KAHARI

by Dean Kutzler

  “King Kranlax is undefeated and will remain so,” he continued damage controlling. “It is just that—those greedy Cyborgs from the Inner Ring haven’t allowed a single soul to pass through the door, unharmed, in—centuries? Or is it eons? I can never tell the two apart—anyway. These three are the first since that time.”

  “Uth'toth is right, Sir. My apologies,” Toggazok said, rubbing his tail and serving a swift kick to Ensign Brody’s broken leg. “Those metal behemoth’s are to blame.”

  Kranlax knew the Cyborgs were purposely choking him out, waiting to take over his Ring. If only the flow of souls worked the other way around, he’d have been rid of those rotting corpses by now. Kranlax used the souls to fuel his kingdom and power.

  Toggazok was right.

  Kranlax had been denying it to himself, growing comfortable over time, lazy even. He needed to do something. Faelar needed dealing with, and he’d prefer to do it with the element of surprise on his side. He wasn’t afraid of him, but Faelar had proven to be a formidable opponent, which is how Kranlax had gotten stuck in the Middle Ring in the first place.

  That was going to change, but first, he needed to deal with those pesky Cyborgs.

  “Change of plans. Gather them up—and disobey me again, Uth'toth—and I’ll be using your tongue to pleasure Daxy later.”

  The demons stepped to either side of Daxton, Saren, and Ensign Brody’s motionless bodies, stuck in the net. Leaning down the creatures cinched up the drawstring and carried them hammock style, hurrying after the boss.

  The Incubatati mob strolled boldly through the streets, working his way to the edge of the city. Along the sidewalk, a woman pretending to be homeless, and too caught up in searching a pile of trash for food, didn’t hear the demons coming.

  She abruptly looked up.

  Without uttering a sound, she dropped the trash and ran for a cross street, aiming to get behind a house. The Incubatati boss ran so quickly he was nothing but a blur before he was on her in a second. He lifted her off her feet by the back of the neck and looked in her face.

  “This disguise does not fool me Your soul is clean. Sorry, boys, this will just take a moment,” he said, winking at the woman.

  “Please, sir—” the woman pleaded. “I was just looking for something to eat. It’s been days—“

  “Then maybe you should have filled your quota,” he spat, snapping her neck with a twitch of his thumb.

  He breathed in deep, as black liquid poured from her mouth, and spilled over his muscled body. Every drop rolled off his chest and down to the ground, speeding off in the direction they’d been heading.

  Kranlax dropped the woman’s lifeless body and let out a deep, hearty laugh.

  “Now that felt good. Come. We’ve got a war to wage.”

  Toggazok and Uth'toth looked at each other, grinning in delight at the sound of war. They had been waiting a long time to get even with the Cyborgs for cutting off the flow of people into the Middle Ring and making their jobs harder.

  Kranlax and his henchmen continued walking past the city limit, heading towards the dividing wall of the Rings.

  Along the expanse of the wall, a black castle rose into view from the ground as they approached; tall, pointy spires poked out from the top, resembling a gigantic sea urchin. Brimstone burned from the moat surrounding the castle, sending dark sulfuric clouds twisting up through the spires and looming overhead like a bad omen.

  Battle demons stood guard on the grounds, fortifying the outer perimeter and lining either side of the moat leading into the entrance.

  “Battle demons!” Kranlax bellowed, turning to address them from the moat. “Prepare for war! We lay siege on the meat puppet’s door in one hour!”

  Without hesitation, the battle demons jumped into action, scattering from sight and making preparations. Secretly, they had been discussing among themselves for a long time about how lax Kranlax had grown over time and how his fire had died down.

  The battle demons were more than ready for a good, bloody war.

  Many centuries and hellish sacrifices had gone into building Kranlax’s castle and moat, directly into the Ring-wall, tapping into the darkness and feeding upon the source.

  Faelar’s power was strong, but not infallible and Kranlax wouldn’t part with his world easily.

  Uth'toth and Toggazok lugged Saren, Daxton, and Ensign Brody over the Moat and ghastly screams drifted up through the thick, ancient beams as the wretched souls beneath sensed the fresh souls passing overhead.

  “Ahhhh, the Moat of Fears senses you, my friends,” Kranlax crooned, looking into the dark waters. “Don’t worry, my pets. They’ll join you soon enough. Right after I break them in.” He reached beneath the net and swatted Daxton’s ass. “Put them all in my lair. I’ll deal with them later. Right now, we take the Inner Ring.”

  The inside of the castle was far creepier than the outside. Shadows existed there, and red things darted in and out of dark corners where corners shouldn’t exist, whizzing around walls made of dark matter.

  One moment, the demons walked across the floor bouncing the net along toward Kranlax’s lair, and the next, they were on the ceiling, strolling along as if nothing had changed.

  Uth'toth and Toggazok passed by the red blurs without a glance and entered Kranlax’s lair.

  The room was a virtual den of unbridled sin, filled with every torture device known to man or otherwise. Torturous sex toys no private parts could possibly survive littered a black satin comforter that billowed over the massive bed, set into the focal point of the room. Carved heads of all different races pushed out from the headboard, faces twisted up and writhing in agony in a swirling decorative pattern of mayhem. Viciously impaled on top of each post at the bottom of the bed, a naked man and woman squirmed in pain as the weight of their bodies slowly pulled them further down on the wood, prolonging their deaths.

  Alongside the bed for Kranlax’s more aggressive guests stood a tall, wooden structure, used to suspend a body upside-down as the torturer sawed them in half starting with the crotch, sticky blood staining the floor beneath.

  Toggazok and Uth'toth cruelly tossed the net to the floor alongside the bed, purposely knocking Ensign Brody’s leg against the structure.

  “That’ll teach you—hurtin’ my tail—when I landed on you,” Uth’toth snickered.

  He raised the drawstring to secure the energy zapping net to the structure and Toggazok placed a claw over Uth’toth’s and shook his head.

  Uth’toth’s demon eyes flashed red, and he said, “But if I don’t secure the net, the imps will open the bag, and they’ll get free. You know how they are—“ he paused, cracking a smile.

  Toggazok said, “Kranlax’s exact words were Put them all in my lair, were they not?”

  “Yes, he didn’t say anything about securing the net. Oh, Toggazok…you are brilliant! Those little red bitches can’t resist something new, and we know how particular Kranlax is about his commands. Our catch here will get out of the net, but good luck finding the way out of the castle alive! Once they’re dead, the souls will head right for the door.

  “And this one,” Uth’toth continued, kicking Daxton, square in the balls and nodding at Saren. “These two keep the door filled for quite a while. Their kind always made me sick.”

  “That old blowhard has gotten too soft. He lets his sexual nature rule his decisions. If Faelar deconstructs this castle, we’ll all be out of a home. Imagine the chaos?”

  Uth’toth nodded, looking down at Saren, Daxton, and Ensign Brody. He raised a hand and said, “Maybe we should finish them now?”

  A red ball of electricity formed in the palm of his hand.

  “No!” Toggazok shouted, clasping his hands around Uth’toth’s and extinguishing the ball. “It has to look like an accident.”

  “Again, my Incubi brother you are wise,” Uth’toth said, tossing the drawstring aside.

  “Let’s hurry before the blowhard wonders where we are. I cannot wait to cause some ma
yhem!”

  “Yeah!” He looked around the lair. “This place even makes my skin crawl.”

  The Incubi demons hastily left the Incubatati boss’s room, leaving the door open a crack for the imps carelessly scurrying about the castle.

  It only took one, curious little imp poking its head in the door and sneaking in before a few others rushed inside. The door was never left open.

  At first, the imps ignored the prone bodies stuck in the net. The little devils tore about the room, knocking sex toys from the bed and taunting the suffering people on the poles, pulling at their hair, jumping on their heads and adding weight to increase the suffering.

  A tiny imp buzzed out from beneath the bed and stopped momentarily to peer at its reflection in Saren’s body armor. Its red, naked little body waved at the reflection waving back, and it giggled.

  Mesmerized and curious to know more, its little hands pulled at the net and frowned when nothing happened.

  It yanked harder, losing its grip and tumbling backward.

  Shaking its head and sitting up, the imp made an angry face at the net while hopping onto its feet.

  It began circling the net, slowly at first, then gaining speed until it was running faster than the eye could see—until its little foot tripped over the drawstring and the imp went sailing back under the bed, whacking its head on the bedpost.

  The drawstring flipped over the net uncovering only Saren’s hand, but it was enough. Now since the neurons were no longer blocked, Saren felt the muscles twitching to life.

  Slowly, her hand bent at the wrist, fingers laboring to grab the net when she felt the cord of the drawstring slip down between her thumb and forefinger. Wrapping the string around her finger, she pulled the drawstring closer until she had the on/off switch in her hand.

  With a flick of her thumb, she shut the net off.

  “OH—MY FUCKING BALLS!” Daxton shouted, sitting up rubbing his crotch.

  Saren hopped to her feet, tossing the net on the bed and immediately squatted next to Ensign Brody’s whimpering form.

  “Mr. Brody are you okay?” she asked, looking at his twisted leg and rubbing the sweat from his forehead, knowing full well he wasn’t. “Do you think if I straighten it out, you can walk on it?”

  He looked up—tears forming in the corners of his big brown eyes—willing his mouth to say yes as his head betrayed him, shaking no.

  “We just have to set your leg with something and when we get back to the ship,” she said softly. “The med-unit will repair it good as new. I promise. I’m sorry we have nothing for the pain, but we have to get you back on your feet as fast as possible. I don’t know how long we’ll have before someone returns or how dangerous these imps can be.”

  He nodded his head in understanding, grinding his teeth through the pain.

  “Daxton, find something we can use to stabilize and brace Mr. Brody’s leg. I saw some rope on the bed. Grab that, too.”

  When he didn’t immediately answer, she looked over at him still rubbing his crotch.

  “Daxton! Suck it the fuck up! We got a serious problem here.”

  “I’m—sorry,” he croaked, standing up slowly, stooping, at first. “Shit—really—hurts. I’ll—look—now.”

  He grabbed the rope and tossed it beside Saren and searched the room, averting his eyes from the pleading souls on the posts. There was nothing they could do for them. Their impalement was too severe, and they were just waiting to die.

  Saren snatched up the rope and activated the knife sheathed inside the cuff of her body armor. The blade popped out over her hand, and she cut three lengths.

  “Daxton, any luck?”

  “Well,” he said, returning. “This is all I could find.”

  He handed her two extremely stiff, black, double-edged dildos.

  She took the monstrosities in each hand and said, “Really? Are you serious?”

  “This place ain’t normal, Saren. I tried breaking a slat off from under the bed, but it won’t budge. Everything here is like, indestructible. Made by some hocus-pocus shit. There’s nothing else, I’m sorry.”

  “I be damned before I wear dicks on my leg!” Ensign Brody said between gasps of pain. “Commander please, Lord only knows where they been!”

  Groans erupted from the poor people on the poles.

  Suddenly, Saren felt ill and wanted to drop the dildos.

  She looked around the room but knew Daxton was right.

  “Mr. Brody, I’m sorry. There’s nothing else. And these are particularly—stiff. Who will ever know?”

  “I’ll know, ma'am—me an’ me Irish pride.”

  “Mr. Brody, please, James,” she pleaded. “We don’t have time for this.”

  She refrained from ordering him. He was suffering enough already, and she wouldn’t give him the indignity of the sting.

  Ensign Brody bristled at her use of his first name. Something she never did with new recruits. “Do what ye must, Commander.”

  “That’s the spirit, Mr. Brody. We’ll get you back on your feet in a second, but I’m going to need you to be strong. It’s gonna be painful. There’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  His leg was nearly twisted all the way around from the vicious kicks from the demon.

  “I can take it, ma'am.”

  Saren leaned in to get to work when the curious little imp poked its head out from under the bed and hissed at her, startling her and causing her to drop a dildo.

  It flew out and snatched the black rod and dragged it under the bed.

  “Dammit! Daxton! Get it!”

  Daxton quickly ducked his head under the bed, searching for the imp.

  “You don’t even wanna know what’s under here.”

  As he kept searching underneath, the imp had hauled the dildo on top of the bed and ran across to Daxton’s side, dragging the dildo behind. It raised the phallus over its head and brought it swiftly down on his ass.

  “Hey!” he shouted, bumping his head on a slat.

  “It’s on top!” Saren shouted, running around the bed as Daxton crawled out.

  “Give it here, you little shit!” he said, reaching for the dildo.

  The imp growled, dragging the sex toy out of Daxton’s reach and sticking out its tongue.

  He crawled up on the bed with the imp, keeping its attention while Saren lifted her arm behind her head.

  The imp backed up to the middle of the bed, now giving Daxton the finger when Saren swung the other dildo like a baseball bat and whacking the imp.

  The imp let out a squeak, tumbling through the air between the bedposts. It hit the wall, full force, smashing its head and dropping to the floor. A second later, black liquid seeped from the crack in its skull and slithered under the bed.

  “I think we just found our way to the next Ring!”

  Saren set about the painful task of stabilizing and bracing Ensign Brody’s leg.

  Daxton thought about earnestly offering him a ball-gag laying on the bed to bite down on for the pain, then thought better of it. He felt sorry for the poor guy. The demons had been vicious, and they were all lucky nothing more happened, he thought, feeling a twinge in his nut.

  Saren finished setting the leg, doing a pretty good job at concealing the obvious parts of the dildo with the rope.

  “Okay, that should do it. Are you ready to try and stand?” she said, grabbing under his arm and nodding to Daxton to get the other. “On the count of three—one…two…three.”

  Ensign Brody grimaced as Saren and Daxton lifted him to his feet.

  “Here,” Daxton said, handing him a long staff with a skull on the top of it. “I found it hidden under the bed and figured you could use it, like a crutch with the ah, skull under your arm.”

  Ensign Brody took the staff, grimacing at the skull.

  “Do it make me look like a warlock?”

  “Ummm, yeah, it’s the best I could find.”

  Ensign Brody bent forward to check Saren’s handiwor
k, wincing in pain.

  “Hey!” he said. “You can’t even tell they be dicks! Thank you, Commander.”

  She nodded, smiling at his resilience. He was incredibly brave, not to mention one tough Irishman. The pain he must be experiencing was unimaginable. She was a tough bitch, but she wasn’t sure if the situation were reversed how well she’d fare.

  “You mentioned something about knowing where the door was earlier?” Daxton asked. “It’s been fun here and all, but I think it’s time to see what the next Ring’s got in store for us before my friend comes back.”

  “There’s a reason why Kranlax wanted us placed in his bedroom.”

  “Oh, you mean it wasn’t just my fabulous ass,” he said, sticking out his butt.

  “Stop messing around and help me move this bed. I don’t think his demon henchmen even knew about this,” she said, walking to one side.

  Daxton looked up at the demented headboard and said, “This ain’t gonna be easy.”

  “If I’m right, we won’t have to move it much. Help me twist this side away from the wall.”

  Together, they heaved the bed aside, careful to cause the least amount of pain to the poor impaled people while Ensign Brody stayed out of the way, and kept an eye out in case the demons returned.

  The shimmering darkness began appearing the further the bed came away from the wall.

  “I see it!” Ensign Brody shouted.

  “That should be enough for us to fit through,” Daxton said.

  Saren walked around from her side of the bed and looked at the door.

  “Why hide it behind the bed?” Daxton asked. “Wouldn’t you build a vault around it, or something more secure?”

  “Would you want to get caught in this room?” she asked, looking around at all the torture devices. “Not even the demons wanted to stay in here too long. Also, I don’t think we could’ve made it here on our own. Kranlax designed this place with some strange power. I was getting dizzy on the way in, trying to track the path through the castle. I think it’s some sort of security measure.”

  “Yeah, I’m still nauseous from that—or the kick to the nardos.”

  She shook her head, smirking.