by Dante King
“We’re going to find her,” the succubus said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I promise you that, Master. Your problems are my problems now.”
I’d been so fixated on Maddie’s disappearance, I’d almost forgotten the transformation I’d just put Mareth through. “You mean that?” I asked, taking hold of her wrist.
She giggled. “You’re damn right. I’m your demon now. You’re stuck with me and Christina for a long, long time, buster. You’d better get used to having two gorgeous babes waiting on your every need…”
Her words sharpened me like nothing else. I slid a hand beneath her skirt, running my thumb along the still-damp slit of her freshly fucked pussy. Mareth shuddered, and I knew at a level more instinctive and primal than thought that I could’ve pinned her against the elevator right then and there, fucked her brains out all over again. She wanted it.
“There’s no two girls at this school I’d rather have on my team,” I growled against her neck, my fingers working within her. “But if you think I’m going to be satisfied stopping at two, little demon girl, you’ve got another thing coming…”
I pulled away as the elevator door opened, leaving her gasping. Mareth stared at me for a moment, her wide eyes unfocused. Spots of color rose to her cheeks as new demons filed into the elevator, wrinkling their noses at the smell of sex.
“Damn,” Mareth purred, following me down the hall. “Yeah, I definitely lucked out having you for a Master.” She grew thoughtful. “Or do you want me to use a different name with you in public, like with Oni?”
I slapped her on the ass as we reached the door to the arcade. Her butt had a nice jiggle. “Fuck no,” I told her. “It’s ‘Master’ 100% of the time. Why else would I have these powers?”
She laughed like that’s just what she wanted to hear. “Yes, Master!”
The arcade was filled with all sorts of crazy games, from ordinary ones I recognized like skeeball with a ‘demonic’ twist to attractions I couldn’t even guess the function of. Normally, I would’ve spent the whole afternoon checking them out, entranced by all the cool entertainment on display, but we didn’t have the time. I made a mental note to come back and raincheck the place, as it looked amazing, then strode through the aisles looking for Christina.
She’d taken up a stall near the back—a shooting gallery, from the looks of it. It was set up like an Old West town, with saloons and paper tumbleweeds stacked on top of each other where targets would pop up. Except that instead of the Hatfields & McCoys, you shot at the Angels & Demons. As I approached, a half-dozen angelic cowboys shot out from behind buildings, twirling lassos that turned into halos at the point where they made a circle.
At first, I couldn’t find the gun. Then I realized Christina needed no such thing—she was using the organic blades she’d formed from her nails during the fight in the Wrath Arena, spearing the little targets as they emerged. From the looks of things, she’d been at it for a while, and she was really, really good at it. A list of high scores scrolled on the side of the booth, with her name third for the week. Twelfth overall, which wasn’t bad at all for a beginner.
“Take that!” Christina laughed, a wicked growl erupting from her throat as she tossed three nail-blades at once. They speared two more angels, then took a cute demonic cowboy right between the eyes. A high-score tone dinged. Christina leaned over, laughing triumphantly, and put both hands against a pad near the underside of the machine. Her hands glowed when she touched it, and I realized it was recharging her demon energy so she could fire more shots.
“SPECIAL BONUS ROUND UNLOCKED!” the machine trilled, a giant devil popping out of the center of the tableau. It played a golden fiddle, showing off before a terrified man on a hickory stump, and the jaunty tune that played during the shootouts now had a jazzy fiddle added to the soundtrack.
Christina looked thrilled. Then she saw the two of us and turned away abruptly, the game completely forgotten.
“Oh hey!” she purred, holding a sheaf of long needles in her fingers. A faint sheen of sweat covered her body from the exertion, contrasting with the dark scales covering her demonic hips and bust. “Check this shit out — I’m getting really good at molding these little spikes. I could probably do something way more complicated than just a throwing knife…”
She trailed off at the look on our faces. “Oh no,” Christina said, her expression filling with alarm. “What happened? Did you not go through with the binding? Did Mareth try to make you do that thing she and I were joking about? I told you Luke wouldn’t be comfortable with it, Mareth…”
“No, the binding was wonderful,” Mareth said.
“Yeah, it was awesome,” I said. ”Wait—what thing!?”
Christina’s mouth opened wide. “I, uh...it was just a kink,” she said, flexing her demonic claws. “Not the kind of thing you’d want to talk about in public.” She moved on quickly, sharing a look with Mareth like they’d both been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. “So I’m not going to be Luke’s only wife,” she said, relaxing a touch. “We should be celebrating, right? You want to go back to the dorms and I can really welcome Mareth to the group, or would you rather hit the town and tear some clubs up?”
“Neither,” I said, shaking my head. “Christina—Maddie wasn’t in my subspace. She’s gone.”
Christina looked from me to Mareth, likely expecting this to be some kind of prank. “Haha, very funny. You just don’t want to tell me about the smoking-hot threesome you all had, because then I’ll be jealous. I bet Maddie’s back in your room having to ice herself off after how hard you pounded her—”
“I’m not joking,” I said firmly. “She’s gone, Christina. Vanished.”
“Oh shit,” Christina whispered. She leaned over and hit a button on the side of her shooting game, and the devil retracted back into the cabinet. ‘GAME OVER’ flashed at the top, and what looked like about ten thousand tickets spilled out of the machine.
“I’ll cash these in later,” Christina said, wrapping the strand around her wrist. “We’ve got to get going. Where the hell is Oni?”
“He followed you to the arcade,” Mareth said, nodding towards the other side of the game-filled floor. “I think he wanted to give Luke and me some privacy. That’s him over there, right?”
It was hard to miss him. The hulking demon squatted in a corner of the arcade, working at some machine none of us could see due to his bulk. I’d expected him to be alone, but as we got closer, I realized he’d drawn a small crowd. The group gathered around one of those basketball machines, where you try to make shots from various distances for points—only Oni was tall enough to just loom over the machine and drop the balls in.
Each of the demons hanging out with him had enough tickets to make Christina’s haul seem small by comparison. A big, dumb grin stretched across his face as he power-slammed three more balls through the hoop, hitting nothing but net. More tickets spilled out, and the demons cheered.
“Oni,” I called, cupping a hand around my mouth. “Come on, dude, we’ve gotta go. Emergency.”
He gave a start and turned away from the crowd. “My Master needs me,” he rumbled, giving the demon nearest the ticket dispenser a nod. “Enjoy the rest of your game.”
“Sure thing, dude!” the lead demon said. The group looked like they’d never seen such a bounty before. “Any time!”
“Told you,” Mareth said with a smirk as Oni joined us. “There’s plenty of jobs for a big guy like him to tackle at the Academy. You should think about putting him to work for you, earn a few extra shards. Maybe get into the whole loan shark racket—it’s a pretty common side-gig in Hell. Your garden variety imp, goblin, or pixie would think twice about welching on a debt with a slab of muscle like that as an enforcer!”
It was an interesting idea. But it would have to wait—right now, finding Maddie took precedence.
Together, the four of us made our way out of the dormitories and to the Subspace Commission. It wasn’t a building of its own
: instead, it comprised a single floor of a general administrative building, the kind of place you didn’t need to go unless you had a very specialized problem that needed solving. A tuition check that bounced, the wrong mortal’s soul on a contract due to a misspelling—that sort of thing.
The whole way there, I worried about Maddie. Even if she’d been taken just before Mareth and I showed up in subspace and started getting busy, it meant she was missing for the better part of an hour. Anything could have happened to her by now—and anyone. I found myself scrutinizing the eyes of the demons I passed, as if they concealed ill intent. By now, nearly everyone on campus knew I was one of the Archlord candidates. They’d also seen that I’d brought a human to the Academy, stashing them in the trunk of my car accidentally.
What if some enterprising young demon put two and two together, and decided this was the best way to kneecap a newcomer? I hardly knew Maddie, but I felt responsible for her. We’d had a connection—brief, hot, unfulfilled—back in her diner, and making her come all over my face in my subspace had only deepened my need to be inside her, to claim her the way I’d done to Christina and Mareth. My magic was the reason she’d fallen into Hell and gotten mixed up in all of this in the first place.
I promised I’d keep her safe, I thought to myself as the elevator worked its way up to the Subspace Commission’s floor. She told me she was going to make me a home-cooked meal. That she liked fantasy novels with lots of sex in them. I’d be an idiot to let anything happen to a girl like that…
The elevator opened, revealing a smallish office. There was a line to see the next available demon, with a velvet rope wrapping back and forth like at the DMV, but at this time of day there were no students in line waiting to be served. I headed for the nearest booth, directing Oni to sit in two of the chairs, with Christina and Mareth just behind me.
A middle-aged demoness sat behind the counter, her hair done up in a tall beehive. Something twitched in it, and I realized there were actual bees inside of her coiffure—it wasn’t just a style. Her skin was the same yellow shade of the characters on The Simpsons, making her look more than a little bit like Homer’s wife, Marge.
If my experience in the mortal world was anything to go by, this demoness was about to be a royal pain in the ass. Except I didn’t have time to deal with any bullshit; I had to find Maddie.
Chapter 25
I forced a smile to my face, and the demoness behind the counter only looked back at me with a vacant stare, as though I were the last person she wanted to provide anything resembling good customer service.
“How can I help you?” the demoness asked. A nametag on the front of her jacket read Doris.
“Hi,” I said, putting my elbows on the counter. The demoness made a face at that, but didn’t say anything. “I had a person in my subspace this afternoon. A, uh, guest. I came back a few minutes ago and she was gone.”
An elbow jostled my side. “Ask her about the lost and found,” Mareth whispered.
“I think she, ah, might have gotten glitched out somehow?” It felt silly to even ask. “Do you have a subspace lost and found, or something like that?”
Doris’s eyes narrowed. “Are you certain the guest didn’t just leave?” she asked.
I shook my head. “From what I saw, she was in the middle of a shower. The water was running, and she was playing some music. She just...disappeared.”
“Hmm.” Doris reached beneath the counter and pulled out a tablet with a stylus. “Building and room number?”
“Eastern Wing, Seventh Floor,” I said, remembering what Sophe had told me. “Room 777.”
The demoness tapped the screen a few times. Words scrolled across it in a tiny font, and she nodded as if the result were expected. “I don’t have a record of entrances and exits,” she said, setting the tablet down. “The owner of the location hasn’t signed up for subspace insurance.”
What?
“I should have figured Hell would have insurance,” I growled, running a hand through my hair. “Look, where could she possibly go? I tucked her in there for safekeeping, and now she’s gone! This is a mortal we’re talking about—she’s not safe anywhere in the Academy…”
“Please sir, calm down,” Doris said blandly. “Would you like to fill out an official complaint form? If property stored in a subspace becomes damaged or missing, students are entitled to compensation. Generally up to the full market value of the property. Assuming the Academy is found to be at fault, of course...”
I let out a harsh, flat bark of a laugh. “Maddie isn’t property! She’s a human being! All I care about is finding the woman I put in that subspace, okay!?”
“A human woman?” Doris said, her eyebrows shooting to her hairline.
The fist inside of my chest unclenched. “Yes,” I said, feeling like we were finally getting somewhere. “She’s a mortal who followed us to Hell, and she’s in way over her head—”
“Humans aren’t covered under regulations,” Doris said flatly. “Subspace insurance wouldn’t help you either, in that case, other than maybe to identify when the human left the location.”
“That’s exactly what I want to know!” I said, slamming a hand down on the counter. “I don’t give a shit what’s covered or not!” The edges of my vision dimmed, turning red. I could feel that strange second sight welling up inside of me, showing things the way Lucifer saw them. Where before I’d seen opportunity when I looked at Sophe, here I saw nothing but an obstacle. A stubborn, unreasonable obstacle.
“So you want to know who’s been in and out of your subspace, is that it?”
More anger built inside of me. “Yes! That’s exactly what I want to know. Is there a record?”
“There is. But you’ll have to file a complaint.” Doris motioned toward a table behind her, where a stack of complaint forms awaited dropoff and processing. “Once it’s been received, a subspace investigator will be dispatched to look into the nature of your complaint. After a thorough review—normally between two and four weeks—they’ll decide whether it’s worthy of further investigation.”
I stared at that stack of papers, and something broke inside of me.
“Maddie doesn’t have two to four weeks,” I said, the words coming out in such a growl that Christina and Mareth took an unconscious step back. “This is an innocent woman we’re talking about. You’re going to tell me how she got out of my subspace, and who else might have been in there, or so help me…”
Doris cocked an eyebrow, as if she’d heard this all many times before. “You’ll what?”
Dark, leathery wings erupted from my back. This time the transformation was less painful, as if I’d already gotten used to it. The shadow tendrils were back as well, floating to either side of me in thick tangles like an octopus’s arms. I slammed them down on either side of the desk, startling Doris into silence.
“Holy shit, Luke,” Christina whispered, both intimidated and incredibly turned on by my display of force.
“There’s no need to hurt anybody,” Mareth added, jumping in. “I’m sure we can talk this over—”
“You’re going to help me,” I said to Doris, my voice distorted to inhuman proportions, “or you’re going to find out the kind of Hell an Archlord candidate can rain down. Now can you help me or not!?”
I expected her to sink to the ground, begging and pleading for mercy. I should have realized that bureaucrats are bureaucrats—and that petty tyrants aren’t any better in Hell than back on Earth.
“Don’t you make demands of me, young man,” Doris snorted, for all the world like I was some snot-nosed teenager instead of a powerful demon. “The process is the process, and everyone has to go through it whether they like it or not. I don’t care if you’re Lucifer himself—Hell has rules!”
My tendrils wrapped themselves around her desk, lifting it off the ground. The pile of complaint forms behind Doris tipped over, spraying all over the floor. The woman herself remained sitting, placidly looking up at me like I was just a
nother in a long line of petty humiliations she’d had to endure.
“Alright, that’s enough,” Doris said, gesturing at a door set in the far wall. “If you want to make a scene, I’ll have you removed. Security!”
I hardly noticed the two demons approaching. Both of them were nearly as big and burly as Oni, dressed in identical black security uniforms with silver goat’s-head badges. Their muscles rippled underneath the fabric—clearly these guys hit the Academy gyms harder than most.
“Put the desk down, sir,” one of the demons said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I’m going to have ask you to leave—”
No. Fuck that. I wasn’t leaving without answers. If that meant I had to break a few heads to find out where Maddie had been taken, well—Lucifer would forgive me, right? It’s the kind of thing he’d do?
That strange second sight welled up in me as the man’s fingers tightened on my shoulder. Damn right it’s what he’d do.
“Relax,” I told the demon, faking like I’d go along quietly. He relaxed a fraction—and that’s when I slugged him in the face. Even with my demonic strength, it was like trying to punch through a boulder. If I hadn’t caught him off-guard, it wouldn’t have worked, but I was lucky that way. He took a step backward, stumbling into the other demon and giving me space to work.
I dropped the desk, the tabletop cracking as it slammed back into the ground. Doris slid backward in her chair, smoothly scooting out of the way of the fight as I wrapped tendrils around the first demon and lifted him off his feet.
“You’re making a mistake!” the first demon gasped, my tendrils wrapping around his throat as he went upside-down into the air.