by Eric Vall
“Bro,” I warned, “you probably don’t want to know--”
“That’s what I call my penis,” the King of the First Circle explained with a shrug.
Todd stared at the green-skinned demon for a moment, then he slowly turned and shot me a look of horror.
“I think I’m gonna max out that Jeopardy category today, bro.” He shuddered. “What’s next? Is Jabba over there gonna tell me he needs assistants to lift his folds so he can shit?”
“Excuse me?” Mammon growled. “I can hear you, ya know.”
“Oh, sorry,” Todd apologized, “I thought you only spoke Huttese. No cha pookey.”
Mammon’s eyes narrowed as he tried to intimidate the imp, but it just looked like he was trying to hold back a bout of gas. Finally, the King of the Second Circle returned his gaze to me.
“Are we going to get a move on it soon?” the obese demon questioned. “These legs can only hold me for so long at a single time … I knew I should have brought my rascal.”
Todd opened his mouth to make a snarky comment, but I shot him a dirty look to keep him from talking.
“Yeah,” I promised, “in fact, I think it’s time to go right now, before anyone decides to get cold feet. Where’s the rest of you guys’ army?”
My army is composed completely of Shades, my King, Mephisto spoke up, and they have already been integrated into your own.
“Mine as well, King Ralston,” Ziminiar noted, “though I must admit, I had a hard time finding a large number of Shades to join our cause on such short notice. I only became king a few days ago.”
“Any help is appreciated,” I reminded the goat-faced demon.
“Shades?” Mammon scoffed. “Amateurs.”
Then the King of the Second Circle raised his chubby hand, snapped his fingers, and let out a deep whistle.
As he did so, there was motion overhead, and the sunset on the horizon was covered up by an incoming swarm of creatures.
“Holy shit,” I squinted as I tried to see what they were, “I thought you said you only had a few soldiers to offer?”
“They’re blocking out the sun,” Cupi snorted, “they can’t be too sparse.”
My mouth dropped open in shock when I finally saw what was coming our way.
There were only about fifty of the creatures, but they were demons with mustard yellow skin and large, round bodies. Their tiny heads sat comically atop their obese figures, and their flight appeared to be powered by wings that didn’t look like they could physically support the bodies they were carrying.
Each one also had a brown quiver over one of their shoulders, and a bow on the other.
“Are those … demonic cherubs?” I gasped.
“Bingo,” Mammon laughed, and then he slapped me gently on the shoulder. “They don’t look like you Earth dwellers think they do, eh?”
“Like William Howard Taft’s jaundanced testicles?” Todd shuddered. “No, we definitely didn’t think they looked like that.”
The fat little cherubs landed on the battlefield next to my soldiers, pulled their bows to attention, and then all let out an exhausted pant in unison.
“Ughhhh,” Todd whispered and made a disgusted face, “I don’t envy the troops that get put with them. It’s gonna smell like a high school locker room mixed with a sketchy massage parlor.”
Somehow, I knew exactly what Todd was talking about, and I shuddered at the thought.
“What about you, Asmodeus?” I questioned. “Are your soldiers Shades as well?”
“Waste my perfectly good Shades?” the King of the First Circle gasped. “Never! My army is made up of Incubi.”
“Whoa,” I muttered as I followed Asmodeus’ gaze toward the left side of the gathering.
There, clad in nothing but purple capes, metallic codpieces, and helmets, were dozens of incubi. Much like their female counterparts, the incubi appeared as normal humans.
Well, normal humans with godlike good looks, giant bat wings, and dark horns jutting out of their heads.
“Marvelous, aren’t they?” Asmodeus purred. “Don’t let their dashing good looks fool you, though, Jacob. They are some of the most ruthless, fearsome beings in the universe.”
“Bro, I feel like I’m watching 300 right now,” Todd admitted as he looked over the incubi. “Can I please ask them what their profession is? Pleasepleasepleaaaassseee?”
“I don’t think that’s a great ide--”
“Incubi!” Todd said in Gerald Butler’s voice. “What is your profession?”
“Fucking!” they all called out in unison.
Todd stared at the soldiers with a blank expression, but slowly a devilish smile spread up his face. Then he doubled over in laughter, fell over onto the ground, and began to roll around hysterically.
“It looks like the whole gang is here, then,” I admitted as I tried to ignore the amused imp.
“Then we should head out,” Lilith interjected, “the sooner we can be on Beelzebub’s doorstep, the better.”
Then the Demon Queen strutted out to the front of the crowd, turned around, and raised her hand stoically into the air.
“Everyone who is on the decoy team, follow us!” Eligor called out as she moved to join her queen.
Mephisto and Asmodeus looked at each other, nodded, and then got into position. The incubi and several of the Shades followed their leaders, and then Mirage was right behind them.
Finally, Cupi and Daniel gave each other a concerned look.
“Shades?” Daniel called out to his men. “This is it. You know the drill … one hundred of you come with us, and the rest of you go with your king!”
My trusted general clapped his hands together, and then the Shades marched with him over to Lilith’s team.
Cupi was the last to join, but she stopped to give me a parting kiss as she walked by.
“See you on the other side,” she said in a trembling voice.
“Don’t worry, Cupi,” I promised the Sister of Greed, “Abaddon owes me for killing Gressil. He’ll let us pass through, unharmed. And if something were to go wrong … if he does try to pull a fast one … you and my army will crush him like the cockroach he is.”
“I love it when you talk like that.” The blonde succubus shuddered, and then she pressed her lips tightly against mine.
Finally, she pulled away, regained her soldier-like composure, and then joined up with the rest of the team.
“Alright, ladies!” Cupi joked as she stomped to the front of the line. “Forward march!”
I watched as the decoy team headed off toward the Screaming Plains, toward the entrance to the Fifth Circle. They had a long journey ahead of them, as they still had to navigate the waters of the Fifth Circle, the desolate desert of the Sixth, and then the boiling blood rivers of the Seventh.
I just hoped they would come through on the other side in one piece.
“Okay then, guys,” I announced as I turned back to my team, “let’s head to the Shadow World. Gula, give me a boost!”
“Aye-aye, King Ralston!” The curvy redhead saluted, and then she summoned brown Hellfire into her hands.
Gula blasted the beam of the spell around my body as I closed my eyes and tried to summon up all the fear I could possibly feel.
It wasn’t hard. There were a million things that could go wrong with this mission, and very few things that could go right. As the images of failure and death flitted through my brain, the armor around my body began to surge with power. Finally, when I opened my eyes, beams of dark Hellfire were dancing off my breastplate in all directions.
“Holy shit, he’s going Super Saiyan!” Todd gasped.
I felt the familiar tingle in my temples as my bright blue horns sprouted from my head and grew to their full power. Then the energy of the black Hellfire lifted me up into the air, and I blasted its power out onto the crowd before me.
Finally, I closed my eyes and pictured the Shadow World in my mind, and then the world went silent.
Well, not
completely silent, since white noise assaulted my eardrums in a dull, droning pattern.
When I finally reopened my eyes, I saw the landscape around us was stretched, distorted, and desolate.
We were once again in the Shadow World.
“This is the Shadow World?” Mammon scoffed as he waddled over and looked at the hyper-stretched wall of my castle.
The large yellow demon reached out and placed his sausage-like fingers against the wall, and then he recoiled with a loud yelp. Mammon shook his hand like a wet dog shaking its tail, and he grumbled expletives as bits of sticky black dribble flew off in all directions.
“Easy there, Jabba,” Todd warned, “ya learn not to go around touching things in this realm reeaaaallllly fast. Everything’s stickier than that special sock in my room in this place.”
“This doesn’t look like the Shadow World at all,” the fat demon protested. “Where are the scary monsters? The pits of bubbling tar that demons and humans alike are tortured in? The roads paved with the horns of slain demons?”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” Zilla’s voice spoke up from the darkness, “especially things that come out of the mouth of Lucifer.”
The Shadow Queen floated into position in front of us, and all of the demons in the group let out a gasp of surprise.
“W-Who are you?” Mammon growled. “How did you know we were here?”
“That’s Zilla,” I explained, “Queen of the Caliginis. And she knows we’re here because, well … I’m not quite sure how that works. It’s like a sixth sense or something like that.”
“I seeeeee dead people … ” Todd whispered with a giggle.
“The Caliginis are devoid of souls,” Zilla explained, “So, when we sense a being with a soul enter our realm… It appears on our radar very quickly. Like King Ralston said, it’s one of our many powers.”
“B-But s-she’s … ” the King of the Second Circle stammered, “I thought she was supposed to be a horrific creature made of pure black magic. Not a model with glowing eyes and a bit of ectoplasm.”
“Oh, you mean like this?” Zilla prodded, and then her body was engulfed with black Hellfire.
When the spell finally subsided, before us stood the Caliginis as she’d first appeared to me. Her formless shape stretched out with its short legs and lanky arms, and there was nothing on her face but a pair of triangular red eyes and jagged, deadly teeth.
“What in the bloody fuck … ” Mammon gasped as he put both hands on his face in horror.
“Personally, I hate this form,” Zilla admitted, “but it’s the only one I know of that scares the piss out of even the biggest, baddest demons in the universe. I swear, we could even make Lucifer himself quake in fear.”
“Doubtful,” Ziminiar mused, “nothing scares the Prince of Darkness, and nothing has ever come close.”
“You sure about that?” the Shadow Queen hissed. “Toss him into our world for a little bit, and I bet you’d see differently.”
“Nonsense,” Mammon scoffed. “Accordin’ to King Ralston here, you Shadow Folk couldn’t even free yourselves from a simple man with a sword. And you think you’re going to be taking on the Morning Star himself … ”
In a quick flash, Zilla shot over to Mammon, leaned in close to his face, and bared her sharp teeth.
“It’s amazing what you can do when you have the full support of your people behind you,” Zilla growled, “it leads you to do great things. Even taking down the worst demons to ever grace the face of this universe … Do you want us to test out that theory? I can have my people here shortly.”
“That’s enough, Zilla,” I said as I tried to break up the tension. “Mammon is my ally, the same as you. We’re on the same team here.”
“Correction,” the Shadow Queen grumbled as she floated back to me and transformed back into her regular self, “I am on your team, and he is on your team. We have a common ally, but that does not make us friends.”
“Fair enough,” I admitted, “but my allies and I are in need of your assistance for the moment. Do you think you could take us to Umbra?”
“Of course.” She smiled, and then she raised a glowing black hand to the sky. “Everybody hold tight. This might sting a little.”
A massive cloud of black Hellfire shot out of Zilla’s hands and dissipated across the sky. Then it slowly curled around each of us like a dark snake, until our entire bodies were aglow with the dark magic. Finally, our bodies began to vanish into the air as we were transported to the City of Shadows.
We reappeared in front of Umbra’s gates, and I heard audible gasps as my Shades and the various demons in our army took it all in.
“So, this is Umbra,” Ziminiar marveled at the structures of dark wood and stone. “I’ve read all about this place in the Dante Library, but Lucifer and the Exalted Ones’ descriptions don’t do it justice.”
“That’s because it didn’t look like this when they last saw it,” Zilla explained, “Umbra was built on the backs of the Caliginis and their leader, me.”
“It’s actually a really nice place,” I admitted, “if things don’t work out in the Fourth Circle, I could definitely live here.”
“Five outta five stars,” Todd added with a snicker, “totally would recommend. You gotta try the Darkfisk while you’re here, too. Just don’t eat the spines, or you’ll end up looking all fat and bloated with a mouthful of foam. Kinda like Mammon’s mama after her threesome scenes.”
“Seriously?” Mammon shot back at the imp, but Todd just ignored him.
“But for realsies,” Todd warned, “this place is great once you get past the creepy, ‘death and gloom’ aesthetic.”
“I shall take heed of your opinion, Todd.” Ziminiar nodded. “Now, is there a quiet place I can go to study the Book of Bezaleel?”
“I’ll have my men show you to our library,” Zilla explained.
“Just be prepared to go at a moment’s notice,” I reminded the King of the Sixth Circle. “The second we’re on Beelzebub’s doorstep, we’re calling all you guys to us.”
“And we will be ready,” Mammon agreed as he wiped his brow with the back of his arm. “Just … don’t take too long. My legs can only support my body for so long before my knees start acting up.”
“Bro,” Todd whispered into my ear, “if I ever get that porky, I just want you to put me outta my misery, okay? I doubt that dude can even find his schlong on a hot day. And do you know what I’d be if I couldn’t find my schlong?”
“With all the free time you’d gain, probably a poet or a musician or something like that,” I joked.
“By my prediction,” Superbia spoke up, “we have about three hours before Team Two reaches the Eighth Circle, and that’s if they don’t run into any issues along the way.”
“Will that give us enough time to find Beelzebub’s castle?” I asked as I turned to Deja.
“More than enough,” she shot back, “it’s a place that’s like, really hard to miss. But it’s a long journey.”
“Then we shouldn’t waste any more time,” Inpulsa interjected as she stepped to the front of the crowd. “Who’s all coming with us?”
“It’s you, me, Todd, Liby, Sia, and Gula,” I reminded her, “and Deja, of course. She’s the only one here who knows where the fuck we’re going.”
“It feels good to be wanted,” Deja giggled in response.
Team One assembled at the front of my army as I listed off their names, while the rest of the group hung back and clustered together.
“Okay, guys,” I addressed my army, “just hang tight here, but be ready to go at a moment’s notice. The second we’re all in position, I’ll summon you into the Eighth Circle, and it’ll be showtime. Team One … let’s get a move on.”
“Autobots, roll out!” Todd called out as he ran forward and began to make the Transformers transformation noise.
I simply rolled my eyes, stopped the imp with a wall of purple Hellfire, and then held him in place.
&
nbsp; “Bro,” I joked, “you don’t wanna just go running off in the Shadow World.”
“Jakey,” the imp sighed as he struggled to break free of my spell, “we’ve visited the Great Pumpkin and Mr. Tumnus a million times before. I totally know how to get to the Seventh Circle at least … ”
“Right,” I reminded the imp, “but there could be Rapha Beasts or god knows what out there waiting for us.”
“Eh, Rapha-smapha,” Todd scoffed. “Those things don’t scare the Toddster.”
“Rapha Beasts aren’t the only things that will be hiding out there,” Zilla spoke up, “and outside of Umbra, the Caliginis have no sway. There could be Timentes or Artemalums or even a Malumaltus lurking in the darkness, waiting for some unsuspecting prey to come by.”
“Uh, what’s an ‘Artemammory?’” Todd questioned.
“An Artemalum … ” the Shadow Queen corrected. “They are creatures that look awfully similar to the Caliginis, but they wear colorful face paint and usually lure their prey in with a sense of comfort and humor.”
“Waaaaaaiiiittt a minute,” Todd gasped, “are you talking about a fucking clown?”
“I’m not familiar with that term,” Zilla shrugged, “but do these ‘clowns’ wear oversized shoes, strangely-proportioned noses, and murder anything that comes in too close?”
“Yes!” the imp yelped. “Are you tellin’ me there’s killer clowns out there? I’d be the perfect target … small and innocent like a child, with enough muscle to fill out at least four or five cuts of imp-steak. Not to mention the Schlongo. That thing’s so full of potent protein, it’s like a bodybuilder’s dream. Fuck, I could probably sell it in China as a home remedy for limp dick and make a few billion dollars.”
“See?” I rolled my eyes. “We need to stick together. The last thing we need is to get separated and then killed by a fucking clown.”
“I’ll lead the way,” Sia offered as she stepped up, “I just made this trip earlier today in our realm, so I could probably do it in my sleep.”
“Wait,” Libidine questioned, “how are we going to navigate between the Circles? We don’t have Charon’s ferry to guide us.”
“But we do have his coin,” I explained as I held out the small, circular metal object in my hand. “Once I power this thing up with a bit of purple flame, that should be all we need.”