Succubus Lord 6, page 24
part #6 of Succubus Lord Series
The sub closed her eyes, and a flash of golden Hellfire encircled her body. She giggled as her skin turned back into its normal fleshy tone and her appendages regained their movement.
“Taadaaa!” she said in an over-the-top manner. “Good as new. Now, for my suggestion … why don’t I act as the fresh meat?”
“Come again?” Todd asked, completely dumbfounded.
“Exactly!” She grinned. “That’s what I’ll be doing when those blades hit my flesh.”
“Let me see if I’m understanding this c-correctly,” Gula muttered. “You want us to cut off chunks of your skin and use it as bait?”
The sub shrugged. “I can heal myself, can’t I?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer. “It’s probably the best shot we have.”
“This is f-fucking insane,” I chuckled at the absurdity of the whole situation, “but you’re right. It just might work.”
Todd sprang from my leg and popped his tiny claws into an attack position. “Alright,” he announced. “Sounds l-like the Toddster’s gonna have t-to cut a bitch.”
“If you don’t mind,” the sub said bashfully, “I’d much rather have my Dom half do it. She knows the exact amount of pressure to use to pierce the skin and get me off.”
Todd threw his hands up in a shrug. “I think I’m done for the day,” he joked. “I don’t think I-I’m gonna hear another sentence like that my ent-tire life.”
I unsheathed my goat-headed dagger from my belt, handed it to the Dom, and took a step back. The succubus looked over the weapon as a sly grin spread across her face, and then she tightened her grip on its hilt.
“I’m not gonna lie,” she said happily. “I’m gonna enjoy this.”
The sub presented her left arm and shivered. “So am I,” she cooed. “Lay it on me, Sister.”
I couldn’t watch. I crossed my arms and turned away, trying to focus on anything other than Ira’s imminent self-mutilation. There was a sound of the sub wincing, followed by a groan of ecstacy.
“Is that really all you’ve got?” Ira’s sub half said in a playful growl. “What are those, safety scissors? Really give it to me!”
“Oh, you want it harder?” the Dom shot back. “Fine!”
Ira’s Dom half must have obliged, because there was another yelp of pain that melted into a slow purr.
“That’s more like it,” the sub cooed. “Do you want me to heal up so we can play this game again?”
“I want you to heal up so you don’t bleed out,” the Dom responded. “We don’t need half of ourself dying on us. But maybe if you be a nice little kitten, we’ll do it again sometime.”
“You sure you wanna be turned away from this, Jakey and Gula?” Todd said with fascination. “It’s s-super cool to see all the t-tendons and shit.”
“No thanks,” I responded. “I think I’ll look at the naked people damned to eternal suffering, if you don’t mind.”
“What about you, Chefsters?” Todd asked Gula. “This isn’t any different from handling raw meat.”
“It’s completely different,” the curvy redhead sighed.
“There,” the Dom muttered. “It is done.”
I turned around just as the sub’s wounds were healing up. Her arm was encased with golden Hellfire, and there was a gnarly gash all the way up the length of her forearm whose edges were closing just as I glanced over it. The Dom was standing there with a large, arm-length chunk of bloody skin and muscle.
The sight nearly made me sick.
“That should work,” Gula said through a small gag. “Vargrats have a very keen sense of smell. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were on their w-way already. But we should speed up the process b-before we all f-freeze to death.”
The Dom gave a salute to the redhead and called forth her massive bat-wings. “Aye-aye, Gula!” she exclaimed happily and jumped into the air.
The succubus flew off across the landscape in search of our only chance of survival. Meanwhile, the sub, Gula, Todd, and I all formed a tight cluster of bodies as we huddled together to try and conserve what little body heat we had left.
“Ya know what, bro?” Todd said through chattering teeth. “My head might be huddled up right next to your frank n’ gibblets, but I’m not even gonna bother saying ‘no homo.’ This is a matter of survival, and all bets are off the table when it comes to that. I might change my tune if we have to try skin-on-skin contact, though … ”
“Good to know, Todd,” I tried to laugh, but the frigid air had nearly glazed over my vocal chords.
Then, I heard our salvation.
“Jacob, look!” Gula exclaimed. “Ira did it!”
“You’re welcome,” the sub half said proudly.
I looked over and saw the Dom flying toward us like a speeding bullet. Behind the succubus were two vargrats, charging after the meaty flesh in her hands with a look of savage hunger in their eyes.
“Remember guys,” I ordered as I tightened my grip on my dagger. “No magic, and go for the neck.”
“Y-You’re getting good at this, Jacob,” Gula giggled and summoned forth her battle axe with a flash of red Hellfire.
“Look at those teeth!” the sub giggled. “I wanna be in those jaws sooooo bad.”
All three of us looked at Ira’s sub with a look of annoyance.
“Uh, maybe you should sit this one out?” Todd suggested. “We got this under control, Crazy Eyes.”
The sub crossed her arms and pouted. “Fine,” she conceded, “but I can’t promise I won’t touch myself while I watch you bash their brains in.”
I nodded with a roll of my eyes. “Deal.”
The two vargrats were nearly upon us, and I saw the Dom summon her morning star into her free hand. She halted in the air about one hundred feet from our position and looked down at me for final approval. I gave her a nod, and then the succubus heaved the meaty flesh right over in front of us.
Instantly, both of the vargrats turned their attention toward the fallen meat and plowed through the snow. As they ran, I could hear a few of the people on the ground grunt in pain as they were crushed underneath the rodents’ feet. The beasts were now only a few feet away from us, and we had to act quickly before they decided to turn their attention on us.
I dashed forward, dagger in hand, and tossed up a portal of green Hellfire in front of my body. I zipped through the portal and came out in the air just above the vargrat on the left. My dagger-holding arm flew back behind my head, ready to deliver the killing blow. I landed on the creature with my legs just behind his muscular shoulders, and he began to shriek and flail as he tried to buck me off. Quickly, I threw my body forward and wrapped my arms as tightly as I could around the beast’s upper body. It took every ounce of strength in my core to keep myself on top of the vargrat as he bucked, but I was able to slowly inch myself forward.
As I crawled, I glanced over at the other monstrous beast. He must have sensed that something was up, because he dashed right past the bloody chunk of meat lying on the ground and snarled at my friends as he approached.
Thankfully, Todd and Gula were already prepared. The voluptuous redheaded succubus picked up the imp in her free hand, ran forward, and heaved him as hard as she could toward the incoming beast. Todd curled up into a ball as he spun through the air, and then he made himself go spread-eagle as he landed directly on the vargrat’s snout. He began to tear at the creature’s eyes with his claws, and the monster let out a shrill screech of pain as it was blinded.
I turned my attention back to my own vargrat, which was now chasing the airborne Dom of Ira as she flew through the sky. The creature pushed itself up into the air, and I had to hold on for dear life as it nipped at the succubus’ feet. Ira’s morning star connected with the vargrat’s face, and his body spun around as it spiraled back to Earth.
The beast hit the ground hard, and a spray of slush flew up and nearly covered my body. It was still freezing out here, but the adrenaline currently surging through me made it feel like my whole body was burning up.
I inched forward a few more feet, until I was finally upon the beast’s neck. The vargrat shook its head back and forth violently, and I nearly lost my grip. Before I could fall off and become this ugly fucker’s next meal, I stabbed my blade down at the base of the creature’s brain. It let out a cry of pain, but it didn’t go down.
Fucking hell. My dagger wasn’t long enough to pierce its spinal cord.
The vargrat was now flailing so hard it was only a matter of time before I lost my grip. I slammed down my dagger into its neck repeatedly, but the beast just wouldn’t go down. Finally, the monster tossed its head back and threw me into the air. My heart sank into my stomach as I hung there for what felt like an eternity, and then I twisted my body around so I could see the beast.
The creature leapt up into the air with its mouth wide open and its razor-sharp teeth exposed, ready to devour my fleshy body. I wanted to use my green Hellfire, but the vargrat was immune. He’d simply pass through it as if it weren’t there and kill me anyway.
“Jacob, catch!” I heard Ira’s Dom call out from above.
The next thing I knew, her morning star was flying through the air directly toward me. I snatched it up into my hand, pulled it back, and then brought it down onto the vargrat’s skull. It didn’t kill the monster, but it did knock his razor-sharp teeth out of my trajectory. My body smashed into the beast, bounced off his furry body like a trampoline, and landed face-up in the slush.
Before I could even reorient myself, the vargrat appeared above me, and it was all I could do to hold out the morning star to block his deadly teeth. The creature’s mouth clamped down on the hilt of my weapon, and then I felt myself being lifted and slammed into the ground repeatedly. The freezing slush helped to numb the blows, but each one still reverberated through my body and sent a wave of pain shooting up my spine.
“Hold on, Jacob!” Ira’s Dom exclaimed.
Suddenly, the succubus’ body flew into the side of the vargrat’s head, feet first. Her pointed heels stabbed into the side of the creature’s cranium, and the blow from her momentum caused him to release his grip on the morning star.
Now was my only chance to finish this thing off.
From the ground, I pulled back my arm and brought the morning star forward, directly into the vargrat’s throat. The spike on the weapon’s tip slid across the rodent’s flesh and tore it open. What seemed like a waterfall of warm red blood sloshed out and covered my body as the monster shrieked in pain.
The vargrat rolled over onto its back, and I hopped up onto my feet to finish it off. I held out my hand and called my goat-headed dagger back into my hand with a cast of green flames. Then, I charged at the vulnerable vargrat, held out my dagger in front of my body, and stabbed it into the bottom of his neck as far as my momentum would allow.
There was a yelp of surprise, and then the creature’s body went limp.
I fell to my knees and let out a sigh of relief, but not before I heard a second shriek of pain from behind me. I quickly spun around to see the second vargrat go down with a blow from Gula’s axe. The second he had fallen, the curvy redhead raised her glowing weapon above her body, brought it down, and severed the creatures’ head at the neck. The muddy slush was turned into a deep red as a geyser of gore erupted from the stump where the vargrat’s head used to be.
He was dead.
“Ohhhh, that really got me off!” Ira’s sub panted from off in the distance. “The way you two both brutalized those things? All this blood? Whew!”
The other half of Ira landed beside me and picked up her morning star. I stood up, held my dagger in my hand, and approached the fallen creature.
“We don’t have much time,” I observed. “The adrenaline high won’t last forever. We need to get these things skinned before the cold overtakes us.”
The group spent the next few minutes using our weapons to cut the furry skin off the animals. I’d never actually skinned anything before, but I knew plenty of people back in Kansas City who had, and I got the general idea from watching them. Soon enough, we had the creatures’ hides clean off.
“So what now?” Todd asked curiously. “Are we all just gonna huddle together underneath a giant fur blanket?”
“Of course not,” I promised and began to slice through the hide.
I was able to get it into a rough square pattern about five feet wide by three feet tall, and then I handed it to the imp.
“See?” I explained. “It’s kinda like a cloak.”
“Kinda” was the key word here. There was a whole process that normally went into skinning and prepping an animal’s hide for a coat, but we didn’t have anywhere near the time or skills to make that happen. These things were about as rough as you could get. The cloaks were soaked with the warm, red blood of the vargrats, and they reeked of iron gore and dying flesh.
However, they were the only things that were going to stand between us and the bitter cold, so they would do for now.
The imp snatched the piece of fur from my hand and tossed it around his shoulders. “Winter is coming, bro,” he announced. “I fucking love it. Even if it smells like our old high school locker room.”
“That’s the s-spirit,” I shivered as I sliced out another piece. “Although I’d much rather be back in that locker room than here, wearing a piece of dead animal on my body.”
“I dunno, bro,” Todd mused. “Weird shit went on in those locker rooms. Did I ever tell you about the time I saw Robbie Parker’s mold?”
“You mean, ‘his mole,’ right?” I asked hopefully.
Todd shook his head. “No, bro,” he shuddered. “I mean his mold.”
I was able to get enough skin from each vargrat to make six more cloaks, more than enough for each member of our party. When I finally wrapped my own furry garment around my body, I felt like I was being embraced by an electric blanket on steroids. The cloak did a perfect job at blocking out the bitter wind and the sleet, even if it was rough and didn’t fit quite as snuggly as I had hoped.
“Ira?” I said to get the two halves’ attention. “Would you be willing to take the extra cloaks back to the rest of the team?”
The sub just pouted. “Does this mean we don’t get to be in this fantastic place any more?” she questioned. “This has been my favorite adventure so far.”
“Trust me, you’ll be back,” I chuckled. “We still have a demon worm to kill, remember?”
“Speaking of the ‘ol Tremor,” Todd spoke up, “how exactly do we plan on beating him? Didn’t Strawberry Shortcake tell us it’s never been done before? I’m all for trying something new, but winging this one doesn’t sound like an option, bro.”
“We’ll beat him the same way we’ve beaten everyone else so far,” I acknowledged, “as a team. That’s why it’s so important we get these to everyone.”
“Why?” Gula asked. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that, if we want to stand any chance of killing Vermis, we’re going to need everybody on deck,” I continued.
“Maybe it’s just the years of drug abuse talking, but I’m really confused,” Todd admitted. “We can only have two of the girls down here at a time.”
“That’s right.” I nodded. “Which means we’ll have to do a bunch of quick changes. Every single one of us is going to have a role to play in this battle.”
I turned back to the two halves of Ira, handed them the remaining cloaks, and took a step back. “When you get surface-side, make sure you warn the rest of the team,” I ordered the Sister of Wrath. “You all need to be ready, because I could call you into battle on a moment’s notice.”
“Ohhhh, I get it now,” Todd said as the lightbulb turned on in his head. “We’re totally battling the Elite Four. The dragon dude, to be exact.”
“Precisely,” I confirmed. “And just like with that guy, we’re going to have to play our cards right and make sure we’re using each team member’s special abilities at just the right time.”
“I love it,” Gula said with a wide grin. “Let’s go take down a demon worm.”
“We’ll go and inform the others,” Ira’s Dom proclaimed. “When you need us, you know what to do.”
“Goodbye, Third Circle,” the sub sighed and stood beside her other half.
I touched the whip tattoo on my shoulder, and the two succubi disappeared. I turned back to my remaining two friends and looked at them somberly.
“Now all we have to do is find this Vermis thing,” I sighed. “I don’t even know how the fuck we’re gonna--”
“Don’t stress out about it, bro,” Todd explained as he patted my knee comfortingly. “Everybody knows you just gotta go through the front door of the house. Sand worms and all that.”
“This isn’t one of your movies, Todd,” I said as I rubbed my temples. “There’s got to be a place where Vermis hangs out here in the Third Circle, or at least a way to summon him to our location.”
“Todd’s right, you know,” Gula explained. “We do just have to go through the front door.”
“Say that again, Swedish Chef,” Todd said boastfully. “Those words are like music to my tiny ears.”
“Seriously, though,” I asked in shock. “What do you mean?”
Gula extended her arm out and pointed off in the distance. “The whole point of Vermis is to watch over these tormented Shades,” she continued. “If we follow the trail of bodies in the slush, they’ll eventually start to show up in larger clusters. The bigger the cluster, the closer we are to Vermis’ dwelling.”
“And then we kick in his front door and do the whole ‘final battle’ thing,” Todd finished.
“Exactly,” Gula confirmed with a nod. “Although I doubt he has a door, per say. He is a giant ground worm, after all.”
“But then what?” I questioned. “We still have to find the portal to the Fourth Circle, and that could be anywhere.”
“Oh, contraire,” the curvy redhead giggled and tapped my nose playfully. “All of the tunnels in Vermis’ lair lead to the gateway between the Third and Fourth Circle. All we have to do is get inside and follow them to their end. Finding the portal will be easy, it’s killing Vermis that’s hard.
