by Eric Vall
Suddenly, there was a record screech, and the music stopped. The three of us stopped dancing and looked toward the stage.
There, standing behind the DJ booth, was Todd and his group of new friends. The imp was still decked out in his ridiculous outfit as he sat atop one of the women’s shoulders, and she handed the microphone up to him.
“Hey there, dudes and dudettes,” Todd addressed the crowd. “It’s your friendly neighborhood Toddster. Who wants to kick this party up a notch?”
The crowd responded with a mix of gasps, murmurs, and some cheers.
“Say it with me now,” the imp started. “Ja-cob Ral-ston!”
After saying my name, the imp and his group of friends clapped three times and then repeated the chant. The group around us on the dance floor answered back enthusiastically by mirroring the cheer. Soon, the entire club was getting into it.
I couldn’t help but smile at the sound of hundreds of people chanting my name. Sure, it was great to be worshipped and all, but it felt even better to be applauded.
“Who wants to join the Toddster and his crew and swear their allegiance to Jakey?” the imp asked. “All of our adventures are optional, and we offer dental.”
“Uh--” I raised my hand to correct the imp, but he continued.
“Best of all, we won’t force you to travel to Hell or murder innocent people in cold blood like Azazel will,” he explained. “That’s a real dick move if you ask the Toddster.”
The crowd booed, but I couldn’t tell if it was directed at Todd or Azazel.
Suddenly, there was a flash of red Hellfire, and Todd’s body was sniped off the stage. The imp tumbled through the air, smashed into the back wall like a cartoon character, and then slid down out of sight.
I whipped around to see Tris and Gula standing on the dance floor behind us. The brunette succubus still had the remnants of red Hellfire glowing in her hands.
“How do you put up with that thing all the time?” Gula growled.
I took a fighting stance and summoned Hellfire into my hands. “That ‘thing’ is my best friend,” I hissed at the two succubi, “and you’re gonna pay for what you just did to him.”
Tris stuck out her hand in front of her sister, and Gula lowered her spell.
“Don’t waste your energy on this mortal, Gula,” the brunette mused. “Let my friends take care of him and the traitors.”
“Please hear us out, sister,” Libidine begged. “We can help free you from Azazel’s--”
“Nobody escapes Azazel,” Tris scoffed. Then the brunette succubus pulled up the bottom of her dress and revealed her upper thigh. It was completely covered with scars that looked like they came from a variety of different weapons.
“I’d know better than anyone,” she said with a mournful sigh. “Even though you three and Sister Superbia think you’re free, you’re not. You’ll see.”
“Sister--” Ira started.
“Gula and I are just making the best of a terrible situation,” Tris interrupted, “but that all comes to a crashing halt if you keep stealing all of our followers.”
The brunette succubus’ hands began to glow with orange Hellfire.
I’d encountered this type of magic only once before, back at the graveyard where Azazel and I fought for the first time. It was a necromancy spell.
The floor of the club began to rumble, and then cracks began to form all throughout the faux wood and vinyl. There was a dull thumping sound, and then several hands punched through the floor of the nightclub and began to claw their way out of the ground. One by one, horrific creatures started to rise from the rubble.
Each of the monsters appeared to be human. At least, they appeared to have been human at one point in time. Their flesh was pale and decaying, and their clothes were covered with dirt and dust. Maggots crawled in and out of sponge-like holes in their skin, and some of them were missing whole limbs.
The entire nightclub was now filled with the stench of death and the ghastly moans of the creatures.
Tris smiled and raised her hands in our direction.
“Tear them apart,” she ordered her undead army.
Chapter 12
“Liby, go grab Todd,” I commanded the succubus as I drew the goat-headed dagger from my belt. A simple bit of thought brought forth the red Hellfire blade from its edge, and I prepared for the incoming assault of the undead.
The succubus nodded quickly as she jumped up into the air, summoned her wings, and then glided backward and out of sight.
People were screaming as they dashed toward the exit of the club, and they caused a traffic jam on the stairs as they pushed at each other like lemmings. All around, glasses shattered onto the floor and furniture was overturned by the panicked stampede.
One of the zombie fuckers was on me a second later, and I stabbed my blade into its eye socket. The creature wailed for a moment and then crumbled onto the floor. As it did so, I got a clear view off in the distance as Tris blew me a playful kiss, and then she and Gula dashed off into the crowd.
I didn’t have time to give chase because there were four more of the bastards headed in my direction. I threw up a purple cube of Hellfire around one of the monsters, lifted him into the air, and then started to use him as a makeshift hammer.
Blood, brains, and guts splattered across the vinyl dance floor as I bludgeoned the fuckers to death with their own comrade. Once I was finished with those three, I raised the cube into the air, closed my fist, and smashed the zombie inside. I released my spell, and a waterfall of gore fell to the floor. Then I twisted my head around to check on my friends, and I saw they were doing just fine.
Cupi incinerated one of our opponents with a massive fireball of red, and then she roundhouse-kicked another zombie’s head clean off.
Meanwhile, Ira was giggling with glee as she melted the rotting flesh off the creatures with her acidic fire.
“These guys aren’t that tough,” Cupi mused.
“No,” I agreed, “but there are a fuckton of them. It looks like Tris is going for a war of attrition.”
“Then we’ll just have to kill them all!” Ira cackled. “One by one, in the most fun and brutal ways possible!”
“Have I mentioned she scares me sometimes?” I joked to Cupi.
A flash of pink Hellfire covered Ira’s body, and the succubus instantly separated into her two forms.
Instead of the casual attire she had been wearing before, Ira’s sub half was now in a skimpy leather outfit that barely covered up her goods. She wore a dog collar around her neck and a blindfold around her forehead. Her posture was timid, but the flaming whip in her hand was anything but.
Meanwhile, the dominant half of Ira was in a leather corset with a belt full of all sorts of BDSM goodies wrapped around her waist. The dom stood tall in her black spiked stilettos as she outstretched her hand and summoned her enchanted morning star.
“This is gonna be fun,” the dom cackled as she smashed in a zombie’s head with her morning star.
Another wave of the undead was headed toward Cupi and me, but we were ready.
“You know, a stationary target is much easier to hit,” I hinted to the blonde.
“Understood loud and clear, Jacob,” Cupi grinned.
The blonde succubus clapped her hands together and created a massive wave of blue Hellfire. The azure flames cascaded over the horde of zombies and immediately froze them into place, all in a nice and neat little line.
Just what I was hoping for.
I twirled my flaming sword, threw it directly at the group of zombies, and then caught it with my emerald fire. Using my telekinetic flames, I spun the sword in the air and redirected it in an arc-like pattern. The makeshift throwing star swooped around and tore through the rotten flesh of the zombies like a hot knife through butter. The heads of the monsters popped off like champagne corks, and their bodies crumpled.
My sword spun back around, and I caught the hilt in my waiting hand.
“I’ve got one,” C
upiditas offered and pointed at another wave. “What is that children’s game called? The Ground is Fire?”
“The Floor is Lava,” I corrected, “and I love that game.”
Cupi’s wings sprouted from her back, and then she darted up a few feet into the air. As soon as she hit her highest point, she unleashed a colossal fireball down onto the approaching undead. The instant the attack struck the ground, I tossed up walls of violet flames all around the fuckers.
The zombies screamed in agony as they beat at the walls of my prison, but they weren’t going anywhere. Cupi’s fire slowly but surely ignited their bodies and turned them into little more than piles of ash.
“Fore!” Ira called out, and then another crumpled zombie head shot over our position.
All of the zombies on the left side of the room had been taken care of, so Cupi and I whipped around to help out our comrades. Ira’s sub half was standing there yawning as the undead clawed and bit at her flesh.
“This is fucking boring,” she hissed. “I’ve had hamsters that bite harder than you!”
The sub brought her flaming whip upward, and there was a spray of gore as it sliced through the torso of one of the creatures. The succubus grabbed the face of another zombie and summoned turquoise Hellfire into her hands. The monster tried to scream as its skin and bone were melted off of its face, but all that came out was a gurgled whimper.
Ira’s dom half was faring just as well against the undead. The dom stabbed the top spike of her morning star into the forehead of a zombie, grabbed its jaw with her other hand, and then snapped it clean off its hinges. The zombie’s tongue flopped downward like a necktie, and then the succubus finished it off with a swift snap of the neck.
“Holy fuck,” I muttered. “I’m really glad she’s on our side.”
Ira’s two halves might have been making short work of the creatures, but she was only taking them out two or three at a time, and there were still at least thirty or forty more of the bastards.
Just then, Libidine zipped past the horde and tossed down a handful of enchanted yellow daggers into the crowd. A few of the zombies were pinned to the ground by the glowing daggers but the rest continued onward.
Liby landed next to Cupi and me with an unconscious Todd still in her arms.
“Please tell me he’s alright,” I begged the succubus.
“He’ll be fine,” Liby confirmed and then threw another handful of spears. “Thankfully it was sister Tris who hit him, not Gula. The Sister of Gluttony is notorious for her powerful attacks. She always likes to say ‘go big or go home.’”
“I get it,” I retorted as I readied my sword. “Succubus of Gluttony and all that. Liby, I want you to get Todd and all these innocent people out of here. Any goodwill we can get out of these people is a victory against Azazel.”
“I’ll get them to safety!” The dark-haired succubus nodded. Then Liby turned around and began to run toward the people who were still struggling to get through the exit.
“Cupi,” I turned to the fit blonde, “I want you to cover me. I’m going in for some hand-to-hand combat.”
A sly grin spread up Cupiditas’ face. “Of course,” she confirmed. “I’ve got your back, Jacob.”
The surviving zombies were now about twenty feet away from us.
I held my sword down in a fighting stance and charged at the fuckers. As I ran, blasts of red Hellfire rocketed past my head. Ira’s two halves took out the first few zombies on the left and right, and a few of them fell to Cupi’s searing-hot Hellfire.
But there was still plenty of undead left for me.
The second I was within reach of the fuckers, I began to slice through their spongy flesh like it was wet cardboard. Crimson blood splattered through the air as arms, legs, and heads were severed from their bodies. Screams of pain beat at my eardrums as the monsters were cut down violently.
Then, as soon as it had begun, it was over.
I stood amongst a pile of dead corpses, and I panted heavily as I surveyed the battlefield.
“Awwww,” Ira’s sub sighed. “You didn’t leave any more for us.”
“So much blood,” the dom gasped. “So much violence and aggression. I’m so fucking wet right now.”
“Escape now, fuck later,” Cupi interrupted. “It looks like there are still people trying to escape.”
The blonde was right. Over by the stairs, there was still a massive crowd of people screaming and trying to shove their way to the front of the line. The four of us ran over to the foot of the stairs and glanced up at the gridlock.
Libidine was still there at the bottom with Todd in her arms. “They’re refusing to move,” she explained. “Something about the door upstairs being locked from the outside.”
“Then I’ll just have to make them move,” I growled and raised my hands in front of me. I summoned emerald fire into my hands, tossed it around the crowd of people, and then gently moved them off to the side.
“Parting the Green Sea,” Todd chuckled weakly as the five of us dashed up toward the exit.
Once we reached the door of the walk-in freezer, I tried to give it a push with my body. Instead of knocking down the door, I felt a searing hot pain shoot through my arm.
“Yeow!” I yelled and grabbed my burning arm with my free hand.
“Jacob, are you okay?” Libidine said, nearly in tears.
“I’ll be fine,” I reassured the succubus, “but the door is fucking hot.”
“Really?” Ira’s sub asked excitedly. “Let me try!”
The Sub dashed past us and threw her entire body into the door, spread-eagle. There was a warm sizzling sound, and she began to tense up.
“Oh my god, it’s like seven-hundred degrees,” she moaned. “I fucking love it!”
“B--bro,” Todd’s weak voice offered. “There’s always an emergency release in these things. You know, just--just in case managers get locked in during a robbery or shit like that.”
The imp raised a fragile arm and pointed behind a pile of hamburger boxes. “It--it should be over there,” he explained.
I patted the injured imp on the head calmingly. “Thanks, buddy. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I moved a few more people out of my way with a flash of jade fire, and then I ran to the release lever. It was a small metal mechanism with a rubberized yellow tip on the end, attached to what I assumed was a pulley system. I grabbed the lever and yanked downward. There was a mechanical popping sound, and then another door directly next to the lever swung open.
Right into a giant wall of roaring flames.
I tossed up a barrier of purple Hellfire before the inferno could enter the freezer, and then turned back to my friends in a panic.
“They fucking set the whole place on fire!” I yelled.
All of the innocent people began to scream in terror, and some of them tried to push forward toward the door. Luckily, the succubi were there to keep them at bay.
“Jacob,” Cupi called from across the room, “you’re going to have to teleport us all out to safety.”
“I--I don’t know if I’m that powerful,” I admitted. “I’ve never teleported this many people before.”
“You’re going to have to try,” Ira’s dom added. “If you don’t, we’re all going to be burnt to a crisp.”
“That sounds loveeellyyy!” the sub cackled.
Ira was right. I needed to do something, or we were all going to die. I knew I was strong enough to teleport Todd and the succubi to safety without any issues, but then the rest of these innocent people would be left to burn.
“I believe in you, Jacob,” Libidine’s sweet voice begged from afar.
I couldn’t let them down. I had to do this.
My eyes slammed shut, and I instantly began to think about this entire situation. Tris and Gula set this entire bar ablaze in the hopes that it’d kill us. They didn’t care about the innocent people who were caught in the crossfire, even though these people were cheering for the evil succu
bi and their master just an hour ago.
I felt a mixture of disgust and rage boiling deep within the core of my soul.
“Jacob, you’re doing it!” Libidine gasped.
I opened my eyes and saw I was now floating a foot or two in the air, completely surrounded by emerald fire. Without breaking my spell, I tossed out my left hand and channeled a beam of green Hellfire directly into the crowd.
The spell struck the man standing closest to us, and then quickly spread out through the shocked gathering of people. The metallic walls of the freezer room danced with the brilliant glow of emerald as the telekinetic spell snaked down the stairs. I held it for a few more seconds, just to make sure it had caught everybody who was trapped in here with us.
Then, it was show time.
I closed my eyes once again and focused. Then I pictured the safety of the parking lot outside and the beautiful tapestry of stars that hung in the cold desert night. I pictured my friends, the civilians, and me standing on the hard pavement, far away from the harm of the roaring flames.
There were a few gasps, and then I felt my body become as light as a feather. At the same time, the green Hellfire in my left hand grew heavy from the strain of my spell.
I let out a primal grunt of frustration. These people were not going to die. Not on my watch.
As I continued to scream, my body lost all feeling. This wasn’t a numbness or a “pins and needles” type of feeling like you’d get from sleeping on your arm for too long. I recognized this feeling. It was the feeling that accompanied traveling through space and time.
I just hoped all of these innocent bystanders were coming along for the ride.
An instant later, I felt the cold breeze of the night wind against my face, and I opened my eyes.
Roaring flames already engulfed the top half of the saloon, and thick black smoke billowed out from nearly all of its windows. Cupi, Liby, both of Ira’s halves, and Todd were all standing in front of me. Just as importantly, so was the rest of the crowd.
The adrenaline finally wore off, and a sudden wave of exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks. I started to collapse, but Cupi and Ira’s sub caught me before I hit the ground. The two succubi lifted me back to my feet delicately.