by Eric Vall
“I’m the one who needs to learn a lesson?” I scoffed. “Name one demon who’s figured out how to beat me. Go ahead, I’ll wait.”
The short demon snickered and shook his head. “You’re just as cocky as Aruna warned us,” he mused. “Where is the Rakshasi, anyways? Not dead, I hope. She was quite a lovely woman.”
“Aruna’s fine,” I hissed. “Unlike you, I’m not one to go around murdering people without rhyme or reason.”
“Without rhyme or reason?” Ukobach put his hand against his heart and acted offended. “Why, Mr. Ralston, there is plenty of reason behind our decision. My master is going to become the most powerful demon lord in existence, even stronger than Lucifer himself. It all starts with destroying the Father of Warfare. If Azazel falls, then there will be nobody else who could even stand a chance against Beelzebub.”
“As much as I’d love to see that fucker dead and buried, I’m not going to let you hurt these two,” I growled. “That may be how shit works down in your fucked-up world, but I’m not going to let that happen here on my turf.”
“I knew you’d say that.” Ukobach sighed as he hefted his little bar of iron and set it on his shoulder. “I was really hoping to get through this night with minimum bloodshed, but alas, here we are. Army of the Damned, you know what to do!”
Ukobach summoned red Hellfire into his hand, ran it across his iron poker, and then slunk back into the crowd as the cultists took a fighting stance.
It looked like we were gonna have to fight our way out of this after all.
Chapter 22
“Yo Jakey!” Todd called from across the basement of the church. “Why don’t we have a cool name like ‘Army of the Damned?’”
“Priorities, Todd!” I yelled and unleashed a blast of red Hellfire at the crowd of cultists.
The five succubi at my side followed my lead, and a hailstorm of red, yellow, and blue shot past my left. Between the twenty-five cultists, they had plenty of defensive tactics to counter our assault. Shields of purple shot up all over the room and deflected our attacks like a ping-pong ball against a concrete wall. At the same time, what looked like a shockwave of red Hellfire shot across the room.
“Duck!” I commanded.
The next thing I knew, I was on the ground, and a white-hot heat passed above my head. There was a loud crash behind me as pieces of the cement block went whizzing past our position. I came up from the attack swinging with my own blast of fireballs, but they were little more than a distraction. These guys were pretty well protected, and the only way we were going to do some damage was if we got behind their defenses.
And that was exactly what I intended to do.
“Keep up the assault, girls!” I ordered and dispelled my Hellfire.
Against the wall, a few feet behind the protective barrier of the cultists, sat a cast-iron radiator. It may have been crude, but it was just what we needed.
“Cupi,” I called out to the blonde succubus and then nodded at the radiator. “Scattershot?”
Cupiditas nodded, turned her body, and then blasted a fireball directly at me. I tossed up a portal of green, and the deadly projectile passed through. It reappeared directly above the radiator, and the impact of the blow turned it into deadly shrapnel.
I threw up another spell of jade fire and surrounded the shrapnel with its radiance. Then, I pulled my arm sideways and hurled the cloud of razor sharp chunks of metal directly into the crowd.
A few of the cultists turned to deflect the incoming debris, but a spray of blood and a handful of yelps told me my attack had hit its mark. More importantly, it distracted enough of the cultists to leave a hole in their defenses.
“Gula.” Libidine pointed to the chink in the armor. “I’ll let you do the honors.”
The short redheaded succubus clapped her hands together, summoned red Hellfire into her hands, and then launched a massive fireball at the cultists. The projectile was nearly as tall as the succubus herself, and it was just as wide. It struck a small group of cultists on the right, and their flesh was singed off their bones with a flash.
“Try not to completely incinerate them, if you could,” Tris argued sarcastically as she ducked under a volley of yellow daggers. “It makes this next part a whole lot harder.”
“Next part?” I asked aloud.
Tris ignored my question and summoned orange magic into her hands. Then she threw her arms out toward the fallen cultists who had not been mangled, and surrounded them with the glowing embers of her spell. The dead bastards began to stir on the ground, and then they slowly brought themselves to their feet. From across the room, I could see their eyes had been replaced by glowing orange orbs, and they were limping intensely as they walked.
Yep, those were zombies alright.
One of the reanimated fuckers grabbed a cultist by the shoulders and then buried his teeth into the back of his enemy’s neck. The cultist screamed in pain as a large chunk of flesh was ripped away and blood began to gush out of his wound.
The remaining cultists were now fighting a battle on two fronts, and they were losing pretty badly. Not counting the ones resurrected by Tris, I counted fourteen left in total. Cupi froze one in place and held him until one of the zombies could tear out his Adam's apple.
Make that thirteen.
“Eat that, you big-nosed bitch!” I heard Todd’s voice yell over the chaos.
I looked up to see the Toddster was engaging with Ukobach directly. The imp had the other demon in a headlock, and Ukobach was desperately swinging at Todd with his weapon. Todd flipped over his opponent and delivered a swift kick to the stomach. Then, the imp turned around, grabbed Ukobach around the neck, and fell down onto his rear. The movement caused Ukobach’s neck to slam hard into Todd’s shoulder, and as the demon stumbled backward from the impact, Todd flipped him off.
“Toddster three-sixteen, bitch!” the imp howled as he grabbed a steel chair and smashed it into the demon’s face. As the demon crashed to the floor, Todd proceeded to stomp a Texas-sized mudhole in his ass.
“Is that a Bible verse or something?” Ukobach growled as he rolled to the side, leapt to his feet, and readied his weapon.
“No,” Todd growled. “It’s the bottom line because Stone Co--”
Before the imp could finish, Ukobach swung his flaming poker. The weapon struck Todd in the side and caused the little guy to crumple over in pain. Right as Ukobach raised the fire poker over his head to finish the imp off, I lashed out with a blast of red flames.
My attack struck Ukobach directly in the stomach, and the small demon was thrown backward into the wall with a crash.
I dashed across the room and slid to a stop right beside Todd. “You alright, bro?” I asked the injured imp.
“Never better,” he lied. “Although I did learn the Stone Cold Stunner isn’t as effective as it looks on TV.”
Ukobach hopped back to his feet and readied his weapon.
“What the fuck is that, anyway?” Todd asked. “Is that a fire poker? Who the fuck uses a fire poker as their weapon of choice?”
“If you must know,” the demon hissed, “it’s used to stoke the fires of Hell themselves. My trusty sidearm has served me well for centuries, and it will look simply marvelous with both of your heads mounted on top of it!”
Ukobach let out a weak roar as he propelled himself through the air and swung at me with his red-hot iron. The little fucker was quick, but I was much quicker. I caught the blow of the demon with a burst of violet fire, and then I blasted him at point-blank range with an incinerating spell of red Hellfire.
Ukobach shot back onto the ground, released his weapon, and tumbled across the floor. The demon smashed into a white fold-in-half table, and then his momentum halted. He instantly jumped back to his feet, but now he was looking much worse for wear. The entirety of his torso was covered in third-degree burns, and blood was oozing out of his large nostrils. He wiped away the blood from his face and then quickly leapt out of the way of an incoming fireball.
From behind the demon, I heard the sound of Ira’s acidic magic as the blast hit another cultist and then a horrified scream.
“You mortal fucks are useless!” Ukobach screamed. “I’m going to--”
Before he could even finish his sentence, I grabbed the toppled table with my emerald flames, pulled it behind Ukobach, and then closed it against him repeatedly. Blood splattered on the white plastic as both halves slammed into the demon violently, over and over. I released my spell, and the bloodied table collapsed to the ground, right next to the little fucker’s beat-up body.
Ukobach struggled to get back to his feet, and his body was now covered with blood and bruises.
“This guy doesn’t stay down, Jakey,” Todd cried out.
“He’s almost done,” I growled, “and so are his friends.”
“That’s what you think,” Ukobach sneered, and then his eyes began to glow with black Hellfire. The demon hissed, pushed himself off the ground, and rocketed through the air with lightning-fast speed. Ukobach landed directly on the back of one of the cultists, and then he sunk his teeth into their neck.
“What are you doing?” the man screamed as Ukobach’s lips twitched against his neck.
The man’s eyes rolled back in his head, and then his face became as white as a ghost. As the cultist fell to the ground, lifeless, Ukobach propelled himself at his next target.
“He’s draining their life-force, Jacob!” Libidine cried out. “He’s trying to make himself more powerful!”
Not if I could help it. I tried to throw up a green portal between the speeding demon and the next cultist, but he was far too fast.
“But Beelzebub … ” the next cultist pleaded as all the energy in his body was siphoned into Ukobach’s.
“Light him up, guys!” I ordered and launched a fireball at the perched demon.
Ukobach catapulted off the cultist’s body right as all of our spells rocketed in his wake and blasted the poor dead cultist’s corpse into meaty, bloodless chunks. He flipped through the air, landed atop one of his other minions, and then began to drain their life force.
“He’s too fast!” Cupi growled.
“Then we’ll just have to kill all of his power sources before he can get to them!” I commanded.
There were only six more cultists remaining, and they began to panic when they heard my words. Two of them made a dash for the door, but Libidine took out their feet with the bloodied table from earlier. At the same time, the succubus threw down a handful of yellow daggers onto the floor in front of them, and the cultists were impaled horrifically as they fell onto them.
“We got a jumper!” Todd exclaimed as Ukobach hopped to another cultist.
Before the fucker could steal the cultist’s energy, Gula blasted a massive fireball in their direction. Ukobach hissed as he jumped from the man’s body, and it was incinerated by the colossal wall of flame. Ira tossed turquoise fire at the demon, but she missed completely as the little bastard kept jumping around like a spider monkey on crack. Instead, it struck another cultist in the face. The man clutched at his head helplessly as his flesh melted away from his bones, leaving nothing but a gory soup on the floor in front of him. He toppled to the floor, dead.
And then there were two.
There was a grayish blur as Ukobach zipped past the remaining cultist and slashed the tendon in his leg.
“Please, master Beelzebub would be--” the cultist begged.
There was a spray of crimson as his throat was sliced open, and then the tiny demon latched his mouth onto the waterfall of gore. The seven of us blasted at the son of a bitch once more, but the little guy was still too slippery. He sped out of the way of the incoming spells and left a trail of blood behind as he ran.
The cultist’s body was riddled with yellow spears, burned by red Hellfire, and melted by acidic flames all at the same time. At least his death was quick. The final cultist shot a quick spray of daggers at Ira, but the succubus simply knocked them away with her morning star. She twirled her weapon around in her hand, and then smashed it into the skull of the final enemy.
His head caved in like a cracked walnut as the morning star punched a massive hole through his soft flesh. Chunks of the his brain spilled out onto the floor, along with bits of bone and muscle. Then, his body collapsed, and the rest of his gray matter slid out with a sickly plop.
“That’s just grody, bro,” Todd gagged.
The seven of us quickly turned our attention back to Ukobach, who was now standing across the room. His tiny body was covered with gore, but it wasn’t his own. From afar, it actually looked like his own wounds had healed.
“Seven on one,” Todd taunted. “This is gonna be a bigger massacre than whenever somebody tries to invade Russia in the winter.”
“You’re all idiots,” Ukobach said with a click of his tongue. “I’ve gained more than enough power from these fuckwit mortals to kill you woeful wizards.”
“Ohhh,” Todd observed. “Maybe that can be our badass group name!”
Without another moment’s hesitation, all seven of us began to assault Ukobach with our various spells. For a moment, it looked like the demon’s body was completely overtaken with the vibrant blasts. Then, our spells began to grow more dull, until they eventually faded into a murky black.
I raised my hand, and all of my friends cut off their strike.
Our spells, now darkened and rendered useless, began to mix together and form one giant nebulous blob. There, at the base of the spell, stood a completely unscathed Ukobach.
The tiny demon opened his mouth and exposed two long, jagged fangs. The cloud of mixed Hellfire swirled around the gray fucker, and then it began to get sucked into his fangs like dirt under a vacuum cleaner. Instantly, Ukobach’s body began to glow with the black Hellfire, and his figure started to contort. His muscles began to expand, and his slender body grew both taller and wider. When all was said and done, the demon stood six feet tall and had the frame of a bodybuilder.
“That’s more like it!” He grinned and cracked his knuckles. “I almost forgot what it felt like to be at full power!”
Before any of us could react, the demon summoned a giant ball of fire into his hand and threw it right at us. I tossed up a wall of purple flame just in time, and the attack bounced off into the floor. The impact from Ukobach’s attack must have been insanely powerful because the shockwave from the blow sent all seven of us flying into the air like bowling pins.
I landed on my feet and saw Todd shoot off another bout of baseball-sized fireballs at the demon. Ukobach simply laughed, held out his hand, and absorbed the projectiles as if they were droplets of water.
“I don’t think we can defeat him with our normal magic,” I explained to the imp. “It looks like his fear powers let him absorb anything we throw his way.”
“Fine by me,” Ira growled. “I’d love to get all up in those guts. Literally.”
The succubus’ body was encased with pink flames, and then she split into her two forms. The dom was already holding her morning star at the ready, and the sub held her own arm bone in her hand. The submissive succubus ran a flaming hand over the tip of the hilt, and a glowing red whiptail appeared.
“Please tell me you guys have some hand-to-hand weapons,” I asked Tris and Gula.
“Please,” Tris scoffed and pulled out a pistol from the waistband of her pants. “I may hate fighting, but I’m always prepared to defend myself.”
“Is that a fucking Glock?” Todd exclaimed.
“It is,” the brunette smiled as she removed a joint from her pocket. “Swinging swords or throwing knives is way too much work. I’d rather just bust a cap in some motherfucker’s ass and get it over with.”
Tris put the joint in her mouth, took a puff, and pointed the Glock at the demon.
“I’m starting to warm up to this one, Jakey,” Todd mused.
Meanwhile, a wide grin spread across Gula’s face, and then she held out her hands in front of her. There was a flash of red He
llfire as a massive, double-sided battle axe appeared in her grasp.
“What are you waiting for, succubus filth?” Ukobach questioned. “The sooner I kill all of you and take your powers, the sooner the Divine will fall and my master will rise up to become the one and only master of the universe!”
From off to my side, Todd began to laugh uncontrollably.
Ukobach’s face contorted into a look of confusion. “Why are you laughing?” he demanded. “You face certain death, and yet you dare to laugh at my authority?”
“Do you work for Skeletor?” Todd giggled. “Because this whole scheme would totally make more sense if you were working for Skeletor.”
“Silence, imp!” Ukobach hissed and lashed out with a blast of black Hellfire, filled with the energy his absorption magic had fed upon.
Our group scattered as we dodged the incoming projectile, and then Ira’s two halves and Gula charged at the motherfucker. As they ran, Tris fired a round of enchanted bullets at the demon. Ukobach sidestepped the incoming projectiles, and they rat-tat-tatted into the ground. Not wanting to miss out on the party, I whipped out my broken blade, cast a red flame into my hand, and then enchanted the weapon.
“What the fuck are we supposed to do?” Cupi asked and motioned to Libidine and herself. “We don’t have any weapons.”
“Sure you do,” I said as I threw my hands out to my side. “There’s shit to use all around you!”
Liby nodded and brought forth jade fire into her hands. I turned back to the demon and saw he was currently locked in hand-to-hand combat with Gula and Ira’s halves. In his new form, Ukobach was much more lumbering than he’d been before. Of course, what he lacked in speed he more than made up for in pure brute strength. The succubi were trying their damnedest to perform quick, rapid strikes on the demon. After they’d attack, they would instantly duck out of the way of his counter. All it would take was one wrong move, and he could snap them in half like a twig.
As I approached, I tossed a few platforms of purple Hellfire down into the air and created a makeshift staircase. At the very top I cast a spell of green, and then I hopped up the platforms and into the interdimensional portal. When I reemerged, I came down on top of Ukobach from behind with my flaming dagger raised. He didn’t see me coming as I plunged it down into his neck, deep into the fucker’s skin, and I was left dangling from his massive frame.