by Eric Vall
It may have been slow as molasses thanks to Sia’s spell, but it was still heavy as fuck.
“I’ve got it, Jacob!” Eligor exclaimed and made a twirling motion with her glowing hands.
Her geyser split into two smaller, thinner beams of water, and then they shot up and wrapped around my platform. Steam erupted into the air as the two elements fought, but it finally worked.
We had a clear pathway to the Sixth Circle, and we needed to take it right now.
“Everybody hold on!” I commanded. “We’re going in.”
I raised up my other hand and ordered the dinghy to go forward as fast as it possibly could. The little boat lurched forward as it made a b-line for the green portal in front of our faces. Though it was closing the gap quickly, a speed boat this was not.
An intense wave of heat rushed over us as we passed under the waterfall of pure Hellfire. All three of us were straining under its might, but our spells continued to hold up. Finally, we passed through the interdimensional portal on the other side.
For a brief moment, I felt myself traveling across the different planes of existence. My body felt weightless, almost as if I were laying in a giant pool of gelatin and my soul had been separated from my body again. Then, as soon as it had begun, I felt myself return to my Earthly body.
My eyes snapped open, and I was met with a large, barren landscape.
Our boat was still floating on the River of Souls, but the land all around us was composed of nothing but dirt, dead grass, and a few trees off in the distance.
“So, this is the Sixth Circle … ” I mused as I took in our surroundings. “I gotta say, it’s par for the course.”
There was a sandy patch of land just north of our position, so I guided our vessel over and docked it on the beach. The five of us got out carefully and then made our way toward the empty environment.
The sky above us was a dull orange, and its glow engulfed every blade of dead grass in a light that made it look even deader.
“Talk about a buzzkill,” Todd whistled. “Ya know, the only thing that would make this place more depressing is if there were--”
“Gravestones, dude,” Tris muttered in awe.
“I was gonna say ‘a puppy you just yelled at,’” the imp admitted. “But yours works, too.”
“That’s totally not what I mean,” the Sister of Sloth sighed and pointed a few feet away from our position. “There are literal gravestones all around us.”
I walked over to where Tris was pointing and sure enough, there sat a large cement headstone that read Boris Charklov- Head of the Higher Powers Church.
“Hey, I remember that guy,” Todd noted as he wiped some dirt off the tombstone. “Wasn’t he the one who tried to get his followers to burn down all the monasteries across Europe?”
“You obviously already know the answer to that,” I laughed and shook my head. “I doubt there are many other Boris Charklovs out there who have their own cult.”
“The Sixth Circle is going to be full of these,” Sia explained. “This is the Circle where all the heretics come to spend eternity. As you can probably imagine, there have been millions over the years.”
“Then how are we going to find Mephisto?” I asked as I rubbed my brow and sighed. “We don’t have time to dig through fifty million graves.”
“That’s why I’m here, bro,” Todd announced. “Mephisto was one of the demons I read a fuckton about in college. The way we find him is by invoking one of his conjuring spells. Plain and simple. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.”
“You know this spell by heart?” Eligor sounded unconvinced.
“Ye have little faith, Goldilocks,” the imp shot back. “Tell her, Jakey.”
“Todd knows an awful lot of occult stuff,” I admitted. “If he says he knows the spell, then I trust he knows the spell.”
Todd put his hands against his cheeks and grinned.
“Awww, Jakey,” he joked, “you’re gonna make me blush. Now, the way we--”
The imp’s words were cut off by a blood-curdling scream that arose from the ground beneath us. Todd let out a high-pitched gasp, jumped about three feet into the air, and turned invisible. The next thing I knew, I felt his tiny body clinging to my leg like a scared kitten.
“What the fuck was that?” I asked as a shiver ran down my spine.
“That’s their punishment,” Eligor explained. “Heretics are sealed into tombs filled with red Hellfire, and then they spend the rest of eternity lying in a coffin, slowly burning.”
“Metal as fuck,” Todd’s disembodied voice whistled. “Also, those droplets in the dirt over there? Totally just my sweat. I most certainly didn’t piss myself when I heard the scream that will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.”
I shook the imp off my leg, and he reappeared in a flash.
“Alright, so how do we make this spell happen?” I grilled the Toddster. “Do we need to get a sample of Mephisto’s DNA? Or is it one of those where we stand in a circle and chant in Latin?”
“Neither, bro,” the imp explained. “This one is pretty simple. The summoner cuts their hand open, smears their own blood on their mouth, and then asks the Master of Whispers to ‘bring him home.’ Sooooo, do I got a volunteer?”
“I wish Ira were here,” Sia sighed. “She would be all over this task.”
“Ehhhh,” Todd screeched. “I’m kinda glad she isn’t. I’m all for free love and different strokes for different folks and all that, but Crazy Eyes makes it awkward sometimes.”
“There is no way in Hell I’m going to let somebody cut open my hand!” Tris protested. “I’m still nursing the last bit of weed in my system, and I’ll be damned if somebody’s gonna ruin my mini-mini-mini high.”
While my friends continued to debate the issue, I reached down, unsheathed my goat-headed dagger, and raised it up to my hand. I pressed the very tip of the jagged edge against my open palm until it drew blood, and then I dragged it across horizontally to make a deeper cut. It hurt like a bitch, but it was a small price to pay to build my army.
“There,” I announced. “Now, what do I need to say to make this work?”
“Well, well, well,” Todd clicked his tongue. “Look at Mr. Badass over there. Seriously, I couldn’t do that to my hand. It’d hurt to wank for weeks, and the Toddster can’t be out of commission for that long.”
“Dare I ask why?” Eligor questioned with a grossed-out look on her face.
“It’s not like you’ll die if you don’t touch yourself, Todd,” Tris explained.
“Geeze, Jakey,” Todd snickered as he slapped my leg. “For being sexy demon women, they really don’t understand men’s anatomy. Everybody knows your balls explode if you let ‘em fill up too much, and the Toddster’s not gonna be hanging a dried up feedbag, if ya get my drift.”
“That’s … that’s not how it works at all,” I chuckled through the pain of my throbbing hand.
“The public school system has failed you, bro,” Todd sighed. “Thankfully, your bestie’s here to set you straight. Now, how much Latin do you remember?”
“Enough,” I assured the imp. “What do I need to say?”
Todd cleared his throat and raised his finger into the air.
“It’s simple, but you gotta do the blood smear first,” he explained.
I raised up my bloody hand and slapped it over my mouth. The taste of my own iron blood kissed my lips, and I had to fight down the urge to lick my lips and get it off.
“Okay, I did the blood smear,” I retorted, “now what?”
“Now you must ask Mephisto, the Master of Whispers, to lead the way,” Todd continued. “It’s gonna feel real strange at first, but if you just sit back and let it happen, it’ll be golden.”
“Uh … is Mephisto gonna show up and violate me?” I asked with a smidge of concern in my voice.
“Of course not, bro!” Todd snapped. “Get your mind outta the gutter. Now, just ask Mephisto real nicely if he’ll guide you to his grave. In L
atin. And make sure you really mean it deep down in your soul, or he’s not gonna come.”
“Here goes nothing … ” I announced as I sucked in a deep breath.
I looked up into the orange-tinted sky and began to mutter to myself in Latin. I was kinda winging the whole thing, but I was finally able to say something along the lines of “Oh great Whisperer of Hell, please guide me to your illustrious presence. Lead me with your unsurpassed knowledge of all things demonic, and watch over us as we journey through the Sixth Circle.”
Suddenly, I felt a dull throbbing in my feet, followed immediately by a wave of warmth that started at my heels and shot up through each of my legs. When I finally finished uttering the words, I opened my eyes, looked down at my lower body, and gasped.
It was completely covered with green Hellfire, but the spell wasn’t my own.
The telekinetic force pressed against the very muscles in my legs, and soon I found them moving on their own.
“What the--” I tried to ask the imp, but I was already nearly twenty feet away from my friends.
“ … And he’s mobile!” Todd exclaimed. “After him!”
The imp was right, this was a really strange sensation. My brain was consciously aware of what my legs were doing, but it couldn’t do anything to stop it. No matter how hard I tried to convince my lower appendages to slow down or stop, they just kept moving at a steady pace, guided by an unseen force.
I could hear the beating wings of the succubi and Eligor as they flew behind me and tried to keep up. My light jog soon became a full-on sprint, and my heart pounded in my chest as the adrenaline took over my body. I had no idea how this shit worked. Was I going to get tired from all this running? Was Mephisto controlling my brain, or just my legs? For all I knew, this whole thing could be a trap, and we could be led straight off a cliff or into a burning pit or something far worse.
I guess I had to heed Todd’s advice, sit back, and go along with the ride.
The spell made me sprint across the barren landscape for at least a mile, then it finally changed to a leisurely pace. I was sweating profusely underneath the breastplate of my armor, and my legs felt like they were on fire.
“I think that’s your cardio for the day, Jakey,” Todd whistled as my friends finally caught up.
“I think that’s enough cardio for the rest of his life,” Tris snorted. “It’s definitely way more than I’ve ever done.”
“I-it just took over,” I panted and bent down to place my hands on my knees. “It’s like I wasn’t in control of my body whatsoever.”
“That’s because you were not,” Sia explained. “Textbook cognitive spell. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised the Master of Whispers was also a master at mind control.”
“So, he can control our minds?” I questioned. “That seems like it might be a problem down the line.”
“There’s a catch with that kind of magic,” the redhead continued. “Unlike Libidine’s spell, which simply works by making eye contact, cognitive magic can only be used when the entity invites it in. As you just did with your incantation. Once it’s in control, however, it can only be released by the spellcaster.”
“So, Mephisto is in my mind right now?” I gasped.
Eligor gave me a grim nod. “Yes, but don’t worry,” she reassured, “he won’t do anything foolish with your body at the moment. He needs us to get him out of his tomb.”
“I thought mind control didn’t work on other demons?” I questioned as my legs started to glow once more.
The glowing green spell guided me over toward a mass grave site, where thousands of tombs were spread out across the dirt like a giant tic-tac-toe board.
“Cognitive magic does,” Sia continued. “That’s why it’s so dangerous, and why we must tread carefully when it comes to Mephisto.”
“It’s also why he’s known as the Master of Whispers,” Eligor added. “He’s extremely good at convincing people to let him into their minds.”
Suddenly, my legs came to a halt.
Before me stood a life-sized human statue made out of some sort of blackened metal. It stood about six feet tall upon its pedestal, but for some reason the entire back half of the installation was hollowed out. The man’s face looked like it was stretched out into an expression of horror, and I noticed the spots where the eyes and the mouth should be were little more than large holes. To top it all off, small trails of smoke fluttered off its form with a hiss.
Immediately next to the statue was a humongous stone tomb whose lid jutted a foot out of the ground and had a large “M” carved into its front. Just underneath the letter was an engraving of Latin text so worn it nearly blended in with the stone of the sarcophagus.
Then I heard it.
From the inside of the tomb came a series of muffled whispers.
That’s it … set me free, Jacob. Set me free, and I will fulfill whatever desires you so wish of me. Unlock my tomb, and I will be eternally in your debt.
As the whispers fluttered through my head, I felt the sensation in my legs disappear, and the green Hellfire vanished with it.
This must have been it, Mephisto’s tomb.
“What does it say?” Tris asked as she ran her fingers over the engravings. “I was never really a good student when it came to learning other languages, so it all looks like gobblty-gook to me.”
I squinted and leaned in closer so I could get a better look at the carvings. Then I began to translate them out loud in real time.
“For the heresy of slander against the great King of the Sixth Circle, the demon Mephisto is hereby sentenced to three thousand years of imprisonment in a fiery tomb,” I read. “This grave shall only be opened with an eye for an eye, one that is powerful enough to dampen the light.”
“An eye for an eye … ” Eligor pondered.
“I dunno about you guys,” Tris shuddered, “but I don’t like the sound of that one bit.”
“Perhaps one of us should cut out one of our eyeballs and use it as an offering?” the blonde knight suggested, and we all answered with silent stares of judgement. “What? Superbia could heal us, so it’s not like we’d be blind permanently.”
“I think you may be taking this riddle a bit too literally,” I observed. “If it wants ‘an eye for an eye,’ then it’s probably referring to reparations for whatever got Mephisto locked away in the first place.”
“Soooo, we need to start a nasty rumor about the guy?” Todd asked. “That seems like it’s way too complicated for a protective spell, bro.”
“I agree,” Superbia said with a nod. “Obviously, this riddle wants us to sacrifice something. But what?”
“I think that’s what the second part of the riddle is about,” I retorted. “We need a sacrifice powerful enough to ‘put out the light.’ Whatever the fuck that means.”
“Hold up,” Todd exclaimed as he walked over to the statue. “I’m starting to wonder if we’re overthinking this. It talks about eyes, right? Well, what’s this statue missing?”
“Its eyes!” Tris answered. “Toddster, you’re a genius!”
“All in a day’s work, citizen,” the imp mused with his best deep voice. “Let’s check this out.”
Todd strolled up to the back of the statue, the part that had been hollowed out, and then he began to rock back and forth on his legs and stretch limberly. Once he was done with his mini pilates session, he cracked his knuckles, threw out his hands, and began to transform. The imp’s limbs stretched and widened as his skin bubbled like the surface of a hot spring, and soon his body was the exact same shape and size as the statue.
Todd stepped up to the statue, fidgeted, and then pressed his body against the hollow side so his eyes and mouth lined up with the holes.
The air was suddenly filled with a sharp sizzle, and the imp recoiled from the statue with a yelp.
“Ow!” he shrieked. “Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!”
The entire front of Todd’s body was now covered with first-degree burns.
Su
perbia dashed over to the imp, called forth her golden Hellfire, and grabbed his arm. The healing flames quickly spread across Todd’s body as his boils began to retreat back into his body, and his bright red skin regained its original color.
Todd patted his body in a fluster, his eyes still wide in terror. Once he realized he was still in one piece, he let out a deep sigh and wrapped Sia up in a bear hug.
“I owe ya one, Strawberry Shortcake,” he laughed.
“You owe me much more than one, Todd,” she shot back. “But who’s counting?”
“Well,” Eligor sighed, “that was a crashing disaster.”
Tris stepped forward, summoned her dual pistols into her hand, and then angrily pointed them at Mephisto’s tomb.
“I haven’t met a single problem Cheech and Chong can’t solve,” the Sister of Sloth growled. “Stand back!”
“Tris, I don’t think--” I began, but then my words were cut off by rapid gunfire.
The brunette succubus fired off round after enchanted round into the lid of the tomb, but each one simply bounced off harmlessly. Some of them left small indents in the brimstone, and Tris finally stopped when she realized it wasn’t working.
“Tristitia!” Superbia hissed. “That was completely unnecessary!”
“It was worth a shot.” Tris shrugged. “When in doubt, shoot it out.”
“That’s the motto I live my life by,” Todd chortled. “Only change ‘it’ to ‘one.’”
Suddenly, a crazy thought came into my head.
“What about the God Bomb?” I asked my friends. “It’s shown it can destroy just about anything.”
“Jacob … ” Eligor sighed. “Using the God Bomb in the Sixth Circle is not a good idea.”
“Why not?” I demanded. “I know you all told me not to use it down here in Hell, but it seemed to work out fine last time.”
“You got lucky, Jacob,” Superbia explained. “Normally, using Divine powers in Lucifer’s domain is an offense that is met with swift justice by the Prince of Darkness himself. And it usually results in agonizing death. I don’t know how you flew under the radar the first time, but I would not press your luck.”
The madame was right. I’d been thanking my lucky stars for months now, relieved that Lucifer and his minions hadn’t shown up at my doorstep and kicked our asses. If I wanted to live long enough to build my army, it was probably not wise to go around announcing myself to the Prince of Darkness in his own domain.
