by Dante King
Before I could answer, Mareth swooped in on my other side. The succubus’s wings were shorter than Christina’s, giving her a less imposing presence but a much sleeker range of motion.
“You slut,” Mareth growled, her claws flashing in the sun. “I was going to offer Master a mid-air blowjob before you beat me to it!”
If it were up to me, I would’ve had both of them somewhere around my waist while I rained holy hell down on the Fae. But before I could suggest that they share, three more trolls rolled into the river of candy.
Mareth saw them and laughed. “Idiots!” the succubus growled, making little gun noises with her fingers. “They’re just going to wind up melted into a Troll Tootsie Roll like their friends!”
“Um, Luke?” Like me, Christina had already begun to see the problem. “This river’s not all that wide…”
The trolls rolled right past the frozen bodies of their comrades, using their bare stone backs as stepping stones across the candy river. I blasted them, of course, but as they sank and died, they formed new steps—now, the trolls stretched almost halfway across the river.
And the elves were taking advantage.
“They’re sacrificing themselves,” I realized, my heart sinking. “Those trolls are forming a bridge across the river. We’re about to have the entire army down our throat…”
Christina and Mareth shared a look. “Which means we don’t have time to have you down our throats,” Mareth growled. “Figures. But one of these days I’m going to fuck you on a battlefield, Luke!”
“Covered in the enemy’s blood,” Christina added, joining her harem sister in a dive.
Together they strafed the bridge, raining down fire and brimstone on the elves brave enough to try and cross. Maddie stood on our side of the river, firing her brand-new bow with devastating accuracy. Each of her arrows pierced an elf through the neck, a torso, struck a troll between the eyes to collapse in a heap. I wasn’t sure where she’d gotten her sudden ability to fire with such accuracy, but I figured it must have been part of her powers manifesting themselves. On the bridge, Bryan and Aztomund fought with fists and spear, holding the few elves that could make it through Christina and Mareth’s barrage back from the opposite shore.
If we could only keep things this way, we’d have a shot at holding the Fae back long enough for the ritual.
Two more trolls rolled into the green slurry, sinking without a sound. The way they unflinchingly went to their deaths unnerved the hell out of me: it reminded me more than a bit of Holofernes. Speaking of which, where was the big stone fucker? He’d disappeared after tearing a chunk out of the front line. Countless elves lay dead beneath his sword thrusts, yet the man himself could no longer be found. Had they taken him down?
A mixture of dread and relief filled me at the thought. I wouldn’t have to make the hard decision when the portal closed if he could just die on the battlefield.
The final troll sank beneath the surface of the river, barely a stone’s throw from our side of the shore. On the opposite bank, the elves unfurled rope ladders between the dead troll’s backs, forming their own wide bridge across. An entire legion waited at the ready, their swords sharpened and murder in their eyes.
“Fuck, they’re coming across!” I roared, amplifying my voice with magic. “Get ready!”
The elves swarmed across the river like a dam bursting. There were way too many of them. Our little group could never hold that many back.
Come on, Lilith, I pleaded, trying my best to send a mental message to the demonic Headmistress. Get that ritual done…
One of the elves looked up at me from the final troll, pointing its silver bow skyward.
The moment before its arrow loosed, the river erupted in flames.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. It happened within the span of a blink—the green surface of the candy simply burst into emerald flames, roasting the entire legion as they tried to cross. Aztomund knocked an elf over the side of the bridge and into the flames, grimacing at the screams as the tiny creature shrieked and died. Mareth and Christina flew higher to avoid the blaze, their eyes the size of saucers.
I looked downstream. Holofernes stood by the river, his flaming sword thrust through the surface like he was trying to put King Arthur’s sword back in the stone. A wall of pure flame erupted from that blade, transfiguring the entire candy river into liquid fire.
Such power, I realized, my heart skipping a beat. Holy shit. I never stood a chance against this guy…
Holofernes withdrew his sword from the flaming river and dove into the fray. Dozens of elves died before his onslaught, pushing the force over the bridge and back onto their side of the river. With a roar, I dropped down and joined him, ready to unleash hell.
I grabbed an elf as I landed and tossed him into the nearest troll with a crunch. Two more died beneath my claws, their silver swords clattering to the ground like toothpicks. I grabbed six of them in my tendrils and tossed them with my enhanced strength.
“Nice throw,” Holofernes rumbled. The Angel of Vengeance was being modest. For every Fae I killed, he slew ten. Still, it was a hell of a battle! This was fun!
The Fae had all but given up trying to cross the flaming river. Any who risked the bridge found themselves obliterated by Christina and Mareth’s spells, or skewered by Maddie’s golden arrows. Bryan and Aztomund pulled back to our side of the bridge, each demon covered from head to toe in elf blood.
On the Fae’s side of the fight, Holofernes and I were twin tornadoes of death. I lost count of how many elves I ground to powder beneath my demonic heels. Then I lost myself, becoming a beast as the lust to kill overwhelmed me. My cock throbbed against my thigh, as hard as an iron girder as I stabbed through an attacking elf to spear the heart of the one standing behind him.
Christina and Mareth were right, I thought, tearing through another half-dozen foes. I DO want to fuck on a battlefield. I want to fuck their brains out on top of a mountain of corpses! I want to cum all over their faces while they kneel in a river of blood…
The images flashed through my mind, hot and searing. Somewhere in my head, the wiring between kill and fuck blurred, until every spray of arterial blood across my face felt like an orgasm all its own. I knew if I saw myself in that moment, there’d be nothing of the human known as Luke in my face. I was a beast. The Beast. The monster every sinner feared when he was sent to meet Lucifer.
I was death incarnate. And I loved it.
I barely even noticed the change in the air. A searing pulse flashed across the sky, like the Almighty himself had waved a flashlight across the battlefield. As if it were a secret signal, the Fae redoubled their efforts. Elves and trolls who’d fought cautiously transformed into beasts, throwing themselves at me with a glee for battle that was nearly suicidal.
I met their charge with groans of savage pleasure, killing all who stood before me.
I would have killed the woman who landed in front of me if I didn’t recognize her. Maddie grabbed my shoulders, shaking me with panic and triumph in her eyes.
“Luke! They did it! Lilith and Judyth finished the ritual! Come on, we have to get out of here!”
Get out of here…? I didn’t want to go! I wanted to kill, and torture, and fuck! I opened my mouth to tell Maddie so, but only a bestial snarl came out.
“Oh fuck,” Maddie whimpered. “Luke, please! Snap out of it, baby—we have to get out of here! I can’t bear to lose you!”
Her words touched something deep inside of me. A well of demonic power poured out of my body into the world around, and I could think again. “Maddie? Oh shit!”
She tugged my hand, leading me over a pile of dead elves. “Take to the air,” she said, gesturing at the portal. “It’s the only way we’ll make it!”
The rent in the air leading back to the clearing had seen better days. Rather than a straight, solid cut, it wavered dangerously, seemingly on the point of collapse. Our group stood around it, watching me with worried expressions. Christina and M
areth held hands, covered head-to-toe in blood. Only their white fangs broke the sea of red.
Lilith and Judyth stood on either side of the portal, holding it open with an effort. Sweat covered the forehead of Lucifer’s ex-wife, and she looked almost as tired as Judyth. Clearly, the ritual had taken a lot out of both of them.
“Hurry up,” Lilith growled. Even her flirty manner had departed for the moment. “We can’t hold back the collapse much longer!”
Maddie and I landed a few steps in front of the portal. “Go!” I yelled, waving everyone through. “Let’s get out of here!”
Bryan and Aztomund didn’t need to be told twice. The beetle-backed demon charged through the portal, leaving a plume of smoke and a faint scent of ozone behind. A moment later, the long-limbed rake joined him. Christina and Mareth made kissy faces at me as they hopped back into the clearing, as if reminding me of all the sex we were going to have later.
That left Maddie and I alone with the two Headmistresses. We were all that was left of the troops in the Fae Realm. Only…
I glanced over my shoulder. We’d forgotten someone.
Holofernes stood on the far side of the river, a whirling ball of death. His flaming sword swung in a low arc around him, going three hundred and sixty degrees to cut through the waist of every nearby elf. The stone angel looked up as if he’d forgotten where he was, looking back toward me and the portal.
He lifted a hand. Beckoning for help.
I’d wondered what I would do in this moment. Now that it was here, I realized I’d wasted all that time. There was only one option.
“Go through the portal,” I said, turning away from Maddie. “I’ll be back in just a second!”
“Luke, what!?” Maddie’s face fell.
“Get through the portal!” Judyth’s expression twisted into one of pure hate. “You’ll only get yourself killed along with him!”
“No, I can reach him!” I said, extending my wings. A quick shot there, grab the Angel of Vengeance, then shoot back. I could do that. Even though he’d threatened me, I couldn’t leave that kind of power behind. Besides, the two of us had had a moment back there on the battlefield. Something told me Holofernes might not be quite so bad after all—
Judyth grabbed me. Doing so caused her to let go of the portal, which began to wiggle much more rapidly. The whole thing looked like a hula hoop in the moment before it falls over, right when its momentum stops.
“In you go,” the Headmistress snarled, shoving me toward the portal.
“No!” I shook myself out of Judyth’s grip—the poor woman had exhausted herself too much to stop me. “Lilith, a little help?”
With a sigh, the Headmistress of the Infernal Academy snapped her fingers.
The entire Fae legion burst into flames and died.
Even after everything I’d seen, Lilith’s magic caught me frozen in my tracks. Every soldier fighting Holofernes simply dropped dead, smoke pouring from their forest-green clothing. The big stone angel looked strangely disappointed to have been robbed of the fight, turning back to the portal and extending his wings.
She’s... holy FUCK, I thought, dumbstruck. That’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.
Lilith had never revealed her true power—not to anyone. Now I realized the truth. Her abilities were a short step beneath Lucifer’s own. Next to her, both myself and Holofernes were like ants.
Holofernes soared toward the portal, in no big hurry. He tucked his flaming sword at his side, diving toward the collapsing rent in the air.
Behind me, Judyth sighed. “I didn’t want to have to do this,” she whispered.
Judyth stopped trying to hold the portal open. Instead, her magic focused on closing it.
A pulse of white light flashed over the tear in the air. Lilith recoiled in shock, losing her grip on her side of the portal. The whole thing turned into a single white line in the air, wiggling back and forth like an inchworm making its way across a flat table.
“Go!” Judyth roared, giving me a shove. Maddie and I fell into the collapsing portal, slipping through it an instant before it closed. A hand shot through behind us—Lilith’s—and held the anomaly open a brief moment longer, just enough for both Headmistresses to slink through the tear in the air.
The last thing I saw before we disappeared was Holofernes’s stone face, mere feet away from the portal. A whole new army regrouped behind him, ready for revenge.
Whatever the Fae Realm could dish out, the Angel of Vengeance would have to face alone.
Forever.
Chapter 17
“You killed him.”
Judyth’s look of shock was so genuine that if I hadn’t heard her whispering to herself just before her betrayal, I might have believed her. “I did not! I lost control of the portal after she—” pointing a quavering finger at Lilith, “—did her little trick with the wave of fire! Trust one of Lucifer’s concubines to prioritize a flashy move over making sure everyone gets back from the mission alive!”
The rest of the group waiting for us in the forest clearly hadn’t expected us to be squabbling as we stepped into the clearing. Mareth and Christina looked ready to throw hands for me, while Aztomund and Bryan just wanted to get back to the Infernal Academy and wash off. Gradually, everyone began to realize that we were short a member.
“The big angel,” Mareth said, glancing past us to where the portal had been a moment ago. “He didn’t make it out?”
“I could have reached him!” I glared at Judyth, the remnants of my demonic power coursing through my bloodstream. That maddening itch was back between my shoulder blades, whispering for me to transform and try my luck against the Headmistress of the Celestial Academy.
But that was madness. I’d seen what Lilith was capable of—if Judyth was half as powerful, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
Judyth shook her head sadly. “You would’ve only ended up stuck in the Fae Realm with him,” she explained. The sympathy and patience in her voice made me want to scream. “You and Maddie made it through the portal a bare instant before it closed—what do you think, you would have been able to pull the Angel of Vengeance through with sheer stubbornness?”
Actually, yes.
“You didn’t give me a chance,” I protested, yet there was a smug smile on Judyth’s face. No one else in the clearing seemed to be questioning her version of events at all. To be fair, if I hadn’t heard her just before she decided to close the portal herself, I might have believed her too-innocent routine as well.
“Luke,” Maddie said, giving my hand a squeeze. “You were pretty out of it on that battlefield, baby. You kind of scared me…”
To my surprise, Bryan and Aztomund nodded. “Don’t get me wrong, dude, it was totally savage,” Aztomund said, nodding his broad beetle head. “Those Fae bastards are going to be telling their kids scary stories about you at bedtime for years. But you kinda lost your head before Maddie came and pulled you back out of the fight.”
I decided not to push the point. It wasn’t the right time to fight over Holofernes—everyone was keyed up from the rush of battle. While I had no doubts Christina, Mareth, and Maddie would have eagerly backed me up, none of them had fighting on their mind after everything they’d been through. They were focused on the other f-word.
“Whatever,” I said, brushing off Judyth’s hand. “It was a waste, is all. We just lost our best fighter resisting the Fae incursion. What happens when they come back?”
“Now that,” Judyth said, recovering some of her poise, “is the kind of high-level strategy a young man like yourself does not need to be worrying about. Do us a favor, Luke: leave the politics to the Headmistresses. You’re a brash young man—and we like that. But try not to think too hard.”
Thinking was all I was doing. Judyth had just gotten away with murder, and I’d inadvertently helped her. Yet no one seemed to mind: if anything, the faculty of the Infernal Academy would praise me for removing one of the angels’ heaviest hitters. I supposed I should have
been happy about this result.
I just couldn’t stop thinking about Holofernes and myself on the battlefield. I could have learned from that kind of power. Now I’d never get the chance.
“Luke does have a point,” Lilith said, stepping into the conversation. “If the Fae are going to continue to make trouble—and this little skirmish leads me to believe they have every intention of poking us for weaknesses—then perhaps it’s good we have people who stride the gap between the path of light and the one of darkness. Who can keep tabs on both sides of the fence.” She beamed at me. “Like Luke.”
Both Headmistresses turned the full force of their gazes upon me. I nearly wilted, but just managed to hold onto myself. Lilith’s eyes smoldered like coals, while Judyth’s heated gaze promised angelic pleasures galore. Both of these women were insanely powerful, as I’d just learned. And every bit as dangerous.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, I thought, looking at both of them. Only I get the distinct impression I’M the hard place.
“Not just me,” I realized, giving a little start. Both Headmistresses looked confused as well—they’d clearly forgotten. “Raquelle.”
I wouldn’t have thought a single word could dampen the Headmistress of the Celestial Academy’s spirits, but the mention of Raquelle’s name made Judyth’s mouth pucker like she’d bitten into a lemon. “Oh yes, her,” the angel growled. “You sentenced her to this disturbing ‘Dual Enrollment’ thing.” She made air-quotes at the phrase. “I haven’t approved that, you know.”
“With all due respect,” Lilith purred, nibbling her bottom lip, “it’s not yours to give. This student of the Justice School—she’s already on a full-ride scholarship to the Celestial Academy as I understand, so the only barrier to her entry to Hell would be whether or not I approve. Yes, try not to look so shocked, dear. I do my research on all prospective students.”
“I wasn’t aware you knew about this... plan,” Judyth said flatly.
Lilith’s smile turned sharklike. “To the contrary,” she said, showing her fangs. “I am beyond interested in having the opportunity to corrupt yet another of your angels.”