Dan's Inferno, Book IV: Vengeance

by Jan Stryvant

  "But what about my wives? What about them?"

  "They are yours, are they not?"

  "Of course they are!" Dan said with a growl.

  "Then wherever you go, they have a right to go as well. Whatever you claim as yours is theirs, too. I don't think you'll have any problem taking them home."

  "Once I find them."

  "Yes, once you find them. But it sounds to me as if you already have a connection to each of them. So let us rest, and when we are ready, I will show you the path to whichever of your wives you wish to recover first."

  Dan nodded and yawned. "Thanks, Dad."

  His father smiled at him. It was so rare that he got to see his offspring—few lived to adulthood, as many were killed in attacks on their foster fathers to take their power away. Those who survived were rarely so well inclined towards him. But then, that was the way of things, after all.

  People came to him looking for power, and rarely had one balked at the price. He made deals with them because he enjoyed it, because it pleased him to do so. Because sometimes one such as his new son came along and made it all worthwhile.

  After all, what good was it to be a god if you did not at times indulge yourself?

  #

  Fawn groaned and opened her eyes. She was sore everywhere she could be sore. Well, not everywhere, there was one place she definitely wasn't sore and wished she was.

  Getting to her feet, she looked around and groaned.

  She was home. Back on Bovera. Back where she'd grown up.

  "Fawn? Is that you? What are you doing here?"

  "Hi, Mom," Fawn grumbled, looking at her mother as she trotted over to her. Her mom was still something to look at, as fit and trim as Fawn was, if perhaps a little wider in the hips, and with a more generous bosom. She also had white wool where Fawn's was black, something Fawn had gotten from her father.

  Her mother was the one who had taught Fawn to dance, and while Fawn could ensnare most people with her dancing and enthrall them for a little while, her mother could take down even the most powerful of demons and keep them enthralled for hours.

  Fawn had often wondered how her father had managed to corral such a lively, talented, and intelligent ewe as her mother. Her father was about as base as base could be.

  "As for what I'm doing here, well, what normally causes one of us to suddenly pop back home, flat on our backs, sore as hell, and without a clue?"

  Her mother laughed and clapped her hands. "You got banished! Oh, I bet your father is going to have a long and hearty laugh at your expense over that! Now he'll finally be able to marry you off to a decent ram!"

  "Mother," Fawn growled, "I have no desire to be married off to anyone Dad thinks is good for me. For that matter, where is his lordship, so I can immediately head in the opposite direction?"

  "Oh really now, honey, he only wants what's best for you. Besides, now that you've been banished, what else are you going to do? You can't go back to Earth anymore."

  "I can, and I will. I just need to find everybody first."

  "You mean you're still with that cerberus? I thought you'd have grown out of that by now," her mother said with a sigh as she shook her head.

  Fawn just rolled her eyes and snorted. "She has a name, mother. Why can't you use it?"

  "It's just…" her mother shook her head, "I mean, really, taking up with a cerberus! It's just not right!"

  "I notice that it was perfectly fine when Clement took up with one; you didn't complain much about him."

  "Umm, well…" Fawn was surprised to see her mother actually blush. "It's not often that one of us gets to rule over one of them."

  "Uh-huh, sure he is," Fawn said with a snicker. "I can assure you who's getting on top in that relationship each night!"

  "Fawn! Please! That's your older brother you're talking about!" her mother said, still blushing. "So what caused you to get banished?" she asked, changing the subject.

  "Oh, you know, the usual. Big turf war, some wizard is getting his ass handed to him, so he breaks out the artifact to get rid of the competition."

  "You were fighting a wizard? Fawn! Why?"

  "Because we're going to kill him, Mom, that's why. But first we're going to bleed him dry of everything he's got! I mean, that's what you do, right?"

  Her mother sighed and shook her head.

  "And you wonder why you always get in trouble," a big ram with jet-black wool said, coming into the room. "I thought I felt something different."

  "Hi, Dad," Fawn grumbled. Her father was ripped and had arms about as thick as her thighs. He was without a doubt the biggest and strongest ram around, and the scars on his body made it clear how tough he was, as well. The problem, as Fawn saw it, was that he wasn't half as smart as her mother, and he was bull-headed and stubborn to boot.

  "Well, now that you're back, I've got just the male for you! Roefort's son Zoroke should be able to tame that wild streak of yours!" he said with a smirk.

  "Sorry, but no. I'm not looking for anyone, and honestly if I know Olivia, she's probably already on her way here. Then there's the others, who I'm sure will all show up."

  "Others?" her mother asked.

  Fawn nodded. "Yeah, there's Wrath, Aella, and Lofn."

  "More girls, big whoop," her father said with a chuckle. "Maybe I can find a nice ram to deal with that Olivia and the rest of 'em, just like your brother did!"

  Fawn laughed. "Oh, I would love to see you try! Wrath's a felish, Aella's a displacera, and Lofn's a succubus!"

  "Fawn! I thought I raised you better than that!" her mother said, looking shocked.

  "Lofn's not like that anymore, Mother," Fawn said, looking a little embarrassed.

  "Falling sway to a succubus," her father grumbled. "Now I'm definitely seeing you get a proper husband, and soon!"

  Fawn looked over at her father and frowned. "I already have a husband!"

  "A succubus is not a husband!" he retorted angrily.

  "No, but my Dan sure is!" she replied just as angrily. "You may be the biggest ram around these parts, Daddy, but..." she stopped as it suddenly sank in what Dan might do. She might not see eye-to-eye with him, but she didn't want to see him eaten.

  "But what?" He laughed. "Even the cerberus around here won't butt heads with me one-on-one!"

  "Daddy," Fawn said in a much softer voice, looking as worried as she suddenly felt. "I don't want anything bad to happen to you. Please don't try to set me up with one of your friends or one of their sons. Dan's got a bit of a temper when it comes to anyone messing with his women."

  "One of his women? What's that supposed to mean?" her mother asked.

  "Oh, I doubt any husband of yours will be standing up to the likes of me!" her father boasted.

  "I'm in a harem, mom."

  "You're what!" her mother exclaimed, looking surprised. "With other races?"

  Fawn shrugged a little guiltily. "It just kinda happened."

  "And this Dan is your husband?"

  "Yup," Fawn said looking a little embarrassed.

  "And the others…"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Even the succubus?"

  Fawn grinned. "She never stood a chance. When Dan wants you and decides that he loves you, it's kinda hard to not want to be his right back."

  "And where is this Dan of yours from?"

  "He's from Earth…"

  "You're in thrall to a human!" her father said loudly, and then guffawed, slapping his leg. "He won't last long against me!"

  "He'd not human!" Fawn yelled back at him. "By the God of the Glade, Father! He's a Sobek!"

  "You married a Sobek!" her mother said and clapped her hands with a laugh.

  "Sobeks don't exist! They're just myths!" her father growled.

  From the look her mother shot her father, Fawn suddenly got an insight into why her mother was with him, and suddenly worried her mother might be considering setting her father up for a trip down Dan's throat.

  Her father was the power that ruled the valley, and e
ven she had to admit that Dan's strength and power, even when it was only his strength of will, had a lot to do with why she was attracted to him.

  "Honey?" her mother said in a saccharine sweet voice to her father, who scowled, but immediately turned to look at her.

  "What?"

  "Don't make me trade up. I haven't invested this much of my life in you just to watch you end up in somebody's gullet."

  Her father snorted. "I ain't anybody's dinner, and that's just a myth."

  Fawn shook her head. "Daddy? For the first time in my life, I'm gonna beg you not to do this. They exist. They eat demons. I've seen it. A felish tried to grab one of us, and Dan ate him." Fawn shivered remembering it.

  "It was hot," she said, looking back at her mother.

  "Your daughter is married, and that's that," her mother said, still looking at her father. "Right, Jonas?"

  "Tanci!" her father said, looking surprised.

  "I said, Right Jonas? Or by god, I'll talk him into eating you myself, and I'll see if he wants two ewes in his harem!"

  Fawn blinked at the forcefulness of her mother's words.

  Her father drew himself up and let out a heavy sigh. "Fine. It will be as you wish, Tanci."

  Her mother smiled, then literally danced over to her father and shamelessly rubbed up against him.

  "Now, how about we go tell everyone that our daughter has come home to visit, and then I can entertain you for the rest of the day in our bed?"

  Her father brightened up considerably at that. "Of course, whatever makes you happy, Tanci!"

  Her mother turned and winked at her with a grin as her father led the way out of the house. For the first time ever, she realized where the power really lay in her old home.

  What is Life

  Dan looked around as he stepped out of the gateway portal. His father had told him this morning that, after due consideration, the wife in his harem who would be most in need of immediate attention would be Lofn.

  "Why?" Dan had asked him, and his response had been just as cryptic.

  "This is something you must learn, and it is important that you learn it for yourself."

  And with that, he'd led Dan around to the woods behind the house and gave him a firm push through a gateway portal that just happened to be there.

  There were definitely questions he'd have to come back and ask his father one of these days. But first he had his women to think about.

  "Who are you?" a succubus asked as Dan looked around to gain his bearings.

  Dan looked her over; she was very comely. Hot, even. She was also armed and armored. Obviously expecting a fight, something he really didn't have time for, he was sure.

  "I'm Dan. I'm here for my wife, Lofn."

  "There is no one here by that name, human. I would suggest you turn around and leave immediately."

  Dan smiled at her. "Yeah, no. Is there someone here I can talk to? Someone in charge?"

  "Do not trifle with me, human! Your wife is not here; humans do not survive here for longer than it takes one of us to eat them!"

  Dan looked around as she spoke. Oddly enough, the place reminded him of that college up in the mountains to the south east of Sacramento. There were a lot of artfully designed and tranquil buildings all over the place, interspersed with quite a few trees and other such things.

  "Are you listening to me, human?"

  "You know, this really is a nice place," Dan said, smiling, and gave her a little wave. "And yes, I was listening. Don't worry, I promise not to let anybody eat me."

  With that, he struck off towards the buildings.

  "Hey! Where do you think you're going?"

  "That way," he said and pointed.

  "Get back here! I didn't say you could leave!"

  "That's okay, I didn't ask," he replied, turning his back on her, and heading towards the largest of the buildings he could see. Usually big buildings meant important people, and someone there could probably point him in the right direction. He had a sneaking suspicion the gateway his father had pushed him through led to wherever Lofn had ended up.

  That realization gave him an uncomfortable feeling; however, it would have to wait, as he could hear the sounds of armor jostling, approaching quickly from behind.

  "Aren't you supposed to be guarding something?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at the now angry succubus.

  "Stop right there!" she said and waved her spear at him.

  He grinned at her; for some reason, he was finding this whole thing to be funny.

  "No."

  "What do you mean 'no'!" she yelled at him.

  "No. N.O. No."

  She tried to jab at him half-heartedly with her spear, but didn't have much success, as he was still walking away from her.

  "Dammit! I order you to stop! You're not allowed to walk around here! Especially not by yourself! We have rules!"

  "But I'm not by myself!" he said with a laugh.

  "I don't see anyone else!" she growled.

  "You're here, aren't you? And you're accompanying me. So I'm not walking around by myself, am I?"

  The look of confusion on her face was priceless, then she frowned, and the look on her face was decidedly not friendly.

  "Listen, you…"

  He held up his hand. "What's your name? I told you, I'm Dan. Who are you?"

  "Althaia. Now you better stop, or I..."

  "Come, Althaia, I need to speak to whomever is in charge of your fair city, and I've been given to understand that I need to do it soon. You can either come with me and be good company, or…" He stopped and pivoted on his foot, catching her off guard. Knocking her spear aside with his right hand as she continued moving forward, he put his left hand out, the force of his palm stopping her dead in her tracks as he placed it dead center on her chest.

  "Or I'll leave you lying here in the dirt, one very unhappy succubus. I don't have time to squabble, and I can guarantee you're fighting way out of your weight class. Now tell me, who is in charge, and can I find them in that building over there?" he asked while pointing.

  "Why I'm going to…"

  "Tell me where I need to go," Dan growled back. Grabbing her arm, he turned and strode off quickly towards the building, pulling her off balance and causing her to stumble as she tried to keep from falling over.

  "Has it occurred to you that my wife is a succubus? And that she's most likely going to be very unhappy with you?"

  "The only succubus who's shown up here in the last day is Hana, and I doubt she's your wife!"

  "And where would I find her?"

  Althaia snorted at him. "I should kill you myself. I'd be doing you a favor! You won't last ten seconds with her!"

  "We have a saying back where I come from," Dan said, continuing to drag her along.

  "Fools rush in?" She snickered.

  "Don't let your mouth write checks your ass can't cover," he growled. "Now I'm quickly running out of patience, so make yourself useful! Where," he growled, "is my wife?"

  Dan missed the shocked look that momentarily passed over Althaia's face, because he was threading his way through a number of succubi, and what he guessed was incubi, who all seemed to be looking at him in surprise or suspicion as he entered the courtyards surrounding the buildings.

  "She's in that building," she said, pointing at the one he'd been heading for.

  "Great, thank you." He let go of her hand. "You can go back to your job if you want."

  "I think it might be better if I stay," she said between pants as he continued to stride quickly while dodging through the crowd.

  For his part, Dan continued to observe. He noticed very few of the people around him were armed.

  Very few.

  The few who were armed were almost all dressed like Althaia. Obviously they were guards of some sort. But still, if succubi and incubi were as tough and deadly as people proclaimed, surely they wouldn't have much need of weapons?

  Still, the beauty and the relative calm—a calm which he was apparentl
y disturbing—wasn't what he would have expected from the home of these two groups. Everything he'd picked up about succubi from the interactions he'd witnessed between Lofn and many of the others, as well as what he'd picked up about her life when she was known as Hana, had led him to believe this would be a place of conflict and strife.

  "I feel like I'm walking through a bunch of hippies," he muttered. "Well, hippies who know about showers at least!" he added with a snicker.

  "What's a hippy?"

  "Harmless people who claim to love everything and everybody. Except perhaps regular bathing."

  "Succubi are not harmless!"

  "Harmless is a choice, not a condition," he said, and as they came around a smaller building that had been between him and his goal, he made a beeline for the doors that were now in view.

  "What is this place, anyway?" he asked her as they neared the doors. Even from here, he could feel the magic that radiated from them. There were also several guards standing about each of the entrances.

  "It's the Hall of Life. All succubi begin here, and many end here, as well."

  Dan blinked. "It's a breeding ground?"

  Althaia's tail whacked him across the butt. "It's where we begin! It is nothing so crass and crude as a breeding ground!"

  Dan snorted. "Oh, of course. And this from a race that loves to do nothing more than fuck…you know, I haven't the slightest idea how you reproduce." He looked at her, and she turned away, making him suspect she was embarrassed. He was about to push it and ask when he realized he was getting off track.

  "Halt!" the succubus guard at the doors said, lowering her spear to block his way. There was a matching incubus guard on the other side of the doorway who had lowered his spear as well, the two spears crossed before the entryway.

  "I'm here to claim my wife," Dan said, trying not to scowl. "I would appreciate it if you'd let me pass."

  "And who would your wife be? There are no humans inside!"

  "Hana," Althaia said. "He said his wife is Hana."

  "Oh, really now?" the incubus said, looking him over with a smirk.

  "I don't think so! What would Hana be doing with a mere man?" The succubus snickered.

  Sighing, he thrust out his hands, grabbed each of their spears, and started to cast.