by Eric Vall
The first one came through the tunnel on the upper right portion of the ceiling. His body was long and tube-shaped, and his face was featureless aside from dark black eyes and a set of razor-sharp teeth. The creature must have been at least double my own height and width, and the way it glided through the tunnel reminded me of a killer whale rocketing after its prey.
However, it didn’t have any fins. Instead, it had four giant arms, each with a human-shaped hand attached at the wrist. It moved by smashing the hand into the brimstone, grabbing ahold, and then propelling itself forward as if it were a reverse rock climber. Its skin was a sickly dark green, its body was completely covered in algae, and the gills on its neck were almost the size of my entire body.
The creature dove down at us from above just as its brethren popped up through the floor, and the group was forced to scatter.
Eligor’s flames flickered for a brief second, but she held the course as she reoriented herself to her surroundings.
Two of the bastards kept on going and passed through the adjacent tunnels on the ceiling, but the third monster had already decided to engage.
“What the fuck is that thing?” Deja demanded as she hurled her chain around one of its arms.
The creature snatched the succubus’ weapon with its massive green mitt, yanked her forward, and then opened his mouth to swallow her whole.
I tossed up a quick shield of purple, and Deja crashed into it violently. She fell backward and tumbled onto the ground below, but at least she was still alive.
Superbia dashed over with a glowing gold hand as the rest of the succubi unloaded on the monster.
Flashes of red, yellow, and silver flames rocketed across the cavern and struck the creature square in the face. Blood splattered across the ceiling of the cave, and the fucker let out a squeal of pain before he turned around to retreat.
“Oh no, you don’t!” I heard Inpulsa call out. “You with the red hair! Give me a boost.”
Gula summoned brown Hellfire into her hands, tossed it around Inpulsa’s body, and then the electricity surrounding the yellow-haired succubus began to crackle and pop.
Inpulsa pulled back her arms, let out a loud growl, and then clapped her hands together in front of her face. As she did so, a blast of lightning with the thickness of a sequoia launched out of her hands and hit the monster square in the ass.
He let out a shrill squeal as his tube-shaped body began to convulse and sizzle. The electric yellow Hellfire illuminated the entire tunnel as it fried the creature from the inside out, and then his body collapsed onto the ground in front of us.
“Nice thunderbolt, Pikachu,” Todd said, impressed.
“It’s a fucking Fistula,” Eligor noted as she glanced at the dead monster. “I’ve fought these things before, and they’re really fucking sneaky. Normally, they only expose themselves when they’re attacking. This little guy must have been a juvenile who didn’t know any better. Which means--”
Before the knight could finish her sentence, the shrieks returned to the cavern.
“We’re only gonna have a split second to kill these fuckers,” I announced to my team. “When they rear their ugly mugs, I want you to grab them by their arms and hold tight. Got it?”
Suddenly, one of the other creatures appeared just above my head. I quickly tossed a portal of green down beneath my feet and passed through it seconds before my head would have been snatched up by the Fistula’s jaws. Then I forced myself to reappear above the creature’s body, and I lashed out with the Unhallowed Sword.
A gusher of blood sprayed out onto my armor as the black steel sliced through the fucker’s skin. He shrieked in agony, but then he disappeared into another tunnel at the bottom of the cavern.
“He came out of nowhere,” Deja protested. “I had no idea he was coming through--”
Before she could finish her sentence, the next Fistula burst forth from the ground just behind Cupiditas. It opened its ugly maw and tried to gobble up the succubus, but she was ready for the bastard.
Cupi popped the blades on her polearm, stabbed it into the top of the Fistula’s mouth, and then hoisted her body up like a stripper on a pole.
The monster tried to bring its jaws together to crush his opponent, but his motion was halted by the polearm lodged in his palate.
“Now!” the blonde succubus screamed. “I don’t know how long this thing will hold!”
Almost instantly, Deja’s chain flew up and wrapped around the creature’s two right arms. At the same time, a spray of Superbia’s black Hellfire struck him in the left arms and pinned them back against the nearby cavern walls.
“Bro, I’ve always wanted to try this,” Todd cackled as he surrounded himself with black Hellfire and zipped up into the sky. “Eat imp, you fucked up Monty Python cartoon!”
Before anyone had the chance to stop him, Todd’s tiny body rocketed toward the captured Fistula. As he flew, he summoned a ball of red Hellfire into his hand and readied it like a baseball pitch. Then the imp flew past Cupi in a flash and disappeared down the Fistula’s throat.
“What the fuck is he thinking?” Mirage gasped. “Does your imp have a death wish or something?”
The Fistula’s brow furrowed as he threw back his head and let out a wail of agony. Cupi and her polearm were tossed into the air, where the succubus caught herself on her dark wings.
Then the trapped monster began to contort violently and cough up blood by the gallon. Finally, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he went limp on the ground. The dead Fistula’s body continued to rock back and forth, spurred on by blows coming from inside his body.
There was a flash of red Hellfire as Todd burst through the dead monster’s back and then fluttered down onto the ground beside us. He was covered from head to toe in blood, bile, and some clear substance that I didn’t recognize. The imp’s eyes were locked in a far off thousand-yard stare as he shuddered in horror.
“That was way more stomach acid than I expected, bro,” he heaved. “Iron Man makes it look so easy… ”
As much as I wanted to reassure the imp and try to make him feel better, there was still one more monster to kill, and the fucker could be out at any minute.
“When the bastard reappears,” I ordered, “I want us to hit him with everything we’ve got. Just light him up with every spell you know. There’s no way we--”
The monster popped out of the tunnel directly above Eligor, and all I could do was watch in horror as it came down on the knight. The blonde woman jumped backward as quickly as she could, and she just barely avoided the Fistula’s razor-sharp teeth.
However, she wasn’t lucky enough to dodge his fists.
One of the Fistula’s right hands came down on Eligor and knocked her down onto her back. She went down hard, and the lime green spells in her hand went dark.
“Oh, fuck … ” I groaned.
The enchanted barrier around the water disappeared, and a torrent of sludgy liquid shot toward us like it had been launched out of a cannon. If we didn’t do something, we were all going to be washed away by the current. We’d probably be beaten and battered against the rocky brimstone of the cave until we either bled out or drowned.
I honestly didn’t know which one was worse, and I sure as fuck wasn’t going to find out.
I summoned purple Hellfire into my hands, tossed up two barriers directly in front of the incoming waves, and then collapsed down onto my knees when they struck my spell. There was way too much water for me to hold back. Even now, I could feel my violet spell being overwhelmed by the sludgy liquid that would soon act as our final resting place.
Then things got even worse.
The last Fistula appeared once again, this time right above the huddled mass of the rest of my team. The cavern lit up with blue, red, yellow, and black Hellfire as they tried to take the monster down, but he was able to scuttle to safety inside of another tunnel.
The pressure pushing back against my arms was now excruciating, and I knew that this was it. In a few more seco
nds, my spell would give out to the pure force of the water, and then my friends and I would be little more than Fistula chow.
Then, just as all hope looked lost, I saw two beams, one of gold Hellfire and another of brown, shoot across the room and engulf Eligor. Not two seconds later, the Knight of Hell was back on her feet with a look of determination. She threw out her hands, summoned lime green Hellfire, and then took control of the water once more.
I decast my purple spell, fell to the ground, and let out a deep sigh.
That was way too close for comfort. We had to kill this fucker, and we had to kill him now.
“Eve!” I demanded. “Can you sense where this thing is?”
“Somewhat,” the redhead admitted, and then she pointed to the ground just off to my left. “I know he’s somewhere in this area, but I couldn’t tell you exactly which tunnel.”
“Close enough,” I growled and summoned bronze Hellfire into my hands. “Just be ready. I’m about to blow this fucker’s cover.”
I slammed my glowing palm down against the rocky ground, and instantly the entire cavern began to shake. More importantly, I heard the sound of rocks echoing throughout the tunnels below my position as they were shaken loose.
This fucker was about to be buried alive.
I didn’t even need Eve’s powers to tell me where the Fistula was. He was running up out of his cover so frantically that his footsteps reverberated off the cavern walls like thunder. Finally, the tubey-green bastard launched himself out of the ground and into the air.
However, that was as far as he would get.
The second the green-skinned fucker was airborne, the sound of crackling Hellfire filled the cavern around us. Suddenly, a wave of bronze flames zipped past my head, struck the Fistula, and caused his body to freeze. The creature tried to fight back against the new spell, but within seconds all of his appendages went limp, as if his bones had been turned to jelly.
I glanced back to see where the spell had come from.
It was Mephisto.
The orange demon released his attack, and the Fistula plopped down onto the floor in a fleshy blob. He may have been immobilized, but the monster was still alive.
Tris was about to fix that.
“Hello boys, I’m baaaaaaackkkk!” Tristitia cackled as she summoned her twin tommy guns into her hands and took aim.
The succubus ran forward with “Harold and Kumar” pointed out in front of her. She squeezed the trigger as she ran, and she didn’t stop squeezing, even when she got right up in the Fistula’s face.
The creature’s ugly features were literally ripped off his body from the swarm of enchanted bullets, and his brain splattered onto the walls behind him with the force of a pressure washer. His body slumped, and Sia released her spell.
The last of the Fistula were dead.
“Holy shit, that was rough,” I panted with a slight laugh. “I just hope there’s not more of them.”
“I don’t think there are,” Eve admitted, “I’m not detecting any heartbeats other than our own. And damn, we really need to work on some cardio or something, because we’re totally not pumping at the right levels.”
“Phrasing, Sideshow Babe,” Todd sighed.
“What was wrong with what I said?” Eve protested as she looked the imp up and down. “Are you telling me that you’re the pinnacle of health? Because my analysis of your heartbeat tells me otherwise.”
“I get all the cardio I need with one simple, tiny trick,” the imp giggled and held out his open palm. “Sideshow Babe, meet Mr. Whack-attack.”
Eve raised her eyebrows at the imp as she tried to make sense of her words. Then her lips pursed, and I knew she had just made the connection.
“Out of shape or not,” I interjected, “we need to keep moving. We’ve still got at least another hour before we get to the Palace of Bones. Sia, heal everybody up, and then we can move on.”
“As you wish, Jacob,” Superbia said with a bow.
“Also,” I chuckled as I turned to the floating Mephisto, “where did you learn how to do that? I thought bronze Hellfire was a rare ability?”
It is, my King, Mephisto explained, but I am the Master of Whispers. Surely you must realize that the bronze Hellfire of judgement is a perfect fit for a demon who spreads rumors, like myself.
“Fair enough,” I nodded, “but just for the record, that was pretty badass.”
Thank you, my King.
As Sia walked off to inspect the other teammates for wounds, I used this opportunity to take a quick breather. We hadn’t been traveling for that long, but I was already exhausted.
Yet, we still had miles of tunnel left in front of us, and I had a sinking feeling that the worst was yet to come.
Chapter 16
We plodded onward through the cold, wet caverns, aided by the light from our own Hellfire and the enchanted dam Eligor held. Even though we were deeply underneath the ground of the Fifth Circle, every now and again we could hear the horrific screams of the tortured Shades above us, destined to revisit their moment of death on repeat for all eternity. It was twisted, it was cruel, and it was undoubtedly Baphomet.
“I shoulda brought headphones, bro,” Todd shivered as he plugged his ears. “I’m not gonna be getting this noise outta my head any time soon.”
“It is a bit unnerving at first,” Eclipse shrugged, “but you get used to it after a century or two.”
“Yeah,” Inpulsa added. “It actually becomes pretty calming, almost like white noise. It’s going to take some adjusting if I’m going to be staying in the Fourth Circle. There aren’t the same high-pitched screams of agony that lull me off to sleep.”
“Nope,” Todd snickered, “the only screams we’ve got in the Fourth Circle are the loud, passionate screams of love. Usually coming from my wing. Those take awhile to get used to, too.”
“We lived in a two-bedroom apartment together, Todd,” I shuddered as I reminisced. “And I can assure you I never, ever got used to those sounds.”
“Don’t be hatin’ just because I’m a sex machine, bro,” the imp giggled and flexed his tiny muscles. “I can’t control the sounds that come out of my orifices when I’m in the throes of passion.”
“Uh … ” Gula asked with a horrified tone, “don’t you mean the sounds that come out of your mouth?”
“I know what I said,” the imp stated firmly with a nod.
We pushed forward through the winding tunnels of the Fifth Circle until finally, we came to a dead end. The walls of the cavern rose up around us like a prison of brimstone, and there were no further paths that we could see.
“Son of a bitch,” I growled. “Are we really gonna have to retrace our steps and then start all over?”
“I don’t understand,” Sia pondered as she walked up and placed her hand on the wall. “We’ve gone as deep into the Fifth Circle as we can go. This has to be the correct path.”
“Couldn’t we just continue to burrow through?” Libidine suggested. “Surely our Hellfire powers are strong enough to break through some brimstone.”
“They are, Sister,” Cupi sighed, “but if we go about destroying the cavern walls, we risk the entire thing caving in on us. Being crushed to death may be slightly better than drowning, but I’d really prefer not to have either happen if I can help it.”
“What if we tried to control the blasts?” I questioned. “We could do small, concise beams of Hellfire, almost like a laser cutter.”
“I’d still be concerned about the structural integrity,” Sia sighed. “There’s no telling what’s beyond these walls. There could be nothing but thick brimstone for miles, or this could lead directly out into the swampy waters of the Fifth Circle. And I don’t think I need to remind you what awaits for us out there … ”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Todd spoke up, “but I totally wish we had that Tremor Sandworm monster around right now. Fuck, I’d even take one of those Fibula things we just killed, as disturbing as they fucking were with
their four arms and shit.”
“Could we--”
“I wonder if they used all four arms to beat off?” Todd pondered aloud. “Like, do they use two to crank the shaft while the other two fondle the golden eggs?”
“Wait!” Eve gasped. “I sense--”
“Or do they just go with the tried-and-true method of using one hand while the others help brace it for liftoff?” the imp continued.
“Todd!” I hissed. “Eve’s found something.”
“There’s another heartbeat,” she said curiously, “but it’s no larger than any of our own, and it’s very faint, almost like it’s far away.”
“Is it one of the Shades outside?” I asked, but the redhead shook her head.
“The Shades don’t have heartbeats,” she explained. “This is the heartbeat of someone who is very much alive.”
My blood ran cold in my body as I thought of the possibilities. It couldn’t have been Baphomet. He was a much larger demon, and his heartbeat would have been ten times the size of one of our own.
“Hold on … ” Mirage pondered as she stepped forward and stared intensely at the ceiling. “Is that … ”
The short-haired brunette reached down, picked up a pebble from the floor, and then launched it at the top of the tunnel as hard as she could. Much to our surprise, the tiny piece of rock passed right through the ceiling as if it weren’t even there.
“What the hell?” I gasped.
“I knew it!” Mirage smiled and then pointed at the area above us. “It’s an illusion, just like my own. Well, not quite like my own. I’m not careless enough to leave the glow of green Hellfire around the edges.”
So, it wasn’t a dead end, after all. In fact, we were right where we needed to be.
Very crafty, Mephisto admitted.
“This has to be the entrance,” I announced to the team. “You don’t try to hide a subterranean hole in the ground unless it’s connected to something big.”
“Bro, I don’t see what vegetarians have to do with anything,” Todd mused.
“Sub-terran-ean,” I repeated, but the imp just shrugged.
“Sounds like some sort of dinosaur to me, bro,” he admitted.