Dan's Inferno, Book IV: Vengeance

by Jan Stryvant

  "More than likely," Lofn agreed.

  "So we go home, label him an oathbreaker, and attack him outright. He had his chance to make good with us, and his refusal to do so when he knew we were still alive should make it stick, right?"

  The girls nodded.

  "Great!" Dan smiled. "Just one question."

  "Hmmm?" Lofn asked.

  "What happens to an oathbreaker?"

  "All the oaths made to them break."

  "Really?"

  The girls nodded.

  "How does that work exactly? In this case, you think?"

  "All the oaths his people swore to him? If they just walk away, there won't be any consequences to them."

  "I wonder if they know that?"

  "I wonder if we can pick up one of his men," Olivia mused. "I mean, after all, three of us are entitled to ten percent of his stuff, right? So that's a fair chunk of his organization."

  "That would be a trick, all right," he said, pondering that. "So how long is it to the next portal?"

  "Two, maybe three days," Olivia told them. "However, in the next realm, we can buy horses."

  "So it'll be what, a week before we get to Wrath's father's house?"

  "About that."

  "I think I need to learn some travel spells." He sighed.

  "Definitely wouldn't hurt," Fawn agreed. "Because while Lofn can fly, and Olivia can run you into the ground, this little sheep is not all that fond of walking."

  "I thought you could dance for hours?" Olivia teased.

  "Dancing is not walking. Walking is boring."

  "Getting back to walking, where does this path we're following go, anyway?" Dan asked.

  "Onlasku," Olivia said. "It's a good place for us to stop and rest."

  "How does anyone keep track of the time here? I mean, there's no daytime, so how do you know when a day has passed?"

  "The moon. That's how. It rises and sets every 'night'."

  "That's just weird."

  "There are places where it just gets lighter and darker, and there's no sun or moon at all."

  "That doesn't sound like much fun."

  "Why do you think so many demons want to go to Earth?" Olivia said, chuckling. "A lot of the realms really aren't great places to live."

  "Or they're boring as hell," Fawn grumbled. "Like where we just left."

  He nodded. He could most definitely see that.

  #

  Wrath grumbled as she cleaned up the mess from breakfast. Her father hadn't even had to ask her to 'take care of things' after she'd woken up on the ground outside. She had to do something to ease her mind, or she'd go crazy.

  "Has he reached out to you again yet?" her mother asked coming into the kitchen and sitting down at the table.

  Wrath sighed. "No. But it's only been a day. I'm just happy he's done it once so I know he's okay."

  "At least he felt closer than last time, so that means he's headed this way."

  "I hope," Wrath said and sighed again. "I'm just worried. This is the first time we've been apart since we met. I have no idea if any of the others are with him, and the last time he was on his own, he didn't do so well."

  Her mother, Glas, chuckled. "But that was before he met you, now wasn't it?"

  "What does that have to do with anything?" Wrath demanded.

  "According to Nici, everything. He's been telling me how you really changed that boy's life. Made him into a real man. Not one of those whiny humans."

  Wrath scowled. "Have you ever been to Earth, Mother?"

  "No, but I'm not wrong, am I now?

  "Not really," she said with a shake of her head. "Most of the human men I've ended up involved with were pretty weak. Then again, I was preying on them, so it's not like I would have taken on someone who'd be able to resist me."

  "You'd be surprised how many felish men, or demon men of any stripe, are weak like that," Glas said with a sigh.

  "Is that why you keep coming back to Dad?" Wrath asked, putting the last dish up to dry and coming over to sit at the table.

  Glas sighed and smiled happily. "Yeah, pretty much. Eventually he'll breed me again, and sometime after your next brother or sister is born, he'll throw me out, and I'll go back home and return to my hedonistic lifestyle."

  Wrath frowned. "Why does he throw you out? How come you can't stay?"

  "Because we fight. Because he hates kids. Because I really like being a complete and utter slut at times." Glas shrugged. "Your mother likes to party and get laid a lot, Wrath. But your father," she smiled and gave a small shiver, "your father does things to me.

  "It's just that we start to wear on each other after a while. You may have noticed that your father is not long-term-relationship material. Not that I'm any better, of course," she added with a shrug.

  "Then why do you let him knock you up? I mean, I'm glad you did, or I wouldn't be here. But doesn't that kinda get in the way of your fucking around?"

  "That's the price of admission," Glas said with a shrug. "Oh, I suspect I could refuse to have his kids, and he'd probably still fuck me. But let's be honest here, there isn't another felish out there I'd ever let put a cub in me." Glas snorted. "Hell, at this point, there isn't a felish out there who's got the 'nads to even try, as your father would probably kill them."

  "I'm surprised he even lets you fuck around," Wrath admitted.

  "If he didn't let us have our heads when we're not living with him, he'd suddenly find himself with about a dozen felish women living in this house and demanding his constant attention."

  Wrath smirked, and then laughed. "Oh, I would pay to see that!"

  "Pay to see what?" Nicitel asked as he came into the kitchen.

  "You with a harem!"

  "Can you imagine a dozen or two felish like your mother not only trying to live together, but trying share the same man?" Nicitel asked, getting a drink. "I'd spend so much of my time healing wounds and enforcing the peace between them that I wouldn't get any peace at all. Much less laid. Dan has no idea how lucky he is that you all get along already."

  "Nici has a point," Glas said with a nod. "While I get on well with a few of the others, most of them I don't. Plus," she said with a smirk, "I wouldn't be able to do the things I do when we're apart."

  Wrath shook her head. "I don't know, Mom. There's something about knowing he'll kill any man who lays a hand on you. I never thought I'd say it, but there's a lot to be said for being possessed." She sighed, smiling. "But I can see Dad's point about you all fighting."

  "What I have works for me," Nicitel said, finishing his drink. "So I have no desire to change it. When do you think Aella will show up here?"

  Wrath shook her head. "I'm not sure. I know it's a long trip from where she was born to the gateway portal. I'm thinking maybe I should go to Ceriden, where we met, as that's where the gateway she'll be taking is."

  Nicitel nodded. "That's probably the wisest course. I suspect Dan will probably be coming here from Innsjo, and that gateway is a good distance from here. So once you gather up Aella, you could both go there."

  Wrath frowned and looked at him. "What makes you think he'll be coming from there?"

  "Because that's the shortest path here from Maidaanon, where your Fawn and Olivia are from. Also, it's most likely Lofn has joined them, rather than coming here first, because let's be honest, Wrath, Fawn is the one who needs the most protecting of all of you."

  "You did an augury last night, didn't you?" Wrath grumbled.

  Nicitel smiled showing his fangs. "When you've got it, you must use it. Is that not right?"

  "I think the proper term is 'flaunt it'," Glas said with a smirk.

  "I am well beyond the need to flaunt that which I do," Nicitel replied. He turned back to Wrath. "You know where I keep my money. Help yourself, but do not overdo it. Same for anything else you might need."

  "What are you going to be doing?" Wrath asked.

  "Your mom," Nicitel said with an evil grin as he grabbed Glas, pulled her out of the chair s
he was sitting in, and tossed her over his shoulder, giving her ass a swat.

  Wrath snorted and smiled as they left the room. There was a time when she would have wondered why her mother wasn't putting up more of a fight.

  But now she knew better.

  Looking at the clock, she figured she had a few hours to get to the dock and take the ship to Ceriden. That would be a lot easier than flying the trip herself. Once she got there, she might even pop through to Keskimaailma, Aella's home realm. While she might prefer flying over climbing through trees, she still had enough feline traits to find the thick forests of Aella's home attractive.

  Besides, the next time Dan reached out to them, she wanted to see if she could get some kind of indication of where everyone else was. Though from the sounds of her father's smugness, Fawn, Olivia, and Lofn were all now with Dan.

  Onlasku

  The town wasn't like anything Dan had been expecting. It was a crossroads—and not the kind where just two roads crossed, but five. All five crossed at the very center of town, at a huge traffic circle surrounding an equally large tower in the center that looked to be about six stories tall, with a beacon light set on the top of it.

  There were a lot of shops near the center of town, but because the spaces between that many roads were small, the shops got smaller the closer you got to the center. The larger buildings—inns, lodgings, homes—were all much farther out, where there was more space, and there were no buildings within a couple hundred yards of the tower, as there just wasn't enough space between the roads.

  The people he saw in town were a mixed bunch. A lot of them weren't human. Actually, he suspected none of them were human, but there were enough who looked human. He figured they were probably vampires or some other type of demon who'd decided they liked living in the perpetual twilight.

  He did see a few bovera running around. They either tended to be big and male, or slender and female. The rest of the demons were really just a mix. He saw one who looked like Vondro, whom they'd bought all that stuff from back in Sacramento, quite a few felish, as well as more regular demons like the one in that pawn shop, and even a couple of harpies. But most of them he couldn't make heads nor tails of.

  "I'm surprised there are bovera here," Dan said when he noticed yet another one.

  "Why's that?" Olivia asked.

  "Well, from the way the guys back at the gateway were talking, I thought everyone viewed them as food here?"

  "We get viewed as food in a lot of places," Fawn said with a frown. "At least here, they don't have to kill you. Well, the vampires don't. They just suck a little blood, and they're good. That's why you see all these big males walking around. I bet they're selling their blood, or if not they're bonded to somebody who taps them regularly."

  "Oh? Then what about the girls?" he asked.

  Fawn snickered as Olivia laughed.

  "Even demons don't live on blood alone, Daniel," Lofn said with a smirk. "They're either whores, girlfriends, or slaves."

  "Oh!" Dan said and decided to change the subject. "Where are we staying? And why is there a light on top of that tower, anyway?"

  "The light is so everyone knows who rules the town and the surrounding area," Olivia supplied. "If you cast a shadow, you're in their realm. It also helps folks navigate. As for where we're staying, there's an inn on the far side of town, along the road we're taking. I've stayed there before; it's nice and not expensive."

  He nodded. "Is there anywhere around here that sells any kind of paper or parchment?"

  "What do you want that for?" Fawn asked.

  "Because it's become apparent to me that I need to prepare for killing Weson," he replied.

  "How is paper going to help you with that?"

  "I need to practice writing down my curses. In fact, I may need some other supplies, too."

  "If you need to write them down, how have you been casting the ones you've already been casting?" Fawn asked, scowling.

  "Because they were simple ones. Short, simple curses don't have to be written; you can just say them. You can try to cast the harder or the more involved ones without writing them down, but there's less of a chance of them sticking or working properly. It also takes a lot more time to cast one if it's complicated, and you could make a mistake. There's really only one time you can utter a major curse and expect it to stick."

  "Oh? When's that."

  "When you're doing it with your last breath," Dan told her.

  "Oh!"

  "Also, if you've written the curse down and done the proper preparations, you don't have to read it to the person you're cursing. You can just slap it on them, and it'll take effect. In the most severe cases, like the one that was cast on my family, there are methods you can use to get around the requirement to touch them—you just need something that connects strongly to them."

  "Then how do you know you've been cursed?"

  "You don't, unless you have some sort of spell that will tell you. Remember, I didn't know I was cursed until Wrath told me."

  "Does that mean your father didn't know?" Olivia asked, then quickly added, "Your stepfather, I mean."

  Dan shrugged and shook his head. "I don't know. I'm still not even sure when he was cursed by Weson, because events ramped up so slowly. From the time Kevin died, he started changing. So he may not have ever realized it, as his paranoia had gotten pretty bad."

  "Sounds scary," Fawn said with a shiver.

  Dan nodded. "Yeah, I know. The big, ritual curses are the worse. Nicitel spent a week going over those and warning me in great detail of the dangers involved. Especially if you're casting it with the help of several other mages."

  "Why would you want to involve others?"

  "Power. You have to put all the power up when you close the curse. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Weson had help from at least one wizard working for him when he cast the one on my family."

  "Do you have a scribing wand?" Lofn asked.

  Dan nodded and patted his duster. "I put the one I got from my stepfather's things in my coat some time ago. I just wish I hadn't left his book sitting in the hotel back in Placerville."

  "Well, I think I know a store," Olivia said. "It's not far from the inn, so we can stop there on the way."

  "Cool," he said, mulling over what kinds of curses he might want to prepare. Having one that put the victim in a piece of paper, as had been done to his women, wouldn't be a bad idea. Though he didn't like making it one where you had to kill the poor slob who found it. Just being trapped in the slip of paper would be enough.

  But there were other, simpler curses he could think of, like say a curse of paralyzation. Or perhaps a curse that bound you in chains? The counters to such curses wouldn't be the same as the counters to spells that were the same, so they could definitely come in handy during any kind of combat situation.

  Sure, you had to close with your target to put the curse on them, as the paper had to physically touch them. But that meant there was almost no time at all to counter it, unlike a spell that had to be cast.

  Still, he really needed something special. Several things special. Something he could drop on Weson, or at least several of his 'staff', to keep them out of his hair. Then of course there was Godfrey Wiles. Dan knew for a fact he'd have to face Wiles down at some point. He wasn't looking forward to it—he didn't hate Wiles, or bear him any ill will, unlike Weson. But he knew, deep down, that Wiles would have to go, one way or the other, the minute he was done with Weson. Hell, his father, his real father, had even told him so.

  By the time they'd gotten to the inn they'd be staying at tonight, he had a pad of sorts. It was twenty small sheets of paper, folded in half, with a seam stitched up the center holding it together, making it into a small book. He could write his curses on those, though he'd have to cut them out before he imbued them with any power.

  When he got out his stylus, he was shocked to find it wasn't the one he'd put in his pocket weeks ago. This one was green, a little rough in texture, and
written down the side in tiny print, it said, 'from your father'.

  When had he given him that?

  Shaking his head, he sat down and opened up the pad, then started to scribe the simplest curse he knew—the curse of a fortnight's bad luck. It was one he'd read in the book, and he discovered that the inscribing wand left a thin, clean, green line. He also discovered that he'd need to write quite small if he wanted to fit the curse onto a small piece of paper.

  There was a lot more to a written curse than just what you told the person you were cursing. Assuming you decided to tell them anything, of course. There were lines and sigils and other shapes, along with the words, usually written in Skarvat, but not always. So if you wanted it to be on a small piece of paper, you had to write in fine, tiny script.

  He spent the next several hours trying to do just that, getting more and more frustrated each time he failed.

  That was another problem with writing curses—you couldn't erase anything.

  "What's wrong?" Lofn asked, coming over to him. "And before you say nothing," she said with a smirk, throwing a leg over his lap as she moved between him and the desk, "remember I can still read your emotions as well as I used to read your mind."

  Then she dropped down into his lap, smiling at him.

  "In order to get these curses onto small pieces of paper, I'm having to write so fine, so tiny, that I keep making mistakes!" he grumbled.

  Lofn laughed and leaning forward she kissed him.

  "It's not funny," he grumbled.

  "If I tell you a trick, will you put the wand down and come to bed?"

  Dan took a deep breath and sighed. "If you want me to come to bed, I'll come to bed. All you have to do is ask."

  "Yes, but I don't want my Daniel upset and pouting when we're looking to get our asses pounded into the bedding!" she said with a giggle. Leaning forward, she nibbled on his ear, getting a rise out of him immediately.

  "What am I doing wrong?" he asked, setting the wand down and putting his hands on her sides.

  "You're writing it too small, obviously."

  "That's not helpful, Lofn. I need these to be small."