Holidays are Hell Devil May Care

by Sam Cheever

  Now he had to allow her death so he could finish his assignment and sign her into Hell.

  Don sat staring at her for another hour, reluctant to do what needed to be done. And then, finally, feeling as if his heart were being ripped out of his chest, he stood and placed the foil-wrapped chocolate on the table next to her where she’d see it as soon as she woke up. A few minutes later he forced himself to leave the chocolate and walk away.

  Sometimes it just sucked to be the angel of death.

  Chapter Four

  Valentine’s dreams were hotter than she’d ever experienced. In her dream world, soft, insistent lips skimmed over her body, sliding a sensual trail down her throat to enclose her rigid nipples in moist heat. The gentle pull of a heated mouth soothed the tight buds of her nipples and slipped downward to skim across her quivering belly.

  Valentine twined her fingers in silky hair as soft lips traveled across the tender flesh of her inner thigh. The lips opened, marking her thigh with a love bite that raised the heat in her sexual core several degrees. Her fingers tightened in the glossy strands, urging the phantom lips to find the place that throbbed and wept with urgent need. She pulled in a breath, anticipation riding her hard as the feathery touch of lips was followed by the glide of a heated tongue along the sensitive skin where her thigh met her mons, teasing her with exquisite promise.

  She moaned, her head tossing on the pillow as her body turned to flame. A questing touch slipped upward, along her sides, and enclosed her breasts. Pleasure speared as moist heat finally covered the throbbing core of her need.

  Valentine arched her back, pressing her pussy into the encompassing heat. She cried out as gentle suction pulled spirals of bliss through her body. Release called to her, caressing her taut muscles with insistent fingers. She dropped her legs over broad shoulders and held her dream lover to her pussy, feeling relief sliding inexorably forward.

  She was so close.

  Almost there…

  A deep rumble invaded her dream, vibrating through her body. Her hungry mind wove the throaty growl into her ecstasy, turning it into the first vestiges of her orgasm. But it continued to grow until the surface beneath her shook.

  Her dream lover started to slide away, the delicious heat of his touch leaving her behind. Valentine cried out, her fingers grasping for the lover who was no longer there. She bolted upright, fully awake, as something hit the floor with a thump.

  She blinked rapidly as she took in her surroundings, her heart pounding against her ribs. It took her a moment to figure out where she was. The enormous room was softly lit and quiet. There was no sign of the disturbance that had torn her from her delightful dream.

  Her body vibrating with unfulfilled need and the beginnings of fear, Valentine shoved the blanket down and placed her feet on the floor. She stepped on something small and hard and looked down. A foil-wrapped chocolate was on the floor next to a hardcover book. The book was probably what she’d heard hitting the ground.

  Valentine snagged the chocolate and picked up the book, looking at the cover. It had a strange texture, almost like leather but much thinner, and was brown and crackled with age. The title was The Guide’s Guide to Transporting Souls. Curious, she laid the book on the table and opened it to the first chapter. She unwrapped the chocolate and popped it into her mouth as she read the opening paragraph, letting the creamy treat melt across her tongue.

  When transporting a soul to the Hell environs, the most important thing to understand is that, whatever the reason they’re being transported to Perdition, the soul will think it’s been wronged. Your job as a perdition guide is simply to discover the details of the person’s life and report the particulars to the assembly.

  No personal connection is to be made with your supplicant.

  None. Ever. At any time. Violation of this key rule is punishable by a month in the fiery pits.

  Valentine gulped. “Harsh. Must be the alien version of Dante’s Divine Comedy.” She closed the book and looked around, wondering where Don had gotten to. The bed across the room looked like it hadn’t been slept in, and the rest of the space was empty. She stood up, stretching, and looked around for a bathroom. A small door on the wall next to the bed looked promising. She headed that way.

  As she approached the partially open door, she heard water running. Damn! It sounded like Don was in the shower. She really needed to pee. Maybe he was just running water in the sink or something. She crept closer to the door and stopped, peering carefully through the crack.

  What she saw caused her to give a little squeak.

  Don stood in a large, open shower, enclosed by three walls lined in black tiles that shone in the spray from an oversized showerhead in the ceiling. He stood with his back to her and his head down, letting a steaming wash of water play over his dark gold hair. The water caressed his wide shoulders and slid down his long back, creating a glistening sheen on a truly fine pair of hard, round buttocks and painting his dense thighs and sharply cut calves with a transparent gleam. He was buck-naked perfection in the male form.

  Pain speared Valentine’s chest, and she realized she’d forgotten to breathe. She sucked air and swallowed hard. Her pussy clenched with hungry desperation. Her pulse kicked in her veins. First the dream and now a full-scale visual attack, aggressive enough to bring a weaker woman to her knees. In fact, as Don turned around to grab a bar of soap, the idea of falling to her knees gained ground. Especially if she could get eye level with the massive cock waving happily before him.

  She moaned at the sight and reached down to touch herself as a wave of sheer lust made her stomach knot with violent need. As incredible as he’d looked from the back, he was even more glorious from the front. His broad chest was softly furred with golden curls that trailed from the perfect V between his pecs down the flawless geography of superstar abs and lower, to the place where a thick nest of gold curls embraced a truly stupendous cock.

  She pressed shaky fingers against her clit as he reached down with the bar of soap and started slathering the lovely column of half-hard flesh, beginning with the thick, purple head and working his way down to the pendulous sac below it. His head dropped back as he worked himself over with both hands and water caressed his broad forehead in loving strands, falling in glistening streams to the shower floor.

  Valentine leaned against the doorframe and rubbed harder. Pleasure spiraled upward from her mons, narrowing her gaze.

  The floor rumbled beneath her feet, and Valentine’s eyes widened. The rumble grew until the doorframe she leaned against swayed slightly, throwing her off balance.

  Don dropped the bar of soap and looked up with surprise as she fell through the door. “Val, you’re still alive.”

  She frowned. “Of course! Why wouldn’t I be?”

  The rumble increased, and Valentine stumbled forward as the floor moved in waves under her feet.

  Don swore, grabbing her shoulders. “Did you eat that chocolate I left you?”

  Valentine shook her head. “What are you, some kind of food police?”

  He shook her, his handsome face darkening with anger. “Did you eat the chocolate? Tell me!”

  “Yes! Oh, my God. Yes, I ate the chocolate. It was delicious. If I tell you I had a glass of water too are you gonna smack me around?”

  Don grabbed her hand. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”

  Light burst in the outer room. Valentine started to turn as Don pulled her behind him. The door exploded in a burst of white light, flinging debris through the room. Cowering behind Don, Valentine shrieked, tucking her head.

  “Give me the girl, demon!”

  Valentine flinched as the familiar voice boomed through the room. Don stepped backward, pressing his warm, slippery butt against her belly. Valentine burrowed in, telling herself she needed that closeness for security. When her hands moved to his hips and dragged him closer, she told herself she was just making sure he didn’t get away while she still needed him for protection.

  U
h-huh.

  “Get the hell out of my place, eunuch!”

  The angel roared and white light exploded around them, slamming Valentine and Don into the far wall. Don caught himself with his hands to avoid crushing her and pushed off with a scream of rage, charging the man in white.

  Valentine got a quick impression of massive wings and sizzling white light before Don smashed into the other creature and they disappeared through the door. Her knees buckled, and she sat down hard on the closed toilet, shaking so hard her teeth clacked together. In the next room, furniture flew and the sound of things breaking and smashing caused her to curl into a ball and cover her head with her arms.

  But then she felt cowardly. Don was trying to protect her, and there she was hiding out like a sniveling coward. Through sheer force of will, Valentine straightened and stood, looking around for something she could use as a weapon.

  Frowning, she realized she probably couldn’t beat the thing in the next room into unconsciousness with a hairbrush or flick him into submission with a wet towel.

  She went to the door and looked out just as Don sent the other creature flying across the room with a roar. The alien with wings hit the table in front of the couch, and things went flying. The heavy book Valentine had been reading earlier flew up into the air and hit the floor several yards away, skidding across the floor in her direction.

  That, she realized, was heavy enough to do something. She hurried over and grabbed the book and, before she lost her nerve, ran toward the winged alien with it.

  Don took a step in her direction. “No, Val!”

  She ignored him, intent on her attack. But the alien pushed himself upright and flapped his wings, lifting into the air. She started to raise the book but didn’t quite make it. The alien flew right at her, squeezing the wind from her lungs as he enclosed her in an iron grip.

  She struggled to breathe, her nerveless fingers opening to drop the heavy tome as the alien flapped its wings and lifted them off the floor. Valentine suddenly found herself in a horizontal position, flying backward in the direction of the door.

  Don bellowed. Flame roared somewhere behind her. Heat beat against her skin as she worked to drag air into her tortured lungs. The alien faltered, slowed, and reared up, beating his wings on the superheated air.

  Valentine slipped from his grip, hitting the ground hard enough to bruise her tailbone. She quickly scooted away before the alien jerk could grab her again. The winged creature retreated across the room, his angry gaze focused on the room’s only exit.

  “Leave us!”

  Valentine blinked. The voice sounded like Don’s but it was deeper, more gravelly. She turned to look at him and screamed. Where Don had been standing before, there was only a man-shaped column of fire.

  The winged alien skimmed a look at Valentine, and she scooted farther away. Then he smiled. “I’ll catch you on the other side, bitch.” He raised his arms, white light bursting away from him, and flew toward Don.

  Valentine had to close her eyes against the light, and when she opened them again, both Don and the winged alien were gone.

  Chapter Five

  Clasping him tightly, the angel screamed as Don flamed higher, searing the other creature’s pale, soft skin and turning his pristine suit to charcoal. But still he held on, his massive wings pounding the air on either side of Don’s head.

  They rolled across the stark, weed-strewn ground beyond Don’s home, crashing against the rotting carcasses of abandoned cars and breaking off sizeable trees with the violence of their impact.

  The angel wrapped its formidable wings around Don and crushed him, smothering his flame even as the stench of burning feathers filled the smoky air. Don realized he couldn’t best the creature with fire alone, so he went to plan B. With a roar, he pushed off the tree at his back and sent the angel sprawling backward, toward the rectangle of shimmering air a few feet away.

  Sensing the danger waiting behind him, the angel caught himself on the threshold of the portal, his damaged wings throbbing as the portal tried to suck him in. Don allowed his flame to slide away and stood for a beat, a mean little smile on his face. “Thanks for joining the tour to the center of Hell. If you’ll just step to the back of the bus, we’ll begin our tour.”

  Don leapt forward and hit the angel in the center of the chest, driving them both through the portal and out the other side. The celestial creature started screaming as soon as he hit the sulfur-rich air of the fiery pit environs. He writhed and spun and continued to shriek as the flesh slowly melted away from his skin, sending him to his knees on the rocky, scorched ground. Don leaned against the portal’s frame, watching his nemesis melt away to a skeletal lump. The last thing to be engulfed was the creature’s wings, but once they flared, it didn’t take long for them to turn into piles of dust on either side of the angel’s disintegrating form.

  The moment before the creature’s life was permanently extinguished, Don walked over, picked up the still-writhing mass that had been the angel, and chucked it into the portal, returning him to the earthly realm. Given time, the angel would heal and return to his former, obnoxious perfection. But it would take a few hours.

  Don needed the time to find out why Valentine hadn’t choked on the chocolate he’d given her. And there was only one place he could go to find that out. So, realizing he’d have to try and kill Valentine again, Don walked into the portal with a heavy heart and stepped out of it inside the assembly vault.

  Worm was at his podium just outside the door to the vault. He looked up as Don approached, smoke curling in front of his face from the ever-present cigarette. “Did you forget something, PD?”

  Don glared at the annoying clerk. “What?”

  “Your supplicant?”

  Don grumbled. “She’s not dead yet.”

  The little man’s beady brown eyes widened behind his glasses. “Ne le dis pas! C’est l’hérésie.”

  “What are you smokin’ in that cigarette, Worm?”

  The little man gave him a smug look. “That was French, philistine. I’m taking one of those language classes on CD. Unlike you walking muscle mountains, I like to improve myself.”

  Shaking his head, Don moved past. “When you’re a worm, thinking in complete sentences is an improvement. Are they in?”

  Worm tried to get in front of him. “You can’t go in there -- the chief’s in a very important meeting.”

  Shoving the clerk aside, Don opened one of the onyx doors and stepped through, slamming it behind him and waving a hand over the doorknobs to lock Worm out. Immediately the handles started to vibrate, and frustrated pounding soon followed.

  Grinning, Don turned from the door to face the assembly platform. His grin died faster than a mouse doing the backstroke in a cat’s bowl.

  A long, sexy succubus was leaning over the platform, her wide, violet eyes narrowed with ecstasy. The succubus’s glossy, golden curls hung on either side of her heart-shaped face, vibrating with her movement against the podium. Her hands clutched the edges of the table beneath her breasts, the knuckles white. Behind her the chief judge grunted and thrust, his enormous, forked tail snapping with pleasure as he plundered the sweet valley between the beautiful demon’s pert cheeks. The judge’s pitchfork stood rigid beside him, like a parody of the shaft currently burrowing into the willing succubus.

  Don grimaced and started to turn away.

  “Hold, PD!” The chief’s voice boomed through the room, stopping Don in mid-turn. He stayed, as instructed, but kept his gaze averted with disgust. He did everything but cover his ears in an attempt to ignore the wet slapping sounds across the room. But there was no way to overlook the moment the activities on the platform came to a head… so to speak. First, the succubus cried out, her own pleasure clear in the throaty groan that followed her cry. And then there was a small explosion, followed by a sound like a flamethrower that made Don turn reluctantly back.

  The chief judge was still behind the succubus, his black eyes closed and a look of sta
rk ecstasy on his wide, red face. Beside him, the tines of his pitchfork shot fire skyward in violent, smoky spurts. Don grimaced. He’d known the chief was deeply connected to his pitchfork, but that was just disgusting. Don would never look at that pitchfork the same way again.

  Finally, the chief stepped back and slapped the succubus on a firm, delicious buttock. She straightened away from the table, winked at Don, and turned to accept a long, quivering red tongue across the lips from the chief. “Thank you, Ambrosia. Same time tomorrow?”

  She ran a hand down the chief’s leathery chest, briefly clasping his drooping, arrow-shaped penis and giving it a gentle tug. “I look forward to it, Theris.”

  Don snorted and then coughed into his hand as the chief turned eyes like shiny lumps of onyx in his direction. Theris… He’d get mileage out of that one with the other perdition guides.

  “What is it, PD Abbadon?”

  Clearing his throat, Don moved toward the front of the room, stopping several yards away from the platform where the chief now sat, dead center, in a throne-like chair. Don took care not to stand in the pentagram-shaped spot before the chief, just in case the nasty creature decided he didn’t want the other PDs to know his girly name. “Sir, I have a problem.”

  The chief leaned forward and examined the tablet before him. “I assume this has something to do with your current supplicant… erm… Valentine Smith?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t tell me you allowed the angel to snatch her.”

  “No. But it’s been dicey. This one is particularly foul and determined. He seems to have something to prove.”

  The chief sighed. “Yes. Abraxos. He’s newly promoted to angel and is bucking hard for archangel. With the current quota system, he figures he’s got a shot if he pulls a few souls away from us.” The chief cocked his head. “There’s no chance the girl belongs to them?”