remaining
GATEWAY ANCHOR IMMINENT
A crashing, red wave of devils plunged from their world into Bo’s. Their oversized lizard mounts and blasting brass trumpets filled the air with a cacophonous roar that drowned out the pickup’s laboring engine. They raised their weapons in fury, stamped their hooves, and raged against, well, everything.
“C’mon,” Bo pleaded with his MacGyvered bomb. Every fire safety class he’d ever taken told him that what he’d done with that propane cylinder should have taken out a quarter-mile of the Texas-Oklahoma border.
And, yet, nothing happened.
The devils had formed up into groups on either side of the gate. They were doing something, and Bo knew he was just about out of time. Those bastards were finishing the anchor that would hold their gate in this world.
If Bo Didn’t do something right then, he’d die. But, more importantly, so would every person back at the camp. Gertrude, Hank, Slick, and Jenny would die screaming at the hands of these devils.
“Not today,” Bo promised. “Not on my watch.”
He shoved the extra magazine into his back pocket, raised the pistol in both hands, and took aim at the propane cylinder sitting in the middle of the highway. The white tank was just visible at this distance thanks to the embers that had burst into flame now that they had oxygen to feed on, but it was a long shot for a pistol.
Bo’s father had taken him to the gun range a couple of times a month to learn how to use the 1911, but there hadn’t been an entire tribe of devils gathered around giving him a case of the yips.
Bo prayed and squeezed the trigger.
The gun roared, and so did a devil. The creature hopped on one hoof, clutching its wounded leg, then fell over. Two more devils pounced on the fallen and ripped its guts out in a feeding frenzy.
QUEST TIMER: STOP THE DEVOURING DEVILS
30 seconds remaining.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
GATEWAY ANCHOR IMMINENT
When Bo was a kid, he’d seen a Kung Fu movie about a zen archer who said stuff like, “I do not aim my bow, I pierce the target with my mind.”
That’s what the pitmaster knew he had to do. He focused every fiber of his being on the propane cylinder and drew a mental line between the 1911’s muzzle and the white side of the cylinder that held the only hope for Earth.
Bo fired.
Sending a bullet over the top of the propane cylinder and through the purple gate.
Again.
The bullet ricocheted off the asphalt with a warbling whine.
Again.
The bullet caught a devil in the hoof and ripped it clean off.
Again.
This shot missed every damned thing.
Again.
A ball of fire blasted out from the propane cylinder for a dozen yards, then flared up into the sky in a roiling cloud of smoke and flames. Charred devil bodies flew off the bridge and vanished into the sluggish stream of the Red River.
The purple light winked out, leaving no trace it had ever been there.
CHALLENGE COMPLETED!
Stop the Devouring Devils
The Devouring Devil force is no longer capable of anchoring their gateway.
REWARD: One Uncommon Technique, Heritage, or Equipment card.
This reward is available after you destroy the final Devouring Devil.
REWARDS ARE AVAILABLE IN YOUR PERSONAL INVENTORY
“AAAAAAIEEEEEE!” a flaming projectile screamed as it sailed through the air.
It was the top half of a demon, barbed sword clutched in its red, scaly fist.
Flying straight at Bo.
The pitmaster fired the 1911, but the rushed shot missed the target by a mile.
The target, however, did not miss him.
A devil—or, more accurately, the top half of a devil—slammed into Bo’s legs. The evil creature sank the talons of one hand deep into the meat of the pitmaster’s thigh. The pair tumbled ass over teakettle across the asphalt, with the devil coming out on top. With a triumphant cry, it reared up and slashed at Bo with the barbed sword clutched in its other hand.
The pain was so overwhelming the pitmaster blacked out for a split second. When he came to, it took Bo a moment to register the fact that his legs were lying a foot away from the bloody stumps sticking out from his basketball shorts. Other than the blast of agony he’d felt the moment his legs were severed, though, Bo felt no pain from his stumps. That was definitely weird. Bo chalked it up to shock, but knew it wouldn’t matter much longer. He’d be dead of blood loss in the next few minutes.
The devil didn’t seem at all bothered by its missing legs, either. The thing dug its claws into the asphalt and dragged the smouldering wreckage of its body toward Bo. The pitmaster, woozy from his wounds, raised the 1911 and fired point blank into the devil’s chest.
The creature howled and rolled off Bo, its claws leaving bloody trails in the pitmaster’s legs. It propped itself up on the hand holding its sword and pressed the other hand to the wound in its chest.
“What kind of spell did you cast on me, wizard?” the creature howled. “Do you really believe your pathetic powers stand a chance against me?”
“I call that spell the Yippee Kai-Yai, Mr. Falcon,” Bo said. He’d taken careful aim on the devil’s face while the thing spoke. It was time to send the asshole back where it came from.
He pulled the Commander’s trigger.
Click.
“You idiot,” the devil snarled. “Now, you die.”
Panicked, Bo searched the ground around him for a weapon. The only things near enough for him to grab were scattered bone fragments and gobbets of smoldering meat thrown clear of the explosion. He had nothing to defend himself.
The devil scrabbled across the ground on its hands and swung its sword, but missed the target when Bo frantically rolled to one side.
The pitmaster’s evasive maneuver brought him in range of something he could actually use as a weapon.
His severed left leg.
The devil tried to close the gap again. He swung his sword, but the off-balance, clumsy strike went wide.
“Who’s stupid now?” Bo snarled, and rolled toward the prone devil, putting all his weight and remaining strength behind the blow.
The meaty thigh end came down hard on the devil, knocking it flat and driving the air out of its lungs. The creature’s jaws clicked together when its chin hit the asphalt, severing the tip of its forked tongue.
Blood drooled out of the devil’s slack jaw. It lay still, breathing labored.
Bo didn’t wait to see if the thing would get back up. He dragged himself over to the devil and swung his leg into its head, again and again, until his efforts left both the devil and the amputated limb ragged and bloody.
WARNING!
You are mortally wounded.
You will expire from your wounds in five minutes.
GONTOR GOLARANG, DEVIL PRINCE OF GOTHOSH, HAS PLACED ONE BID ON YOUR SOUL.
Bo did not want to die like this. He didn’t want to die at all, but he especially didn’t want to die on the Oklahoma/Texas border with his legs chopped off and a devil ready to eat him when it shook itself out of a Bo-imposed daze.
He was wounded. He needed to heal those wounds if he wanted to live.
Meat.
Bo imagined the Meat card in his hand, hoping he was doing this right.
MEAT CARD ACTIVATED
You may consume meat to heal POW wound levels.
MEAT PLACED IN OFFHAND, MEAT CARD REMOVED FROM PERSONAL INVENTORY.
Relief washed over Bo when he felt the moist, warm chunk of meat land in his hand. He had no idea what kind of meat it was, but the gobbet was still warm and the blood bright red, so it was fresh.
He’d really, really hoped the card would have just healed him. But, no, he’d have to actually eat the gruesome meal.
“Time to see what you’re made of,” Bo told himself, and took a bite of the raw flesh.
It tore easily enough and wasn’t tough. After the first few bites, Bo could imagine it was tartare in a fancy steakhouse. That got him through the ten bites and full minute it took to finish the meat.
HEALING FAILED
Only cards of POW 3 or greater can heal mortal wounds.
HEALING FAILED
“Could have told you that wouldn’t work,” the devil slurred, blood splattering between its teeth.
Bo responded in the way this world demanded. With sudden violence.
He grabbed the devil’s sword and brought it down on the thing’s arm. The heavy blade was crudely forged, but the edge was sharp and severed the creature’s arm cleanly above the elbow.
“Why’d you do that?” the devil screeched, its remaining hand clutching its new stump. “I just wanted to talk!”
Half the creature’s face was burned down to blackened bone. The other half was, somehow, even more horrifying than the scorched skull.
“Don’t try anything stupid,” Bo said, frowning. “Next time, I’ll cut your head off.”
“That hardly seems necessary,” the devil groaned. “Look at the mess you’ve made of me.”
The devil gestured at the wreckage of its body. Like Bo, its bottom half was no longer connected to its torso. Unlike Bo, the creature’s legs were nowhere in sight, and it had melted blobs instead of ragged stumps below its waist. The wiggling remnant of its tail was eighteen inches of bone and charred gristle, and the creature’s sole remaining horn was shattered a mere inch from the scaled skin that still covered part of its head.
The scene was so gorily ridiculous that all Bo could do was laugh at the creature’s complaint.
“That’s what you get for trying to invade Earth,” the pitmaster said. “If you’d stayed where you belonged, neither of us would be in this mess.”
“I was supposed to feast on this hex, not die in it,” the devil snarled. “You cannot comprehend the time, money, and effort your violence cost my people.”
“It was you or me,” Bo said. His thoughts were surprisingly light for a man who’d found out he’d be dead in five minutes. “There was no way I’d let you kill all my friends.”
“How noble,” the devil said, sarcasm dripping off his words. “How did you even know where we’d be?”
“These messages I saw,” Bo explained. “After I picked up a deck from the brisket that tried to murder me—”
The devil’s remaining eye narrowed, and it propped itself up on one arm. A scabrous, forked tongue flickered across its lips. “You’re a champion?”
“I guess so,” Bo said. “Not that it matters. I’ll be dead in a few minutes.”
Talking was so much effort. All the pitmaster wanted to do was close his eyes and dream of better times. Like the night he and Jenny had—
“There’s a way around that,” the devil said. “I can save you. Save us both.”
“I’m not real interested in saving you,” Bo said. “Saved my friends. That’s good enough for me.”
The devil peered at Bo. “You think you’ve saved them? You are a fool.”
“Whass that sposeta mean?” Bo slurred. He’d lost a lot of blood. It was getting too hard to form syllables. If the devil would just shut up, he could finally be through with all this. No more pain. No more worrying about how he’d pay rent. No more sorrow.
The. End.
“This is only one hex, human,” the devil said. “There are thousands of incursion zones headed for this world. We devils are rapacious harvesters, that is true. But we are far from the worst. Your friends will live, but only until the next harvesters find this undefended hex. Or…”
“Wha?” Bo asked. He couldn’t hold his eyes open anymore. The scraping sound of scales on asphalt drew nearer, and the devil’s odor filled his nostrils. It reminded him, unpleasantly, of the time the old man had gotten drunk and left a pork butt on the smoker about nineteen hours too long.
“My heritage ability will let me heal your body,” the devil explained. “It will cost me my own, which is unfortunate, but you will live to defend your people against the other reavers. What do you say? Will you accept my offer?”
It was hard to think. Bo didn’t want to die. Especially if there were other bad guys coming. If they were worse than the devils, the competition pitmasters wouldn’t have a chance. They’d need a champion.
They’d need Bo.
But there was a saying he could almost remember. A warning that flickered just out of reach.
Screw it. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to help his friends.
“Do it,” Bo said.
“Do what, exactly?” the devil asked.
“Save me,” Bo said, his words barely a whisper.
“Gladly,” the devil replied, and it mashed the stump of its arm into the tattered remnant of Bo’s left leg. Charred meat and shattered bone ground against one another and something wriggled out of the devil and into Bo.
White hot pain shot through the pitmaster’s body and burned its way through his thoughts.
YOU ARE THE WILLING TARGET OF A HERITAGE TECHNIQUE
Resistance reduced to 0 against this technique.
Constitution increased from Low Potent (+4) to High Potent (+4).
Resolve reduced from Average (+0) to Weak (-1).
Your critical wounds have been stabilized and will no longer deteriorate.
You have gained the temporary boon “Touched by Fire.”
Your wound status will improve by one category every hour.
The functionality of your limbs will be restored in approximately 6 hours.
Complete physical reconstruction will take approximately 24 hours.
Your heritage card, Metamorph, has been suppressed. It will not function as long as you remain under the influence of the current heritage technique, will remain in your deck and may be drawn during combat.
Your current heritage has been changed from Human to Devouring Devil.
YOU ARE NO LONGER DYING! GONTOR GOLARANG, DEVIL PRINCE OF GOTHOSH, HAS ELECTED NOT TO RETRACT HIS BID.
Though it was nice to know he was no longer in immediate danger of dying, Bo couldn’t escape the feeling that he’d just made a horrible decision.
“What was the heritage technique you just used on me?” the pitmaster asked the devil.
There was no answer. Closer examination of the devil clinging to Bo’s legs revealed why.
The creature was very dead. Its body was already dissolving into wisps of glowing purple smoke.
Dead as it was, the creature was not gone.
Oh, that. It whispered in his thoughts. It’s nothing really. I believe your kind call it possession.