by Sating, Paul
Contents
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Rate and Review
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
What's Next?
Links
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Acknowledgments
Also By Paul Sating
About the Author
Contact
Cancer's Curse
Book 4 of The Zodiac Series
Paul Sating
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any situations or similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2020 Paul Sating.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
No parts of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Editor: Cindy Niespodzianski
Cover Design: Jake at jcalebdesign.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-7322617-7-8
To Jon Grilz, your kindness knows no bounds, and if the rest of the world cared about others as you do for strangers, it would be a wonderful place to be.
If you enjoyed this book, I would really appreciate getting a review from you.
Reviews not only help other readers find something they might like, but they help me as an author. Your reviews are important to me because they allow me to see what readers like you enjoyed about the book and what I could have done better.
Thank you to each and every one of you who takes the time to leave a review!
1 - Underworld, Fifth Circle
One Year After Gemini
Bless it, it was hot.
Yes, I know you mortals have this general perception of Hell being all about Hellfire and brimstone, and it is. Well, sort of. But the Underworld—or Hell, as I prefer to call it because it's simply so much easier to say—is much more than trite stereotypes.
We have the Hellfire—it's blue, by the way—and brimstone—which is all our streets seem to be made of—but we also have oceans, lakes, prairies, cities, city parks, old towns, new towns, dancing and bar districts, and even walking trails and coffee shops for all the old demons to do old demon things in and around.
When you boil—get it?—it all down, Hell is a lot like the human world. I should know; I've been there twice and consider myself an expert in my circles, though my circles extend to just two other incubi, my boss, and my parents.
My point is, Hell is similar to the Overworld and, today, here in the Fifth Circle, it was hot.
Like, suffocatingly hot.
Though that might have something to do with me standing in the middle of a pack of demons in the height of the day, smack-dab in the center of the Samhain carnival.
Bless it, today was hot.
The one difference I guess I would have to recognize if I'm being honest, is that Hell doesn't have seasons. As I learned from my time in the Overworld, those are common for mortals. Here, not so much. Not at all, actually.
There are no seasons because—axial tilt aside—the Hellfire, our version of your sun, misses the mark. We get our light and sense of passing time from it, when the Grand Chamber is opened and closed each day. Callers, magical purple creatures, ensure the Underworld's residents who do not live near clock towers start their days on-time, even before the blue light escapes. Life here is a well-oiled machine. Day-in and day-out, each one is the same as the previous, identical to the next.
Don't feel for us; it's our reality, our truth. The vast majority of demons don't know any better. I like the predictability of life here. To most demons it's one less thing to worry ourselves about, one less distraction from serving Lucifer and His grand plan. At least for typical demons—which I am not.
The only thing I was serving right now was my face. With corn dogs, cotton candy, and deep-fried hamburgers.
"Wipe your face," Ralrek said, flicking a finger at the corner of my mouth. "You're wearing more food than you're eating."
Placing the crock of my elbow against my mouth, I watched his face twist in disgust before yanking my sleeve across and away. "Better?"
He looked away. "You're gross."
Bilba, my best friend, laughed at the observation, covering his much-slimmer stomach with both hands, decorated with his typical black fingernail polish.
"But my mouth is clean."
Bilba laughed harder, the tips of his ears turning pink.
My argument game was solid. Ralrek didn't bother to argue. Such was the newfound healthy status of our relationship.
The only time I now saw the pair was on social occasions like this. I still had my job at The Book Abyss, working for that slave-driver Dialphio, but in the past year, none of us had received any work from Lucifer's Third Council. That lack of work deprived us of those moments of intensity that usually led to us fighting or getting at each other's throats. Things were much more peaceful now, so I had to antagonize him somehow. Can't have life becoming boring now, can we?
"Which one do you want to ride next?" Bilba was in front, leading the way through the crowd of demons hanging around gaming booths, standing in ridiculously lengthy lines for a ride, those waiting to lose coin in one of the rip-off schemes otherwise known as carnival games.
It was the opening night of Samhain, the annual carnival celebrating our liberation from Yahweh's reign of terror. Now, now; don't get offended until you've walked a mile in our shoes. None of us were there at the beginning and we can't be sure what went down between the two behemoths that control the fates of immortal and mortal alike—well, I used to think that until Dialphio educated me on One, but that story is for another time. For now, it was about Lucifer and his escape from Yahweh; the Fall according to angels and any mortals who believed them. It's a very festive time for us.
I love Samhain. Not only is it our biggest holiday, it is also the most lavish and most revered. Literally everything except the Hellfire factories and retail outlets—because demons just cannot imagine a shopping-less day—close for a few days before and after Samhain. So revered is it that we fill hours of our free time with conversations about the stories of how mortals have blasphemed our holiday by culturally appropriating it, dressing their kids up in costumes to "scare off evil."
Mortal ignorance can hurt sometimes.
But we don't let it dampen our festive season, keeping those chats restricted to nights, when demons have finished a day of celebrating, overeating, and spending time with family. It's in those times, at night, when the implings are in bed, and exhausted parents are trying to catch their breath, that the childless and more liberated sit around, sharing drinks and other pleasures of the imbibing type, along with opinions of what mortals have done to our most sacred period. Outside that, Samhain is all about the celebration of demonhood.
And the holiday's high point is the carnival. A time for
unadulterated fun. Which was exactly what the three of us were doing now, with Bilba leading the way.
"I swear, every year, you turn into an impling," Ralrek said at Bilba's back, because Bilba slowed for no one when it came to fitting in as many rides as possible on a day ticket.
"We've only been on twenty-two rides!" he replied without looking over his shoulder. "And it's getting late."
Ralrek and I shared a look. "It's early. There's plenty of time," I said. "You're going to trample a little one."
"Then they need to stay out of my way," Bilba laughed. I didn't think he was joking.
I grabbed for his shirt, which was a feat. Bilba moved through the crowd with a ride-inspired grace completely unbecoming of him and his typical abilities. It was adorable. But annoying. His newfound sprite came from dropping some seriously unhealthy weight he carried for thousands of years while he was in the Eighth Circle trying to force his truant mother to love him. Though he wasn't fit by our health department standards, he was getting healthier every day and gaining some agility, which would be great in a fight, not so great when we were packed in clump of bodies at the Samhain celebration.
"Slow down," I said after missing my swipe at his shirt. "Seriously. This is supposed to be fun and, in case you hadn't heard, sweating is not fun."
Bilba finally pulled up, glancing around.
"What are you looking for?"
"A clock tower," he said, his eyes never finding mine. "I need to know what time it is."
"Why?"
"Zeke, we haven't broken even yet." His tone was flat, uninterested in carrying on a conversation that would hinder him reaching his goals.
Bilba had this principle of frugality. It came from being raised in a single-income home since his mother abandoned their family half a lifetime ago. He'd always been cheap, but that personality quirk was exasperated by her absence, even after he started working for the Council and getting fat paydays every time we'd finished a job. Being cheap meant managing his coin carefully and one way he did that was to calculate how much a ticket cost per ride ridden. The standard was variable—I never bothered asking why—depending on his mood, but each year he let us know what an acceptable rate was. This year's rate was three coppers, a higher-than-normal-Bilba-rate, and we were currently averaging nearly double that. All that meant we had serious riding ahead of us before he allowed us to slow.
The things you do for friends.
"We're not implings," I countered. "We can stay out all night until they close for cleanup if we want to."
"Can't take that chance," Bilba said, turning to dash through the crowd.
"When we catch him, I'm going to kill him," Ralrek said, bringing a hand up to his perfect oil-black hair and smoothing one side that didn't need to be smoothed.
"I would too, but I feel bad for him." I mirrored Ralrek's hair-fixing, tussling my shaggy cut. He didn't notice the subtle jibe.
"Why? He's the dumbass that blew everything he'd earned."
Ralrek and I never had the healthiest of relationships. In fact, it wasn't until we were forced to work together by the Council that we spoke more than a sentence or two whenever we had the distinct displeasure of crossing each other's paths. That changed, slowly, after our first mission to the Overworld to capture an ancient demon called Aries the First. Ralrek teamed with Beelzebub and Bilba to kill him instead, and our relationship suffered as a consequence. During our last mission I discovered his secret, one he'd only recently shared with Bilba, that he was into mortals. By sheer luck, I earned Ralrek's trust enough that I could now chastise him for his insensitivity without setting off a round of verbal sparring. But only after I earned his trust enough to believe that he was not the one who stole and burned The Histories of the Balance, only the most important book in my world, in the middle of our Gemini adventure.
In the year since, we'd grown enough that I considered him a friend.
"Don't give him crap about that, okay? He finally found her and wanted to help because, be honest, you've both earned a lot of coin from the Council. How was he supposed to guess that it would dry up so quickly, especially after he spent it all trying to help his mother's stupid flower shop stay open?"
If any comment was coming, Ralrek bit it off, which was nice. The old Ralrek would have loosed it, regardless of the pain it would have caused. The improved version of this tall, handsome demon at least considered the cost of being an ass before proving himself so. It was refreshing, even if I was still skeptical of its viability.
We caught up with Bilba at the end of the line to the most popular roller coaster called Heaven's Gate, the scariest ride at the carnival. White beams of steel twisted and turned in waves and loops, arcing high into the Hellfire blue sky. Just as we joined him, a cart carrying a dozen screaming demons corkscrewed over our heads, thrusting them into a tunnel of blinding white light.
"I love this one," Bilba said once the cart passed and we could hear again. Another cranked up the long climb, about ready to release another screaming torrent of pleased passengers. I swallowed. He laughed. "What's the problem, Zeke? Not ready for this?"
"Since when did I like roller coasters?" The beams rattled above us as the cart had completed its climb and was loosed, the momentum sending it spiraling down. The memory of the last time I felt that drop was immediate, and I felt myself dropping along with the actual occupants of the cart racing toward the first loop.
"You've done more dangerous things than this," Bilba said, turning to watch the new cart carry its occupants up and around. "This should be nothing."
"Well, it is something, and it's something I don't like," I said, pointing as the cart shot out of the massive loop, jettisoning into the first of a series of corkscrew turns. "There is no control when you're trapped in those blessed things. Honestly, I don't understand how more demons don't die on them every year."
"Physics," Ralrek answered. "But seriously, Zeke. It's just a roller coaster." He moved closer, lowering his voice. "You've faced scarier things before. This is nothing. Plus, you can cast some freaking amazing spells now. Just magic yourself out of any trouble."
Wagging my finger at Ralrek, I looked around, making sure no one was listening, not that we could be heard over the rumble of the cart racing around the coaster even as another one was cranking its way up the initial climb. The crowd of excited demons in front and behind us appeared to be more fascinated by their impending death at the hands of this mechanism than our conversation. "I have control, well, sort of, over the things I have faced. At least how I responded to them. That, I don't." My finger found the speeding cart zipping over our heads, filled with petrified faces, distracting me from thinking about my new Abilities, thanks to the ancient halberd. "If I could use Creed's power, which I control, on that coaster, I would. If nothing else, it would make me feel a little better about this."
"Well, I'm glad you can't, because you have no control over your new Abilities," Bilba said.
"They're not new," I countered. "It's been a year."
"Ohhhh, an entire year," Ralrek said, Bilba joining him in laughing at my infantile skills.
When you're thousands of years old, a single year is hardly impressive. But when those years were lived as the only demon in Hell's history without magical Abilities, a year of possessing them was significant no matter how it was sliced. I just tried to ignore the fact that sometimes Creed seemed to have a mind of its own, altering spells even as I was in mid-conjure. If the weapon was sentient, I'd swear it was screwing with me.
The coaster line inched forward. Just like mortal males act when they're together, incubi don't like holding long conversations. Any situation that forces us to talk about things that don't involve movies, sports, or succubi aren't enjoyable. It was only a matter of time before someone said something stupid. Thankfully, it wasn't me.
"Do you think we're actually being punished?" Bilba broke the silence between the three of us.
"Punished? For what?" Ralrek said while I tried to igno
re the conversation as the roller coaster's disembarking passengers taunted me with their smiles and yelps of joy. Liars, all of them.
Bilba sighed. It was heavy and a little too dramatic for a carnival atmostphere. "For what happened with Gemini." He turned away from looking forward to address the cyclops in the room we'd avoided for the past year.
Neither Ralrek nor I wanted to dive back into that piece of history. It was behind us and had been for a year. The memories of that entire situation, however, were as fresh as if it happened yesterday. With only the slight prompt from Bilba, the brightness of the Angelfire attack that killed hundreds of demons at Gemini's execution ceremony flashed through my mind. The burned air, the death cries. All of it, raw, simply from Bilba mentioning Gemini's name. For me, there was no mystery why this particular cyclops went ignored.
"We didn't do anything wrong," I finally answered Bilba.
"I didn't say you did," Bilba said, sounding hurt. "What I meant was, if you look at the facts, the Council has ignored us since they absolved you and Ralrek of any wrongdoing. A year, and ever since that incident, how many assignments have you gotten, Ralrek?"
He shrugged. "None."
"Zeke?"
"Zilch."
Bilba rolled his hands as if our answers proved his point. "See?"
"No."
"No," I echoed Ralrek. "And I'm in no big hurry to either," I said, dipping my head and giving Bilba that look. You know, the one that tells your friend he should know better than to tread on soft hearts.
He knew the story, knew that Ralrek and I had been arrested for a crime we did not commit and that we likely would have been executed right after Gemini had angels not attacked to save their own. He knew, because I often ranted about it, that I was not interested in ever seeing the Council or their paychecks again.
Bilba sighed, his shoulders dropping. "All that stuff went down with Gemini. Angels killing hundreds to rescue him. And in the past year, what has happened? Nothing. That's what. They haven't retracted anything they said about you guys and sure as heaven didn't apologize to you for what they did, did they?"