by Eric Vall
The liquid shot across the sky like a rocket before it formed into an orb around Beelzebub’s body and constricted him tightly.
The Lord of the Flies screamed with frustration as his arms, legs, and wings were rendered useless, and he plummeted to the ground. Beelzebub hit the ground hard and then rolled a few feet to a stop.
I could already see his wings were threatening to escape their metal prison, and I dashed toward the fucker at lightning speed.
Apparently, that still wasn’t quick enough.
The orb exploded into a shower of deadly shards in all directions, and I had to toss up a shield around myself and my parents to keep us from being turned into swiss cheese.
As soon as the coast was clear, I decast my spell.
Beelzebub was already on me.
I ducked down and avoided the points of his razor-sharp wings, but the fucker had me in his clutches. I tried to lash out at him with the Unhallowed Sword, but he caught my hand by the wrist.
The Demon King and I were eye-to-eye, and he was ready to go for the killing blow.
If I didn’t do something drastic right here and now, this was it.
So, I summoned silver Hellfire onto my body and then commanded it to pull the pins out of the grenades on my belt.
“Fuck you, Beelzebub,” I growled as he reared back his right wing and prepared to skewer me.
I threw down a small shield of purple Hellfire just as the incendiary grenades went off. My entire skeleton rattled in my body as the shockwaves knocked me to the ground, but my plan had worked.
Beelzebub let out a shriek of pain as his entire lower body caught on fire, and then he quickly spun around like a madman to put it out.
However, the damage had been done.
When he came to a halt, the fucker was covered with second-degree burns from his bellybutton to his knees.
“Ohhhh,” I mocked. “The ladies really aren’t gonna like that one, are they?”
“Nephilim slime!” Beelzebub sneered. “You’re an abomination to the natural order. Nobody should have the power you do! Especially not someone as reckless and undeserving as you!”
The Unhallowed Sword had been knocked out my hand by the explosion, and it was lying in the sand only a few feet away. I called forth green Hellfire to my hands, cast it over the black blade, and tried to bring it back into my possession.
Tried.
As the deadly weapon flew through the air, Beelzebub intercepted it. He snatched it out of the sky, twisted around, and swung at my legs.
I hopped up into the air just as the blade passed beneath my feet. Then I came up with a blast of red Hellfire.
Beelzebub covered himself with his wings, and the attack bounced off without leaving so much as a scratch.
Now, the Lord of the Flies had the only weapon that could hurt him.
Or so he thought.
I reached down into my belt, grabbed the Divine Desert Eagle, and took aim.
Beelzebub halted, mid-flight, and his eyes widened with terror.
“You know what this is, don’t you?” I panted.
Before he could answer, I squeezed the trigger on the golden gun.
A literal fireball of Divine Light blasted from the muzzle, and a glowing white bullet cut through the sky.
Beelzebub covered himself with his wings and tried to dodge, but the enchanted projectile cut through his left wing as if it were nothing. There was a searing sound as the King of the Eighth Circle let out a scream and fell out of the air.
Unfortunately, the kickback of the gun was just as much of a bitch as Ariel warned. As soon as I fired the damn thing, it exploded.
My left hand was completely fucked up. My palm was burnt to a literal crisp, and my veins were glowing red as they throbbed in my hand. At least, that’s what I thought they were doing. My entire left arm was numb, so I couldn’t feel anything.
As Beelzebub unfolded his wings, I saw he was just as fucked up as I was. The bullet had hit him in the left arm, which now hung down uselessly. The flesh on the appendage was completely black, almost as if his very cells had all been killed at once.
“I-I don’t need my arm to kill you,” he panted as he began to march toward me.
How the fuck was this guy still going? He may have looked like a string bean, but he was apparently tough as nails.
Me, on the other hand? I was exhausted, battered, and wounded. I’d lost god knows how much blood, and my left hand was out of commission for the moment.
I was in no shape to continue this battle.
Which was why I needed to end it right now. Or, at least, put it on hiatus.
It was a risky move. I hadn’t cast this spell in nearly three years, but I still remembered it by heart.
It was the spell I’d used to send Azazel back to Hell, the one that banished him from the Earth permanently. If I wasn’t powerful enough to outright kill Beelzebub, I could at least send him back where he belongs and prepare for round two.
I closed my eyes as I called Divine Light into my body and tried to feel the energy of the souls around me. A wave of warmth swept across my body as I channeled the souls of my parents, the two human beings on this Earth who were closest to me. As I prepared for the spell, I felt a huge surge of energy. When I finally opened my eyes, Beelzebub was about twenty feet away, with the Unhallowed Sword at the ready.
“Eieci te ad infernum unde venistis!” I hissed.
Beelzebub jumped up into the air, raised the weapon above his head, and prepared to slice me open like a stuffed hog.
Then he froze in place as his body was surrounded by white Hellfire. A small portal of the colorless flames opened up just below his body, and a handful of pure-energy tendrils shot out and wrapped around his arms, legs, and wings.
“You Nephilim bastard,” Beelzebub growled. “I had you dead to rights!”
“Sure you did,” I mocked. “Now, you’re going back to Hell. Banished from Earth Realm for all eternity.”
“You think that changes things?” the King of the Eighth Circle sneered. “I will still build up my Army of the Dejected, and then I will march into the Fourth Circle and rip you and your friends to shreds!”
“I’m looking forward to you trying,” I shot back. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a mansion to get back to. Eieci te ad infernum unde venistis!”
The tendrils tightened around Beelzebub, and he dropped the Unhallowed Sword from his grip.
I caught the falling weapon with a cast of emerald flame and then moved it back into my good hand. Then I sheathed my blade as I watched Beelzebub struggle against the sacred spell.
The lanky demon put up less of a fight than Azazel had, and he was forced back down into the depths of Hell fairly quickly. As he disappeared into the white flames, he let out a roar of anger, and then everything went silent.
I let out a sigh of relief as I began to hobble over to my parents. Sure, I’d only put off my inevitable final battle with Beelzebub, but at least I would live to see another day. Plus, the fucker couldn’t come back to Earth Realm even if he wanted to.
That in itself was a huge win.
I summoned silver Hellfire into my hands and tried to cast it on the pole that held my parents. Instantly, my ears were filled with a shrill, high-pitched whine.
Enchanted metal. Of fucking course it was.
“Hold still, guys,” I commanded as I pulled out the combat knife Ariel had made me.
“Jacob?” my mom gasped. “What is going on? What was that thing, and what does he want with you?”
“And where did you learn to shoot fire from your hands?” my dad added in shock. “And when did you start growing horns?”
I cut the bonds around both of my parents’ hands, and they instantly wrapped me in a warm embrace.
“It’s okay,” I promised. “You guys are safe now. I’ll explain everything on the way home.”
“Your hand!” Dad said in horror. “What happened to your hand?”
“It’s noth
ing Superbia can’t fix,” I explained.
“That nice girl you brought to dinner?” Mom asked. “She’s in on this, too?”
“Yes, she is,” I admitted. “Come on, let’s go back to my place. We can talk on the way there.”
“I’ve always wanted to see your place in Albuquerque,” Dad chuckled. “I just didn’t think this would be the way I saw it.”
“Actually,” I corrected him, “my place is in Phoenix. I haven’t lived in Albuquerque in years.”
Both of my parents looked at each other and then gave me a scowl.
“What else aren’t you telling us?” my mom asked curiously.
“I dunno,” I shot back. “What aren’t you telling me? Is it true what he said?”
The expressions on Mom and Dads’ faces went stone cold, and they looked at each other nervously.
“Well … it’s … ” Mom muttered, nearly in tears. “We were just stupid kids, Jacob.”
I could feel the color drain from my face at their words, and my head started to spin.
“We were messing around with some old spell book I found at the library,” Dad explained. “I said some words in Latin, and then the next thing I know, the world goes black.”
“For him,” my mom continued. “He kept acting like your father, even though something felt slightly … off about him. I thought it was just because he was nervous. We made love, and then nine months later, you arrived.”
“We thought things were strange when you were a toddler,” Dad sighed. “So, we went to an expert on occultism and demonology and all that stuff. He mentioned something about a ritual where a demon takes over the man’s body? Apparently that was what I activated when I said those words.”
Holy fuck. It was the same ritual we’d stopped back in San Francisco.
Only this time, it actually happened.
And I was the result.
“So … ” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer. “Who is my ‘father?’ Which demon am I descended from?”
“That I don’t know, son,” my dad sighed. “Apparently he was very discreet, and he never gave your mother his name.”
“Let’s go home, Jacob,” Mom tried to comfort me, even though she was an emotional wreck herself. “We have a lot to talk about on the ride back.”
Yeah, we sure as fuck did.
Chapter 18
The next few hours flew by like a dream. Maybe it was the shock of what I had just learned, or maybe it was the fact the adrenaline was finally wearing off and my whole body ached.
As soon as I got back to the car, I ripped off my breastplate and inspected the wound on my chest. It was a pretty gnarly gash, and it still oozed blood as it soaked my black t-shirt and ran down my torso. It wasn’t as deep as I’d initially thought, but I really didn’t want to lose any more blood than I had to. Plus, I’d hate to ruin Stella’s leather interior.
“That looks bad,” my mom observed. “Do you have any gauze or bandages in your--“
Before she could continue, I summoned red Hellfire into my right hand, slapped it against my chest, and grimaced as my wound was seared shut. My nostrils filled with the distinct smell of burning flesh, but my spell had done what it needed to do. My wound was cauterized.
“Holy crap, son,” Dad mused. “Is that healthy?”
“Not really,” I admitted as I slowly slid down into the driver’s seat of the red Maserati GT, “but it only has to hold for the next hour or so. As soon as we get back to Sia, she’ll heal me up, good as new.”
My dad popped the seat of the coupe forward, hopped into the back awkwardly, and then pulled the chair back up into position.
Mom sat down in the passenger’s seat and stared off into the abyss of the night.
“You alright?” I asked her as she continued her thousand-yard-stare.
“It’s just … a lot to take in,” Mom sighed. “I always wondered if we did the right thing by not telling you the truth, you know? As if somehow that would keep you protected from this world of deep dark demons and monsters, and you could live your life as a normal boy from Missouri. But I heard him call you a king? King of what? How deep into this are you?”
“If the last few minutes didn’t give it away,” I chuckled as I put the keys in the ignition and started the engine, “pretty damn deep.”
Mom buried her head in her hands and began to bawl like a baby.
“Dear … it’s alright,” my father tried to reassure her. “It’s not our fault.”
“Of course it’s our fault!” she snapped back. “We were the ones who were messing around with a book of spells, and we were the ones who kept this hidden from him for so many years. Who else’s fault could it be?”
“Mom, it’s okay,” I promised her. “Things are actually way better now that I’ve been swept up in this world. In fact, Todd and I--”
“Todd had something to do with this?” Dad grumbled from the back seat. “I should have known. That kid was always running around with the Satan worshippers, smoking the Devil’s Lettuce and playing that pagan Dungeons and Dragons game.”
“Okay, so I get you guys were just dumb kids and didn’t know any better,” I blurted, “but neither of you strike me as the type to play around with demonic spells. You both were super-religious when I was growing up.”
“That was a cause and effect,” my mom explained as she began to sober up. “We weren’t so religious until, well, we found out about you. Then we made sure we said our daily prayers and took you to church and all that jazz. If we really had a half-demon child on our hands, the last thing we wanted was for you to grow up into some sort of Omen child.”
“Well, you did a good job,” I reassured her. “I may be a Demon King, but I’m also ‘Heaven’s golden boy’ according to all of my peers.”
“Wait,” Dad said curiously as he leaned forward and poked his head between the front seats. “If you’re Heaven’s golden boy, does that mean you’ve met him?”
“The Exalted One?” I asked. “No, not quite yet. But I have met several of his Archangels, both as friend and foe. There’s actually quite a lot to explain.”
I summoned purple Hellfire into my hands and spread it out across the sandy desert in front of us.
“Whoa,” my dad gasped. “Is that part of your demon magic?”
“Sure is,” I said with a grin as I kicked Stella into gear and took off down the enchanted road.
We spent the next hour clearing the air. I told my parents all about my adventures with the succubi and Todd and Raph over the last few years, about how we slowly but surely weakened Azazel by stealing his followers and then went down into Hell and killed him. I explained I was now the Demon King of the Fourth Circle, and how the guy they just saw me fight was trying to overthrow me and then conquer the universe.
In return, they told me about all the crazy shit that had happened when I was a child. Apparently, all of the “child psychologists” I’d gone to when I was little were really occult experts who were making sure I wasn’t turning evil. They also told me about how I had somewhat of a mean streak as a toddler, punching kids who stole my toys and hurling curse words at my pre-K teachers. My parents continued to explain how they were terrified to send me to public school out of fear I’d snap and literally rip some kid’s head off. That’s where Todd came in, allegedly. Once I started my friendship with the future imp, my demeanor became much more relaxed.
I honestly didn’t have the heart to tell them it was probably thanks to all the weed the two of us smoked under the bleachers at lunch every day.
Finally, we pulled into the driveway of my mansion, popped open the garage door, and then pulled into the carport.
Ariel was tinkering at the workbench when we entered, but she perked up as soon as she saw the headlights against the wall.
I wasn’t even fully out of the car before Ariel dashed over and wrapped her arms around me in a warm embrace. She squeezed tightly, and a small wave of pain shot up my ribs. I let out an uneasy gru
nt as my face turned to a grimace, and the angel must have gotten the implication.
She let go, giggled, and then looked down at the ground bashfully.
“Sorry,” she apologized. “I should have figured you’d be injured. But I’m just so happy you’re home!”
My parents got out of the door-less Maserati and stretched groggily as they looked around at my garage. Then my mom cleared her throat quite obnoxiously.
“Oh, right,” I mused. “Where are my manners? Ariel, these are my parents. Mom, Dad, this is Ariel. She’s an angel.”
“My, my, my,” Mom chuckled. “Jacob usually doesn’t have such kind words to say about his girlfriends. He must really like you.”
“No, Mom,” I grumbled. “She’s literally an angel. Like, from Heaven.”
“Ohhhhhh,” my mom laughed. “I guess I should have known. It’s nice to meet you, Ariel.”
“Jeff Ralston,” Dad interjected as he stuck out his hand as only a dad could. “Nice to meet you.”
“It’s very nice to meet you, too,” Ariel chuckled and shook his hand. “You’ve raised quite the gentleman, I must say.”
“I think that’s my cue to leave,” I laughed as I headed toward the door. “I think I’m gonna get stuck to the floor with all this sap that’s oozing out everywhere.”
I hobbled through the threshold of the mansion and then limped into the living room.
All of my friends were sitting around on the various seats, completely silent as they awaited my return.
Angelo Martatelli was the first one to notice me enter the room. His eyes lit up as he hopped up onto his “feet” and floated over to where I was standing.
“Jacob!” he exclaimed. “Amico!”
“Jakey’s back!” Todd yelled as he hopped up onto the back of the couch.
“Oh thank God,” Superbia gasped as if she were breathing for the first time since I had left.
All of my friends stood up to greet me excitedly, and they all wore looks of exhaustion mixed with relief.
“Did you do it?” Raphael asked in a hushed voice. “Did you actually kill Beelzebub?”
