He wasn’t always able to dodge those. As the duel wore on, Alex had cuts on his arms, his legs and another on his cheek. And all the while, he wasn’t any closer to defeating either of the two demons.
Tired and angry, Alex suddenly lunged at Judas with his sword, trying to impale the bastard. He missed and left himself exposed. His sword came up quick to block the black swords, but he could do little to stop Judas kicking him in the chest. It felt like being struck by metal boots with the force of a fucking hell horse. Alex was thrown back onto the ground. He barely had time to breath and feel the inevitable pain in his chest when Nekrosis’s blade came at him, aiming for his already hurting chest.
Alex brought his sword up to deflect it. The silver blade struck his fiery red sword, but it deflected up and cut his hand. Alex cursed as the sword fell from his grip. Alex knew both the demons would press the advantage. He scrambled to his feet, grabbed the sword and dashed backwards.
Nekrosis’s blade came at him three times in quick succession. But Alex managed to deflect those. He’d expected Judas to come at him too in a coordinated attack, but the demon remained in his place, his swords by his side.
Breathing heavily, Alex muttered a curse. Judas had no need to press the advantage. Because they’d already been doing that the whole time. Judas and Nekrosis were winning. His body had many cuts to prove it too.
Alex needed a new plan. And he actually had one too. Problem was, it was one of those plans that looked really cool in his head but had a high chance of going horribly wrong. If it didn’t work, he would be dead within a few seconds.
His death in hell. That was something to wonder about. What would happen if he actually did die in hell? What would happen to his soul? Would it go further down to the realm beyond hell? A realm beyond hell… Was there such a place? If so, what would that place even look like?
Deciding this was not the time to think about such things, Alex threw his plan into action. He charged at Judas. As he got close, he threw his long sword, aiming for Nekrosis. As his sword passed Judas, the demon’s eyes followed it in confusion, before they turned back to Alex. By that time, Alex had come close enough. He skidded onto the ground and his feet crashed into Judas. As the demon came down on top of him, Alex pulled both swords from Judas’s grip and drove them deep inside the demon.
Part one of his plan had worked. If part two didn’t work, right this very second, a curved blade at the end of a chain was going to bury itself in his chest.
The moments passed, and no blade came to strike his chest.
Alex pushed Judas aside and climbed to his feet. Nekrosis stood twenty feet away from him, her eyes wide, her mouth open, there was blood on the corners of her lips and his longsword buried in her chest.
“Fuck yeah,” Alex said, thumping his fist into the air.
His aim had been true. Nekrosis was good at throwing her chain. What she wasn’t so good at was dodging things thrown back at her. He doubted many of her opponents ever threw their swords at her. He doubted many had the strength or accuracy to accomplish such a feat.
As Alex walked towards Nekrosis, the demon dropped to her knees. Grabbing the sword by the protruding handle, Alex pulled it out.
Nekrosis’s body hit the ground.
Blood poured out from her chest and turned the red rock a shade dark enough to match the night sky.
In front of him, thousands of metal swords, spears, axes and many more assortments of weapons hit the ground with a noisy clatter. The demon army had surrendered.
Chapter 29
Alex lay in a tub of hot water. He’d been reluctant to do it initially. Nekrosis got him with her blade much more than he’d realised at the time. His body was littered with cuts, some tiny, some not so much. His cuts were treated with a green paste. It stung a lot, like nettles being brushed against open wounds.
But after a while, the stinging faded. Apparently that meant it had done its job. The demon brushed away his green paste and surprisingly, the cuts had healed. He could still see the little lines of the cuts, but they were no longer open wounds. Which was good, considering how deep some had cut.
Alex had still been reluctant to get into a tub of hot water with so many cuts on his body, but Corcin insisted, and Jamana asked with excitement in her eyes if she could join him. It was difficult to say no to Jamana. Unlike One and Two, who rarely showed emotions, Jamana was full of them.
As she stripped naked and joined him in the tub, Alex felt a wave of protectiveness wash over him. Jamana had had a pretty horrible life. A little kindness from him, and it barely was any kindness, and the girl was excited like a kid in a candy shop. Alex knew his list of helping people before he left was growing by the day, but he decided he was going to have a chat with Keira about Jamana before he left hell.
With both Judas and Nekrosis dead, Alex wasn’t sure what their next move was. After a pretty short conversation with the five demons, Corcin decided they stay in Riverie, at least until word came from Keira about what happened in the battle of the Valley of the Two-Headed Kromos. The battle was done and dusted by now. Keira should win without doubt, but even if she somehow lost, they could do little by going there.
Corcin told him to relax and enjoy himself. He’d earned it. Alex doubted he could enjoy himself in hell. It turned out he was wrong. Being in the hot tub with a naked Jamana was pretty fun and relaxing.
Alex did have one thing on his mind, but he didn’t know where to begin. He supposed Jamana would be a good place to start.
“Hey, do you know where the humans’ souls come when they land in hell? Is there a portal? Do they just fall out of the sky?”
“The souls come to the City of Souls,” Jamana said.
Right, Alex thought. He wondered if that was its name because the souls came there, or if they created a place for souls to go, then named it the City of Souls. Sort of like if the chicken or the egg came first.
“Where is it?”
Jamana, who had been resting her head against the edge of the tub, her body pressed against his in the water, turned to look at Alex. “The City of Souls?” she asked, worry in her eyes. “It’s about a week’s journey by horse from here… did you want to go?”
A week was a long time to spend going somewhere that might not have something he was looking for.
“What happens when the souls arrive in the City of Souls,” Alex asked.
“They’re processed,” Jamana replied. “Some are taken to the mines, others are taken to work the land, others to help around towns. Some are auctioned off. The pretty ones like One and Two are purchased by the noble demons, or by the owners of large inns. We think the souls take the form of their best years, their happiest years. Some of the souls come down really old and weak. Their bodies are used to make weapons.”
“What?” Alex asked.
Jamana told him the horrible truth about the black blades that were so prevalent in hell. The metal was supposedly indestructible. Alex could attest to that. He’d clashed with those blades, his own longsword at full blazing glory, and the black blades had held their own.
The metal was mined from hell, Jamana said. It was shaped in the lakes of lava, and after that, the final touch was the bodies of humans. They were placed in a grinder and squeezed, their bones crushed, it released a purple liquid. That liquid solidified the metal, making the best swords, spears, axes, armour and all sorts of other weaponry.
Jamana tried to reassure him that it didn’t happen often. But that was of little comfort to Alex. It sounded horrible. There was a lot wrong with hell but squeezing human bodies to create weapons seemed like one of the worst things about.
Fuck, Alex wondered what the hell he was doing in this damned placed to begin with. He knew why of course. The bigger picture. He was here to worry about the living back on earth. He was here to stop the rebellion and save Satani’s ass so she could keep the peace with the angels and prevent a war.
Sure, his priorities were supposed to be the humans on earth, th
e living. But those down here, the souls that solidify and become humans once more, they didn’t seem any less alive. They lived in misery and hardship. And for what? A guilty conscience? Satan the bastard said it himself. A guilty conscience wasn’t a sign of guilt. So many bastards back on earth, back in his realm, committed horrendous crimes and died with a clear conscience.
Alex almost made it to hell when Satan killed him. He had a guilty conscience because he had hated his dad. He realised too late that it wasn’t his dad’s fault for being shit at parenting. It was Satani’s. And now he was here in hell because of that damned bitch.
With a deep sigh, Alex decided to put those thoughts out of his mind for now. It wasn’t worth souring his mood when he would still have to help the devil bitch.
He would also have to put thoughts of meeting his dad out of his mind. The little hope he had was fading away. His dad could be anywhere by now. He could be in a mine, or working on a fucking farm. It was a shock to him that hell had farms, but there was food. It had to come from somewhere. His dad could have been auctioned off. Alex didn’t want to think about the last option, that his dad came to hell old, weak, feeble, that his body had been crushed to create indestructible weapons.
Alex climbed out of the hot tub. He was going to explore Riverie. It was a town in hell, after all. Surely something exiting or fucking evil but somewhat interesting was going on. Standing by the edge of the tub, he held his hand out for Jamana. She took it and as she stepped out, Alex ogled her gorgeous naked body.
Chapter 30
Alex was right. It was a town in hell, and there was evil afoot. Alex stepped out with Jamana by his side. One and Two had decided to stay in the inn. They didn’t like the outside much, especially when there were demons about. What with it being hell, that was pretty much every place about.
Being as sexy as they were, they attracted a lot of attention. In the past, walking through towns dressed as they were had led to a lot of unwanted attention and even violent touching. The clothes they wore provided little to no protection.
The girls told him of when they first arrived in the demon city of Katarnak. The owners of the inn paraded them on the streets to drum up interest. It worked too well. Crowds of demons had gathered to see them. Some wanted to do more than just see.
The demon guards stood back as the crowds of insatiable demons tore off the white strips of satin from their bodies. Their breasts were squeezed, ass cheeks pulled, and some even dug their fingers in both openings. The owners of the inn watched in amusement, sometimes even encouraging the crowds.
Alex could have told the girls it would be different with him there. He could have reassured them that any demon who even looked at them funny would regret it. He wanted the girls to come out with him. He wanted them to have fun and it pained him to know that even the simple pleasures of strolling through a new town and exploring it terrified them.
But Alex didn’t say any of that. The girls weren’t keen at all, and the fact that they’d politely declined to something he’d asked was a big step for the girls. They were learning to be independent and say what they wanted, how they felt. It was a massive step forward from being mindless sex slaves.
It was late in the afternoon when they stepped out and he only knew that was the time of day because Jamana had told him as much. Looking up at the red sky, it was impossible to tell. It looked exactly as it had done for the past several hours. Just red. No sun, no moon, no stars. And soon, it would turn a much darker shade of red.
It was hot, as it always was, but it seemed Alex was finally adjusting. The searing heat, the ashy dust that kicked off the ground in little waves, none of it bothered him much. With Jamana by his side and the longsword in its sheath strapped around his back, Alex felt good. He felt a sense of adventure.
When he asked Jamana what people did for fun in hell, her first thing was to say torture humans. Appt, it seemed for hell. Then, realising he wouldn’t want to see that, she listed off a host of other things that sounded just a little less horrible.
In the end, Alex settled for checking out the local market to see what sort of stuff demons bought and sold. It was that or going to a fight club and watching demons tear each other apart. Lucifer loved the idea of demons hurting themselves, but Alex wasn’t so keen. He didn’t hate demons. In fact, his feelings were quite the opposite for Jamana and Melissa.
After asking for directions from the blue-skinned demon lurking outside the inn, Alex took Jamana’s hand in his and set off in the direction the creepy blue-skinned demon had pointed, not at all afraid. It was hell. A creepy demon was the least of his worries. He also had his trusty sword with him.
The town was similar to Katarnak in its style and architecture. The roads were a tad narrower, and the buildings made of red stone appeared to have more wear and tear about them. Some even showed large cracks. A few buildings looked deserted. Black vines had grown out of the ground and completely covered the doors and windows.
Walking on the street beside them were other demons and humans too. The humans kept their eyes on the ground and followed behind their demon masters. Some of the demons glanced his way. Alex noticed the pattern of the bigger and uglier demons giving him cold stares. They knew who he was. Keira had done such a good job of promoting his arrival, it seemed every demon knew of him. Alex secretly hoped they would try something just so he could slice their heads off. In fact, he wanted to do that to every demon he noticed that had humans in shackles.
Unfortunately, it seemed his reputation preceded him. The cold stares given his way weren’t long stares. They became much shorter if Alex stared back.
Alex and Jamana made it three streets away from their inn when they heard the shouts and growls. They came from Alex’s left, and naturally, he decided to hurry that way to see what the commotion was all about.
As he turned the corner, he spotted the demon in a black cloak running towards them. Behind the demon was a small crowd of demons running after it. They were the ones doing the shouting and growling. Most of what came out of their mouths were curses and obscenity. But there were a few that shouted words which gave a clue as to what was going on.
The demon in the black cloak running towards him wasn’t a demon at all, but a human disguised as a demon. Now that Alex knew it was a disguise, he could see the mask was made of wood and painted red. A strip of blonde hair floated out from underneath the hood. The figure was slender, and then as the cloak parted down the middle, the grey tunic worn underneath pressed against the breasts.
It was a woman.
As she dashed past him, Alex could have stuck a foot out and tripped her. But he didn’t. He let her pass. He did stick his foot out when the demons chasing her passed him. He managed to catch one and as the demon tumbled to the ground, he took with him three others that were following too closely behind him.
There were still another four demons chasing after the girl, but her swirling black cloak disappeared around the corner, leaving them in her literal dust. The demons on the ground climbed to their feet and turned their anger on him. Alex withdrew his sword and that was enough. They backed away.
Deciding he was more curious about the fleeing human than he was in provoking the demons, Alex pushed his sword back in the scabbard and bolted in the direction she had disappeared. As he turned the corner, he could see the four demons that had been chasing her standing in the middle of the street, looking around stupidly.
They’d lost sight of the girl. And so had he.
Alex stared up at the five-story building beside him. It’d been awhile since he’d done something like this. Taking a few steps back, he bent his knees, then charged towards the building. When he was about ten feet away, he leapt off the ground.
He was aiming for the balcony on the third floor. He over hit it slightly and slammed into the hard rock wall between the third and fourth floor balconies. But with his hand, he managed to grip the balcony bar. Alex pulled himself up with one arm, then standing on the balcony wall
, he climbed onto the fifth-floor balcony, and from there, hoisted himself up onto the flat roof.
He dashed to the edge of the roof in the direction he thought she might take, and sure enough, he caught a glimpse of her cloak before she disappeared behind a building as she turned another corner. Alex jumped from roof to roof, following the girl until he caught up with her and ran on the rooftops, parallel to her. As she turned into a deserted alleyway, Alex leapt down from the roof and landed a foot in front of her.
The girl crashed into him, then fell back and landed on her bottom. Her wooden mask slipped off her face and she stared up at him in shock.
It was Natasha.
Chapter 31
It was Natasha, the human girl he’d met in a small village in the mountains. She’d guided him to the city. More than that, he’d shared a bed with her. Alex didn’t think he’d ever see her again, and certainly not here in a demon city.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
Natasha stared up at him with wary eyes. Those eyes then widened in confusion. “Alex?”
He held a hand out to help her to her feet. “What are you doing here?” he repeated.
“What are you doing here?” she shot back. “You made it to Katarnak, didn’t you? The city was right in front of you. You didn’t get lost, did you?”
Alex frowned. The city was indeed in front of him when he parted ways with Natasha. To miss the damned thing would have taken a fuck-up of epic proportions considering how long the city walls were.
Alex told her what he was doing in Riverie. He’d followed the rebels and defeated Judas and Nekrosis outside the city walls. Natasha was suitably impressed by that information. It turned out she’d heard of Judas and Nekrosis. When Alex finished explaining his reason for being there, he asked her for the third time what she was doing there.
The Devil's Apprentice: Book 2: Descent to Hell Page 17
