The Infernal Games

by Reed Logan Westgate

  “I can prove my claims,” Alex replied. “Though it may be... unconventional.”

  “You’re full of it, Alex,” Lexxes retorted, seizing the opportunity. “You have painted yourselves the martyrs here, but you are not so noble. You have been working with the fae, Puc of the pukwudgie, to gain power and control. Your actions have undermined this very Council.”

  Lexxes’ claims brought another wave of whispers and mumbles through the members, but Alex didn’t seem shaken. He leaned back in his chair comfortably and raised his hand, mockingly waving for her to continue. Lexxes flashed a concerned look to Xlina before settling back in her position.

  “You have assaulted Heart’s Hearth,” she pressed on firmly, “a declared neutral ground and safe haven, in an attempt to eliminate what? These two college girls?”

  “Heart’s Hearth forfeited their status the moment they agreed to let a demon-marked warlock under their roof,” Alex declared loudly. “They knew full well there is no sanctuary for warlocks. They violated the rules.”

  “You don’t deny the kill squad you invaded the Hearth with?” Lexxes asked again, her voice shifting as she believed she had secured the upper hand.

  “Kill squad?” Alex retorted brashly. “Save the dramatics for elsewhere. Members of the coven went to retrieve and contain a threat, nothing more. But we were deterred when the Burglecuts unleashed the spirits of the Hearth on us, defending their corrupt little wards. I don’t blame them, honestly; it’s so easy to fall prey to the charms and whims of demons and their ilk.”

  “You speak from experience,” Lexxes countered firmly. “Firsthand experience from someone who was working with Morticae the Damned.”

  “Order!” Cornellius shouted as the room broke into loud objections. “Order! Point of Order!”

  Xlina could understand why the council remained inactive and ineffective as she looked up at the squabbling covens. Each vied for power and control; each seemed to guard its own self-interest above concerns for the great good. In that moment, she decided Amber was right. This Council had long ago lost its way, choosing instead to engage in their petty games of power and status. They were no better than the demons squabbling over their perceived territory.

  “I say, order!” Cornellius bellowed once more, his face turning red in anger. “We have had quite enough accusations. Now I want to see some evidence. Alex, if you would please.”

  “Of course.” He grinned like the Cheshire Cat. Xlina thought he was much too relaxed, far too at ease given the stakes. Perhaps it was just her naivety at the games of politics, but his casual nature was unsettling at best. “My associate here will begin.”

  He gestured to the odd man who had skulked up to the dais. He rose from his seat, looking at each member before stepping down. He descended the stairs with an odd gait, coming to the center of the room before the dais. He looked at Xlina with cold, vacant eyes before turning back to the dais, and she shuddered as if she had been touched again by the wraith.

  “Good members of the Council,” he began in an old and decrepit voice. “I invoke the right of magic.”

  “Very well, Oseric,” Cornellius answered, shushing the murmurs from the council. “Per our traditions, you may cast one spell to help bring truth to the Council. Be it divination or summoning?”

  “Summoning,” Oseric answered immediately, drawing the circle around the room to glow with power.

  “Very well,” Cornellius answered. “Name the entity you wish to call before the court.”

  “Ertigan the Defiler,” Oseric answered. “Duke of the Realm Infernal.”

  The pronouncement was met with immediate cries of blasphemy. A council member rose from their seats, invoking sigil and wards around them. The walls of the great domed room turned black as the summoning circle on the floor did its bidding. The heavy scent of sulfur and burning souls filled the room. Xlina choked on the memory of her dream. She found herself struggling for air amid a panic attack. The memories of the demon that had brutally violated her in Valeria’s dreamlike memory came flooding back as the world around them was replaced with the infernal plane. Oseric stood with a wicked smile at the center of the circle as gusts of hot air filled the room.

  “You damn traitor,” Lexxes called about the commotion as she worked her hands in furious combinations, casting powerful wards and runes about her. It all seemed too late to Xlina as she breathed in the stench of the Infernal Realm. Her mind traveled back to the wicked, lipless mouth of the demon with the pale, oozing eyes, to his enjoyment at brutalizing her body as he peeled her flesh like a grape.

  “Ox,” she said numbly, her body trembling. “He is coming.”

  “Rather unexpected, love,” Oxivius replied, springing into motion and putting himself between Xlina and Oseric. “I’m afraid it’s time for us to leave.”

  “Leave?” Amber asked. “Isn’t this what we wanted? For the Council to see their collusion with demons?”

  “Yes, of course,” Oxivius replied hastily. “But from a greater distance. A much, much, greater distance.”

  Oseric turned a malicious eye on the trio and laughed uncontrollably. His twisted form seemed to melt away, revealing his true identity as Puc, the fae trickster. He cackled as he looked back at Alex, who remained calmly seated in his council chair, a grin masking his face from ear to ear. The center of the circle turned gelatinous, shifting from a solid to a rolling black ichor as a bubbling, molting mound began to rise and take form. The demon stood massive, just like in Xlina’s dream, and the realization finally sunk in.

  It had been Ertigan in Valeria’s memory. The vile demon had defiled her form in the Infernal Plane. He had tortured her in ways beyond human comprehension. She had shown Xlina a split fraction of his wickedness, and it had nearly destroyed her. She could feel the fear welling inside her, but she couldn’t tell if it was Valeria’s or her own. Ertigan took form in the circle, his bulky, massive chest marred with scars covering a bronzed skin. His thick purple tongue hung from his gaping maw, dripping thick strands of saliva down his muscled torso. From the waist down, he was more lizard than man, with two legs covered in scales that bent backward at the knees. Each foot was a three-toed powerful claw that scraped the ground with each step.

  “Impossible,” Lexxes called, standing strong before the horror in the chamber. “You have no claim here, demon.”

  “Don’t I?” it asked, turning those horrible puss-filled eyes on the Council members. “How many of your brethren have made deals over the years?”

  Lexxes turned to look at the Council members with utter shock and betrayal. Xlina too looked at the members and recognized the terror in their eyes. Hypocrites, the lot of them. They sat judging her mistake while bartering with the devil himself.

  “You see, dear Lexxes,” Alex continued brazenly, “many of our peers have welcomed our guest. Many have succumbed to temptation.”

  “It’s time to collect,” Ertigan hissed, raising his massive clawed hand. Cornellius’ wards exploded in a shower of sparkles before the demon as his will alone shattered the barriers. He clenched his fist, and Cornellius exploded from the inside out in a shower of blood and gore as his soul was ripped from his body. It hung in the air like a blue mist held together by the demon’s will until Ertigan inhaled, drawing the soul across the room and down his gullet.

  Cries of terror filled the room as the rest of the Council threw fire, ice, and lighting at the demon, but Ertigan waded through it all unscathed. He reached up to the dais, plucking through the wards and sending rainbows of sparkling magic cascading down in a shower. One by one, he wrapped his clawed hand around the Council members, lifting them effortlessly before clamping his massive maw around their heads, severing them cleanly at the neck. He swallowed hard, sucking on the corpses like straws until satisfied he had gotten his fill of the tender organs before moving to the next.

  “Why aren’t we running?” Amber protested to Oxivius, looking back at the entrance to find only darkness beyond the circle.


  “Puc didn’t just summon the fiend,” Oxivius declared over the screams of the dying. “He opened a gateway. If we run out there, we’ll be in the infernal plane, lost amid a realm of things even worse than what’s in the circle.”

  “Can’t you close it?” Amber asked, her voice cracking in fear.

  “Afraid not,” Oxivius said, turning back just in time to see another Council member ripped in two at the waist. With the torso in his massive hand, Ertigan held the body above his head, sucking the entrails down his gullet like a strand of spaghetti.

  “We can’t fight that,” Xlina replied, her face a mask of horror. “It’ll kill us all.”

  “We have to do something,” Amber interjected, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks.

  “Trust me,” Oxivius replied, raising his voice to be heard over the screams of the dying. “Ertigan is in a summoning circle, as are we. He can’t hurt us.”

  “He seems to be doing a damn fine job on the Council,” Xlina protested.

  “Alex already said it,” Oxivius clarified. “They played the long game here, Xlina, probably well before you even came to Portland. They have been laying this trap for the Council, a ploy for power. Ertigan has been granting deals. He is collecting on them now.”

  “The circle isn’t protecting them because...” Xlina concluded.

  “Because he already owns them, love,” Oxivius affirmed, nodding toward her mark. “Sorry. Looks like that mark doesn’t make you so special after all.”

  Etrigan paced the center of the room; nearly all the Council lay dead before him. Lexxes remained protected behind her warding. The Council members to her right and left were less fortunate. Alex seemed to delight in it all; he leaned back in his chair, laughing as he placed his feet on the dais in complete disrespect.

  “Looks like I win,” Alex declared as Ertigan sloppily cleaned the gore from his chest with his massive purple tongue. “The Burnished Rose lays claim to Portland and the surrounding areas. The Council is dead.”

  “The covens will not abide by this treachery,” Lexxes spat in defiance.

  “The covens will elect new leaders from among their ranks,” Alex sneered viciously. “Members whom I have strategically placed and groomed for leadership.”

  “You can’t have.” Lexxes shook her head. “Not in every coven. There are those who will resist.”

  “Times are changing, Lexxes,” he shot back angrily. “We grow weary of indulging the humans and hiding what we are.”

  “What is that?” Lexxes asked skeptically.

  “Superior,” Alex barked in response. “We are the alphas, and we long to go back to the days when magic, not governments, ruled, when we were afforded the station we are due instead of cowering behind the Mist like frightened children.”

  “And this is your answer?” Lexxes protested, pointing at the demon. “This is your better world? To be a serf to this thing?”

  “Long have demons infiltrated the Earth Realm,” Alex replied seriously. “They seek only their own ends and are willing to allow us ours.”

  “You would trade your humanity for power,” Lexxes chided.

  “I would trade it for freedom,” Alex insisted, slamming his fist on the dais.

  “You cast off one yoke of oppression merely to bear another,” Lexxes chided dismissively.

  “You will die here, Lexxes,” Alex stated coldly. “I loved you once, but you chose your mundane little policeman. I’ll rip your womb from your corpse and send it to him.”

  “Your demon can’t harm me in the circle, Alex,” Lexxes answered defiantly. “And you don’t have the balls.”

  Enraged, Alex flung his hand forward, spewing a ball of molten flame at Lexxes, which sizzled off her enacted wards. She stood defiantly on the dais, calling for the surviving Council members to come to her aid. Her calls went unanswered as Alice and the bald Council member backed away from the dais, unwilling to choose sides.

  “It can’t hurt us, right?” Xlina nodded at Oxivius. “So let’s end the spell.”

  Her hand burst with nightmare energy as she bounded into the center of the circle at the diminutive Puc, the focal point of the summoning. Ertigan turned on her, his puss-filled eyes narrowing. He raised a hand, and she froze in place as if she were made of stone. He said something in an infernal tongue; the words were guttural and profane. Black ichor rose from her skin and hung in the air, swirling into a mass. She heard Valeria’s scream in her head, then silence. The black ichor congealed into a shape, which roiled and settled before Xlina on the ground. The black smoke curled up from the gelatinous form as the excess material sizzled away, leaving the fallen mortal coil of Valeria. She looked much younger than before, now in her late fifties, as she rolled on the floor in her tattered undergarments.

  “Look what was hiding in there,” Ertigan cooed with a teasing voice. “If it isn’t my favorite plaything.”

  “Bastard,” Valeria spat, looking up from the floor in a disheveled heap. Despite her ragged appearance, she still held the allure of her succubus nature, and Xlina marvel at how even in such disarray she could look positively charming.

  “Are you...” Xlina asked pensively from behind her as the demon approached.

  “You’re on your own, Xlina,” Valeria confirmed, rising to her feet to stand tall before the looming demon stalking toward them.

  “We are with you too,” Oxivius echoed from beside her.

  “All in,” Amber agreed.

  “Now might be a good time for one of those worm clouds, Oxivius,” Xlina remarked.

  “Sorry, love,” Oxivius replied meekly. “I burnt up most of my excess souls back there with Morticae. I’m afraid we’ll have to make do with just my charm and wits.”

  “Wonderful,” Valeria spat, lunging at Ertigan as he came into striking range. She led with a heavy punch that connected on the massive demon’s torso just above the belly button. If he felt it at all, he didn’t show it, swatting her aside with a backhand as if she were but a child. She spun in a circle from the force of his knuckles slapping against her head before collapsing in a heap.

  “He can’t hurt us,” Oxivius reassured calmly.

  “What about her?” Xlina asked as the brute towered over his prey.

  “It appears the circle has no protections for her,” Oxivius answered as Ertigan reached his massive hand down. Clutching Valeria’s neck, he lifted her high into the air so she was at his eye level, her feet dangling helplessly below her.

  “We can’t let him take her,” Xlina answered.

  “Better her than us,” Amber replied. “Two birds, one stone.”

  “Yes. Alex and Puc are our targets,” Oxivius agreed, stalking away after the diminutive fae.

  “Come on, Xlina,” Amber called, turning away. “Let the demons sort out their own business.”

  Xlina looked at Valeria, her body hanging, struggling to be free from the powerful demon. Her hair was matted and hung around Ertigan’s fingers; his free hand rose in front of her face, a hooked talon extended. She knew what was next. He would use that finger to peel away a strip of flesh from her mortal coil. He would exert his will on her, maiming her coil for sheer amusement. A knot formed in her stomach as the memory of the pain he had inflicted in the dream came back to her, flooding her with fear and anger. Amber and Oxivius chased after Puc in the circle, Amber throwing balls of flame from her hands, determined to char the fae alive for good this time. Lexxes traded spells with Alex while the surviving Council waited for a victor to emerge, leaving Xlina standing before Ertigan, Valeria’s only hope.

  “I’m sorry,” Xlina whispered, looking to Oxivius and Amber as they squared off with the fae. With her help, they could easily overpower him, but she couldn’t turn her back on the evil Ertigan. She sucked her breath in as the ring’s magic triggered, and she appeared in the massive brute’s shadow. With a leap, she flung herself up. Grabbing his back and scurrying up, she ascended quickly until her hand found his neck and then his face. Her fingers dov
e into the squishy ooze that were his eyes, and she unleashed her nightmare energy, focusing every ounce of pain and torment from her dream into the foul fiend’s face.

  The resounding crack of magical release drew Oxivius and Amber’s attention back to Ertigan, who howled as he dropped Valeria to swat behind him. Xlina held on, hugging the brute’s back tightly to avoid his swiping claws. She let loose a feral scream as she poured her stored energy into crackling bolts of blue energy that seared across Ertigan’s face. Valeria took the opportunity. Rushing forth, she clipped the beast’s right leg in a tackle, and Ertigan stumbled, his massive form falling forward to come crashing down against the floor. The sheer force of the impact sent Xlina rolling free from her perch.

  She rebounded, rising to her feet and coming around to the fallen demon, who was scrambling back to his feet. His face showed burns where her energy had cascaded into his eyes as he lifted his massive body from the ground. Valeria stood behind him; sharing a triumphant nod with Xlina, she leapt to his back, scratching and clawing.

  “Bullocks,” Oxivius cursed from the side.

  “Brick,” Amber called, and the fiery form of the wolf dove from her after Puc. The knobby, spindled legs of the fae were no match for the fast and powerful fire spirit. Brick collided with the portly fae, releasing a cascade of magical fire that sent a shock wave through the room. Puc wailed in torment as the flame spirit gouged into him, determined not to allow the fae to escape again.

  “We just have to hold him off,” Xlina called to Valeria as she waded into the flurry of arms and legs that was Ertigan. He spun and swat at the succubus, trying to shake her loose. Xlina snuck in, her punches primed with nightmare energy, striking at the demon’s torso with a flurry of combination strikes. Rights and lefts thudded against the torso, a wave of blue energy cracking with each strike as she worked his side like a heavy bag. Valeria clawed at his flesh, biting and scratching with everything she had. It simply wasn’t enough. Ertigan screamed unleashing a wave of infernal energy that blew Xlina from her feet and sent her tumbling down on the ground. Valeria likewise was flung in the opposite direction.