HELLS GRACE

Part 2

The computer sat on a metallic black rolling AV cart about thirty-four inches tall with four squeaky silver wheels and two drawers with keyholes. Three outlets were fixed under the cart’s handle, but its connector wasn’t plugged into a wall outlet. Instead, it hung around the handlebar, unused.

However, the monitor displayed a blinking pixelated green cursor against a black screen. The cart rolled on its own, moving closer to the demon and me.

> FINDING QUERY FOR JUSTIN HODGE, it said on the screen.

> SEARCHING …

The monitor took the entirety of the table with its sides hanging a few inches by the edge. A retractable tray was where the keyboard and the mouse were. The cubby at the bottom housed the massive CPU, which resembled a high-end gaming PC. Although no brand was stamped on its side, it just looked like a massive black box, humming with life with half a dozen cables connected to it—the arteries and veins of the monster I created.

THE ORACLE

Dread Score: 3/10

Creature Type: Construct

Cooldown: 1 week

Special Traits

Inanimate Object I

The monster can remain motionless and be indistinguishable from an object of the Dungeon Core’s choice: A computer. With a built-in maximum stealth score of Level V, delvers will not notice the monster unless they have a high perception score. When in motion, the construct can only move twenty feet every five seconds.

Scrambling Communications I

The monster can render communication devices (radio waves, satellites, and electromagnetic spectrum) inoperable for 8 hours. The monster can also add static during audio calls or blur any photographic capture.

Tech Manipulation I

The monster can perceive, receive, and transmit intricate interfaces with technological devices and machinery and manipulate data networks. They can control the flow of multiple complex machinery by assembling or uncoupling their programming and infrastructure at will. They can also operate most technology from a distance of 100 miles.

“Oracle? How neat,” the demon said.

“He’ll see everything after all,” I said. “Seems appropriate.”

“I like it.”

I noticed that Oracle had the lowest Dread score out of all my monsters (with the demon having the highest at eight). It had something to do with the traits he got, which were primarily passive. I didn’t give him anything to attack because his specific job as a computer console was to remain unnoticed while chaos reigned across the dungeon. The specific traits I searched for were minuscule compared to the other constructs I could create, but they were more for the other worlds. I wanted something more aligned with Earth’s technological capabilities, and when I prompted the system, it filtered and trimmed the list down quickly.

At least I had an idea where the other dungeons might be. I imagined they’re in worlds akin to Renaissance tech or maybe older than that. All those swords, sorcery, and plenty of magic running amok and ruled their world’s or universe’s physics.

Fortunately, I didn’t end up stuck over there.

Earth was a different beast and required a different measure.

Sure, turning off the wifi blocked access to the outside world (it worked with Leo and his group), but I am stuck in my domain, unable to pass through the border and see what was beyond.

Oracle would allow me to see everything…for a limited range.

“A hundred miles is good enough. That will cover the entirety of Point Hope and two dozen towns. We can also reach Portland and Salem,” I told the demon. “And we can access all the traffic cameras and other security features, too.”

I was fascinated by how technology had changed humanity’s trajectory from over twenty years ago; a drastic change that, even though I wasn’t born then, I could feel their effects. I’m a byproduct of it. My generation had their first phones as young as five. Babysitting tech, they called it.

Although technology made our lives easier, it was a double-edged sword that I heard many countless stories online. Stalking, voyeurism, fraud, defamation, bullying, phishing, scams, and lots of ads with malware. It was a new Hellscape, a new frontier I planned to exploit.

Oracle would be the dungeon and the region’s babysitter. He will know everything that goes on 24/7.

Three minutes later, Oracle gained access to all the traffic cameras across Point Hope, whittled down to twelve colored boxes on the monitor in rows of three. He selected four screens and expanded them, which were all on Main Street.

I recognized the coach’s white Range Rover in an intersection behind a Toyota, waiting for the traffic lights to turn green. Two figures sat on the front.

“Oracle, can you get inside that Range Rover?”

> YES. ACCESSING…

The first thing that popped up was Hodge’s voice emanating from the speakers, gruff and low. He sounded angry. I hadn’t heard his voice in quite a long time, and it sent chills all over my incorporeal body. I wanted to grab him by the throat and squeeze his life out.

“It is not that simple!” Hodge exclaimed before Oracle gained access to the interior dash camera that Hodge installed.

Sitting next to him was Mrs. Hodge, shoulders slumped and looking out the window as if she didn’t want anything to do with what Hodge was complaining about. I realized that he was talking to someone else on the phone.

“I want you all not to do a fucking thing,” Hodge seethed. “Not a damn thing until I say so. No one goes to the cabin!”

“Justin, this is getting out of control,” a woman’s voice, probably Deputy Torres, spoke from the other line. “We are all freaking out. What’s happening to Maxine?”

“I’ll handle it, Becca. Then, I’ll get back to you, okay? Fuck. I’m tired. I’ll call you as soon as I know more.”

“But Hodge—”

Coach Hodge ended the call as the traffic light turned green. He stepped on the gas.

After a moment’s pause, Mrs. Hodge turned to him. “Why can’t I stay, Justin?”

“You know why. It’s too dangerous, Mel.”

“Well, I’m not gonna leave you here.”

“You’ll be at your sister’s. I often notice you complaining about not seeing her in a while. Plus, you like Portland. You can go shopping. Buy a bag.”

“I don’t give a damn about a fucking bag right now, Justin. What went wrong in the ceremony? I’ve been asking, and you keep dodging the question.”

She knows, I thought. She’s in on it, too.

Hodge gritted his teeth. “Nothing happened.”

“It’s certainly not nothing. Our neighbors were murdered. Eight people died in Green Hill around the Yates Residence, where you gave Dave the gem. Where’s the fucking gem now, Justin?”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Becca can’t find it on the scene, but she thinks Maxine might have it. She dug up the kid’s body after all—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Mrs. Hodge—Mel—raised her hand to stop him. “It was a standard ceremony. You wanted to lead one, so I gave it to you, and you—”

“Hey! Don’t make this all about me, darling. You weren’t there either.”

“I told you. We could have waited another month until I returned, but you are one impatient brute.”

“Like you’ll do it any different? It’s the solstice. We’d have to wait until winter for a powerful wayline like that!”

“If I were there, you wouldn’t have fucked it up, and we will still have the gem,” Mel seethed. “Now we’re in damage control. Something screwed with the ritual, maybe gotten through the gem, and you are not going to throw me aside because it’s getting scary for you—”

“I wanted you safe!”

“—and out of the way? I am not scared easily, Justin. You know that. And for you to believe that ritual was a dud? You performed a summoning ritual. Do you know how volatile and powerful that can be? You should have never parted with that stupid rock! Even an ounce of the otherworld’s power trapped inside that little thing can set everyone up for months!”

“Well, honey, it was for our future. The guy told me—”

“Ha! Yeah. Some crackpot from the internet!”

“—he told me it was safe! Practical!”

“I love you, and we’re both in this together. So, we’ll finish it together.”

“It could be from below.”

Mel paused, nodding. “Are you sure about that?”

“What could it be? Becca said she smelled sulfur all over the place. I’m pretty sure we’re dealing with a demon.”

“Maxine should have been able to cast it out then. She’s a senior member. I taught her how to perform the necessary incantation to subdue it.”

“If she did it right, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” Hodge groaned.

“Only she didn’t. Whatever’s got her now is a powerful one, and she wants us to go to some cabin in the woods.”

“An isolated location.”

“Yeah. Those are my thoughts exactly. It’s going to pick us off. Dave’s dead. Ashley. Adam.” Mel frowned. “But why dig up the boy’s body? To taunt us?”

“It’s a demon, Melanie. They’re unpredictable. Who knows what it wants with Mark’s body.”

But Mel shook her head. “I don’t know. Something feels off. This is not like the other demons we’ve faced. It feels…different.”

“Well, the demon went on a murder spree, so…yeah. Anyway, we’re meeting with him. Hopefully, he will have answers.”

“He better be. Or else I’m going to kill him.”

Coach Hodge drove northward, took the ramp out of town, and entered Route 26. Accessing their GPS, Oracle showed me their destination was in Old Town near Burnside: Powell’s Bookstore.

They’re going to the city. I wondered who they were meeting. “Keep track of them, Oracle. I want to know who the guy he’s talking about.”

“This is too dangerous,” the demon said, worried. “I’ve never encountered a mortal who knows the intricacy of creating a dungeon core, master. Such knowledge will drive any living mortal mad! Whoever their patron is, you are too weak to deal with.”

“You’re saying it could be an Elder masquerading as a human?”

“All-Powerful. All-Knowing. All-Seeing.”

> ALL-POWERFUL. ALL-KNOWING. ALL-SEEING.

Both Oracle and the demon chimed in.

I flinched. “Well, whoever this guy is, it’s probably good to know what else he’s capable of. If he’s not an Elder, then maybe he’s someone we must look out for in the future. And I’m curious why he chose Hodge and his cult to create me in the first place.” And why choose Earth, of all places? There were better worlds more suited for dungeons than good ol’ boring and magic-less Earth.

“Be careful, lord dungeon. Prying on the personal business of your creator is a dangerous game. Elders love their games just like demons and devils; only theirs spans millennia. You can be a small cog in an elaborate wheel you don’t know.”

“Thank you for your concern, demon, but I’ll be fine.”

The demon didn’t look convinced.

“Okay. It will take Hodge and his wife almost two hours to get to Portland—”

“And they’re skirting dangerously close to Oracle’s range…”

“Yeah. But at least we know their destination. Remind me when they get there,” I ordered Oracle. “Well, the day’s still young. We might be able to lure the cultists to the cabin. We can focus on the lesser fish with Hodge and his wife out of the picture. Get me a visual on the others. Let’s look for Deputy Rebecca Torres next.”

> FINDING QUERY FOR DEPUTY REBECCA TORRES.

> SEARCHING …

The monitor blinked a couple of times before the dozen camera feeds changed only to six cells, all within Harriet’s diner in the middle of Point Hope. It was a popular diner amongst the locals. Heck, I’ve eaten there dozens of times with my family. After all, they had the best French fries out there because they dipped them in garlic, pepper, and truffle oil. Oracle tweaked the indoor security cameras to point at a particular spot in the dining area—the last booth on the left. It was private and far away from the usual early dinner crowd.

Oracle quickly added a few more visual and auditory vantage points from the other devices in the room, including cellphones, Bluetooth earphones, the iPads the servers were carrying, and many others, until I felt like I was in the room with them.

Rebecca Torres was not alone in the booth. Accompanying her were the familiar faces of those in the forest the night of my murder. Jenna Batten sat beside her, looking more nervous and fidgety than everyone else. The picture of my body and Demon Maxine’s threat must have rattled her out of her wits. After all, if everything was revealed, she and everyone else had something to lose. For her, it was her reputation as a successful real estate agent where most of her clients had six or even seven figures to their incomes across the county.

Sitting across the table was my English Teacher, Kirk Gamble. Like Jenna, he was also nervous. He forgot to comb his hair and looked like he had just gotten out of bed. Next to him, Alvin leaned lazily against the chair he sat on, watching the people walking on the sidewalk outside. Any clatter from a dropped utensil or a sudden burst of laughter from the nearby booths made Kirk jump.

“Relax, Kirk. Everything’s gonna be fine,” Rebecca reassured him.

“I don’t think you even believe that, Becca,” he said, fidgeting with his glasses. “I tried calling Maxine, but he won’t pick up.”

“Well, don’t do that again. She’s currently a murder suspect, and the less connection we have to them, the better.”

“One of the detectives came to my home this morning asking all sorts of questions,” Jenna said softly. “I just told them I’ve never seen her for a week.”

Rebecca nodded. “Just…for everyone’s sake…no one panic. It’s not gonna do you any good. If you are calm and cooperative, the investigation team won’t bother you, okay? Everyone who is anyone in this town is friends with Maxine. We have to keep the appearance that the housewife snapped and killed people. That’s the story we gotta stick with, just like Hodge said.”

“Where is he anyway?” Kirk asked.

“He’s…going out of town.”

Kirk and Jenna froze. “Should…should we do that, too?” Jenna asked nervously.

“No, no. We should not leave all at once. That’ll make the detectives suspicious, and they’re a fucking nosy bunch. Hodge said he’s gonna be back in a few hours—”

“—And you believed him?” Kirk asked incredulously. “For all we know, he could be heading to Mexico already!”

“Keep your voice down, motherfucker,” Rebecca hissed. “He and Mel are meeting the guy who taught us the ritual.”

“The one that didn’t work?” Jenna asked.

“Or it might have, but for something totally not about what we thought it would be,” Kirk suspected. “I think we did the wrong ritual.”

“We won’t know until Hodge gets some answers, okay? All we can do is wait,” Rebecca said. “What about you, Alvin? What do you think?”

Alvin shrugged, but then he paused, an idea forming in his head. “We can check out the cabin.”

“Hodge told us to wait,” the deputy said.

“I know. But you said he wouldn’t be back for a while. We can scout the place in the meantime.”

“Is that…safe?” Jenna asked. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Maxine killed eight people—”

“We don’t know that yet,” Kirk pointed out. “All we see is her leaving the neighborhood on security cameras. We didn’t exactly see her kill those people. She might have an accomplice.”

“But she threatened to expose us! I think that makes her guilty,” Jenna said.

“You haven’t seen the bodies,” Rebecca said, lowering her head. “You didn’t see all the blood…”

“Has the girl woken up yet?” Kirk asked.

“No. She’s still in a coma.”

They must be talking about the lone survivor. Tessa something? I thought.

“Damn. We could have asked her if Maxine was the one who attacked her.”

“Could there be other groups?” Jenna asked.

Rebecca furrowed her brows. “What do you mean?”

“You know…other people like us?”

“As far as I know, we’re the only ones in the area.”

“I like Alvin’s idea,” Kirk interjected. “The more we know about the place, the better prepared we are until we confront Maxine and whoever was working with her. Maybe she found something in the gem she wanted for herself? Maybe we can talk her out of it.”

“She murdered her husband. I doubt there’s room for talking,” Jenna said.

“Allegedly,” Kirk corrected. “Again, we have no idea what’s going on yet.”

Three news vans arrived and parked in the parking lot outside the diner. All four of them sunk into their seats as if being near a press badge would suddenly unravel all their secrets out in the open.

“Quiet. Let’s not talk about this in the open while every media outlet in the country is on this fucking town,” Rebecca said.

“I can call some guys,” Alvin said. “It doesn’t have to be us. They can watch the place while we wait.”

Rebecca bit her bottom lip and narrowed her gaze. “And do you trust them?”

“I’ve worked with them in a few jobs. Mainly in Salem. A couple in Eugene.”

“What kind of jobs?” Kirk asked.

Alvin glared at him. “The kind that is none of your business.” He pulled out his phone. “They can be here in an hour. We’ll have to pay them, of course. I think all of you can chip in easily.”

Rebecca, Jenna, and Kirk looked at each other unsurely until Jenna nodded. “Can they grab Maxine, too? Maybe we can get her.”

For the first time, Alvin grinned. “Damn, girl. You are cold-blooded. If the pay is good, they might do that, too.”

“Maybe we can nip this in the bud while we’re at it: no need to send cops or anything. We’ll have to keep her quiet as soon as possible,” Kirk said. “I’m in.”

“But Hodge said—”

“Hodge is not here, Rebecca. He left town, and now, we’re on our own. I don’t care if he says he’s going to be back. He might be lying. Better safe than never. Let’s grab the bitch.”

Half a dozen news crew entered the diner and headed for the counter.

Deputy Torres raised a finger, gesturing for one of the servers to hand over their bill. “I’m in, but I’m going to text Mel and loop them in. It’s the least we can do.”

Kirk rolled his eyes. “Ah. They’ll say no, of course.”

But Rebecca already had her phone out and texted Hodge what they were planning to do.

Interesting. I smiled. “Oracle, intercept that text. Don’t let Hodge and his wife see it.”

> UNDERSTOOD.

> WHAT IS YOUR NEXT INQUIRY?

“Send a text to the deputy. Make it look like it came from Mel. Can you do that?”

> ONE MOMENT. TRANSMITTING ….

A few moments later, the deputy’s phone chimed.

Mel: Are you sure?

Rebecca: The others think we can scout the area at least. Just to be safe. What did Hodge think?

Mel: I didn’t tell him. You know how he is. You do what’s best.

That was the only permission that Rebecca needed before she turned to the others and nodded. “Mel said we should do it.”

“Already contacting them,” Alvin said, texting two numbers.

“Can you…join them?” Rebecca asked. “I don’t trust them to do the job, but I trust you.”

“You want me to babysit my guys?”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Alvin grinned wider. “Fine. I can keep them company. Oh, shit. Heads up. I think we should leave.” He gestured to the gathering news crew ordering their late lunches by the counter. One of them, a man in his late forties who looked like a cameraman, looked at them oddly.

“Yeah. I think that’s a good idea,” Jenna chimed in.

“Let us know what they find, okay?” Rebecca said.

“Will do.”

They hurried out of the booth and went their separate ways, walking to their own vehicles and left the diner. I stayed a little longer on Alvin’s phone, reading through the text messages he sent. With the promise of ten grand each, the people on the other line agreed to scout the lake. Although Alvin deliberately failed to mention anything about kidnapping Maxine.

I floated out of the library and into the lounge area. “Well, it looks like they’re gonna err on the side of caution, demon.”

“As expected,” she said, amused. “Two new potential delvers are coming along with Alvin Jones. That’s a win, right?”

I nodded. “And we’re gonna use Alvin to lure them all in. And then, we will destroy them.”