Hell's Maw. James Axler

reached down and placed his hand against the side of Nathalie’s face, tilting it—not gently—up until she looked at him. “How wen’ your quest, sweet child?”

      “It went well, my beacon,” Nathalie said, the timid hint of a hopeful smile crossing her wide lips. “I visited the site of the dragon’s death as instructed.”

      Papa Hurbon nodded thoughtfully, his smile broad and bright in the shimmering flicker of the candles. “Good.”

      Hurbon had heard of the dragon that had appeared on the banks of the Euphrates River in the territory known as Iraq some months ago. The dragon was not alive—instead it was a bone structure, as if the gigantic creature had died there and its carcass had been left to rot. Some had mistaken it for a city, such was its grand size, and this dragon city had played host to a fierce war between two would-be gods from the sky along with their respective armies of indoctrinated humans and fearsome lizard-like soldiers. Papa Hurbon did not know who the victors were, only that the battle had ceased almost as abruptly as it had started, and that the skeletal dragon had been abandoned and left to rot, forgotten by the gods who made it.

      Papa Hurbon knew a lot about gods—he was a houngan, a vodun priest, and he followed the dark path of the Bizango. He had witnessed gods appear once before from the sky and he had heard tell that the dragon was their symbol, their home. When he had heard about the dragon city that had appeared in the Middle East, he had immediately dispatched his servant Nathalie to acquire a part of the leviathan for him. There was power in the parts of the body, power in desiccated and petrified things, and there was definitely power in the things that the gods had shaped.

      “And what did you bring me, child?” Hurbon asked.

      Nathalie shifted her weight just slightly until the bag she carried dropped before her, still hanging on its canvas strap. She unzipped it and pulled the mouth of the bag open. Papa Hurbon leaned closer to see what lay within under the flickering light of the candles. At first glance it looked like a drugs stash, for the bag contained layer upon layer of small plastic bags filled with white powder. Hurbon reached into the larger bag and drew out a bag, lifting it close to his face to examine its contents more closely. There were thicker flecks and chips scattered among the white powder, each of them the yellow-white of cream.

      “Dragon’s teeth,” Nathalie explained as Hurbon studied the package, his brow furrowed.

      “Dragon’s teeth?” Hurbon repeated, turning the bag to one side so that the powdery contents slid to one side of the larger flakes.

      “I met certain people there,” Nathalie explained, “in the shadow o’ the dragon city. Merchants. They trade in exotic t’ings, parts o’ the dragon who died. You said you wanted the teeth, Papa.”

      Hurbon nodded, the smile materializing once more on his face. “Bring me my mortar and pestle, girl,” he instructed. “The smallest ones, for the most delicate mixtures.”

      Nodding once, Nathalie rose from the floor, her tall, lithe frame moving like liquid. Hurbon watched her depart from the room, peering up from under, still holding the bag full of dragon remains.

      The girl had joined his société after its near-destruction at the hands of the insane bitch goddess Ezili Coeur Noir. Nathalie was youthful, smart and able, capable of individual action and trustworthy enough not to betray him. She was loyal to Hurbon and the vodun sect he represented and would serve and service him however he asked.

      * * *

      NATHALIE PUSHED THE scarlet curtain aside and strode out into the corridor beyond. She knew the corridors of the old redoubt well. Like the djévo, the corridor was lit by candles that lined the floor, flickering in the passing breeze as Nathalie walked past them. There were jars and bottles resting on the floor behind the candles, curios stored and pickled for safekeeping, each one with a purpose in the dark Bizango rituals which Papa Hurbon practiced. Papa Hurbon had taken over the abandoned military installation shortly after the whole complex had been flooded, and there were still areas that remained waterlogged, more like swimming pools now than the once regimented rooms that they had been.

      Hurbon had another lodge located close by in the Louisiana countryside where he encouraged newcomers and old faithfuls to come worship in these harrowing times of destruction and confusion. The world had blown out two hundred years ago in the year 2001, when a nuclear exchange had escalated into a full-blown war in the space of just a few minutes, destroying Western civilization and setting back the course of history by generations. Only now, in the first decade of the twenty-third century, had the world finally moved beyond that awful legacy, and there was still so much of the old United States of America that remained unmapped, scarred by radiation, hostile to humankind. The survivors had flourished in nine grand villes, which dominated the landscape, their eerie otherworldly rulers—the barons—carving up the old United States into their own private territories. But it seemed that that golden age of safety and security had passed. The ruling barons had departed from their golden-towered cities, evolving into their true forms as Annunaki, lizard-like gods from outer space who had been worshipped many millennia ago in Mesopotamia and Babylon.

      But the Annunaki had died, ripped apart by their own mistrust and bickering, turning on one another until there was nothing left of them but their legacy. That had been almost two years ago. In the aftermath, their villes had struggled to remain safe. Some had crumbled under attacks, others had been rebuilt as new cities that worshipped new gods, and some had simply closed the gates and knuckled down, worrying only about their own and leaving anyone outside the high walls to fend for themselves.

      Papa Hurbon’s temple fell under the terrain of Beausoleil, a ville that had chosen to close ranks and reject any outlanders. Outsiders felt afraid, scared that their lands and their possessions would be taken. There were even stories that their children were being abducted for the rich ville dwellers, handed over to childless couples, or worse, roasted and eaten as delicacies. The people were scared, so they flocked to Papa Hurbon, whose fearsome charisma and powerful ways steeped in ancient ritual offered the promise of security and perhaps salvation.

      Nathalie was just one of the people who had joined Hurbon’s société in the past few months since he had reemerged after sacrificing both of his legs to his deranged goddess. When asked, Hurbon told her that the sacrifice had been worth it, and that it had granted him more power than any man had ever known before. She suspected that he was right.

      There was a room of the redoubt, beyond the vehicle garage whose floor was now hidden beneath an expanse of stagnant water where green clouds lurked and flies buzzed, that contained a thick-walled chamber within it. Inside the chamber, through a tiny pane of six-inch-thick glass, something incorporeal could be seen, swirling as if caught in a hurricane, its component parts unable to cling on to a form. The feeling of dread that emanated from the chamber was palpable. Nathalie had looked inside the chamber on several occasions, peering through the thick, reinforced glass of the rust-lined door. Within, she had seen a face, lit momentarily as if spied in a flash of lightning, then gone again as if it had never been.

      Papa Hurbon had told her that the face belonged to his precious Ezili, an ancient loa who had taken earthly form from the Annunaki goddess called Lilitu. He told her that she was his now, that she served him where he had once served her.

      Hurbon held surgery in his lodge, but he had turned the redoubt into the société’s temple, where the faithful came to bask in and add to his power. Hurbon took the responsibility easily, but then he had broad shoulders and a steady stream of young women who were only too eager to present themselves to the vodun priest.

      Nathalie moved down the concrete-walled corridor, gloomy in the insufficient illumination of the candles, and stepped into the side chamber where Hurbon kept his mixing equipment. Hurbon could get it, of course, but he preferred to send others to do his bidding now—he had spent so long just striving to survive on his own he basked in the luxury of having a congregation once more.

      Nathalie reached for the mortar and pestle, one of a dozen lined up by size along a dusty shelf that also contained aged items of jewelry and the skulls of a dozen different rodents and primates. The mortar was made from