by Mark Eller
“For god’s sake, Phrandex, grow some horns and be a devil.” Or “If I weren’t your mother, I’d kill you myself.” And his least favorite. “I’ve seen spawn with more initiative than you.”
Other, more recent complaints tumbled around his head, banging against his beleaguered brain. She had visited him three days ago to demand he accompany her into the middle world on a small chore. It was, she said, a chance for him to get his feet wet, whatever that meant. When he asked the reason for their journey she had only sneered. The putrid memory of her belittling attitude still clung to him like stink on a human.
A shrill, terrified, shriek brought the devil’s attention back to the nursery. The noisemaker was his new— what did they call them again? Boob mother— ninny— Nursemaid! Yes, that was the term. His new nursemaid, was number three to be exact. Unfortunately, the other two hadn’t faired very well. Imalda, his first assistant, had lasted only a few months before she was eaten. Her fault, really, for suicidal inattention. Phrandex had repeatedly told her not turn her back on the little rascals. However, being a rather stupid sort, she had fallen asleep during the children’s nap time. When the children woke two hours early, they were hungry, and Imalda had prepared no food for them. She instantly became the little darlings’s lunch.
The second boob mother, Lira, was harder to come by than the first. The agency he hired Imalda from didn’t want to lose another prized worker. Consequently, the second boob mother came from a different agency, one possessing less stringent standards for their employees. This meant Lira wasn’t as sturdy or well-equipped as Imelda. In fact, on the first day of the third week she ran off screaming after one of the babies gave her a friendly little nip. Honestly, it was only the tip of her pinky. The female displayed a complete over-reaction to the situation. Phrandex would have understood if she had lost an entire hand, but a fingertip?
He hadn’t seen a glimpse of her since.
Now, a month later, he had Bejou. She was a strong, burly sort of woman with brown hair cropped short about the face and shoulders. Her eyes were dark, fierce, and unafraid. Not to mention she had put up a pretty good fight and cussed him profusely when he dragged her into the hellhole. She had shown spunk, especially when Berferd, his other assistant, raped her.
Phrandex liked the idea of spunk in his boob mothers. It was a good sign because it meant she might last more than a few weeks. Now if he could only keep her from trying to escape. For some inexplicable reason, the daft woman actually thought she could find her way through the tunnels and back to the surface without getting eaten.
“You little, filthy, no good demon child!” Bejou stood in a corner, club in hand, fending off one of the demons who had started teething recently.
Phrandex looked around for the little fellow’s teething rock, and realized the child had dropped it. He smiled when he saw the black-scaled demon playfully eyeing Bejou’s bleeding leg. A long section of cloth had been torn from her apron, and the flesh beneath bore several long scratches.
The demon child raked the air in front of him with long, sinewy arms, ripped free another section of cloth but missed flesh this time. Its stubby fingers had newly sprouted talons. During the last several years, Phrandex had noticed talons seemed to grow longer and sharper at the same time fangs first developed. He grinned when the boob mother screamed again. Demons were so cute when they discovered their new toys, but the noise was irritating.
Snarling, Bejou swung the club. It connected with the child’s head with a disappointingly half-hearted thunk. Phrandex grimaced with disgust at her ineptitude. She had barely dented the club’s wood.
Releasing an aggrieved sigh, he shook his head. “No, no, if you expect to get out of the corner, you have to swing faster and harder. He’ll be on you as soon as you swing again because you left yourself open near your toes.”
Phrandex left the doorway and walked toward her, taking the time to pick up another teething rock along the way. When he reached the cornered milkmaid, he plucked the demon up by its neck. It hissed and tried to latch onto his arm. As soon as its mouth opened Phrandex shoved the rock between its newly pointed teeth. With a clack and light crunch, the demon closed his mouth over the rock and drooled.
“Never forget the rocks,” Phrandex admonished his assistant. “Rocks are important, especially when the darlings are teething. I remember one time when…”
He paused when excited shouts sounded from the tunnel. Curious, he walked to the nursery’s entrance and looked out to see dozens of hellborn rushing by.
A spawn stumbled past, and Phrandex deftly plucked it from the throng.
“You are going where?”
The spawn, a woman, cowered and mewled. Her struggles were weak and pathetic, which wasn’t surprising since she was a spawn. “To the great–to the great hall.”
Phrandex shook her because she irritated him. Her speech was barely understandable. She was so frightened her words were garbled and nearly inaudible.
“Why?”
The spawn’s eyes rolled around in her head, and her breaths came in great heaving gasps. Apparently, the longer he held her the more frantic she became.
Phrandex shook her again. “Answer and you can go.”
The spawn stopped squirming. Sucking at her bottom lip, she scratched at a scabbed and scarred head which was missing patches of hair. Those patches might have been blond at one time, Phrandex supposed, but they were filthy gray now.
“I think–I think Zorce is coming.” Spittle flew from her mouth as she lost all control of her speech.
Instantly dropping her, Phrandex wiped her slobber from his arm. Zorce was coming? Ignored, the spawn rose and stumbled off while the young devil turned back to his nursemaid.
“I’ll be back shortly.” He watched her awkwardly swing her club at another demon child. Half the club had already been chewed to splinters. As a precaution, he gave her another club and more rocks. He really didn’t want to go chasing down another boob mother.
* * * *
When he reached the Great Hall, Phrandex pushed and shoved his way between spawn, soulwrights, gaunts, and lesser demons until he stood at the back of a large group of devils who were all older and larger than him. Since he preferred giving pain to receiving it, he didn’t dare try to muscle his way past them. Frowning thoughtfully, he looked around until he saw a spawn standing three feet up on a pillar, its foot jammed into a deep crack. He smiled and headed that way. By the time he reached the pillar the spawn already lay dead at its base. Berferd, a devil who had been Phrandex’s nursery charge ten years ago, and now his part-time assistant, had his foot shoved deep into the crack.
Grinning at his half-brother’s vulnerable back, Phrandex shoved his claws in the young devil’s behind and hoisted him down. “Find someplace else to perch.”
Berferd spat poison on the ground. Rock bubbled. “You’re not my nursemaid anymore.”
“But I am your brother,” Phrandex pointed out, “and I’m older than you.” He climbed up the pillar, shoved his toes in the crack, and made himself comfortable before looking down at Berferd. “Go away.”
Berferd growled, but he left. Dismissing the impertinent sprat, Phrandex turned his eyes toward the main show and cursed when he saw Zorce’s favorite general standing beside the Hell god. The last being Phrandex ever wanted to see was his mother.
Zorce and Sulya stood inside a large chariot decorated by precious and semi-precious jewels. A polished ring of skulls, sitting atop the chariot’s edge, acted as a macabre handrail for the occupants to hold onto as they rode. Hellhounds nearly as big as arvids, their eyes fiery as a pit in Hell, served as the dark god’s grim beasts of burden.
Belthethsia, a blue skinned succubus of uncomely affections and great bounties, stood below where Athos watched from the dais. Softly whimpering, a ragged, skinny woman with dirty long hair sat crouched at her feet. Belthethsia held clumps of the woman’s hair in her right hand, but the succubus’s attentions were not on her prisoner. She
looked cautious and more than a bit nervous as she stood before the two gods.
Zorce was thirty feet to her left. Ten feet in front of her Athos sat on his throne. The two gods seemed evilly pissed. Then again, Phrandex reflected, the gods of Hell seldom looked anything but pissed. Still and all, there were different degrees of pissed ranging from only wanting to rip a being apart to desiring the destruction of everything everywhere. Their present moods seemed to be at mid-level and dropping fast.
Not good. It might be wise to leave before the gore flew, but if he left now he might never learn who had been killed unless, hopefully, it was his mother.
Athos’s eyes burned bright red. His skin, normally bone white with mottled patches of old scars, was flushed slightly ochre. God energy coursed wildly around the four horns jutting from his head. The energy danced and flared and flowed around him, caressing his naked body in a delightfully obscene dance which pushed his horrid member more than a yard high, pulsing red and black with his anger. Poisonous secretions glistened along its length and dripped off its barbed hooks. Eying the horrendous thing, Phrandex felt glad he wasn’t born female. Athos’s need for sex was legendary. So far, Belthethsia, Phrandex’s half-sister, was the only surviving female capable of enduring Athos’s attentions, though this fact did not win her any special favors since it sometimes took her weeks to re-grow certain parts of her anatomy when Athos became a bit enthusiastic.
“You saw the spawn,” Athos said gently to Belthethsia. “You saw it wearing my hook. Why did you bring me this woman instead of the spawn?”
“She has a voice like the world has never heard,” Belthethsia desperately answered. “Thingy used the hook to put another woman’s voice in her. The result is—”
“Silence!” Energy shot from Athos’s third horn. Crackling wickedly through the air, it sliced into Belthethsia’s gut, cutting it open. Screaming, she fell to her knees and held loops of spilled intestines in her cupped hands. Moving with frantic haste, she barely had time to shove the intestines back into her belly before the wound healed.
Phrandex fought back a giggle. This was proving to be far more entertaining than he had hoped.
“I care nothing for this singer, this Maggie,” Athos said once Belthethsia regained her feet. “I have owned her before and soon became bored. I want the spawn. I want my hook.”
Zorce chose this moment to speak from the chariot. He did not raise his voice, but it was clearer than any other voice Phrandex had ever heard.
“The spawn and the hook will be mine. Whoever brings them to me will receive my son’s entire domain when I rule the upper world.” Zorce’s dark face split into a feral grin as he looked again to Athos.
Phrandex clutched the pillar tighter. Had Zorce just put Athos’s job up for grabs?
With his face purplish-black and splotchy, Athos surged out of his throne with a roar. “How dare you! Hell will be mine! All of it! No one will take your challenge! They don’t have the horns to face me.” Athos’s head swiveled around as he roared out among the gathered hellborn. His eyes became fiery holes set deep in his horned head. “Try it,” he warned the watchers, “and you’re ash.”
“I promised you my section of Hell,” Zorce said. “I never said you would have everything.”
Phrandex thought about Zorce’s offer. If he stepped forward and accepted the challenge Zorce might finally notice him. This would be more attention than Athos had ever given him. On the other hand, Phrandex had no illusions he could rule this section of Hell for long. He was too young, too inexperienced. The greater devils would be fighting over his remains within hours. Then again, if he returned the spawn and was rewarded with this section of Hell, he could gift it to Athos. Athos would make him a favorite, allowing Phrandex to finally leave the nursery behind.
Would Zorce be offended? Athos might be the son of all evil, but Zorce was the source. He had, after all, been the co-creator of the blessed nano that infected all of mankind and destroyed the first planet. If not for the nano infection there would be no demons, devils, or gods.
Phrandex shrugged. He supposed the details of his offer could be worked out after he succeeded, but first he had to succeed. Accepting the challenge meant he would have to go above ground with all the humans. The thought made him shudder. He didn’t like humans. They smelled bad, didn’t operate by the correct rules, and many of them had pointy sticks, or so he had heard.
He started to climb down from the pillar when a thought popped into his head. If he succeeded he would become more important to Zorce than Sulya. She couldn’t berate him if he outranked her.
Phrandex’s head snapped upward. He looked at Zorce and imagined himself standing in Sulya’s place.
Emboldened by the prospect of having his mother under his thumb, Phrandex decided he would take the quest as soon as he found a way to safely leave Hell.
He was about to leave his pillar and push his way to the front so he could volunteer when a commotion rippled through the crowd. Berferd pushed between two devils and stood before the gods.
“Atta' boy,” Hellnost, Berferd’s father called out. “That’s my little devil.”
“I accept your offer,” Berferd said
Zorce’s face twisted with amused surprise. “Who are you?”
“I’m Berferd and—”
“He’s a baby sitter!” Athos laughed. “He watches after the baby demons.”
Scowling, Berferd refused to look at Athos.
Others began to laugh as well. “Yeah, he’s a boob mother!”
The laughter became louder.
Spinning around, Berferd glared at the crowd, searching for the speaker. “Bejou is the boob mother! I’m— I’m—”
Phrandex watched Berferd reach for the proper word, but his tongue didn’t seem able to wrap around the damn thing. This wasn’t surprising since Phrandex often had trouble remembering the proper term.
Berferd improvised. “I’m a ninny, thank you, and proud of it.”
The crowd laughed louder. Damned beings held their sides and stumbled over one another. Phrandex heard a loud groan over the laughter. Turning his head, he saw Hellnost’s furious glare land on Berferd. Hellnost shook his head slowly and shouted. “Nanny, you idiot! Nanny!”
Phrandex actually heard Berferd grit his teeth.
“I have successfully taken care of our young for over ten years,” Berferd shouted over the bedlam. “In all that time I’ve never once lost or eaten one. My powers have grown to the point I’m being wasted down here. I should be in the upper world, causing havoc and fear instead of running about tending to the replacement boobs mybrother finds for us.”
“You might have killed some of them with laughter.” Athos sneered. A grin cracked across his face.
Zorce raised a huge, taloned hand, twice the size as Phrandex’s head. The laughter subsided. “Why are you still in the nursery? Devils are only required to watch our young for one or two years.” He looked slowly toward Athos.
Athos glared at his father, barring serrated teeth. “He is a mixed breed, a cur child from a defective mother. I hear his brother, one of your castoff sons, is just as bad.” Athos stared at Sulya, as if challenging her to say something.
At first Phrandex thought the insult would go unanswered, but in a red blur of motion, Sulya hurled her battle-ax at Athos’s head.
Athos’s eyes narrowed, and his upper lip curled with contempt while he watched the ax fly toward him. He gestured, and the ax dissolved into vapor three feet from his nose. Athos gave Sulya a contemptuous smile, but his eyes blazed fury.
“You would dare attack your god,” he said, low voiced. A new ball of crackling energy formed between his horns.
“I have only one god,” Sulya snapped. “He is far grander than you can ever hope to be.”
“You have death,” Athos said. He gestured. The ball of energy dancing between his horns crackled and shot toward Sulya. Sulya started to stumble back but was stopped by Zorce’s grip on her arm. When the energy reach
ed them it fizzled into harmless sparks.
Disappointed, Phrandex frowned. He would have been glad to be rid of his mother.
“Have a care, seedling,” Zorce admonished his son. “Sulya is my most prized possession. In fact, she’s currently doing better than you at furthering my plans. She practically delivered Anithia and her daughter to your door, but you bungled their capture without even an apology. Worse, even after we spoke on the matter, you took less than adequate care of the hook, one of our most potent tools, my gift to you as a sign of trust.” Zorce’s smile seemed almost friendly, but foam spilled from his lips. “Now I find you not only let the hook slip into the hands of a lousy fucking spawn, you allowed the spawn to escape. On top of that, you have kept two devils in the nursery during a time when they should have been preparing for the invasion, one of them my son and your brother, all because you feel petty? These games might have been acceptable in the past but not now. Tell me, how many more of my subjects aren’t allowed to grow because you value your pride more than your position in Hell?”
The air around Zorce seemed to fill with a hot, prickly, suffocating power. Phrandex wanted to cringe but didn’t wish to appear weak. Besides, Berferd still stood his ground, and he was much closer to the action. In fact, Berferd didn’t look like he was having any trouble being near the center of attention, a strange thing considering Athos had a reputation for killing off siblings who pissed him off.
Throwing his head back, Zorce screamed his rage into the cavernous hall. Solid rock trembled, split, and crumbled, making Phrandex fall when he lost his hold on the pillar. Around him, hundreds of other hellborn dropped to their knees. Delicious fear tingled in Phrandex’s veins when he pulled himself erect. Zorce’s black skin boiled and rippled like lava. The dark god’s muscles bulged, popping with the strength of his fury. Holding tight to his delicate courage, Phrandex climbed back on his now insecure pillar.
Athos didn’t appear affected in the least by Zorce’s display. Phrandex knew the lesser god dared not show fear to his father or to any of his subjects or slaves. Any weakness on his part would put his position in jeopardy from devils like Belsac or Mercktos, who were almost his equal.