by Eric Vall
“You’re gonna have to catch me first, asshole,” I taunted.
“That is what they are for, fool,” Azazel sneered.
The demon raised his left hand into the air and summoned up an orange flame. He chanted a few words in Latin before his enchanted fist began to spark and send beams of orange fire into the ground at the bases of each tombstone. The concrete markers cracked in half from the raw energy, and the Earth began to tremble.
I tried to interrupt his spell with another beam of fire, but he blocked it away with his broadsword. The orange spell hit a crescendo, and from below the Earth, there came a rustling sound.
All across the graveyard, the spirits of the dead began to rise out of their graves surrounded by an orange glow. Each spirit took the shape of a human, but with one major difference. They all had glowing red eyes, and pieces of rotted flesh hung off their bodies. Each spirit floated above the ground lifelessly as if they were mere puppets on a string, guided by their puppet master, Azazel.
There had to be at least fifty in total.
“Necromancy is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?” the demon said with a devilish smile.
Azazel pointed at me, and all the reanimated spirits turned their heads, and their body to stare at their new target. The zombie closest to me charged, and the other forty-nine followed suit. I shot out a red flame and caught a handful of the ghosts before they could do any damage. The crimson Hellfire tangled with the orange flame of necromancy, and then the spirits let out a moan and dissolved into thin air.
One of the specters caught me from behind and thrust its open mouth down towards my shoulder. Before his teeth could tear at my flesh, my entire body became engulfed with a white-hot flame, and the spirit wailed as it burst into oblivion. I pulled together all of my strength and unleashed a massive blast of white fire onto the remaining specters, incinerating them all as their ghostly screams of agony filled the air.
All the spirits had been destroyed, and it was once again just me and Azazel.
“Truly remarkable. No wonder Raphael has taken such an interest in you.” Azazel stroked his chin as he pondered my skill set. “A mortal that can control the powers of both Hell and Heaven.”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded.
“Oh, this is delicious,” Azazel chuckled. “And ironic. You could be one of the most powerful magic users the world has ever seen. Instead, you’re going to be slain by the Master of Witchcraft himself!”
The demon snapped his fingers, and a cube of purple flame appeared around my body. Azazel held his thumb and index finger in front of his left eye and started to bring them closer and closer together. As he did so, the cube around me began to shrink.
With a flick of my wrist, I conjured four barriers of my own and tried to push back against my adversary’s advancing death trap. Even using all of my feelings hidden deep down in my psyche, it wasn’t enough. The walls slowed but continued to close in. I tried to cast a transportation spell, but because I was trapped inside of Azazel’s magical box, it was to no avail.
“Jacob, don’t give up,” a voice whispered in my head. “This is the Archangel Raphael. We are going to give you our strength as if it was your own.”
“We?” I questioned.
“The succubi, the imp, and myself,” he confirmed.
“Raph, you have no idea how much I’d appreciate that right now!” I grunted as I tried to push back against the walls.
My body was now in a near-fetal position.
My temples began to throb, and I could feel a surge of newfound energy surge through me. The shimmer of the white flame solidified into a sort of protective forcefield, and there was a deafening beating in my ears as it intensified. The energy shield expanded outwards, shattering Azazel’s purple prison into a million pieces.
“Round two, motherfucker!” I exclaimed as I fired off a blast of the white-hot energy.
Azazel threw up his sword to block, but the attack was too powerful. The demon cried out as he was tossed backward into the line of trees, downing nearly a dozen of them.
I cast an emerald flame and transported myself over to the demon’s position before he could recover. As I appeared above Azazel, I unleashed a powerful beam of pure white energy directly into his face. The demon screamed in pain as his entire body was lit up with the Heavenly attack and caused him to drop his broadsword.
Then, without warning, Azazel’s hand shot up and grasped my arm from below. The demon squeezed his hand shut around my wrist, and pain shot through my entire right arm as the bones were shattered into dust. With his free hand, Azazel reached up, grabbed my left horn, and snapped it off at its base.
The pain was definitely the worst part on that one.
“Don’t feel too bad,” he cackled. “You put up more of a fight than most of my enemies. Alas, all good things must come to an end. See you in Hell, Jacob Ralston!”
Hell. That was it.
Azazel reached down and picked up his broadsword as he released me from his grip.
I smashed into the ground right on my broken hand and nearly passed out from the pain. I closed my eyes and thought about everything I was about to lose. If I was dead, who would take care of Cupi and Liby? Who would keep Todd out of trouble? How would any of my friends make it in this world without me? What if they were caught by Azazel too? My very core bubbled with every emotion in my repertoire. I opened my eyes and locked them with the demon’s.
“Eieci te ad infernum unde venistis!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
Azazel screamed in terror as he was surrounded by an angelic white fire. He dropped his sword to the ground as an unseen energy forced him onto his knees. The demon smashed his left fist into the dirt as he tried to fight off the pain of the spell, but it was useless. Azazel’s greaves shone red and seared its pattern into his skin underneath, and the parts of his flesh that were exposed started to burn black in splotches all across his body.
I rose to my feet and was now at eye level with Azazel.
“Eieci te ad infernum unde venistis!” I commanded again.
The white light became even more intense as did the demon’s howls of pain. I extended my remaining hand and encased Azazel in a spray of red Hellfire. The two flames combined to make almost a flaming yin-yang symbol around the fucker who continued to try to fight it off by smashing various body parts into the ground. After about five solid minutes of torture, Azazel collapsed. As soon as he hit the dirt, four strands of enchanted silver ropes sprang forth from the ground and wrapped around each arm and each leg.
“How do you like that, asshole?” I spat on the demon laying on the ground.
“I’ll see you in Hell, mortal,” Azazel wheezed.
The two flames that had surrounded the demon rose up into the sky and merged together to create a portal that looked like a black hole surrounded by a ring of red fire. The spell expanded so that it could fit its target’s massive frame and then began to descend onto his position. Azazel growled in anger and struggled weakly to escape from the silver strands, but it was no use. He let out a weak laugh as the portal surrounded him and sent him back to the nightmarish place where he belonged.
As soon as he was gone, I fell to my knees, exhausted.
I’d done it. Azazel, the King of the Fourth Circle, was banished back to Hell. We were free.
Chapter 24
I stumbled through the wilderness back towards the chapel. The adrenaline high that I was experiencing when fighting Azazel was just starting to wear off, and I was in a world of hurt. The nerve receptors in my horn screamed in pain, and my wrist was numb, but looked gnarly as fuck. I didn’t even know if I had any bones left or if they had all been shattered into microscopic shards. The world started to spin around me, and my vision tunneled as it threatened to go black. Finally, I stumbled out into the clearing where the Chapel of the Trinity stood.
The few remaining demons from Azazel’s army were breathing their final breaths as I approached. Raphael blew a few of
their brains out with his weapon while Liby finished off a group of enemies by skewering them with a sharpened tree branch via telekinetic powers.
Finally, the last of Azazel’s minions were gone.
The succubi’s eyes lit up with happiness when they saw me emerge from the tree line, but then contorted into a look of panic and fear when they realized how fucked up I was. I felt the world start to spin as I fell to my knees, and the three girls ran over to my position.
“Jacob! You’re hurt!” Libidine cried out in horror.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I weakly joked before I started to fall forward.
Thankfully, Cupi caught me, and gently laid me down onto the ground.
“Where is Azazel? Is he…?” Cupiditas began.
“Azazel is gone. The spell worked,” I coughed. “He’s been banished back to Hell.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard in ten thousand years.” Cupiditas rubbed my head delicately. “Just wait until you’re all healed up, maybe we can finally do those things you wrote into your contract.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be healing anytime soon.” I nodded down to my broken right hand. “I don’t think there’s even anything left to heal.”
“Nonsense,” Libidine scoffed. “Sister Superbia here can fix anything.”
“Oh?” I questioned as I looked over at the youthful redhead standing to my left.
“Of course, dear.” Superbia giggled. “I’ve been the madame of these succubi for almost a millenia. What kind of caretaker would I be if I didn’t have a way to repair damaged goods?”
She placed both of her hands together, palms facing downwards, and placed them on top of my right hand. Even though she was being careful, her touch made me wince in pain. The redhead closed her eyes and recited an incantation in Latin as golden flames ignited in her palms. I could feel the woman’s touch growing warmer and warmer by the minute, but my hand was still completely numb. The golden fire surrounded my injured fist, and then Superbia moved her hand up my arm slowly.
As she did so, I watched the effect of the spell she had cast on my right wrist with grim curiosity. The swelling began to go down as if the fluids were being drained out of it, and a dull tingling sensation replaced the numbness that I had felt for the last few minutes. Seconds later, my hand was back to normal. I rolled over onto my stomach and hoisted myself back up onto my feet.
I felt as good as new.
“How are you feeling, Jacob?” Superbia asked as she put her hands behind her back bashfully.
“I feel like a million bucks!” I exclaimed as I wrapped my arms around the short succubus.
Superbia’s scent was about as sweet as you could get. A distinct, cupcake-like aroma filled my nostrils as they hovered over her hair. The woman was tiny in my arms, and I worried that if I hugged her too tightly she might break in two. I could feel the erect nipples of her tiny breasts as they rubbed against my pectorals. When I felt a throbbing sensation down south, I knew that it was time for the hug to be over.
There would be plenty of time for that later.
“Darn. Here I thought I was going to get to see the massive member that the other two were telling me all about.” Superbia frowned and crossed her arms.
“You succubi are quite a strange breed,” Raphael observed as he wiped dried demon blood off of his knife. “Always with sin in your thoughts and on your minds.”
“Don’t act like you don’t want a piece of the action, Raphael,” Cupiditas raised her eyebrows at the Archangel. “We served together, remember? I know how you can get around Earth girls.”
“I need to talk to you, Jacob,” Raphael ignored Cupi’s words. “Do you know what happened here today? It was much more than just a fight between the five of us and Azazel. Today was the first major battle in the next chapter of the war between Heaven and Hell.”
“I thought you said they were at peace?” Todd asked.
The Archangel shook his head in disbelief. “Three-hundred years. We had peace for three-hundred years, and then that red-skinned asshole had to go and screw it up by breaking the Accords.”
“So what does this mean?” I asked. “Will there be more demons?”
“I would imagine that Lucifer is going to bide his time.” He nodded. “Try to build up his army and then take us by surprise when we’re least expecting it. That’s where you come in.”
“Me?” I shook my finger at the Archangel. “I didn’t sign up for anything. I’m just a mortal man who wanted to have a bit of fun and summoned some succubi…”
“Jacob,” Raphael retorted. “You just defeated Azazel, one of the oldest and most powerful demons lords, in one-on-one combat. You’re much more than just a mere mortal. That’s why He demands your help.”
“He? Like the big man upstairs?” Todd was exhausted from the battle, and he groggily tried to follow along with our conversation.
The Archangel nodded in affirmation.
“The next phase of the war could break out any day now, and when it does, there’s going to be destruction the likes of which the universe has never before seen. But this time, we have a secret weapon.” He pointed in my direction, and I turned around to see if there was anyone else standing behind me.
“Jacob is your secret weapon?” Cupi seemed unconvinced.
“Indeed,” the dark-haired man Archangel agreed. “He has shown that he can harness both the powers of Heaven and the powers of Hell. That, along with the fact that he is a mortal man, makes him the prime candidate to be our… I suppose the correct term would be ‘agent.’”
“Ohhh!” Todd giggled in excitement. “Can we all wear tuxedos?”
“As you found out in the sacred texts, demons are living among you here on Earth Realm.” Raphael ignored the imp’s words as he continued to explain the situation. “They occupy just about every sector of life for you humans. For us angels to go in and try to kill them would do nothing but escalate the conflict. Besides, we’ve been going back and forth like this for eons. The demons would recognize us before we could even cast a single spell.”
“So you want us to take care of them for you?” I said as I tried to figure out where he was going with this. “We’re essentially your Earth Realm strike force against the forces of Hell?”
“Correct.” Raphael nodded.
“Fuck yeah! That sounds awesome!” Todd pumped his fist into the air. “Can we have epic codenames? I want to be called Toddster the Imp-oster!”
“What about James Todd?” I laughed.
“What’s in it for us?” Cupiditas posed the question with an annoyed tone.
“Well, your names would go down in history as the ones who helped end the longest-running conflict of all time, for one.” The Archangel shrugged. “But if that’s not enough, we could always pay you or reward you with Earthly goods.”
“Oh boy, a new job.” I jokingly slapped Todd’s shoulder. “Does it come with any benefits?”
“I take your attempt at humor to be a yes?” Raphael asked with a raised eyebrow.
I walked over to the Archangel and extended my right hand. “We’re in.”
As Raphael and I shook on the deal, a white light surrounded our hands.
Cupi, Liby, Superbia, and Todd all walked over and put their hands in the middle to confirm that they were up to the task, as well. We all pulled back and stared at each other in bemusement.
“Excellent. It is done, then.” Raphael smiled. “I shall return to Heaven and inform the others of the good news. If you need anything, Jacob Ralston, my brothers and I are at your service.”
The Archangel walked over to the church and re-cast the protective spell that kept it secret for so many years. As the broken-down structure began to turn invisible once more, the sound vanished from the surrounding woods with it. We were now standing in an eerie silence.
Raphael turned to us with a smile, nodded, and then outstretched his arms to the side. A bright light engulfed him, and he disappeared with it. I
t was now just the five of us.
“Where do we even begin with a task like this?” Libidine worried.
“We can handle this, Liby.” I flashed her a reassuring smile.
“As for where to start, we should start by looking at the list of names in here.” Cupiditas said as she held up the book. “It may be from the eighties, but a bunch of those people are still alive.”
“Well, we still have tens of thousands of dollars, a trusty vehicle, and, I assume, a new member of the Ralston party?” I asked as I turned to the naked Superbia.
“Of course,” the madame nodded. “For far too long, I’ve taken orders from that bastard. I’ve done some unforgivable things in my thousands of years, to both mortals and my own succubi. Perhaps if I help you rid the universe of demons like Azazel, I can start to atone for my sins. Maybe.”
“Glad to have you on the team, sister.” Cupiditas smirked.
“Well?” Todd looked down at his nonexistent watch and tapped his wrist. “What are we waiting around for? There are hundreds of demons out there for us to knock-off!” The imp chuckled and then ran off in the direction we had parked Shadow.
Cupi and Libidine followed suit, and Superbia turned to walk back as well.
“You know, the other two girls have nicknames.” I reached out and stopped the redheaded succubus with my hand. “Superbia is kind of a mouthful to say.”
“Then you can call me Sia.” Superbia batted her doe eyes at me playfully.
“Sia.” I nodded. “I like it.”
“Hopefully, you’ll love me as much as you love those other girls,” she said with surprising earnestness.
“I’ll do my best,” I chuckled as I motioned with my arms for the succubus to go ahead. “After you, Sia.”
The tiny redhead strutted ahead of me playfully and made her way through the bushes, branches, and brambles of the forest as we headed back towards Shadow.