by Randi Darren
Hell is Hell. Sometimes polite speak does worse than being rude and direct.
“Fine, I can handle that. Once we get an idea of what you and Skipper did, we can go about figuring out what to do from there,” confirmed Abrah.
Sam let out a slow, heavy breath, then squeezed Wren against himself for several seconds. Releasing her, he once again started rubbing his cheek against her forehead.
“I love you,” Wren whispered, her breath tickling along his skin.
“Love you, too,” Sam replied in just as soft a voice, then kissed her brow. “As you probably surmised.”
“Yeah… got that,” mumbled the Cambion before she snuggled her face back into his neck. She must have been feeling vulnerable or warm-hearted at the moment.
“Okay, what about Lords of Hell?” Sam asked Abrah, turning to look at her. “Do we need to worry about anyone heading our way?”
Slowly, Abrah shook her head.
“There are no Lords of Hell anymore. Not like what you’re thinking,” answered Abrah. “Not at that power level. There are lords, yes, but not what you’d consider them. More like… feudal leaders. Like Timithy but just a bit larger territory.
“All the strong lines were exterminated by Skipper. Then the races failed and abilities disappeared. Along with all the personal brands failing. There’s… Hell is more like a mortal plane now.”
“Who’s Skipper?” Wren asked.
“Skipper,” Erv said before anyone could respond. “Skipper is Jenaphila. And I was Jenaphila’s stand-in until a few days ago when Sam… took me. The real Jenaphila has mostly been absent since she took over Hell and ruined it.”
Wren grunted at that, then let out a low pain-filled moan.
“My back hurts,” she said in a hiss, shifting around in Sam’s arms. “Really hurts. It’s like my ribs are breaking and—”
The Cambion stopped talking and instead started screaming. Pressing her face against Sam’s shoulder as deeply as she could, she continued to yell, her entire body tensing up.
“Wren?! What’s wrong!?” Sam asked, leaning back to look at her. “Wren, I—”
Sam’s voice fell away as he looked at her back. There was a mass of shifting and trembling muscles. Her skin was raising and falling along her spine and shoulder blades, as if there were things moving around beneath.
With a sickening sound that reminded Sam of a chicken leg being ripped from a carcass, Wren’s back split open in two places, just above her shoulder blades.
Red leathery wings shot out and began to grow to a size that would match Sam’s own. The membrane filled in quickly and spread out from top to bottom.
Far faster than Sam could comprehend, Wren had grown a pair of wings that looked a lot like Jes’ and his own. Though they were bright red in color.
Moaning, panting, Wren collapsed back onto Sam. Her body went completely boneless against him.
“That hurt…so much,” complained Wren between heavy breaths. “What…happened?”
“You… uhm, you grew wings,” Sam said, touching one of them carefully. They appeared to be quite strong. Much more akin to something he’d see on a high-grade Demon species. Far sturdier than even his own wings.
I wonder if she can dismiss them. Otherwise, they might end up being a problem.
“What’s…wrong with…me?” Wren asked no one in particular. Her words were followed with a deep, low groan. “Still…hurts. Hurts…a lot. Feet…hurt…now.”
With every breath, every word, Wren was exhaling a great deal of the red mist that all Cambion breathed out. Although, the color now had a new vibrancy to it as well as a sparkling effect.
Sam was starting to suspect what might be wrong with Wren, but he didn’t want to voice it. He didn’t even want to think it. Instead, he chose to rapidly shove it straight out of his mind.
Screaming once again, Wren curled up hard against Sam as her legs started to pop and snap.
Her ankle folded in on itself with a hideous crunching noise and her feet condensed in on themselves. Healthy looking skin began to darken until it took on a dark brown color. Her toes were gone, having fused together. Her foot had elongated, as well, increasing the distance between her ankle joint and the foot joint.
Parts of the skin also appeared to harden.
Sam finally realized what he was looking at when short, brown fur sprouted out of the skin between Wren’s foot and ankle.
Her feet just became hooves.
Damn.
Before his mind could travel down the corridor to what he truly believed Wren was becoming, Sam shut the thought out. It wasn’t something he could afford to focus on or put a name to.
Not unless someone else said it first.
Instead, he just held onto Wren as she continued to whimper, groan, and pant.
Eighteen - ‘X’ Marks the Spot -
After an hour, Wren seemed to be completely through the metamorphosis that’d befallen her. There were no further outward changes that anyone could detect.
She could also shift her appearance to show or hide her horns, wings, and hooves as she chose. It would allow her to appear as an everyday Cambion whenever she wished. Or she could look the part of a Demon, straight out of a storybook that Sam didn’t want to read.
Through his insistence, she kept her horns hidden at all times.
Abrah didn’t seem to know what to make of it, though Erv and Aster were both considering Wren in a different light. Sam suspected they might have the same suspicion he did.
That perhaps Wren was descended from a particular Lord of Hell. One that had united the entirety of Hell under one banner. Only to then vanish without a word or direction thousands of years after they’d consolidated their empire.
Someone Sam refused to name aloud. Even he had no desire to invoke the possibility of attracting their attention or crossing them.
Looking frustrated, and decidedly concerned, Wren stood next to Sam in her fully Cambion appearance. Aster and Abrah were standing on the other side. All four people were watching Erv, who was on her knees between the two groups.
Right now, she was using a thin, very pointed black horn to sketch out what was supposed to be a map. To Sam, it honestly just looked like some X’s, a smattering of half-circles, W’s, S’s, a vague blob-like shape, and some lines.
“This… isn’t going to work, is it?” Erv asked, pausing in her drawing.
“It…uh…I don’t really know what it’s supposed to be,” confessed Abrah, shaking her head.
“Maybe it’ll help if we establish locations,” offered Wren. “I’m assuming the X’s are locations. What’s an X that Abrah would be most likely to know?”
“Hm? Oh! Yes!” Erv said, sounding suddenly far more excited. “Thank you, Wren.”
Adjusting herself, Erv leaned forward and indicated an X with the horn.
“Okay, this here, this is the plains of Cerberus. The X is the City of the Damned,” explained Erv and then glanced up at Abrah.
“Huh. Okay. Then, is that line the river Bane?” Abrah asked, seeming more interested now. Leaning over, she pointed a finger at the strange line that ran along next to the X.
“Yes! Exactly! Okay. Running down the Bane, we cross over to the Blight range of foothills,” continued Erv, indicating a bunch of small half-circles. “This over here is the stronghold, Annulus. This is the center of Je— Skipper’s strongholds.”
“That’s… Annulus?” Abrah asked, sounding confused and concerned now.
“Yes, why?” Erv replied, looking up at the Demon-Knight.
“There’s nothing there but a hole. A massive chasm that—well, you can’t go in there. Simply passing over it will turn you into dust. Nothing survives that chasm,” Abrah explained with a firm shake of her head.
“I can’t speak to the chasm, but… that’s where Annulus stronghold is. That was the seat of Skipper’s power. Everything she did came and went from there. Including the intra-plane portals,” confirmed Erv.
“Intra
-plane portals,” Wren repeated, lifting a single finger. “A bit more on that, please?”
“Skipper didn’t like having multiple entrances. Most of the strongholds were only reachable by the intra-plane portals. The exteriors of the strongholds were often ensorcelled or completely encased in something,” Erv said, returning Wren’s gaze.
Sam couldn’t help but look down the busty Elemental’s uniform. He was, after all, a sexual being and Erv was quite lovely. Not to mention, he’d enjoyed her mouth in a very similar position to the one she was in right now.
“In other words, that’s why anyone going over the chasm gets nuked,” Aster said with a chuckle. “The fucking bitch put the stronghold at the bottom of the chasm and put something above it. God, I hate Jenaphila. Or Skipper. Whatever the fuck her name is.
“Actually, her name is now Bitch-Face. I really hate Bitch-Face. Bitch-Face has been a problem for me for a long while and I’d really like to kill her. Made me into a gods damned battery.”
Erv winced at that and looked back at the scrawled map in front of herself.
“I didn’t— I wasn’t in control of the facilities that did that sort of thing,” murmured Erv. “I knew of them, but… I didn’t control them. I’m sorry, Aster. I—”
“Wasn’t in control of them,” finished Aster with a forceful tone. “I’ll find out who was, don’t you worry about that. Anyway, intra-plane portals.
“That’s how we’ll get into Annulus, isn’t it? So which stronghold was the front door? What location do we have to kick over and smash into, like when Sam blasted you into that wall with his dick?
“Can’t blame him, though. Or the fact that no one’s allowed to touch you but him. By my seed-filled slit, you’re a beautiful woman, Erv. If I had a dick, I’d have destroyed you for hours and kept you to myself, too.”
Smirking, Sam looked at Erv then Aster.
Clearly, she’d realized he was feeding Erv’s ego and providing what the Water Elemental needed at a psyche level. Right now, Aster was feeding into it as well.
I’ll have to pay my sweet little Lightning Elemental back. She’s acting in a way Jes would.
The Elemental wasn’t used to being spoken to in such a way and blushed a deep, dark red color. On top of that, Aster hadn’t been wrong. Sam really had gone after Erv quite a bit. Using her as an “in-between” for everyone else, as well as using her directly.
He had even directly told Aster and Wren that Erv was, indeed, for him alone.
She was simply easier for Sam to get off. He needed Essence and it didn’t require much in the way of work on her mentality.
“I— the strong-stronghold— there’s two other locations that lead to the Annulus portal room. The one we should go for is the Vigilant stronghold,” said Erv, not responding to the rest of what Aster had said. “It’s off in the Fields of Night region. To the west, wedged up against the boundary with the dry riverbed there. There wasn’t a name for the riverbed.”
“Still isn’t named,” Abrah said and then sighed, standing upright. “The Fields of Night is owned by a Pit Demon. He’s uninterested in anything other than his own pleasure and doesn’t bother with the lands around him.
“But he also doesn’t let anyone into his home. You can guess where he made his home, by the way. In fact, I’m willing to bet that he’s the guardian of the Vigilant stronghold and has been since Skipper put him there.”
“That… yes. I think there was a Pit Demon in charge when we were locked out of the plane,” Erv agreed. “Then that leaves the other stronghold. All the way over here.”
Erv leaned forward and pointed to an X at the far edge of the map near Wren’s foot.
“From what you said earlier, that’s probably Whore’s Ridge,” Abrah commented dryly before Erv could say anything. “Are you telling me that the other stronghold we’re interested in is the Undead Dragon’s lair?”
“I don’t know about an Undead Dragon or its lair,” Erv said with a sniff. “But the stronghold was in the middle of a swampy area.”
“Yeah, the Undead Dragon’s lair. Damn, that’s almost worse,” muttered Abrah.
“Do they have to name everything like that?” Wren asked quietly, glancing up at Sam. “It isn’t insulting or anything, it just seems so… cliché.”
“They’re Demons. You’ve seen the streets and how the citizens behave. Would you expect anything less?” Sam asked, grinning at Wren.
“—not sure what to say. I have enough troops in Klesick to probably push into the swamp around the Undead Dragon’s lair and open a corridor. It certainly helps that it actually borders our territories. We don’t share a border with the Fields of Night.
“As far as the dragon goes… I think we could probably even take care of the dragon itself with our forces as they stand,” said Abrah, unaware of the side conversation between Sam and Wren. “No one ever bothered with the dragon because there was no value in killing it. But… but if there’s a stronghold there, and there’s anything left over from when Skipper was here, then it’d be most certainly worth it.
“That doesn’t even take into account that it’s where Lord Lust needs to be. The value is easily triple if you include that.”
“It’s not my first choice of where to try to get in, but it’ll work,” said Erv, lifting her left hand and running a finger across her full lips. “The problem with the Whore’s Ridge stronghold was that the planar fabric in the area was becoming really unstable. The portals didn’t always work.”
“Ah,” Sam added, once more fully into the conversation. “Given what our friend Nicodimus told me, I’d say it’s probably gotten worse there. That’d be… a gamble, then.”
Everyone fell silent as they considered the situation.
They certainly needed to get to the Annulus stronghold. The problem was that the only two ways there both had their own issues. Neither of which were likely to be easy to truly tackle.
“If you invade Whore’s Ridge,” Aster said with a chuckle at the name, “are you likely to be invaded in turn? Would there be the possibility of an uprising here?”
Abrah didn’t respond to the question immediately. Instead, she blinked, looked down at the dirt in front of them, and then let out a slow breath.
“If I’m here, or with the army… no. I could respond to an invasion quickly. Not to mention, if anyone dared to try it, they’d run the risk of being invaded as well. It’s a guarantee that I’d cause whoever set foot into my lands more than just a bloody nose,” growled Abrah. “I’ve been in many wars already. Fought as a line soldier, knight errant, and commander. None of my… neighbors… would be able to stand up to me in a fight.”
“Would they invade or revolt if you weren’t here, then?” Wren asked. “Because if that’s true, then you need to remain regardless of anything else.”
“Perhaps that becomes our answer, then,” Erv said and then stood up, brushing the dirt off from her knees and rear end. “Abrah remains with the army and moves on the swamp. We… we go with Lord Lust to see this Pit Demon and see if we can’t make a deal.”
Wincing, Sam really didn’t like that idea. Pit Demons were the worst of the worst as far as he was concerned. More often than not, they were entirely unreasonable in the best of times. In the worst of times, they’d try to eat you first, then wonder what you wanted after they’d digested and shat you back out.
“Pit Demon is what ate me, right?” Wren asked.
“Yeah,” Sam confirmed. “It was stronger than I was. Most of them are when they’re summoned like that. The strength of the summoning empowers them.”
“Were you in charge of the facilities that warehoused weapons?” Wren asked, looking at Erv now. “One that had traps that summoned a Pit Demon?”
Erv shook her head at that, looking confused and embarrassed.
“I honestly just handled everything financial and mortal,” answered the Elemental. “I only got involved with you guys because I found you using normal business contracts and security mea
sures.”
Oh. That does explain a few things.
“But… but if it was a trap that summoned a Pit Demon to the mortal world… it’s very likely Balahtus. I had a couple of traps available to me that would summon him as well,” Erv finished.
“Balahtus is indeed the Pit Demon who owns the Fields of Night. He maintains troops at the Vigilant stronghold, which he calls home,” Abrah added. “And it might explain a lot about why he’s there and never leaves. Perhaps Skipper bound him to the stronghold and also used him as a defensive measure elsewhere.”
“Great. Maybe I can pay him back somehow for eating me,” growled Wren with a shake of her head. Her eyes flashed and began to glow even as a faint red mist began to appear with her exhales. “Bastard caused me more pain in that moment than I’ve ever felt in my life.”
“You were eaten by a Pit Demon?” Abrah asked, looking at Wren in an odd way.
“Hmph? Yeah. Bastard bit me in half at the waist. Ate everything from the hips up. The Succubus who co-owns me with Sam and Aster rebuilt my body for me,” Wren answered, unconsciously rubbing her chest with her right hand.
“Oh, speaking of. Since two of you are Elementals,” Sam said, changing the subject. “Nicodimus told me that you’re not actually in an avatar. That’s your body. You die, you’re dead. There is no reforming on your plane.
“Rules are changing because the universe is falling apart. Was news to me, so I imagine it’s news to you.”
“Yep, no idea,” came the response from Aster.
“No, it isn’t news,” answered Erv.
The two Elementals looked at one another.
“Skipper told me,” Erv said simply. “Or… sent me an email.”
“When we get back home, you’re showing me everything you have,” Aster said, pointing a finger at Erv. “You might be his favorite pet right now, but I’ll get Jes and Irma to have him do what I want. Keep that in mind when it’s time to show me all your emails and notes.”
Erv looked pained, then nodded her head once.
“Of course. I’ll give everything to Sam, my Lord Lust,” Erv said, turning her head to look at him. “What he gives you is up to him. But I’ll turn over everything I have to him in a heartbeat.”
