by Eric Vall
“Follow me, and don’t wander off,” the guard posted behind the door said as he motioned for us to enter.
The four of us stepped through the threshold of the mansion, and our eyes were instantly filled with awe.
All throughout the dwelling, there were pristine white marble floors bespeckled with gray. Just through the front door of the mansion, a sprawling two-way staircase soared upward, and in the center of the foyer stood a table with an elaborate bust of Robert E. Lee. Topping off the room was a large, black chandelier that hung from the ceiling as its crystals cast dancing prisms of light around the entryway.
The guard led us through the fancy room and toward the back of the house. As we passed through the kitchen, I took note of the ten-foot ceilings, marble countertops, and jet-black appliances.
This guy was more loaded than I ever could have imagined.
“Mr. Quinn is out here.” The guard nodded as he opened the sliding glass door that led to the backyard. “I’ll be right here the whole time, so don’t get any dumb ideas.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I awkwardly chuckled.
The succubi and I stepped out onto the concrete patio of the mansion and were greeted with a long tile walkway. At the end of the path a man in a tan suit with a white cowboy hat sat next to an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Robert Quinn.
Quinn had a lowball glass of what appeared to be whiskey in his hand. He turned to greet us as he heard our footsteps approaching from behind, and I was able to get a better view of his face. On TV, Robert Quinn looked much younger than he really was. His human form appeared to be in at least in his sixties, judging by the wrinkles that ran across his face and the massive gray mustache that twiddled under his lip.
He certainly didn’t look like your typical tech CEO.
From what I had learned on the internet, Robert Quinn was one of those “old money” types, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and had never experienced a single day of hardship in his entire life. After successfully taking over his father’s oil business in the eighties, he diversified his profits by buying up a small tech company in Silicon Valley. By the mid-two-thousands, Quinn’s new endeavor was making him ten times the money as his oil company had in the past decade. Now, he was one of the most powerful men in the world.
Or at least that’s what his biography would lead you to believe. The whole “rich cowboy CEO” act was just a charade to hide his real background.
We knew that Robert Quinn was actually Flauros, a demon as old as the Earth itself.
“You must be Anton’s acquaintance!” Quinn walked down the path and outstretched his hand to greet us. “Robert Quinn. Pleasure to meet you.”
“Marcus Pearson.” I gave my go-to fake name as I shook his hand. “Mr. Blum has told me a lot about you.”
“And who are these three beauties?” Quinn glanced over at each of the succubi before he took each girls’ hand one-by-one and kissed them delicately.
“Such a gentleman!” Libidine cooed.
“These are my girlfriends,” I explained. “I know, I can barely believe it myself sometimes.”
“You’re a lucky man, Mr. Pearson.” Quinn shook his head back and forth. “My ol’ body wouldn’t even know what to do if I snagged myself one of those sexy ladies. Lots of little blue pills would be needed, that’s for sure!”
“I take care of them, and they take care of me,” I said as I tried to figure out what exactly was this guy’s game was. He was a total asshole to Todd on the phone, but now he was pretending to be the most friendly and laid-back man in the world. I just hoped our invisible imp could get that trap set before Quinn caught onto us.
“Anyway, let’s talk business, Mr. Pearson.” Quinn put his arm around my shoulder and then looked back at the succubi. “Girls, go enjoy yourself. This is man-talk. There’s an entire wine cellar in the basement. Why don’t you go pick yerself out something fancy?”
The three women smiled happily, but I could see the concern in their eyes. I gave them a reassuring nod, and the succubi turned and walked back toward the sliding glass door with a wave.
“So, Anton tells me that you want in on our little endeavor?” the man in the tan suit asked as we approached the pool. “Why should I allow it? This isn’t small potatoes, Mr. Pearson. What we’re planning to do will change the course of human history.”
“I didn’t realize I was in for a job interview.” I chuckled. “I believe in your organization’s mission and everything it stands for. I have a lot of connections, a lot of capital, and a lot of talent. You need me as much as I need you.”
Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “And what, may I ask, got you interested in our mission?”
Shit. He was getting suspicious.
“Look, Robert-- Can I call you Rob?” I laughed. “I’ve been interested in the tech industry since college, and I’ve looked up to you as a businessman ever since I was a wee lad.”
“Son, I’d appreciate it if you’d stop blowing smoke up my ass.” Quinn finished off his whiskey and then nonchalantly tossed the glass aside. “Tell me why you’re really here, Jacob Ralston.”
Aw fuck.
“Am I that bad of an actor?” I shrugged and tensed my body.
“Word travels quickly in the demon world, Jacob.” He shook his head and laughed. “Did you really think I wouldn’t know the man who banished Azazel? I’m sure you thought you’d waltz right in here and kill me like you’ve done to so many of my brethren.”
“Can’t blame a guy for trying,” I said as my eyes darted around for the first hint of the trap he had no doubt set.
“You ain’t as clever as you think you are,” Quinn continued. “Demon hunters have been trying to kill me ever since the Vatican discovered our little secret way back when. But now? You’ve walked right into my trap. I’ve had a sniper with enchanted bullets aiming at you this entire time, and your succubi are being apprehended by my men as we speak.”
“You sure about that?” I raised an eyebrow. “My women are tough as nails. The three of them have more balls than you’ll ever have.”
“That’s amusing, son. They told me you had a wit about you, and I’m glad I got to hear it first hand, Jacob.” Quinn laughed gleefully. “But all good things must come to an end.”
The mustachioed asshole snapped his fingers, but nothing happened. He snapped them again and pointed to me. Quinn let out an angry sigh before he whistled and snapped his fingers once more.
All I could do was laugh.
“Did you really think we were going to meet you here without a plan?” I clicked my tongue. “I’m the guy that defeated the Master of Warfare, for fuck’s sake!”
As if right on cue, the bodies of Quinn’s three guards plummeted into the pool with a splash. From above, Cupiditas and Libidine fluttered down onto the ground. Then the two succubi’s hands lit up with Hellfire as they prepared to attack.
“That would be your sniper,” I chuckled and pointed to the floating bodies.
“Ahh well.” The cowboy took off his hat, tossed it to the side, and took a fighting stance. “My powers are gonna be more than enough to deal with a little pansy-ass city boy and his whores.”
“You just fucked up twice,” I growled I summoned green Hellfire into my hands. “Missouri, born and raised, and no one calls my women whores.”
I conjured up a Hellfire portal with a flick of a wrist, and Libidine threw her yellow daggers into its swirling abyss. The projectiles reappeared behind Quinn just as Cupiditas unleashed her own time-freezing spell on the demon.
Quinn rolled his eyes, and then the daggers that had been headed in his direction erupted in flames and disintegrated. He twisted out of the way of Cupi’s freezing spell, backflipped over the concrete, and came to a halt in the grass beside the pool.
Then Flauros outstretched his hand, and a massive wave of Hellfire sprang up from beneath our position.
The second I felt the heat of the fire, I tossed down a barrier of purple below th
e succubi and me. Quinn’s attack smashed harmlessly into the violet flames, but the impact of the attack sent my body flying up into the air.
I tumbled through the sky for a few moments, but then I felt the familiar arms of Libidine wrap around my body and halt my descent.
“Hold on, Jacob!” the curvy woman exclaimed as I felt her breasts press up firmly against my back.
Below, I could see Cupiditas and Quinn engaged in combat as blasts of blue and red flew across the landscape.
“Strafing run?” I asked the black-haired woman.
“Just what I was thinking,” she responded.
Libidine aimed her trajectory at the man in the tan suit, and I unleashed a hailstorm of red Hellfire down on his position. The blasts crashed into the ground around the demon and sent sprays of artificial turf and dirt into the air.
Quinn looked up at us, and then I saw his arm reach upwards.
“Hold tight!” Liby exclaimed as she whipped to the right.
Just as she did so, I felt an intense burst of red Hellfire explode beside us.
“Gotcha!” I heard Cupi call out from below, and I glanced down to see Flauros trapped in a beam of the fit succubus’ blue Hellfire.
The man in the tan suit was struggling to break free, and I had no doubt that he would if we didn’t act quickly.
“Get me closer!” I demanded the succubus.
“Got it!” Liby swooped down as I charged my red Hellfire, and once we were within point-blank range of the demon, I released the attack.
Quinn’s eyes widened as the flames engulfed him, and the ground around the demon was burnt to a crisp. He let out a howl of pain, and then he was flung back across the artificial turf of his yard. The demon rolled across the ground for a few dozen feet, and then I stopped him with a cast of my emerald flame.
The dark-haired succubus sat me down on the ground, and I held the attack on Quinn as I approached him cautiously.
Flauros let out a primal growl as he clenched his fists, and I barely ducked out of the way of the incoming sliver of Hellfire that swooped past my head.
From behind, alternating blasts of yellow daggers, and red fireballs flew past and struck the man in the tan suit. Once the fucker looked like he was a pincushion, I heaved my arm to the side and threw him into the pool.
Quinn hoisted himself up out of the water, shook off like a dog shedding rain after coming inside from a storm, and then adjusted his suit.
“I’m impressed,” he panted. “I guess I should have expected more from the man who brought down Azazel.”
Then the demon tossed his hands out to the side and created a massive fire wall to the left and the right of our bodies. He clapped his hands together, and I had to throw up violet walls of my own to stop them from crushing us.
While I was distracted with keeping the walls at bay, I felt a blast of red-hot fire smash into my torso. The wind was knocked out of my body completely, and it took everything in my power to keep from collapsing and releasing my own spell.
The two succubi continued to attack the man in the tan suit as I felt the walls literally closing in around us.
I didn’t know how much longer I could hold this guy.
“Don’t feel bad, Ralston,” Quinn hissed as he weakly disintegrated a couple more of Liby’s spears. “I’ve been perfecting my powers for a millenia.”
I could tell that Quinn was still powerful, but his voice sounded pained, his skin was burning in places, and he seemed to be struggling to juggle two of his spells at the same time.
This was our chance.
I whistled out to Sia, and a black beam of Hellfire shot across the landscape and engulfed the demon.
Instantly, the red Hellfire walls disappear with a puff of smoke.
I looked up at Quinn, whose body was now surrounded by a dark flame, and saw that he was trying to run. I reached out, caught him with a jade spell, and then tossed him back toward the house.
The demon’s body smashed through the sliding glass door as if it were made of cardboard and then disappeared from view.
“Excellent work, guys,” I called out as the four of us ran toward the mansion. “Now we just need to make sure Todd did his part!”
As I dashed through the broken glass of the sliding door, a wide grin spread across my face when I saw that my best friend had set up his trap.
Robert Quinn was frozen in midair above a Key of Solomon that had been scratched into the kitchen floor. The asshole grimaced and tensed as he tried to free himself, but his powers were completely useless now that he was enchanted by Sia’s magic.
“It’s a work of art, isn’t it?” Todd leaned against one of the black cabinets and pretended to file his claws. “At this point, I think I could draw one of these things in my sleep.”
“You’ve outdone yourself, Todd.” I laughed. “That’s why you’re the Robin to my Batman.”
“The Samwise to your Frodo?” The imp giggled. “The Garth to your Wayne? The Hooch to your Turner?”
“A little obscure with that one, but sure thing.” I shrugged.
“That was ingenious, Jacob,” Cupiditas mused as she walked around the floating CEO. “For a moment there I thought Quinn may have had us on the ropes. But just for a moment.”
“It’s all thanks to Sia.” I nodded to the redhead. “She’s the only one of us with enough control over her black Hellfire to pull it off.”
“It was nothing, really.” Superbia blushed. “I’m just doing what my master ordered.”
“Sister,” Libidine put her hand on the redhead’s shoulder, “you don’t have to keep referring to Jacob as master. We are far beyond that now.”
“Unless you want to get him all hot and bothered.” Libidine bit her lip. “Then it works wonders.”
“I suppose I don’t,” Sia mused with a sigh. “I’m just so used to Azazel and his ridiculous rules. You know that he always wanted me to call him ‘father’ when we were in private?”
“Ewww.” Liby made a gagging expression.
“Freud would have a field day.” Todd laughed.
A growl from Quinn snapped us back into reality and reminded us that we still had a job to do. I walked over to the suspended demon and squatted down so that I could stare him directly in the eyes.
“Look here, Robert,” I sneered. “You’re just another name to cross off our list. I would have loved nothing more than to fry you the instant you touched the Key of Solomon, but that would ruin the rest of the plan. See, I wanted to make sure that you know what’s going to happen. We’re going to kill you, and then we’re going to take this fancy mansion of yours. It’ll make a nice base of operations for our demon-hunting gig. I appreciate that you’ve already paid it off for us.”
The frozen man snarled at my words, but there was nothing he could do but stare into my eyes helplessly.
“And then?” I continued. “My imp friend over there is going to impersonate you, leave an ominous voicemail to the shareholders, and voila! Your company is gone. Your legacy is gone. All because you were too much of a piece of shit to stay in Hell where you belonged.”
Quinn mumbled something that sounded close to “fuck you,” but I was already done with this asshole.
I summoned red hellfire into my right hand and then placed it on the man’s forehead. He let out a muffled squeal of pain as the imprint of my palm burned into his face, and red Hellfire began to engulf his body. Seconds later, Robert Quinn’s entire figure was burning bright at five thousand degrees. I conjured a shield of purple to surround the fucker and keep the deadly flames from spreading to the rest of the mansion. Quinn’s screams continued for a few minutes and then died out.
When I released the purple barrier, all that was left of his body was a pile of ashes. There was a long, tense silence that filled the room.
“So… That was intense.” Todd finally interjected. “Can I have his cowboy hat?”
“Of course you can.” I nodded. “This whole place is ours now.”
&nbs
p; Chapter 3
I let out a long sigh of relief as I relaxed in a lounge chair and puffed on one of the cigars I’d found in Quinn’s study. It’d only been a few hours since we’d slain the demon and taken out his guards, but we’d decided that we’d had enough demon hunting for the week. Now we had this giant mansion all to ourselves, and we were going to have some fun.
It all started with the Olympic-sized swimming pool in the backyard. The girls and I laid out in a set of fancy black wicker chairs and soaked up some rays. The bright Arizona sun beat down in full force, causing visible waves of heat to radiate off the ground. While I had taken off everything but my boxers to keep from overheating and slathered on a truly ridiculous amount of sunscreen, the hundred-degree weather didn’t seem to bother any of my friends.
They were demons after all.
“Bro, brooooo!” Todd called out from the high dive.
“What’s up, Todd?” I looked over at the diving board out of the side of my vision.
“I wanna get higher!” he yelled.
“Of course you do,” I laughed.
With the wave of my hand, I conjured up four barriers of purple fire above the imp’s head to form a makeshift staircase. My friend hopped up onto the platforms one by one and then paused when he reached the top. Now about sixty feet above the ground, the imp squatted down, placed his hands together, and prepared for the dive.
“I’m going for the Gold,” he said with a giggle before he jumped off the violet flames.
Todd curled up into a ball and spun around like a hamster wheel as he plummeted toward the crisp blue water below. About ten feet from the surface of the pool, the imp opened up his body into a spread eagle pose.
“Belly flooooooop!” he cackled with glee just before he smacked into the water, and I couldn’t help but laugh as the miniature tidal wave sloshed up over the side of the pool and splashed onto the dark-haired succubi's feet.
“The water’s so cold!” Liby squealed playfully.
“I can tell.” Cupiditas smirked as she nodded toward her friend’s diamond hard nipples.
