by Tara West
Never, ever.
An eternity of coffee grounds, dirty socks, and toilet seats in the upright position.
The metal doors shut with a squeak, and the elevator lurched. My eyes bugged out, and I knew I looked like an animal caught in a trap. Aedan turned to me, a frown marring his brow.
“Ash,” he said as he laced his fingers through mine, “everything is going to be all right.”
I swallowed a lump of nervous tension. What was wrong with me that I was terrified of marrying the man of my dreams? “You promise?” I pleaded, desperately searching his face for reassurance.
He wrapped a strong arm around my waist, pulling me against him. “I promise, sweetheart.” He raised my hand to his lips, placing tender kisses on each knuckle and causing that slow drip in my underwear to turn into a steady trickle.
I leaned into his warmth, placing a hand on his chest, soothed by the steady rhythm of his heart. “I love you,” I breathed.
His eyes shone like starlight as he smiled down at me. “And I love you, more than my very soul.”
“Oh, Aedan,” I cried, circling my arms around his neck as he captured my lips in a heat-searing kiss.
When his hands wandered down my back and cupped my buttocks, that trickle turned into a stream as he lifted me up, pressing my backside into the elevator wall. I wrapped my legs around his waist, grinding my soaking undies against his erection while he deepened the kiss.
Hot damn! I’d never wanted elevator sex so badly in my life. I frantically fumbled with his belt, but then my hands went limp when he pulled aside my undies, flicking that swollen nub, and then inserting a finger into my tunnel of love. I moaned into his mouth as he finger-fucked me, deep and hard with that blessedly thick finger, his knuckles grinding into my swollen, buzzing button, that secret sweet spot that made all my sensual alarm bells go DING, DING, DING!
I screamed when my orgasm claimed me, my slick walls clenching tight around his finger, and when he circled my clit with the pad of his thumb, I cried again, as that little buzzer thumped against him like a bass drum.
When he broke the kiss, breathing hot and heavy against my cheek, I threw back my head with a satisfied groan and closed my eyes as I slumped against the cool metal of the elevator wall.
Hot damn.
Okay, as long as Aedan was willing to finger me into oblivion, I’d put up with an eternity of raised toilet seats.
I smiled when I heard Aedan unbuckle his belt. I was so incredibly sated, I didn’t even care if we got caught.
“I’m going to make this quick,” he said before hoisting me and seating me on his engorged dick.
My eyes flew open when his swollen head ploughed through my tight channel. “Ohhh!” I yipped as he buried himself to the hilt.
He thrust once, twice, three times, and then stilled with a grunt.
As his cock ballooned and spurted against my swollen center, my libido came back to life, and I ground against him, trying to sneak in one more orgasm before the elevator door opened. It didn’t take long for Aedan to catch on and match my rhythm. A second orgasm ripped through me like a bolt of lightning. I hollered his name while digging my newly manicured French-tip nails into his shoulders. I thought I felt a nail wedge loose, but I didn’t care, because that orgasm was still zinging through me like a bullet ricocheting in a metal chamber, and I was going to keep grinding my hunky piece of man meat until every last twitch and shudder left me as boneless as a jellyfish.
By the time I melted against his chest, I was panting harder than a ninety-year-old chain-smoker who’d used up her last oxygen tank. After our breathing slowed to near normal, we both shared lopsided smiles as he slipped out of me. Gentleman that he was, he procured a handkerchief from his vest pocket and shoved it between my legs like a makeshift maxi, but as wet as we’d both been, I didn’t think even a super-plus, maximum absorbent nighttime pad with wings would have been enough to hold what was gushing from inside me.
“Thanks, sweetie.” I pulled down my skirt as I squeezed my legs together, hoping he didn’t expect me to return that handkerchief until after it had gone through the wash cycle a few times.
“My pleasure,” he said with a wink as he buttoned his pants.
I grabbed his handsome, rugged face in my hands, kissing the tip of his nose before wiping pink lipstick off his collar.
Sheesh. I didn’t remember kissing him there. I frowned as my attempt to remove the stain only widened the blemish.
I yelped when Aedan jerked my hand away, squeezing my poor fingers in a crushing grip.
“Aedan,” I cried. “You’re hur—” I held my breath when I saw the look of panic in his eyes.
“Did you hear that?” he breathed.
I shook my head, fighting back the lump of bile that rose into my throat as the realization hit me. How had Aedan and I managed to have foreplay and sex without the door opening on us, and why did the elevator feel like it had stopped moving?
* * *
Sergeant Santiago Sanchez
Callum O’Connor and I cautiously followed Archangel Cam through the pyramid’s atrium garden, enclosed at the top of the structure and surrounded by four, slanted glass walls that converged at the tip. Once a lush paradise, it was now a humid jungle of dead trees and plants and rotting vegetation. The place smelled like fermented eggs because of the flesh of the brown fruits littering the soil. It sickened me to see such a beautiful sanctuary reduced to decrepit pit in only a matter of days. I held my blowtorch like a combat weapon, finger poised on the trigger should the spiders show themselves. So far, they’d kept well hidden, submerged within the fruits they’d destroyed. Cam stopped a few yards in front of us, wielding an even bigger torch nearly the size of a cannon. He was dressed like us, covered head to toe in a protective suit much like the kind worn by medical people entering a quarantined zone. Except they only had to keep out germs, not prevent thousands of hungry arachnids from busting through the seams and eating them alive. I worried about the air holes on my face mask. Though they were much smaller than the spider God had crushed, they were wide enough to fit a spider’s leg, or God forbid, a stream of venom.
Cam silently motioned for us to fan out. Our plan was simple. Burn the place down. Scorch every last tree and all of the harvest the priestesses had worked so tirelessly to cultivate. Leave the pests no place to hide and nothing to eat. Then seal off the garden from the rest of the pyramid. Seemed simple enough, though it was anything but. O’Connor wordlessly moved to the right, slipping through the vegetation with the experience of a seasoned soldier. Though he’d never served in a war, as I had, he’d learned enough survival skills after having lived over a hundred years in Hell.
My heart hammered a wild staccato in my ears as I veered left, careful not to trip over rotting stumps and clumps of wilted vegetation while keeping an eye out for any signs of an arachnid attack. No sooner had I reached my designated target than I heard Cam’s whistle. I aimed at the top of the trees and unleashed my fire.
They crawled out of the vegetation faster than I expected, their high-pitched squeals of pain causing icy currents of dread to race up my spine. I slowly backed up, burning the creatures while they raced toward me. I jerked back, nearly stumbling over my feet as they pelted my helmet like balls of hail. Even through the thick protective layers of my suit, I felt them racing down my sides, no doubt looking for a way to break through. I fought the urge to drop my gun and run, swatting them off my face shield before they crawled down my chest.
As I continued the spray of flame, I caught sight of Cam coming toward me. His suit was covered in the creatures as well, and my heart thudded when I saw they were trying to tie his legs with webbing. I hit Cam with a blast of flame, and the spiders squealed and fell to the ground. I held my breath when Cam turned his gun on me. My body heated up like a furnace, causing my limbs to itch and burn, but I was relieved when the creatures fell off me. The tension in my neck and back eased without them weighing me down.
Cam t
urned away, hitting Callum with a blast, and then we were all backing up, alternating between scorching spiders, vegetation, and each other.
By the time we neared the atrium’s exit, the place was awash in smoke and fire, and our flamethrowers were nearly out of gas. My faceplate was blackened with soot, decreasing my visibility as eight-legged black shadows continued to rain down on us. Once we reached the door, we sprayed each other once more, then threw our empty weapons to the ground before making a hasty exit. Cam closed and bolted the heavy metal door while O’Connor and I pushed concrete blocks in front of it.
After we finished checking each other for strays, I finally unlatched my helmet and breathed in a deep gulp of air, though the simple act of breathing strained my lungs. We quickly descended the stairs, wasting no time in reaching the bottom of the pyramid, where the others waited for us.
I wished the priestesses had been admitted into Purgatory. That would have put my mind at ease. There was one priestess in particular whose soul I feared for. Melanie had always been kind to me and her sisters. She was a beauty, with wild crimson hair that hung down her back in waves. She was shy, too, unwilling to utter more than a few words, though I’d often times tried to engage her in conversation. I would have thought she wasn’t interested in me, except there were times I’d catch her staring in my direction, only to quickly look away.
The priestesses were a pious group, except for O’Connor’s girlfriend, Cara, who spent her days with him. But the rest spent most of their time working or praying. Whatever sin Melanie had committed before she died, I knew it had to have been bad. Why else had she been cast into the fiery pit? Her damnation alone should have been enough of a reason for me to avoid her. Yet, idiot that I was, I couldn’t help but have feelings for the girl. O’Connor had teased me that I was obsessed. Maybe he was right. But on the few occasions I was able to gaze into her big amber eyes, I sensed a haunting desperation that nearly made my chest implode. Whatever Melanie had done on earth, she was sorry for it, so sorry that despair consumed her. What I wouldn’t give to take away some of that pain, to hold her in my arms and tell her that her sins had been forgiven.
It was difficult work, traversing stairs that had been built for giants, making thirteen flights feel like thirty. All elevators within the pyramid had been sealed off to prevent the spiders from reaching the bottom levels through the shaft, though I feared they may have already found their way down. And then there was the question of their mother. Based on what I had heard about her from the others, destroying her wasn’t going to be easy, considering the armor on her chest deflected weapons and magic. Though the Nephilim had supposedly banished her to the fifth level of Hell when they’d crushed her skull, she had to have found a way up to our level, and the spiders she’d referred to as her demonlings were here to enact revenge. Their poisonous stingers were lethal enough to make their victims die a second death, maybe even cast them to the lowest dimension of Hell, which was why it was imperative we killed every last one of those little motherfuckers.
Some days I asked myself what the hell I was doing down here when I had earned enough credits to get into Heaven. I could have been living it up in a huge mansion with the valet of my dreams, not stuck down here, waiting to be demon bait. But then I reminded myself my friends needed me, and I wasn’t about to leave them, no matter how much those demons scared the shit out of me.
My lungs were burning by the time we reached the bottom. O’Connor stopped and leaned against the step, breathing with a wheeze. I patted him on the back, trying to catch my breath, too, then I nudged him toward the towering wooden doors at the end of the hall. I didn’t feel comfortable standing out here. The bottom of the pyramid looked like the inside of a tomb. The walls were made of large grey stones, and the floors were polished tiles. Wall sconces bigger than streetlamps flanked the stones, but even the light from the burning pyres didn’t pierce the shadows; the walls stretched into pitch darkness.
We moved cautiously toward the safety of the dining hall, a void of emptiness stretching out before us. We’d nearly reached our destination when the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I shared wide-eyed looks with O’Connor and Cam. They felt it, too. We took off at a run, winded by the time we banged on the double doors to the hall.
“Let us in!” Cam cried.
A breeze blew through the cavern, and I heard whispering behind the doors and the heavy bolt unlatching.
Though I was terrified, I took a chance and looked up. I tasted bile when I saw thousands upon thousands of spiders descending upon us, suspended from somewhere beyond the darkness by long, gleaming white strands of web.
The door opened a crack, and we slipped inside, slamming it behind us and heaving the bolt back on its hinges. How long the door would hold, I had no idea, but of one thing I was certain—the spiders would soon overrun the entire pyramid and every soul in it.
* * *
Ash MacLeod
“What floor are we on?” I asked Aedan with a tight chest.
A loud pop sounded above us, and the flickering light went out, leaving us in complete darkness. I screamed and tumbled into his arms when the elevator started moving again.
“Aedan,” I cried. “I’m scared.”
He squeezed my hand before letting go. “Hang on.”
My limbs iced over with fear when he moved away from me.
“There’s an emergency switch somewhere,” he grumbled. And then the numbers on the panel lit up with an eerie glow as a red strobe light pulsed overhead.
“What’s happening?” I asked as I leaned against him.
He squinted at the panel before hitting the sub-level one button several times. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it.”
A cold current raced up my spine and made all the baby hairs on my nape stand on end. I recognized that feeling, that “you’re totally fucked, Ash” feeling. And though I really didn’t want to, some crazy part of my nagging subconscious forced me to look up.
My heart raced. Though my mouth had fallen open, I was too stunned to speak, so I tugged on Aedan’s coat sleeve and pointed up at the thousands of black widow spiders, each about the size of my palm, that carpeted the ceiling and were racing down the elevator walls.
A litany of swear words that would have made Satan himself proud poured out of Aedan’s mouth as he cautiously moved in front of me, pushing me toward the door.
When the elevator opened with a hiss, Aedan and I slowly moved out onto the marble floor. After the spiders completely blanketed all four walls, the floor, and our luggage, they stopped at the elevator threshold. I should have been upset that my wedding dress had thousands of creepy crawly legs running all over it. I seriously doubted I’d be able to wear the gown, even after sending it through the dry cleaners a thousand times. I was relieved when the elevator door closed and shot back up into the sky. The last thing we needed was to be stuck in Hell on our wedding day with thousands of angry spiders.
Aedan spun me around, checking my head and back for any arachnid hitchhikers, and I did the same for him. I scanned the floor, making sure the spiders hadn’t spilled into the pyramid. That’s when I noticed the room looked different. Usually the elevator deposited us in the grand dining hall. While the floors were the same, and the walls seemed to be constructed of similar bricks, I didn’t remember the exotic potted plants, some so tall the ivy trellises extended across the room’s arched ceiling. And the long marble-topped counter along the back wall was different. It almost reminded me of a lobby in an expensive hotel. There were several gold-plated clocks hanging behind the counter, each one displaying the time in a different country.
Weird. Had our friends done some remodeling since the last time we’d visited? Speaking of our friends, where were they? The grim look Aedan shot me as he pulled me to his side wasn’t reassuring.
“This isn’t the pyramid,” he growled between clenched teeth.
My brain went numb from fear. If we weren’t in the pyramid, where were we?
>
I jumped back with an ear-piercing scream when a furry, squealing thing dropped from the ceiling, landing in front of us.
Aedan pushed me behind him and held up his fists. “Get back, demon! I’m warning you!”
I peered around Aedan’s shoulder at the creature that was hissing at us. It was a primate demon that stood about three feet tall. He wore a band with a swastika on one arm and had the oddest little black moustache, making him look like a miniature monkey Hitler.
He pointed up at us. “No have bags?”
Aedan shook his head. “Our bags are still on the elevator.”
The monkey frowned and then shrugged. “No need bags. Master waiting for you.”
Aedan’s spine stiffened. “Who is your master?”
The monkey waved us forward. “Come meet Master.”
“We’re not taking another step until you answer my question.”
The monkey lurched toward us with a rabid hiss, revealing several rows of fangs I knew could easily bite off my hand.
Aedan kicked the thing in the gut, sending it careening across the floor with a squeal. Then he grabbed my hand, and we ran toward an archway at the end of the room. “We’ve got to find an elevator,” he said, as we skidded to a halt in front of the darkened hall.
“Where are we?” I asked, though I feared his answer. One thing for certain, wherever we were, we had to get out of Dodge fast before the monkey’s master found us.
“There’s the lovely couple,” a dark, ominous voice as smooth as melted butter and as icy as winter frost said from somewhere in the dark recesses of the hallway. “I’ve been expecting you.”
I backed up with a gasp, pulling Aedan with me as a man stepped from the shadows. At least I thought he was a man. The curled horns sticking out of the top of his head indicated he was a demon, albeit a regal one. He looked like he’d just stepped out of a Renaissance novel, wearing a burgundy, gold-embroidered velvet tunic and black tights that fit his lean, tall form to perfection. He had slicked-back dark hair, ghostly pale skin, impossibly high cheekbones, an elegant nose, and full lips framed by a thin moustache and goatee. He would have been considered handsome, even debonair, except for the gleam in his beady, dark eyes, reminding me of a snake preparing to strike. Oh, and then there was the fact that his feet were hooves. What the hell? Was the guy part ram?
