Succubus Lord 12

by Eric Vall

  “This is Hell, Jacob,” Sia reminded me, “the laws of Earth Realm do not apply to the creatures who dwell in this place.”

  “I guess not.” I shuddered and then picked up the final piece of my armor.

  Libidine ran over and helped me fasten my breastplate to my chest, and then I was all set to go.

  “Now, there’s the handsome king we all know and love,” Gula purred, “you almost look sexier in your armor than you do in the buff. Almost.”

  Todd stopped, mid-chew, and then looked down at the eggs inside of the jar. He allowed the one in his mouth to plop back into the red liquid, and then he tightened the lid with haste as he made a sour expression.

  “I think I’m done with these, Goldilocks,” Todd muttered as he extended the jar back out to the knight. “I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.”

  “I don’t want those back!” Eligor protested. “They’ve been in your mouth!”

  “Say no more.” Todd nodded, and then he tossed the jar casually over his shoulder.

  The container shattered against the brimstone ground, and it sent shards of glass, red liquid, and Vargrat eggs across the floor.

  Eligor stared the imp down intensely, but he didn’t seem to notice. Todd just sat there and picked at his teeth with his claws as the Knight of Hell looked at him with murder in her eyes.

  “Uh, Eligor?” I raised my finger to try and divert her attention. “How about you take us back up?”

  “Sure,” the blonde knight grumbled, and then she summoned lime green Hellfire into her hands. “This whole place is going to start smelling like pickles and vinegar here in a minute, anyway.”

  Eligor closed her eyes and concentrated as the spells in her hand danced in unison. Then there was a loud sound from outside the bunker, and the entire structure began to tremble and shake as we ascended. Finally, after a few minutes of travel, Eligor released her spell.

  The bikini-clad knight sauntered over to the door, pushed it open, and then created another land bridge with her elemental magic. She motioned for us to follow, and we were all soon outside the brimstone dwelling and back on the cliffs of the Seventh Circle.

  “You know,” Gula giggled as she watched Eligor send the bunker back into the depths below, “I bet Invidia would adore this kind of dwelling.”

  “Oh boy,” Libidine chimed in, “if Vidia had a bunker she could hide deep underground that she could move around at her will, I don’t think we’d ever see her again. Her seclusion on the Shrieking Mountains is bad enough!”

  “Now, girls,” Sia warned, “Sister Invidia doesn’t lock herself away because she doesn’t like to be around us. She just needs to be alone every now and again so she can recharge her batteries. She would be what the humans call an ‘introvert.’”

  “Pfffft,” Todd scoffed, “ya mean that title given out by those little personality quizzes on the internet? Those things are totally false. I took one once that told me if I was one of the Rugrats, I’d be Dill. Nobody wants to be fucking Dill, Strawberry Shortcake!”

  “I don’t think it’s just determined by internet quizzes, Todd,” I tried to explain, but he wasn’t having any of it, “it was actually coined by a psychologist in the early twentieth century … ”

  The imp looked at me inquisitively, but then he shook his head and clicked his tongue.

  “Nah, bro,” he dismissed the claim, “what’s next, are you gonna tell me I’m a Caesar Salad just because my favorite color is red? Or maybe I’m Squidward because I’ve never eaten caviar? It’s all a bunch of pseudoscience set up by the Man, Jakey.”

  “Well yeah, the online quizzes aren’t accurate,” I explained, “but--”

  “Bro,” Todd interjected as he slapped his hands against my cheeks and looked me intensely in the eyes, “they told me I should listen to Hansen. Hansen, bro. End of story. Case closed. That is my final answer.”

  I rolled my eyes as I realized nothing was going to get through to Todd on this one, and then I pulled away from the imp and turned to address my friends.

  “Alright, guys,” I sighed, “I’m not even sure where to start on this one. Are any of you familiar with this Circle at all?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Sia shook her head, “nobody really is. As you can imagine, Abaddon isn’t exactly a welcoming King. He and his minions are the only ones who possibly know this place inside and out, and even that is debatable. All I know is the different rings are subterranean, and they go in descending order.”

  “We can work with that,” I admitted as I looked around at the landscape around us.

  Now that the sun was out, the entire Seventh Circle was on display. I could see all the yellows of the limestone that made up the ground, as well as the bright crimson of the river of blood. The sky was now a shade of gray, though it threatened to turn black at any moment.

  “Was the blood flowing so quickly before?” Eligor asked curiously as she squinted off into the distance. “It seems like it’s almost rapid-like today.”

  “Oh man, Goldilocks,” Todd snickered under his breath, “you’re talking about ‘blood’ and ‘flow’ in the same sentence. You’re just asking me to pick the low-hanging fruit.”

  “It’s probably gravity,” Gula suggested, “since we’re higher up here on the cliffs, the blood’s all getting pulled down at a quicker speed than it is when it’s just on the regular ground.”

  Todd bit his lip and stifled a laugh, but he still didn’t go for the obvious joke.

  “I wonder if it has a source,” Eligor pondered aloud, “if it’s all the way up here and flowing downward, there has to be a place where it all starts. Which begs the question, what could possibly be the source of this much blood?”

  “I dunno,” I admitted, “but I don’t think that’s where we’d find the entrance to the next ring. Especially if … ”

  Suddenly, I had an epiphany.

  “Especially if what?” Eligor questioned.

  “Especially if Sia is right, and the rings go in descending order,” I elaborated, “if that’s the case, then--”

  “The River of Blood would be flowing downward, into the next ring!” Libidine exclaimed.

  “Exactly,” I nodded, “which means all we have to do to find the next layer of this godforsaken place is to follow the river until it reaches its end.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Eligor admitted, “but doesn’t it split off into different branches? How will we know which one to follow?”

  “It’ll be the main one,” I continued, “in the limited time I’ve been down here, I’ve noticed something. There seems to be one continuous path, from all the way in the Hunter’s Plains to, well, I don’t know, but I imagine it’d lead us to whatever is at the end of Hell. And that path is always a waterway of some sort. All we have to do is figure out which one of the branches is the ‘main’ path, and it will lead us straight to the second ring.”

  “But how do we do that?” Gula asked with a sigh. “It’s not like any of us have a wayfinding spell.”

  “We don’t,” I grinned and fumbled around in my pocket, “but we know somebody who does.”

  After a second or two of searching, my hand brushed up against the heavy piece of metal in my pocket. I pulled out the gold coin, placed it firmly between my thumb and index finger, and held it up for everyone to see.

  “Charon’s coin!” Libidine gasped. “Jacob, you’re a genius!”

  “I’m still kinda lost,” Eclipse admitted. “How does a gold coin help us find our way?”

  “This isn’t just any old gold coin,” I explained, “Charon, the Great Ferryman of Hell--”

  “I thought we agreed not to call him that,” Todd whispered loudly, “it’s the twenty-first century, bro.”

  “Uh, right,” I sighed and then pushed forward, “this is the magical trinket that allows us to travel between the different Circles via the River of Souls, which apparently turns into the River of Blood here in the Seventh Circle. All you have to do is enchant it with a little bit of purp
le Hellfire, and it’ll guide you through the River of Souls on its own!”

  As I said the words, I summoned violet flames into my hand and allowed them to light up Charron’s coin with their glow. Then I tossed the coin up into the air, where it floated ominously, before the coin began to drift down the cliffs as it headed toward the River of Blood.

  “Follow that coin!” I announced, and then Libidine’s arms wrapped around my body and lifted me up into the air.

  The seven of us rocketed down the sides of the brimstone hills as we kept the floating purple and gold trinket in our sights. When it got down to where it was hovering over a flat surface, we set ourselves down and continued on foot.

  My team chased the glowing gold coin for nearly a mile before we came to the first fork in the river. Thankfully, now that it was on its regular course, our wayfinder slowed down to a walking pace, and it was easy to keep up with.

  The fucking thing didn’t even pause to consider which path it needed to go down, though. It just floated off to the right without a second’s hesitation, and we continued to follow.

  Finally, after about an hour and a half’s worth of walking, I saw our destination.

  About two-hundred feet ahead of us, the orangish-brown limestone disappeared, replaced by a giant, dark hole in the ground that swallowed up the flowing river like it was an oversized gullet.

  “That has to be it,” I huffed as I leaned over on my thighs and tried to catch my breath. “The river seems to end here.”

  “Holy fuck, I’m outta shape,” Todd wheezed as he plopped down on the ground and stared up at the sky hopelessly. “Go on without me, Jakey. I don’t think my tiny little legs can keep up any more.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Todd,” Libidine sighed, “we move as a team. We always have, and we always will.”

  “I could carry you on my back, if you want,” I joked and wiped the sweat from my brow, “yoda-style.”

  “Very nice, that would be,” Todd snickered in the Jedi master’s voice. “But too heavy, I am. Too many pot brownies, I have eaten.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Eligor reassured the imp as she glanced over the edge of the pit. “I wonder how far this goes … ”

  The blonde knight summoned red Hellfire into her hands and then tossed it down into the deep chasm. She watched it for a few seconds, stepped back, and then rubbed her chin as she calculated.

  “What do you think, Eligor?” Sia questioned.

  “It’s probably about five-hundred feet down,” Eligor announced. “Not too far. At least this one is very wide, so we have less of a chance of injury going down.”

  “What she said, that is,” Todd-yoda snickered.

  “Seems pretty straightforward to me.” I nodded. “I’ll go first. With a little bit of help from somebody with wings, of course.”

  “I’m on it!” Gula called out as she fluttered over and wrapped her arms around me tightly. “Hold onto your hat, Jacob.”

  The Sister of Gluttony yanked me up into the air and then zipped over so we were above the massive hole. Then she lowered us down with the grace of a falcon as she made sure to avoid the droplets of hot blood that splattered off the waterfall. Finally, after a few minutes of descending, my feet hit solid ground.

  It was pitch black down here, so much so, I couldn’t see my hand if I held it only a few inches from my face.

  “Let’s hit the lights,” I whispered to Gula.

  I summoned red Hellfire into my hands, and the Sister of Gluttony did the same. Suddenly, the landscape before us was brightened by the glow of our spells, but it still wasn’t much. Even with both of us radiating red Hellfire, we could only see a few feet in front of our position.

  Then again, it didn’t look like there was much to see. The space in front of us was desolate and dark, with a brimstone ground that looked like it did in all the other Circles.

  Slowly but surely, I heard the other five members of the group land next to us without incident, and then they all lit up their hands with red flames.

  Even then, the visibility in this ring of the Seventh Circle was shit.

  “Huh,” Libidine mused as she looked around, “I would have figured this was the most messed-up Circle of them all, with the suicides and whatnot.”

  “We’ve still got quite a ways to go,” I reminded the Sister of Lust, “so everybody keep your eyes peeled. I have no idea what kinda sadistic shit is down here.”

  It was strange. Even though we’d come down a hole in the ground to get to the second ring of the Seventh Circle, there were no barriers around us. No walls. No ceiling. It was almost like we had been transported to a completely different dimension.

  The team trudged forward slowly, and we made sure to inspect every single step we took. There had to be more to this place than just pure darkness, and I didn’t want to be caught off guard. We walked for about fifteen minutes, until I saw something shuffle past the corner of my eye.

  “Guys!” I hissed. “There’s somebody up there.”

  I placed my hand on the hilt of the Unhallowed Sword as we continued forward. As we got closer to the spot where I’d seen the shadow, I realized there was not just one, but many, many shadows. In fact, they weren’t shadows at all.

  They were Shades.

  The seven of us halted our gait as we looked over the crowd and tried to count just how many there were, but it was futile. The gathering of Shades seemed to stretch on as far as our eyes could see.

  The figures were not very animated, either. Each one simply hung their heads and wore a look of pure despair on their faces as they shuffled about aimlessly.

  “What are they doing?” Gula whispered fearfully. “Can they not see us?”

  “They see you,” Eligor warned darkly, “but they don’t care. They’re doomed to wander this barren, dark landscape aimlessly until the end of time itself.”

  “Damn,” I sighed, “I don’t know which is worse, this, or the harpies.”

  “The harpies,” Eligor shot back without missing a beat. “I can assure you it’s the harpies. Now, we just need to get over these guys … ”

  There was a flash of purple as Eligor summoned her wings, and then several more as the rest of my friends called forth their own. Gula picked up Sia, and like clockwork, I felt Libidine’s massive breasts pressing up against my back as she lifted me up into the sky, and then we began to fly over the crowd of lost Shades.

  Seeing them from this angle was far worse. Now that we were airborne, I could see there were thousands of the poor bastards. Some of them looked up at us helplessly as we passed overhead, but there was nothing we could do to help them.

  They were in Abaddon’s domain, and he was the only one who could decide their fate.

  It took us nearly twenty minutes before we cleared the crowd of Shades, but we were finally able to land on the ground once more. Almost instantaneously, we heard the sound of a human voice off in the distance.

  “Should we investigate?” Sia asked as we continued to follow the floating coin. “Whoever is speaking might be of some assistance to us.”

  “Ohhhhh, no,” Todd warned, “following a voice in the darkness? That’s like, classic horror movie set-up number one, Strawberry Shortcake.”

  “It doesn’t look like we have a choice,” I sighed and pointed at Charon’s coin, which was now floating straight toward the distant sound. “Come on.”

  As we continued down the path the coin took us, the voice became clearer and clearer.

  “ … your crimes against humanity, which were many, I might add, are only part of why you have been sentenced to this fate,” the man’s voice announced with the gusto of a judge, “you cheated on your wife, stole from your company, and kept your children in a constant state of lies. You were an embarrassment to your parents, and you couldn’t even find true companionship with your family pet. Worst of all … you left your heartbroken family behind.”

  Now that we were closer, our Hellfire illuminated the scene. A figure in a dark b
lack hood stood up on the gallows, and it was reading from a book as a Shade stood beside him with a noose around his neck.

  “P-Please!” the Shade begged. “I’m sorry! I made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I swear they’ll never happen again!”

  “And for your sins, you shall pay!” the hooded figure bellowed, and then he pulled the lever on the other side of his body.

  The ground was pulled out from underneath the Shade, and there was a loud, wet crack as his weight was caught by the noose. However, he didn’t die.

  Instead, the Shade flailed about frantically as the rope choked the breath out of him. All the while, the hangman threw his head back and cackled.

  “Next?” he called out as we passed by, but he was too focused on his work to pay us any attention.

  Judging by the massive line of Shades in front of the gallows, this guy still had a lot of work to do.

  “Worst theme park ride ever, bro.” Todd shuddered as the scene disappeared out of our light. “Like, seriously, I’ll never complain about Pirates of the Caribbean ever again.”

  “Yeah, if I wasn’t convinced Abaddon was a psychopath before,” I joked, “I am now.”

  As we ventured further into the second ring of the Seventh Circle, I felt a change inside my body. Everything suddenly seemed more tense, and my heart hammered away in my chest anxiously. I experienced a sense of extreme dread and despair as I looked at the darkness around us.

  This was one fucked up place.

  Just when I was at the peak of my existential dread, I was snapped back to reality by the sound of human screams. They were mixes of male and female, young and old, and it sounded like whatever they were going through was excruciating.

  When we finally came upon the sight, I could see why.

  The light of our Hellfire illuminated the base of a large tree.

  “Oh my god … ” Libidine gasped.

  “I think I’m gonna be sick,” Gula added as she put her hand over her mouth.

  There, in the tree, were the screaming Shades. Their bodies had been nailed into the branches in various grisly ways, including a man who dangled down from the tree, held to its black bark only by a spike that had been driven through his head. Other Shades were attached to the tree at the torso, neck, feet, and hands, and there were large pools of blood below where they hung.