by Eric Vall
Chapter 1
“Bro, I feel like a fucking Hobbit,” Todd giggled in a hush. “Three-feet tall, hanging out in a tree with my bestest friends, waiting to ambush some ugly orc-looking bitches as they go by. All that’s missing is the hairy feet.”
“You were very specific in your request, Todd,” Cupi hissed back. “You wanted no body hair whatsoever when you were changed.”
“Well yeah,” the imp retorted, “it’s hard for the babes to be slobbin’ on the ‘ol knob when they have to go through a forest to get there. Now? It’s nothing but smooth sailing from tip to shaft.”
“Please stop talking,” Eligor, the knight of hell, gagged.
“I second that,” Gula added. “Unless you would like to see that creme brulee I baked us earlier come back up.”
“Shhhhh!” I shot back to all of my friends. “We’re trying to be inconspicuous, remember?”
“Ah, come on, Jakey,” Todd mused, “who’s gonna hear us all the way out here in the middle of the swamp of souls?”
The imp had a point. The five of us were sitting in the branches of a tall, half-dead tree whose wispy vines shimmered with an ectoplasmic glow as they snaked down into the murky water below.
We were in the heart of the Fifth Circle of Hell, the domain of Baphomet.
Thankfully, Todd was using his invisibility powers to keep us hidden from the goat-headed demon’s watchful eye.
“Did we really need to bring all five of us out for this mission?” Eligor pondered aloud. “Durtu is the lowest-ranking Demon Lord serving under Beelzebub.”
“I’m not taking any chances,” I reminded the blonde bombshell. “We need to take this asshole alive, and the only way we’re going to do that is by ganging up on him and trying to subdue him without violence.”
“You may have literally picked the worst team for this endeavor, then,” Gula chuckled. “You’ve got the badass warrior, the imp that’s always going overboard, plus the deadliest hand-to-hand fighter on your squad, and the succubus whose attacks can incinerate demons in a single blow.”
“I’d say I picked the perfect squad, then,” I laughed.
“Also,” Cupi added, “thank you for the kind words, Gula. I take much pride in my hand-to-hand abilities.”
“She was talking about me,” Eligor retorted with a huff. “Anyone can be a badass warrior, but it takes true talent to master the blade like I have.”
“I have a blade, too,” Cupi mumbled. “It’s got way more range on it than yours, if we’re being honest.”
“Uh-oh,” Todd whispered into my ear. “We got a blondie fight on our hands.”
“They’ll be fine,” I reassured the imp. “It’s just playful banter.”
“Speaking of banter and things that haven’t been addressed … ” Gula spoke up. “I hear you two and Libidine were confronted by Lucifer himself?”
“Totally, Firecracker,” Todd responded. “You’ll never guess who he was this whole time, either.”
“Was he posing as one of the Shades in Jacob’s army?” the red-headed succubus guessed. “Or was he a lower-level demon pretending to be working for Beelzebub?”
“Nope,” the imp said in an over dramatic tone. “Think hairier. Likes to write erotic historical fiction. Ancient philosopher.”
“Plato?” Gula gasped.
“I really don’t want to talk about it,” I shot back. “He’s a silver-tongued liar, so it’s not like I could trust anything he said, anyways.”
“Oh!” Cupi exclaimed as she entered the conversation. “Are you talking about Lucifer?”
“Sure am, my bodacious blonde,” Todd confirmed. “I was just about to tell Firecracker here about how I kicked his ass, stole his fiddle made of gold, and then banished him back to the depths from whence he came.”
“That’s not what happened,” I sighed as I scanned the horizon for our target. “He tried to pull one of those sly ‘I am your father’ speeches and talked about how I was ‘destined for greater things’ than being a Succubus Lord. It really wasn’t a big deal.”
“Wasn’t a big deal?” my imp friend argued. “Jakey, you just found out you’re the fucking son of Satan!”
“Lucifer!” Eligor, Cupi, and Gula all shot back at once.
“Er, fine,” Todd chuckled. “You’re the son of Lucifer. That’s like, a huge fucking deal, bro.”
“It actually explains a lot,” Eligor added. “Now, it makes more sense how you can summon both Divine and Demonic magic, and how you’ve been able to master multiple Hellfire abilities.”
“I haven’t mastered them all,” I grumbled. “I still have no idea how to use my fear magic properly.”
“That’s because my best bro Jakey doesn’t get scared!” Todd exclaimed as he slapped me jokingly on the back. “But seriously, we haven’t even talked about that shit for like, the last eight seasons of our TV show.”
“Nephilim also seem to take on their father’s characteristics,” Cupi added. “Which would explain your natural charisma, ridiculously handsome features, and your massive--”
“Imma stop you there,” the imp interjected. “The less I know about Jakey’s lizard ‘n two grapes, the better.”
“I swear you’re making up these names,” Gula mused. “I’ve never heard that term used once in my hundreds of thousands of years.”
“Of course I’m making ‘em up,” Todd admitted. “There are only so many times I can throw around ‘purple-headed yogurt squirter’ before it becomes stale.”
As my friends bantered behind me, I saw a boat appear just over the horizon.
“Guys!” I hissed. “I think we found our man.”
Everyone went silent as we watched the small dinghy grow closer and closer to our position.
“So, how’s this going to work?” Cupi whispered. “Do we just sit here and wait for him to float underneath of us? I don’t think there are very good chances of that happening.”
“It’s like you didn’t even read the plans I wrote out,” Todd said with a click of his tongue.
“You mean the crayon drawing with a bunch of stick figures piled on top of a stick figure with horns?” the blonde scoffed.
“That’s the one!” the imp confirmed. “I know it’s no Picasso, but I’d put it at least on the level of Beethoven.”
“Beethoven was a pianist,” I sighed.
“No need to be fucking vulgar, bro,” Todd snickered back. “We all know he went blind from jerkin’ his skin flute too much.”
“That’s not…” I hesitated. “Dude, he was deaf. Bach was the guy who went—”
“How’d he play piano if he was dead?” Todd asked.
“Deaf,” I clarified.
“Ohhhhh,” Todd signed. “So, who was the guy who went blind from the old “solo-lightsaber battling?”
“Can we just go over the plan again?” Cupi asked as she tossed back her short blonde hair.” It’s obvious that someone forgot.”
“The plan is to use our powers to blow Durtu off course and right into our grasp,” I explained to the group. “Then we grab him, capture him in a prison of purple Hellfire, and take him out into one of those caves so we can beat some info out of him.”
“Ohhhh, boy,” Todd giggled with glee. “We’re gonna totally Casino Royale him, aren’t we? Cut a hole in the bottom of the chair and bash up his sack until he talks?”
“I was thinking we’d let Ira have him,” I corrected. “She’ll probably do all that plus a shit ton of other things our innocent brains couldn’t even dream of. Now, Eligor, if you will … ”
The blonde knight nodded, summoned light green Hellfire into her hands, and concentrated.
Off in the distance, just next to Durtu’s dinghy, we watched the swampy water of the Fifth Circle begi
n to bubble like an overboiling saucepan. The demon made an exaggerated gesture of surprise, and then he summoned purple Hellfire into his hands and ordered the boat to swerve off course.
Right toward us.
“Friggin Shades,” the demon’s voice boomed across the landscape. “Baphomet just put you back in your place, and now you’re already startin’ to cause trouble again?”
As he grew closer, I was able to get a better look at the tiny fucker’s figure. The demon was only about five feet tall, with skin almost as dark as the murky waters underneath his boat. He had two curved, ram-style horns sticking out the sides of his skull and a short, pudgy, flat nose just above his thin, sneering lips. Durtu’s eyes were comically small in comparison to the rest of his features, but they distinguished themselves with their black, ectoplasmic glow.
“Ah, shit,” I whispered as the demon pulled within fifty feet of our position. “Nobody told me he had ectoplasm magic.”
“That can’t be right,” Cupi mused. “He’s supposed to be Beelzebub’s lowest-level Demon Lord.”
“Low level or not,” Gula whispered, “he’s almost under us. It’s now or never, guys.”
The redhead was right. Durtu was only about ten feet away right now, and we needed to act while we still had the element of surprise on our side.
I looked over at Eligor and nodded.
“Let’s raise some hell, guys,” I whispered.
The blonde knight’s hand lit up with light green Hellfire as she reached out and blasted it down into the water.
“What in the nine Hells--” the demon began, but his words were cut off swiftly.
A massive waterspout arose from beneath Durtu’s dingy and launched him high into the air.
As his small frame tumbled and twirled inside of the spinning liquid, Cupi blasted the waterspout with her blue flames. The spout froze in place instantly and formed a crystal prison around Durtu, halting his momentum and holding him tightly in its icy embrace. The demon’s eyes were now about level with my own, and he gave me a look of pure hatred through the translucent trap.
I summoned purple Hellfire into my hands and quickly blasted it into the frozen waterspout, just above and below Durtu’s body. My spell formed into a cube around the demon, and then I ordered it to pull out the entrapped bastard.
As the icy pillar creaked and cracked from the movement of my Hellfire, I saw the ectoplasm in Durtu’s eyes seep out and start to surround his body.
“Ah, shit,” I groaned.
This wasn’t going to be as easy as we had thought.
The ectoplasm engulfed Durtu’s body, and then the ice around him exploded like it was attached to a grenade.
I threw up a wall of purple flames to defend myself from the razor-sharp shards, and they shattered against my barrier.
However, the damage was done. Durtu was free.
“Is that Jacob fucking Ralston?” the demon cackled as he floated in the air, held aloft by his ectoplasmic magic. “I was wonderin’ when I’d get to finally meet the great King of the Fourth Circle.”
Todd continued to hold his invisibility spell, but at this point it was no use. Durtu had to have seen where the spells came from, and he was staring right at the tree we were stationed in.
“May as well release the charade, Todd,” I sighed and summoned red Hellfire into my hands. “That’s right, Durtu. I’m here. The two of us need to have a little chat.”
I launched a fireball at the demon, but he simply zipped down and out of the way.
As the short demon descended, he unleashed a spell of ectoplasmic magic toward the tree.
All five of us retaliated with a blast of our red Hellfire, but even our combined strength wasn’t enough. Our spells struck the ectoplasm and promptly evaporated with a sharp hiss.
“Hit the deck!” Todd exclaimed as he took to the sky with his black Hellfire.
Cupi, Eligor, and Gula went airborne as well, and I took a running jump off the tree branch.
I quickly threw down a platform of purple Hellfire, tumbled across it, and then sprang to my feet.
The gangly tree behind us made a horrific hissing sound that was accompanied by the echo of cracking wood and splashes of water. I nearly gasped when I turned around and saw the entire thing was now shriveled up and decaying before my very eyes.
Somehow, Durtu’s ectoplasm had caused the tree to wither away and die.
“Holy shit, bro!” Todd exclaimed as he swooped down beside me. “He just gave that tree limp dick!”
The floating Durtu cackled as he unleashed another blast of ectoplasm into the sky, but the succubi above him were quick enough to evade the attack.
Gula retaliated with a red fireball the size of a small SUV and nearly three times the size of the demon fucker.
Durtu tried to dodge to the left, but the succubus’ attack was too wide to avoid. He let out a yelp of pain as the fireball struck him in the side and sent the asshole spiraling down into the water, where he disappeared beneath the waves with a dull splash.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Eligor bellowed as she summoned her elemental magic into her hands.
The scantily-clad armored knight released her spell into the swamp below, engulfed nearly an acre in its glow, and then moved her hands upward. As she did so, the surface of the water erupted into a geyser, and Durtu’s hiding spot was revealed.
“You crafty, traitorous bitch,” he sneered as he flew past Eligor’s right side. “Do you really think Beelzebub hasn’t informed Lucifer of Lilith’s treachery?”
“I honestly don’t think he cares,” the knight growled as she spun around on her black angel wings, whipped out one of her swords, and swung at Durtu.
The demon swiftly evaded the blow, and then followed up with a blast of ectoplasm.
I threw up a shield of purple directly in front of the attack. It wasn’t enough to halt the spell, but it did stall Durtu’s ectoplasm just long enough for Eligor to get out of the way.
The second she was clear of blast, I hurled another fireball at the fucker.
Durtu was quick to dodge, but that was exactly what I wanted him to do. Just as he zipped past my incendiary attack, Cupi swooped down and struck him in the face with the blunt end of her polearm. The demon’s head cracked backward and caused his body to backflip uncontrollably in the air.
“Fore!” Gula exclaimed as she flew by and struck the demon with the wide side of her battle axe.
Durtu’s body was flung into the air like a fly ball, but I was quick to halt its momentum with a wall of purple flames. The little fucker smacked into the barrier face-first, like a cartoon character, and then fell backwards as gravity took over.
As he fell, a blast of blue Hellfire crashed into his body and froze it in place.
“Alright,” I grumbled, “let’s try this again.”
Before I could summon up the purple Hellfire prison, Durtu had reclaimed consciousness and returned to the sky on the jet trails of his ectoplasm.
Gula, Cupi, and Eligor instantly engaged their target as I stood there planning my next move.
“Alright, bro,” Todd sighed as he reached down his outer right thigh. “I really, really didn’t want to waste this now, but an imp’s gotta do what an imp’s gotta do.”
The floating red imp produced a small, white tube and held it up proudly for all to see.
“Is that … weed?” I gasped. “You haven’t had any of that shit in--”
“I know, Jakey,” Todd sighed. “This stuff’s in short supply in Hell. This is the very last joint I have, and I’ve been saving it for months. But now, desperate times call for desperate measures.”
“Todd, you don’t have to--”
The imp cut me off with a wave of his hand. Then he summoned red Hellfire into his hand, held it in front of the joint’s tip, and lit it up. He placed the doobie to his lips and inhaled deeply as the edges of the cigarette paper turned to ash. Todd had the entire thing gone in two short inhalations, and then he flicked the remnan
ts into the swampy water below. Todd shook his head like a madman, slapped himself in the face, and then began to whistle the theme song to Popeye. His eyes were now bloodshot and squinty, and he reeked of the sweet leaf.
“Ehhh, thatsa more like it,” he mumbled in a sailor’s accent. “Now I’mma gonna put Durtu in a world of hurto, ack-ack-ack-ack-ack!”
Without another word, the imp outstretched his hand like superman and shot over to where his opponent was standing. The imp caught Durtu by surprise as he wrapped his hand around his ankle, spun around like a top, and launched the bastard into the stratosphere. Before Durtu could reorient himself, Todd zipped up into the sky and slugged him in the gut. Then, while the demon was hunched over in pain, the imp grabbed Durtu, flipped him over so his head was facing downward and clapped his knees against the side of Durtu’s noggin.
“Give me a mat, Jakey!” Todd exclaimed.
I threw down a platform of purple about ten feet below the fighting demons so Todd could have his makeshift wrestling ring.
The imp’s body plummeted straight down until the top of Durtu’s head slammed into the rock-hard platform. Then Todd released his grasp, and the demon’s body fell over.
“Tombstone, bitch!” the imp cackled in a drugged-out stupor. “That’s right, the Undertaker just put you six feet under!”
“Ohmygosh!” Gula gasped. “Did Todd just single-handedly take out a Demon Lord?”
“You’d better believe it, Firecracker,” the stoned imp mused. “Never underestimate the power of the all-mighty doobie. Now, if you’ll excuse me, the Toddster’s got the munchies.”
Todd fumbled around against his outer thigh, licked his lips, and then came up with a bag of chips.
“I’m not even gonna ask where you were hiding that,” I chuckled as I formed a purple cube of Hellfire around Durtu’s body. “Or how old those chips are.”
“I can promise you one thing, bro,” the imp retorted, “I think both answers would surprise you.”
“Alright,” I announced to the rest of my friends, “there was a system of caves on the shore, about three miles north of here. Let’s get him there before he wakes up, and then the real fun can begin.”
“How are we going to keep him contained once he wakes up?” Eligor asked curiously. “Won’t he just use his ectoplasm to break out again?”
