Succubus Lord 6, page 23
part #6 of Succubus Lord Series
“Excellent job, Jacob,” Sia mused.
“You didn’t do so bad yourself,” I flirted back, “but we should probably see how Todd and Ira are holding up.”
We turned back to check on our friends and instantly saw they were struggling. Ira was split into her two halves, the Sub and the Dom, and was engaged in close-quarters combat with Furcas. The sub had a fiery whip she was using to lash out at the knight’s flesh, and her Dom’s enchanted morning star was clashing with Furcas’ spear. The demon was moving with lightning-fast speed, dispelling the Dom’s blows and then dodging the sub’s whip without so much as breaking a sweat.
Meanwhile, Todd and Robert Quinn looked more like they were in a Looney Tunes cartoon and not a fight to the death. Todd was wearing the cowboy’s massive white hat, and he was running around cackling devilishly as Quinn chased after him, hurling fireballs at the imp.
“I think Ira needs our help at the moment,” Sia observed. “Todd looks like he has things under control.”
As we ran over to Furcas and Ira, I saw the pointed end of the demon’s spear stab through the Sub’s right shoulder. However, instead of crying out in pain, the succubus let out an orgasmic moan.
“Fucking do that again, you sadistic fuck!” she groaned.
Furcas obliged and rammed his spear directly into the sub’s stomach. She stumbled back, summoned golden Hellfire around her body, and healed instantly.
“A spear through the gut?” she mused. “You really are brutal. How have we never met before?”
“We have!” the demon growled as he parried the Dom’s morning star. “You stabbed me through the gut, remember?”
In one swift motion Furcas got his spear against the hilt of the morning star, flipped it out of the Dom’s hand, and used the blunt end to smack the sub in the face. He twirled around and lashed out at the Dom with the pointy end, but I was quick on the draw. Instead of piercing Ira’s heart, the enchanted spear bounced off my violet barrier.
Ira’s Dom half used the opportunity to toss a handful of acidic Hellfire into the demon’s face.
At point-blank range, there wasn’t anything Furcas could do but gasp as the deadly spell struck him between the eyes. The knight screamed as his flesh was melted away from his skull, and he stumbled backward. He retained his grip on his spear, and he began to lash out wildly with his weapon.
“Such a naughty boy,” the Dom said with a click of her tongue.
Ira’s Dom half charged at Furcas, sprouted her wings, and then propelled herself into his body. She picked the demon up into the air and flew up a few dozen feet, beating her fists into his wounded face during the entire ascension. Furcas’ spear dropped to the ground as he was beaten to a bloody pulp, and Ira looked down at us from above.
“He’s all yours,” she declared with a grin. “Punish him for me, will you?”
The Dom released Furcas’ body, and he plummeted back down to the ground.
“You heard the girl,” I announced to the sub and Sia. “Light him up!”
All three of us unleashed a hailstorm of red fireballs at Furcas, and his figure lit up as if he were made of dry kindling. He didn’t even scream as his body was burnt to a crisp and his flesh was singed from his bones. When we finally released our spell, there was nothing left of Furcas but a blackened skeleton.
Furcas was dead. That just left Robert Quinn, better known as the demon Flauros.
The four of us turned around to scope out how Todd was handling the demon. Nothing had changed. Quinn’s face was now as red as a tomato as he blasted at the fleeing imp, but neither of them looked like they had been engaged in battle.
That was gonna change really fucking quick.
I pulled back my hand, summoned yellow Hellfire into it, and then launched a cluster of glowing shuriken in the direction of Robert Quinn. The attack struck the cowboy in the back of his left leg, and there was a spray of dark crimson as his tendons were severed by the blades. He let out a yelp of pain and began to limp along as blood oozed out and stained his pristine white pants.
Quinn instantly twisted his body around and unleashed a massive red fireball in our direction. The projectile sizzled as it traveled through the air, but Sia was able to dispel it with a quick shot of her black Hellfire. The dark flames struck Quinn’s attack, and the roaring red flames were snuffed out instantly.
“Ya got a lotta fucking gall, Ralston,” the cowboy demon hissed. “You come into my home, kill me, and then take all my money and property like it’s your own? What kinda man of honor does that?”
“One who wants to wipe demon filth like yourself off the face of the Earth,” I growled as I came within striking distance of the demon.
I lashed out with my goat-headed dagger and stabbed Flauros in the upper part of his chest. He tried to counter with another blast of Hellfire, but I blocked it instinctively with a cast of violet flames. Instead of burning me alive, the inferno blasted back into the fucker’s crotch.
Quinn yelped in agony as his family jewels were toasted, and I whacked him in the side of the head with my fist. He tumbled to the ground, bloodied and bruised, and looked up at me with pure hatred in his eyes.
“How the fuck did you find us?” I demanded. “Did Azazel put a tracker on these succubi, too?”
“I’d tell ya to go ta Hell, but yer already here,” Quinn chuckled as he spat out a mouthful of blood.
I drove the dagger into the other side of Flauros’ chest and caused him to scream in agony once more.
“You’d better start talking, Quinn,” I tried again. “We can make this very painful if you don’t. How did you find us, and where is the gateway to the Third Circle?”
“The--the Third Circle?” Quinn chuckled. “And here I thought you were just down here playin’ around. Y’all actually want to go into the Third Circle. You know what’s in there, right?”
“Vermis the Devil Worm,” I confirmed, “and I really don’t give a fuck. Nothing is gonna stand in the way of me reuniting the Circle of Sin, not even Azazel himself.”
“He was hopin’ you were gonna say that,” the cowboy giggled. “I’m almost disappointed we tried ta stop y’all. It would have been a total hoot to watch you guys get yer ass kicked by Azazel and then fed to Vermis.”
I twisted the hilt of the blade and caused Quinn to wince. “Where’s the portal?” I asked firmly. “And how did you find us?”
“Relax, partner,” he said through an evil smile. “There ain’t no trick to getting in and out of the Second Circle. The illusion spell usually works on the small-minded, so there’s no need ta hide the exit. But you should already know that, shouldn’t ya, Superbia? Aren’t ya supposed to be the expert on all things Hell?”
“I knew it was easy to find,” Sia confirmed, “but I didn’t realize it was just sitting in plain sight.”
“What are we gonna do with him now?” Ira’s Dom asked eagerly. “Can we torture him for a bit? String him up by his legs and put pins and needles into his genitals? Gag him and pour hot wax all over his wounds?”
“Jesus,” Todd muttered aloud. “And I thought I had issues … ”
“I’ll make it easy on ya,” Quinn sighed.
Without warning, the cowboy jerked his head around awkwardly, and there was a wet pop in his neck. His body went limp, dead.
Or so we thought.
“Oh fuck me,” Quinn said in horror.
Todd stifled a laugh. “Did he--did he just try to kill himself?” he snickered. “But he didn’t do it right, so now he’s paralyzed?”
“It looks like it,” Ira’s Dom mused. “It’s a shame, really. I wanted him to feel everything I was going to do to him.”
Sia held up her hand and summoned golden Hellfire. “Should I heal him?” she asked curiously.
“Yes!” the limp body of Robert Quinn demanded. “Heal me or finish me off. Just do it quickly!”
“No way,” I said as I held out my hand to get Sia to stop. “This guy has caused way too much trouble in our lives. He doesn’t deserve that kind of mercy.”
I stood up and turned to walk away.
“Wait!” Quinn’s terrified voice called out. “Azazel knows yer here now, so he has his goons posted all around the first Four Circles. We came from the west, and we only found ya because you used that spirit-melding spell that can be seen for a mile or two away.”
The demon was trying to plead for some form of mercy, but I completely ignored his requests. This asshole deserved much, much worse than this. The rest of my friends turned and began to follow.
“Thanks for the hat, Robbie,” Todd mused. “I’ll make sure to record and post all the videos of the girls I’m gonna get with this thing.”
“You can’t leave me here!” the paralyzed demon protested as we walked away. “This--this is inhumane.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” I growled. “Especially from you, Flauros. I hope you rot here for all eternity.”
“You--what--” Quinn muttered. “I told ya what ya wanted to know!”
I continued to ignore the demon’s words, and his voice grew further and further away as we headed west. The last thing I heard from the cowboy was his voice calling me a “Kansas City ass-lickin’ motherfucker,” and then we were out of his range.
The five of us continued onward, as far west as we could possibly go. Eventually, we came to a massive cliff edge that overlooked an even larger lake of Emerald Hellfire. The intensity of the flames cut through the darkness like the torch of a lighthouse, and we were drawn to it as if were were moths and it were a candle light.
“I guess Quinn was telling the truth,” I whistled as I took it all in. “It almost makes me feel bad for leaving him to eternal damnation. Almost.”
“Ah, he’ll be fine, bro,” Todd joked. “It’s only for eternity. How long could that possibly be? Besides, his sacrifice was not in vain. At least I got this sweet hat.”
The imp flicked the front of the hat’s brim, and it jumped up off his head just enough for the high winds to catch it. The hat was yanked off Todd’s head by the breeze and launched out over the lake. It fluttered like a leaf for a moment, and then it floated down and disappeared into the jade flames.
“Welp, I guess we have no choice now,” Todd sighed. “Fuck it--cannonball!”
The imp took a running start, jumped off the cliff, and tucked his body into a ball. His laugh echoed throughout the chasm as he fell, and then he disappeared into the same portal that had stolen his newly beloved hat.
I looked over at the succubi and gave them a grim nod. “Are we ready?” I asked rhetorically. “Vermis is probably already waiting on us.”
Ira’s Dom strutted up to my side and looked down at the lake, completely unamused. “Then we had best not keep him waiting now, should we?” she cooed. “Come, sub.”
The sub half of Ira perked up, ran over to her other half, and then wrapped her hand around the Dom’s wrist. The two of them looked at each other, took a deep breath, and then stepped off into the abyss.
“I guess it’s our turn, then,” Sia observed as she approached the cliff’s edge. “Onward, to the Third Circle, and onward, toward Vermis.”
“Toward Vermis,” I reiterated with a sigh.
I walked up to Sia, took her soft, delicate hand in my own, and looked her deep in the eyes.
Then we both faced forward and stepped off the edge.
Chapter 17
The world went black the second I passed through the glowing green portal of Hellfire. My body felt weightless as it traveled through space and time, interdimensionally moving from the Second Circle to the Third. The next thing I knew, a frigid, bitter wind was blowing against my face.
My eyes sprang open as I plummeted toward the ground, and I briefly saw a flash of white and brown before I slammed into a slushy, cold substance. Every hair follicle in my body stood on end as I shivered and tried to pull myself to my feet. I couldn’t get any sort of footing on the ground underneath me, so I fell forward into the slushy terrain once more.
“What the f-f-fuck, bro?” Todd asked aloud through his chattering teeth. “This is supposed to be Hell. Why is it colder than a yeti’s ballsack right now?”
I was finally able to pull myself up onto my hands and knees and then slowly get myself into an upright position. Sia and Ira’s Dom half were huddled together, their teeth chattering as they tried to cling to any sort of body warmth they could get from one another.
Meanwhile, the sub half was running through the slush, giggling like a madwoman. “This is so much funnnn!” she exclaimed as she fell down and began to roll back and forth in the icy sleet. “I’m gonna get frostbite in no time. Once I’m numb, the limits of what I can do to my body are endless!”
“H-Have I ever mentioned how f-fucked up I think she is?” Todd tried to joke, but it came out in a chatter of teeth.
I surveyed the landscape of the Third Circle and sighed. It was a slushy mess, to say the least. All around us were piles upon piles of the mushy, melted ice mixed together with the ground to create a sort of dirty brown goop. The sky was also filled with a never-ending drizzle of sleet and a frigid wind that could probably cut through even the thickest of shelters.
All around the landscape, there were bodies of people who were rolling about like a turtle that had been turned over on its shell. Nothing seemed to be physically wrong with the Shades, but they weren’t able to do anything more than slowly fail and moan as they sloshed around in the muddy slush.
The moans, to be blunt, were nothing short of haunting.
There were bodies scattered as far as the eye could see, and they were all wailing in agony. The air was filled with the Shades’ moaning, and the chilling sound only added to the discomfort I was already feeling in this place.
My shivering body quickly reminded me that, if we didn’t take action soon, we were going to freeze to death. I quickly surrounded my hand with red Hellfire and held it close to my skin.
There was nothing. Even though our Hellfire of passion burnt at thousands of degrees, I couldn’t feel a thing.
“What gives?” I asked aloud to all of my friends. “My Hellfire’s not working. When we were up in Canada fighting Shax, we didn’t even need any magic. Cupi said our bodies regulated themselves thanks to our internal Hellfire.”
“W-w-welcome to Hell,” Sia said with a sigh. “It’s another one of Lucifer’s cruel j-jokes. Demons and magic users who reside here can’t use their Hellfire to keep warm.”
“Fuck,” I growled and wrapped my arms tightly around my body.
None of us had been prepared for it to be this frigid. We were all still wearing the casual fall wear we’d been wearing in D.C., where it was a brisk sixty-two degrees. Here? I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was in the double-digit negatives.
“Why aren’t they frozen to death?” I asked and pointed to one of the moaning Shades.
Sia huddled in closer to Ira’s Dom. “They’re Shades, Jacob,” she explained. “All of t-them are already dead. They can feel the fr-frigid temperatures, but it’s not going to do much more than make them eternally uncomfortable.”
“Us, on the other hand?” the Dom took over. “We’re not d-dead. And unless we want to be, we need to do something quickly.”
The next thing I knew, I felt Todd’s tiny figure clasp onto my left leg like a koala. “Fucking heat, brooooo,” he sighed with relief. “I never realized your leg was so warm, Jakey. It must come from years of not skipping leg day. No h-h-homo.”
“We need to find something,” I said as I scouted the terrain for anything that could be helpful. “A legit firepit or some extra layers of clothing or something.”
“What we n-n-need is a fucking Tauntaun, bro,” Todd chattered from below.
“Wait, Todd, you’re a g-genius!” I exclaimed as his words washed over me.
“I already knew that,” he retorted proudly. “But, uh--could you explain how again? J-just so the girls over there can understand.”
“Sia, are there any Vargrats in this part of Hell?” I asked the shivering redhead.
“O-of course there are,” Superbia explained. “They’re everywhere down here.”
“Then we need to draw one out.” I nodded grimly. “Do either of you know how to do that?”
“Gula w-would,” Sia answered. “She hunts these creatures all the time.”
The petite redhead looked like she was nearly on the verge of hypothermia. Her frail body was shivering violently, and her entire face was a rosy-red color.
“I’m sending you back, Sia,” I explained as I reached up toward the glowing hand tattoo on my arm. “Go back up to the surface and warm yourself up. Gula, Ira, and I can handle it from h-here.”
I tapped on the tattoo, and the light shot out and sent Sia back to Earth Realm. Not a second later, I tapped the image of the battle axe, and Gula’s figure appeared.
“Holy fuck!” she exclaimed once she was fully formed. “It’s colder than Chef Ramsey’s heart here.”
“Sorry to bring you into the fray, Gula,” Todd explained, “but we needed somebody to go Rambo on a Vargrat for us.”
“Superbia said you’re the expert on hunting and tracking these creatures,” I implored. “How can we lure one out here to kill?”
“That’s all you n-needed me for?” the other redhead gasped. “That’s easy! I’ll be back at surface level in no time. You just need some fresh, raw meat and a way to ensure it all blows downwind.”
“Okay, so…where are we gonna get fresh meat?” I asked rhetorically. “We can’t just go around slicing up these poor Shades.”
“May I put forward a suggestion?” Ira’s sub half spoke up as she ran back over to our position.
“You m-may,” I answered cautiously. “As long as it’s not t-too far off the beaten path. You don’t look so hot.”
The sub was now completely frostbitten. Her nose was a bluish black in color, and there were similar splotches that ran all along her exposed body.
“Oh, this little thing?” she giggled as she tapped her nose, and it crunched queasily. “Let me fix that.”
