by N. P. Martin
Jake looks at Lucas like Lucas is nuts. “Do you hear yourself, kid? You have no fucking idea of who are you are dealing with when it comes to a guy like Dimitri.”
I think I do, Lucas thinks. He is willing to bet this Dimitri is a non-human. Maybe even a demon. It is baggage he can do without, but he likes the club, wants to stay in it. He will deal with Dimitri somehow, demon or not. Although if Dimitri is a demon, paying him off might be the best option. Starting a war against another demon might not be the best thing to do if he is trying to stay low key.
“Do you want my money or not?” Lucas says to Jake.
“Of course I want the money,” Jake says back. “But-”
“Good enough.”
Lucas enters Jake’s mind in an instant, causing Jake to suddenly sit still, his eyes glazing over like he has just been hit with a mild dose of Morphine. When he violates a human mind, as he is doing now to Jake, Lucas usually tries to make the experience as painless as possible, unless he does not like the person, in which case he would cause them untold pain in the process of mind-fucking them.
Jake seems okay. Just a guy in a bad position, albeit through his own mistakes. Lucas makes Jake think that Dimitri isn’t a problem anymore, that he no longer feared his tormentor and that it is safe for him to sell the club to Lucas and move away somewhere else. When he is finished, Lucas smiles at Jake as the man comes around, his eyes coming back into focus.
Jake shakes his head a little. “Sorry,” he says, a bit woozy sounding. “Zoned out there for a second, didn’t I? Too much of this stuff.” He puts the glass down that is in his hand. “Anyway, I’d like to sell the club to you, kid. Fuck Dimitri. I’m not afraid of that guy. Come to think of it, I don’t know why I was afraid of him in the first place. I mean, Jesus. The guy’s a fucking pussy, right?”
“A pussy,” Lucas says, nodding. “Indeed. May I use your laptop?”
“Of course.” Jake turns the open laptop around so it faces Lucas. Lucas logs into one of his many bank accounts, then asks Jake for his own bank details, which he enters in as well. A moment later, and it’s done.
“The transfer is complete.” Lucas turns the laptop around to Jake again. “See for yourself.”
Jake takes a moment to check his account. “Holy shit,” he says. “I can hardly believe that’s my account.”
“Happy?” Lucas asks.
“Yeah, I’m fucking happy.” Jake stands up and outstretches his hand towards Lucas. Lucas stands up as well, takes Jake’s hand. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
“Sure. Enjoy your early retirement.”
Jake is already moving to leave the office. With the amount of money he has in his bank account, there is nothing in his office that he needs or that he can’t buy ten times over now. “I don’t know about retirement,” Jake says just before he leaves. “But I’m going to enjoy myself, I tell you that.”
A few moments later, Janice comes into the office and sees Lucas sitting behind the desk Jake used to own. “What’s going on?” Janice asks. “Why did Jake say he wasn’t coming back?”
“Because he isn’t,” Lucas says. “I’m your new boss.”
Janice frowns for a second, then smiles. “I like the sound of that.”
“So do I,” Lucas says. “So do I.”
CHAPTER TWO
Turns out the door in Jake’s old office leads to a private suite of sorts, complete with bed, large leather armchair, mini bar and a widescreen TV on the wall. Not that Lucas has any use for a TV, something a crafty demon invented years ago in order to keep the humans docile and pliable, making them easier for demons to possess and abuse at will. If only the humans knew how much of their culture was created by demons to make the humans stupid. If humans could see demons for what they were, they would never look at Simon Cowell the same way again.
Janice is standing in the suite with Lucas. “Jake liked to watch porn in here while he did coke by himself,” she says. “He was kinda sad that way. Never used to be like it. Only when his gambling got out of control and Dimitri got his hooks into him.”
“Jake had a gambling problem?” Lucas says, thinking as he looks around the suite that he needs to at least change the bed if he was going to be spending a lot of time here. Not that Lucas slept or anything. Demons don’t sleep. They don’t shit or piss either. When you become a demon, loosing those base human things are a blessing. Trying to source food and water in a place like Hell is akin to a virgin trying to find his way around a woman for the first time. It can be done, but it’s damn difficult, and rarely satisfying.
“Jake always had a gambling problem,” Janice says, pouring two glasses of vodka from the mini bar and handing him one. He took it, as he liked the taste. “It just got out of control when his wife left him and took their two kids with her.”
Lucas nods as he sips on the vodka. Humans and their sad little tragedies. Not that he didn’t feel for some of them, he did. It’s just he has been around too long, heard too many human sob stories to feel much sympathy anymore. Not that Lucas was ever a sympathetic person to begin with. He spent his first tour of Earth being sympathetic towards no one. Playing on other people’s emotions in fact, people he made to trust him through ruthless manipulation. In Hell, as sympathy and feelings in general were in short supply (non-existent in fact), he had to change tactics to get what he wanted. It wasn’t hard. A more brutal approach was needed is all, a more evil approach. Since being back on Earth for the second time, Lucas has been focusing more on the straight tactic. Doing things legitimately as much as possible. So far, it has been working out better than the other two approaches, although those other two approaches are still needed at times. Getting exactly what you want is a skill, an art even. The delicate blending of all three approaches you might say--deceit, force and honesty.
Right now he wants to sample whatever delights Janice has to offer. Going by the fact that she has her hand on his balls, he guesses neither deceit nor force will be necessary to achieve this particular goal.
“There’s something about you,” Janice is saying, putting her glass atop the mini bar and then using her free hand to grab his cock while she continues to massage his balls. Her naked body is practically glowing under the lamp light in the room, her sizable pink nipples already erect, standing out like flattened bullets.
Lucas smiles at her, then drops his glass to the floor, where it thumps down but doesn’t break. “And what do you think that might be?” he asks. It isn’t the first time a woman has said this to him. A lot of Lucas’ power, you might say, lies in the seemingly bottomless depths of his charisma. Already, Janice is lost in him, unable to stop herself from staring into his dark brown eyes like she has suddenly found the secrets to all life written in them. In a way, it isn’t fair. She really can’t help herself. If he was being fair, he would tone down the eminence of his essence, dilute his beaming charisma. But the truth is, he enjoys the effect he has on human women. It gives him pleasure to know that they are under his control and that they don’t even care that they are under his control. When you have spent as long in a place like Hell as Lucas has--a place where pleasure is almost non-existent--you tend to enjoy every second when you get the chance to feel what pleasure is like again.
A lazy, mellow smile spreads across Janice’s wide mouth and she leans in and kisses him, taking her time, gently probing his mouth with her tongue. When she withdraws, she seems to take a moment, like she is savoring what she just tasted. “I don’t know,” she says. “But whatever it is, I want it. I want it all…”
After they finish fucking in Jake’s old bed, Lucas leaves Janice sprawled out while he goes to the mini-bar and fixes them both a drink.
“You are a wondrous creature, Janice,” Lucas says when he is back on the bed, the two of them sitting up, sipping vodka.
“What the hell was that?” Janice asks, looking like she is riding an Ecstasy wave, her long, lithe body seeming to undulate gently like ocean waves on the shore. Lucas knew preci
sely what she was feeling. It took him years of practice in ancient Egypt to learn how to ellicit this kind of response in a woman. It was closely guarded knowledge at the time, and not easy to come by. Luckily, his other skills got him there, and a whole lot farther. Too far as it turned out.
“You didn’t approve?” He knew she did, of course. It is part of the ritual for him.
“Oh, I approved alright.” She sips more of her vodka. “I just ain't never felt anything like that before. I mean…” She groped for the right words for a while, failed to find them. “Goddamn.”
Lucas chuckles modestly. “It’s a gift I have.”
“A gift?” She grabs his semi-erect cock and squeezes. “It’s a gift you can give me anytime. Seriously.”
“There will be ample opportunity for that.” Lucas drains his glass. “First we need to discuss business.”
An exaggerated frown comes over Janice’s face and she lets go of his cock. “Really?” She looks crestfallen, like a little girl who has been told it’s bed time. “What kind of business? I’m just a dancer here that dishes out the odd blowjob if the price is right.”
“Not anymore,” Lucas says. “You are now my new manager.”
“What? I don’t know how to manage this place. Besides, it already has a manager.”
“Who?”
“Jamie. He called in sick tonight.”
“Well, there is your first job as manager. Call Jamie and tell him to take the rest of his life off sick.”
Janice sits up and stares at him, her mouth agape. “Jesus Christ, you’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” Lucas says. “One thing you will learn about me, Janice. I don’t lie.” He finds the truth to be a more effective tool these days.
“Well, you’d be the first man who didn’t.”
“I’m not like other men.”
Janice smiles. “No you ain’t.” Her hand is back on his cock. This is the problem sometimes with exposing human women to such high levels of pleasure for the first time. Once they get a taste, they just want more, usually straight away. They become like a woman with her first vibrator, wanting only to lock themselves away for hours while they delight in the new heights of pleasure they are reaching.
“I also need to know about this Dimitri guy,” Lucas says, not missing a beat. “What do you know about him?”
Janice sighs and releases her gentle grip on his cock again. “You really know how to put a dampener on things, don’t you?”
“Believe me, Janice. There will be plenty of time for fucking. If you still want a club to work in and a place to do all that fucking, you better tell me about Dimitri so I can handle him.”
“Handle him?” She shakes her head. “No one handles Dimitri. He handles them.”
Lucas remains patient. “I’m sure that is the case with most people. Not with me.”
“You kind of remind me of him,” she says. “He has this look in his eyes, like…I don’t know…like a shark when its eyes roll back.”
Lucas frowns slightly at Janice’s less than clear analogy. “You mean he’s a cold blooded killer?”
“Yeah.” She stares into his eyes for a moment, as if searching. “I see it in you too. I’ve seen it in lots of people over the years. This city seems to have more than its fair share of sociopaths.”
“You think I’m a sociopath?”
“You’re something. I just don’t know what. Same with Dimitri. He’s something as well, but I don’t know what.”
Non-human most likely, Lucas thinks. Maybe he has made a mistake in taking this place over after all. If it turns out Dimitri is a demon, that could make things complicated. Lucas isn’t sure if he can take out another demon--a most likely high level demon to boot--and not attract the wrong kind of attention, and by wrong, he means his enemies. Enemy rather. In the end, there is only one enemy and his name is Leonard, Grand Duke of Hell.
The smart move is to walk away, find another club to take over, one that has no connections with demons or any other non-humans. But he likes the Filthy Ecstasy club. There is something about it, besides Janice that is, that makes him want to stay. Besides, if he finds what he came to Mercy City in the first place to find, Leonard, or any other demon for that matter, will no longer be a problem. He can finally extract that thorn from his side once and for all.
He gets up of the bed and puts his dark suit back on. Janice, clearly disappointed by this turn of events, pulls on her thong. “When is this Dimitri due to collect again?” he asks her.
“Tomorrow night,” Janice says. “That’s why Jake was in such a state earlier.”
Lucas nods. “Does Dimitri come in person?”
“No. He sends his goons instead. Only once he showed up in person, when Jake was late paying. Scared the shit out of everybody.”
Lucas doesn’t ask how. He has a fair idea. Just as he himself has the power of charisma and persuasion (amongst other things), other demons have their own specialties. Most likely, this Dimitri, if he is a demon and not just some psycho Russian gangster, specializes in fear and intimidation. A lot of demons have majored in that particular class, even Lucas himself, but in his case, it was more of a crash course in order to survive the brutality of Hell.
“Okay,” he says after some thought, during which time Janice looks into the large mirror on the wall as she fixes her hair. “Here’s what you are going to do, Janice. First, you are going to get yourself some new clothes, as you aren’t wearing any. Here.” He pulls out a roll of notes from his jacket pocket, peels of a few hundred dollar bills and hands them to her. “You’re a manger now, you need to dress like one. Secondly, inform the staff that the club will be closing for a few days for refurbishments. Give them full pay and make sure they know they will all be re-interviewed for their jobs when they come back. Any of them have a problem with that, tell them not to come back at all. In fact, keep only the staff that you think worth keeping. I trust your judgment.”
Janice stares dumbfounded at him. “You don’t like to hang around, do you?”
“Waiting around is for mugs, Janice. I learned that a long time ago.”
“Well, I just hope you know what you are doing when it comes to Dimitri.”
Lucas smiles. “We will see about that, won’t we?”
CHAPTER THREE
Lucas Taurus Rameses is his full name. Before that, in Hell, he adopted many names for himself, depending on what part of Hell he happened to be in. In Pandemonium, where he eventually spent most of his time upon becoming a demon, he was known as President Lucruceous. Hell has many presidents, each controlling different regions. Lucruceous, as he was known, ruled over a small corner in Pandemonium known as Corpisol, or the Earwigging Triangle, so called because it is where much of the intelligence community is based--the spies, double crossers and rats who feed the intelligence machine that is the Ministry of Suffering. The Ministry of Suffering is a massive tower in Damned Square, right in the center of Hell’s capitol city. The purpose of the Ministry of Filth (as many Hellion’s know the place, as it basically processes filth all day long in every form) is to process all the souls that arrive into Hell. Punishments and levels of suffering are decided in a completely random way. There is no method to deciding how much suffering a soul should be sentenced to. A damned soul’s fate is decided by rooms full of low level demons and other damned souls who sit around rolling twenty-sided dice. Each side of the dice correlates to a particular variable, such as length of suffering, place of suffering, type of suffering etc. After ten rolls of the dice, each unique variable rolled is applied to the name of a damned soul. The more unique variables in play, the more specific the term and type of suffering. The less unique variables, the more vague the suffering. Rolling the dice is a punishment in itself. When Lucruceous first became a demon, he was posted inside the Ministry tower to roll the dice, which he did for a long time before being posted to a higher position.
The other purpose of the Ministry of Suffering was to gather intellig
ence for the King of Hell. A defense system against the numerous enemies who plotted to overthrow the King and take the throne for themselves. It didn’t matter who was on the throne. It was just another of Hell’s endless cycles, played out for eternity.
Lucruceous ended up becoming an integral part of the intelligence services in Hell, finally running all of it, except the Ministry of Suffering itself. Lucruceous controlled most of the agents who gathered intelligence for the King. It was a role he was made for, having spent most of his human life in the ancient Egyptian city of Memphes doing much the same thing, only the intelligence was purely for his own benefit, so he could use it to blackmail and extort his way towards getting what he wanted. At the time, what he wanted was power for power’s sake, a need he continued to feed even when he went to Hell (after he became a demon, of course--before that he was just another damned soul who regretted every second of his miserable and tortuous existence), even though that need became his downfall in Egypt, and eventually in Hell as well.
Now here he is on Earth again, and after two hundred years, he still feels the urge to gather intelligence and grow his power to monstrous proportions. Though this time, he keeps his need in check, by remembering where such needs eventually lead. His downfall.
Sitting in his new office, looking through the large plate glass window to the club below, he is trying to ignore the voice inside him that is already making plans to cover Mercy City with his influence, to seek out every secret, every possible bit of useful information so he can use it against people.
He wants to play the game again. The dark game. The dangerous game.
The thrilling game.
Once he gets what he needs to finally rid himself of his relentless pursuers, he will be free to spread his dark tendrils of influence even further.
“No,” he says to himself. “I cannot. Not again.”
It is something he has said to himself so many times in the last two hundred years, and every time, he has accepted his own decision. Being hunted like an animal by Grand Duke Leonard’s personal guards makes it an easy decision to make. He can never settle in any one place for long, so why plan on building another empire?
