by Mark Eller
Hark cocked his head slightly. His brows furrowed, as if he were in serious thought. He nodded and snapped his fingers. “You know, you’re right. I completely forgot about the body. There was a body not too far from where I found the arm. Wasn’t much left of it, only it didn’t look old and didn’t look like anybody had chewed on it either.”
A hand reached over Hark’s shoulder, grabbed the severed arm just below the wrist, and pulled it away. Hark quickly leaped to his feet, turned, and then became pale. The man who wasn’t a man grinned happily, the half arm with its hook gripped in his left hand. Behind him, several hellborn stood ready, talons bared, fangs showing. Many held knives or swords.
“You say there was a dead body beside this thing?” the man asked.
Hark nodded mutely. He wiped sweat off his face with a trembling hand. “Yes sir.”
“Polite,” the man noted. “I like polite so I’ll let you live.” His smile grew wider. “Besides, Zorce has set certain rules for us regarding public behavior. Don’t want to break any of those without good cause.” He winked. “The old fellow can get a bit crotchety when his will is crossed, you know, which a certain person will soon discover once he hears of her interrogation techniques. I don’t think you need to worry about that, though. He’ll be right grateful to have this arm, and even more so to know the spawn who wore it is dead. Zorce might even give the both of you a free pass out of Hell.”
Turning abruptly, he left the tavern, taking the arm with him. His guard followed, slowly slipping through the doors one at a time, but first being sure to study Corce and Hark, almost as if they wanted to recognize their faces the next time they met.
When the door closed behind them, Hark turned back to the bar. Corce silently uncorked the bottle and filled Hark’s mug to the rim before filling a mug for himself. They both needed a drink, bad.
Hark finished his drink in two quick swallows, set his mug down, and looked Corce straight in the eye. All signs of drunkenness had disappeared. “I’m leaving town. I suggest you do the same.”
Corce shook his head, a bit confused. “Why? He said you’d be safe. He said we might both be rewarded.”
“The body I saw, it had two hands and was pretty recently dead. The arm never belonged to it. The fellow they are looking for might still be alive, and I don’t want to be around when they come asking about him.”
* * * *
Helace stormed into the castle in a fury. Her face, normally more beautiful than any man’s wet dream, was twisted and flushed. Her eyes flashed pure hate, and blood marred her right cheek where an inadvertent splash during questioning had struck her. Surrounding her were her personal guard, newly formed a week previously when her human guards fell to a series of deliberate accidents. The new guards consisted of seven gnomes and three wraiths. All were small beings, but their size had little bearing on their deadliness in a fight. She had known full devils who stepped aside when a covey of these hellkind moved toward them. They could often be defeated, but never without serious damage to the one they fought, and unlike with other wounds, the damage gnomes caused never healed. Even a god’s touch did little more than stop the bleeding. Eventually, the victim died, never to be resurrected again.
A lot of wounds had been created this day, a lot of deaths, many by her, and every one had been a waste. She had followed rumor after rumor. She had ferreted out a fact here, one there, sifting through hundreds of lies and speculations. They had all led to one conclusion. Despite rumors, the spawn still lived, but he had become unimportant. The hook he had worn was gone, as was half his arm. The reward she sought from Zorce for finding it would never take place because that bastard, that bloody damn mother fucking bastard, Belsac, had beaten her to it. He had been seen in the city with a severed arm draped casually across his shoulder. The hook, dark, foreboding, its glow extinguished, was still attached to the end of the arm, and there was nothing she could do about it. Belsac stood higher than her. He had more guards than she did, and his guards were more powerful, He also had Zorce’s blessing. With Merktos out of favor and likely dead, it was assumed by many Belsac would one day take Athos’s place as the lesser god of Hell. Giving the coveted hook to Zorce would ensure it.
Helace spat out the foul taste in her mouth. Her spittle landed on the bronze helmet covering one of her guards. It sat there, hissing, smoking, eating its way through the bronze, through the gnome’s skull, and deep into his brain. She continued on, leaving the stricken gnome behind her, writhing on the floor, little caring she lessened her protection by killing the disgusting being. Greater protection wouldn’t help her now. Sucking up to Belsac was the only recourse she had left, one she was loathe to take.
Fuck it! She’d chosen to play this power game. She’d chosen so seek a throne, to find a place next to Athos’s side, and to rule.
Rubble. Everything had all fallen into rubble because of a cursed spawn who didn’t know enough to just roll over and die. She should have listened to her daughter. Belthethsia had been smart enough to stand off to the side. She had attached herself to Zorce, but not in such a way many others considered her a threat. She had fulfilled her duties, had her fun, and refused to be drawn into the deeper game.
Raising her face to the ceiling, Helace screamed frustration, little knowing, little caring, that her twisted face had become more beautiful than anything ever seen in the mortal or immortal worlds. If she had known she would not have cared. The glow of her hate and frustration might be exquisite, but exquisite meant nothing to the dead.
And she would be dead without a hope of resurrection. Probably after weeks or months of intense agony, but she would not go alone. Helace was hellborn. She had spent a thousand years learning the ways of pain and revenge. So, forget sucking up to Belsac. That one would never fall for her lies. Instead, he would claim her as part of his reward. He would rape her as Zorce had once rapped her so Belthethsia could be born, and rape was something for which Helace would no longer stand. Not again. She’d gone through pain and humiliation to further her position once. The end result had not been worth the almost three years it took her to completely heal. Zorce liked to play rough. He liked ripped flesh and broken bones. He liked exposed organs and wearing looped entrails.
From what she had seen, Belsac was much worse.
Helace knew she was doomed. She would die, but she would make damn sure she died fast, and that others died with her. She was hellborn. Hellborn were created to cause harm. Hellborn were made to rip and destroy. Most of all, hellborn were born to live in anger, often acting without thinking of the consequences.
Belsac was hellborn.
Her guards preceded her into the great throne room. The idiot she had been fucking sat in his chair, drool running from one corner of his mouth while the newly found and very deadly feline changer named Rebel laughed nearby, and rightfully so. The situation was humorous because not much of Vere’s mind remained. The drugs he took so his passion could match Helace’s desire had ballooned his body into something grotesque. Six hundred pounds of suet filled the throne. Fat and fluids bulged between the throne’s arms, pushing folds of the king’s body up and around the ornate carvings set into the wood. His chin looked like a bullfrog’s throat sack, huge and extended, its skin thin from being stretched too far too fast. She saw meat beneath the stretching, and veins. Pulsing blood, black and thick and polluted. His mind was jelly and his body so corrupted he was no longer good for even food.
“My darling,” he croaked when his eyes finally noticed her. “Come to me. I have need.”
“Of course,” Helace answered, sighing. Glancing at the feline changer, she gestured. “For your life, leave.”
Still laughing, Rebel glided away. “I’ll continue my search for the child,” she said just before exiting out the door. “The priest, Charmaine, came to me with an interesting idea, but I’d like your permission to invite Bent and a couple others to come along with me.”
“Do what you must,” Helace said impatiently. “I’v
e no care in the matter.”
Rebel nodded once and left, leaving Helace with the worthless king.
When she approached, his idiot’s grin grew simpering. One hand rubbed idly at his crotch. The other reached out for her, seeking to grab her breast like it was a lump of dough. She let his hand find its target. She waited while he stroked himself, waited while his fingers grabbed and bruised her flesh, waited until he was almost at completion, fury roiling inside her all the while. The fury circled in her gut, a heavy thing demanding its own release, its own revenge. Near her fury was the other place, the reinforced pocket built into the wall of her stomach where her imps waited.
Vere’s groping fingers found her nipple, clenched tight. His eyes closed. His head tilted back, and Helace spat an imp out of her belly. It oozed through her throat, past her perfect teeth, and shot up Vere’s nose.
The king of all Yernden arched his back in a sudden spasm. His eyes shot open in alarm. A brief hint of the driving intellect he once owned gleamed through, and then he was gone. The imp struggled out of his nose, pulling Vere’s shriveled soul behind it. Helace smiled with satisfaction. The end had looked swift. Almost gentle, but she knew a soul sundering was one of the most excruciating experiences a being could go through. To the victim, it often seemed to last forever.
The imp dragged the soul toward her, but Helace gestured briefly. “Throw it away. I won’t have the thing inside me.” She looked at her guard. “Get rid of the body.”
“It’s too big for us to move,” Leord, first wraith of the guard, protested. “We’ll need some help.” He half spread his wings as a symbol he hid nothing.
Irritated, Helace almost ordered his death, but then changed her mind. None of her guard weighed more than forty pounds. Wraiths weighed less than thirty because of their hollow bones. She might be evil, but she was not totally unfair. Even working as a cohesive team they wouldn’t be able to budge the king’s body. She gestured to their swords. “Make him smaller.”
After twenty minutes of concerted effort the king’s body was finally removed. The mess left behind was horrendous, but Helace didn’t care. She had fucked in worse, had bathed in worse, and besides, clean-up would soon be Belsac’s concern, not hers.
She sat in the throne and arranged the hem of her queen’s dress decorously about her feet, placing the material so it fully covered her arms, crawled appropriately up her neck, and showed only the faintest hint of cleavage. Helace frowned briefly before nodding approvingly. She then ripped the material off her body, tore it into thin strips, wrapped most of it into a ball, and threw the bundle at a guard’s head. She held another strip in her hand. Smiling winningly, she leaned forward, grabbed the offensive wraith, and wrapped the strip around its neck as tight as she could. It reached up to pull the wrapping away, something she couldn’t allow. It would ruin the fun. Extending her claws, she cut his hands from his wrists.
After he died she looked down at herself. She wore no clothing, only her husband’s blood. Good. She had hated the damn dress. She had hated being confined and hated that its cut and symbols conveyed she had been owned by the king.
Lazily leaning back in the throne, Helace gently rubbed blood into her bare skin, scooping up extra helpings to work into her hair. The scene was set. Her die were cast. The next move depended on Belsac, but until he arrived she would remain here, in this seat, in this throne, and savor the sensation of ruling the human kingdom of Yernden…if only for an hour.
* * * *
Belsac walked into the castle with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. He might never be allowed to rule in Hell, but he would definitely sure as hell rule this part of the real world now that he had a wonderful present to give to Zorce. And who knew, there might even be a chance to rule in Hell. Zorce had, after all, promised Athos’s section of Hell to the being who returned the hook. All of hellkind knew Zorce despised his weakling son and had always wanted to see Athos’s soul cast into fire. Who better to replace Athos than his younger and more accomplished brother. Though Belsac was only a devil, he was the strongest devil remaining now that Mercktos had fallen into disfavor. Athos, on the other hand, was a god, but a very weak god, far too weak to deserve the title. He had only gained it through a bizarre happenstance of mutual murder among Zorce’s children which left Athos as the sole adult male still alive when the throne became empty. At the time Belsac had been too young to challenge his brother, and his position had been too uncertain in later years to challenge the entrenched power, but with Zorce firmly on his side—?
He tossed the severed arm up into the air, flipping it jauntily, laughing, because the entire world had just become his oyster and his brother did not know it. Few obstacles remained in his way. One of those did not have much time left.
Catching the arm out of the air, he strode toward the throne room. Helace would be there, sulking beside her husband because she had not won the prize. She had nothing left but to look to Vere for protection. Ironic, really. Because of her Vere no longer had the capacity to protect his belly button lint, let alone her. In fact, so far as Belsac was concerned, Vere would soon become unneeded. Not yet, but soon. Him being the recognized king was one of the few things keeping the cattle in check. There was, it seemed, a certain reluctance among them to rebel against a man the virtuous gods had supposedly placed in charge. Well, the masses could have their King Vere, for a week…or two. Then they would have King Belsac, the Scourge. To provide balm to the herd, Belsac would hang Vere on the castle’s front gate beside the bodies of Helace and Athos. If he were lucky, Elise’s body would join them, too.
Now wouldn’t that be a sweet thing to see. With Jolson dead, with Athos soon to be dead, and Helace with him, Queen Elise was the only true difficulty remaining,, and she was only a weak-willed human woman. A shame, really. He would have preferred a challenge.
Well, maybe challenges would come later. There was, after all, the entire rest of the world for Zorce and him to conquer. Surely somebody would offer them a little fun.
He neared the throne room doors, noting they were already open. Wasn’t Helace being a dear. She was a realist, that one. She knew he had won their little game. She knew her only chance was to capitulate to his will, to give herself to him— not that it would do her any good. She was fated for the torturers as soon as Athos died and the battle was won, something she did not need to know. Not yet. It would be much more fun to see her hopes for redemption rise and then crash than to start right in on the cutting. Everything had its proper place and time. Helace, like the king, was still needed.
He stepped into the throne room, the hook and arm casually draped across his shoulder, and stopped.
The throne room was a bloodbath. Gore was everywhere, combined with shards of chipped bone and a few shreds of discarded flesh. Helace lounged languidly on the throne, in the king’s seat, not on the one belonging to the mistress or wife. She was naked, unashamed, her skin delightfully washed in freshly shed blood. Crimson streaks ran across her face. Red decorated her hair and dripped from her breasts.
Nodding at Belsac, Helace raised an arm and began licking it clean.
Belsac stood still, stunned at the implications.
Helace lowered her arm, smiled, and stretched enticingly, proving how she had started so many human wars over the last several centuries. She exuded sex and desire beyond any hellborn Belsac had ever met. For the last several years her allure had been restricted, deliberately degraded so she could control Vere without contending with several hundred other sex-starved human males. Now, all those years of tight control had been released. Helace’s allure was greater than he had ever before seen it, so great, in fact, that her guard lay dead around her. The royal servants, those who attended within the throne room, lay dead, too.
Besac grimaced, suddenly furious. Helace had pulled out all the stops in an attempt to save her life, but in doing so she had made the greatest blunder possible. She had killed the king. She had taken away the symbol of authority which g
ave them the right to rule in human eyes. The king was dead. True, there was no heir for people to rally around, but the queen lived in exile. She could easily become a focal point, a place to rally.
No promise of sexual pleasure beyond mortal comprehension was enough to offset the pure rage racing through Belsac. He stalked toward the throne, Jolson’s severed arm now held at his side, its hook dragging on the floor, leaving a line where the hook cut through the blood. Belsac stomped up the six steps leading to the throne and stood before Helace while she trailed her fingers through congealing blood. Raising her fingers, she brushed them across her body, decorating her breasts and belly with more red. One of those breasts, he saw, was marred by black finger-sized bruises. Another of Helace’s indecencies. She hadn’t even bothered to heal herself from a mortal given hurt. He studied those bruises. Was this small injury the reason for the blood? For the death. Had she killed Vere out of some perverse revenge?
“Hello Belsac,” she murmured. “I see you had luck in your hunt.”
“I see you’ve royally fucked things up,” he snapped. “Tell me the king isn’t dead. Tell me all this blood belongs to somebody else.”
She shook her head sadly. “So sorry. Can’t do.” She stroked her bruised breast, rubbed a finger around an erect nipple. “Vere made me angry. You know how I get when I’m angry.”
When the strength of her smile turned up a notch, Belsac’s cock jammed hard against his clothing. His sudden lust didn’t matter. His anger burned much hotter than his desire.
“Oh well,” Helace murmured. “No harm done. The king is dead, long live the queen.” Helace pointed an imperial finger at him. Her tone tightened, became hard as stone. All signs of the temptress were gone. “I am the queen, Belsac, both here and in Hell. From this point forward you will crawl for me. You will grovel to me, and you will give yourself to my will.”
“You stupid bitch,” Belsac whispered. “You risk everything. Zorce is almost ready to take over. Athos is about to ascend, and you put it all at risk just to save your position? The only reason these cattle haven’t risen against us is because of their king’s will. The battle hasn’t yet begun because they don’t know there’s going to be a war. Now— now they have no king, and they’ll never accept you as their queen.”