by Eric Vall
“Of course not,” Cupi answered. “There are billions, if not trillions, of people who are sent to Hell. Lucifer has developed ways of… Accommodating our guests so that we don’t have overcrowding problems.”
“That’s demon-speak for ‘chops them up into little pieces,’ isn’t it?” Todd asked.
“Something like that,” the blonde woman chuckled.
“People who end up in Hell wish it were that simple.” Cupiditas shuddered. “The kind of things they have to go through make getting chopped up into tiny pieces seem like a day at the beach.”
“Yo, Jakey.” Todd interrupted with a tap on the shoulder. “You got a text from your fuckbuddy.”
“What’s it say?” I asked.
“It’s got an eggplant with a bunch of water droplets and a mouth licking its lips,” Todd explained.
“Seriously?” I laughed.
“Of course not,” the imp giggled. “It says ‘They have found the one, and we are going to be starting around midnight. Please hurry.’ Then it has the coordinates for some place out in the middle of Muir Woods.”
“Mr. Masterson, set our course,” I joked.
“Yes, Captain Jakey, sir!” Todd replied and then started to tap at Shadow’s dashboard GPS.
The coordinates popped up on the display and showed that we were currently about thirty minutes away.
“Bro, you know what this means?” Todd snickered. “We get to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge.”
“The what?” Libidine asked.
“The Golden Gate Bridge,” I explained. “It’s this huge bridge that was built in the middle of the ocean. It’s one of the wonders of the modern world.”
“A bridge?” Sia didn’t sound impressed. “One of the greatest wonders of your world?”
“Hey, us mortals don’t all have magical Hellfire powers or giant, super-strong demons or supernatural pets,” I argued. “We have to settle for the things we accomplish with our own two hands, our creative minds, and our blood, sweat and tears. That bridge is one of those accomplishments.”
“‘Merica.” Todd added.
“We have a famous bridge, as well,” Liby spoke up. “It goes across the River of Souls and is guarded by a demon that the Egyptians called Xsf-Xmw.”
“Uh, is Liby having a stroke?” Todd asked.
“Exactly,” The curvy woman continued. “That’s why we just call him Xavier.”
“He’s actually quite friendly, once you get to know him.” Sia acknowledged. “His little unicorn horn is adorable, as well.”
“There’s a unicorn man guarding the main bridge in Hell?” I asked with a chuckle as I turned Shadow onto the exit for the Golden Gate Bridge.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Cupi shot back. “He’s a demon with a deer head and a single horn. Unicorns don’t exist, sheesh.”
“I can’t tell if you’re fucking with me or not.” I looked back at the fit blonde in the mirror.
“Bro, what if that’s the key to ending this war?” the baked-out Todd asked curiously. “Unicorns. Think about it. Humans have never seen them. Demons have never seen them. They could be the ultimate secret weapon. How fucking cool would it be to ride a motherfucking unicorn into battle?”
“Okay, I can officially say that one is the weed talking.” I smiled and shook my head in amusement.
“I was right about the demons, bro.” Todd crossed his arms. “Just sayin’.”
We drove for about ten more minutes, and then we saw the Golden Gate Bridge stretching out before us. It looked just like it did in all the pictures I’d ever seen of the structure. However, even the most detailed of pictures didn’t begin to do justice for this marvelous work of engineering. The Golden Gate Bridge stretched out across the bright blue water of the bay, its licorice-red arches towering over seven-hundred feet into the sky. From the top of each arch hung a pair of suspension cables that dipped into a downward curve before coming back up to reach the top of the second arch. It was now night time, but the entire bridge was illuminated by massive floodlights at its base.
Several cars zipped past Shadow as our vehicle entered the structure.
“That’s it?” Sia mused. “It’s just a bridge.”
“Maybe to you, Strawberry Shortcake.” Todd stood up and put his hand over his heart. “But to us it’s a symbol of the plight of man and his ability to overcome any obstacle put before him, a giant middle finger to Mother Nature herself.”
“Oh God,” I mumbled. “Todd’s getting philosophical. He must be hitting the good stuff.”
“And furthermore--” the imp continued, but I turned up the radio to block out his rambling.
Todd continued his scholarly rant for the rest of the trip. All the way across the bridge, all the way across the bay coastline, and all the way through Muir Woods until we finally arrived parallel to the location the GPS wanted us to go.
I pulled Shadow off the road and killed the engine.
“And that, my friends, is why the Pearl Harbor was an inside job,” Todd finished as the radio went dead. “Any questions?”
“Nope,” I chuckled as I opened up the door of the Jeep. “I think you explained everything crystal clear, Professor Todd.”
“Jacob, look.” Sia pointed out into the forest.
Off in the distance, through the line of massive redwood trees, I could faintly make out the flickering of a fire.
“You think that’s them?” Cupiditas asked cautiously.
“Who else would be all the way out there in the woods at this time of night?” I responded. “That’s gotta be the Cult of Azazel.”
The five of us slowly walked through the woods toward the campfire.
There were hardly any bugs in this part of the Golden State, so the night air was as silent as death. As we walked, we tried our best not to make a single sound. We tried to avoid stepping on any dead branches, or tripping over any clumps of foliage, or tree roots, but traveling through the woods under the cover of night made that nearly impossible. Once we were about fifty feet away from the site, we paused.
The fire was roaring, but there was nobody there.
“What the fuck?” I whispered to my friends. “Do you think we’re just early?”
“Maybe Jane gave us the wrong coordinates?” Sia suggested.
“She wouldn’t do that.” I shook my head. “This has to be the right place.”
I went to take a step toward the fire, but Todd held out his hand to stop me.
“Hold up, bro,” he warned, and then he leaned down and pointed at a small undergrowth.
The imp shot a small ball of Hellfire at the foliage, and it went up in flames.
Hidden underneath was a perfect Key of Solomon.
“This whole place is loaded with demon traps, bro.” The imp motioned to the area surrounding the fire. “See? There’s an enchanted bone trap attached to a rope up in that tree. And there’s a bunch of woven crosses hung all along the back of this redwood here, just out of our sight.”
“How clever.” Sia clicked her tongue.
“Holy fuck, there are demon bottles everywhere!” Todd exclaimed as he shattered a couple of the vessels with his Hellfire. “Plus, check this out.”
The imp carefully walked over to the area in front of the fire, bent down, and tugged on what appeared to be a transparent string.
The second he did so, a large, spiked tree branch swung down from above. Todd was small enough that it missed him completely, but had the succubi or I been standing there, we would have become a shish kebab.
“Son of a bitch.” I turned around and kicked a branch in anger. “It was a trap!”
“A pretty ingenious one, too.” Todd put his hands on his hips and looked around with satisfaction. “There are Keys of Solomon all around the perimeter. The succubi and your friendly neighborhood Toddster would have been caught up in those, and then Jakey would have gotten taken out by one of the more conventional traps.”
“Did they really think a trip-wire was going
to take me out?” I laughed. “I’m almost offended.”
Todd just shrugged. “Either the trip wire, or one of these.”
The imp tossed a rock onto the ground on the left side of the fire, and the tiny boulder stuck into a tarry black substance on the ground. Not a second later the fire pit was split open at the side, and a couple of large logs rolled out onto the tarry substance, setting it ablaze instantly.
“That could have been you, bro,” the imp warned.
“Nonsense.” I snorted. “I could have just teleported out of there like this.”
I reached down into my very being, conjured up feelings of disgust, and then aimed at the boulder.
Nothing happened.
“What the…” I was dumbfounded.
I tried again, but still, there was nothing.
“An anti-telekinetic hex.” Cupi sounded both horrified and impressed.
“Can they do that?” I asked in surprise.
“It’s an ancient magic known only to Charron, but I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised that Azazel’s followers know of it,” Sia explained. “He was always one for bending the rules for his own convenience.”
“So wait,” I said as I tried to wrap my mind around what was going on. “If anti-magical hexes exist, then why haven’t we tried using them on any of the demons we’ve fought?”
“Two reasons,” the redhead continued, “One, these spells are meant to protect against demonic and divine entities. They can only be cast by a mortal or one who can travel across the Realms, such as Charron. Two, they are counter-intuitive for magic users like ourselves because they would also take away our own abilities. Finally, and this is the most important one… Charron is the only one who is familiar with this spell. Azazel must have bribed him into teaching it to his followers.”
“Do you think Jane set us up?” Cupiditas spat angrily.
“She is the one who sent us the false coordinates,” Liby grumbled.
I shook my head back and forth. “She wouldn’t do that.”
“That’s right,” Todd called from the other side of the fire, “She believed in the power of your penis!”
“I think there’s more to it than--” I began to argue.
“Power of your penis!” the imp cackled back. “Sounds like my band’s next big single.”
“Why don’t you call her?” Sia suggested. “If she really has decided to betray you, then she won’t answer. Not to mention, it would show her that you outsmarted their trap, and that you’ll be coming for them.”
“Good idea,” I said as I pulled out my phone and punched Jane’s name in my contacts list.
I clicked the button, and the display on my phone lit up blue with her number. The line rang for a second or so, and then I heard the sound of somebody picking up the phone.
“Yellow?” I heard Todd’s voice on the other side of the line.
“What the--” I stuttered. “Todd?”
I looked up and saw the imp standing across the way, waving as he held the cell phone to his ear.
“I saw this thing go off on the ground over here,” he explained. “I figured it must have been something really important, considering my best friend Jakey was on the other line.”
“Aw shucks,” I half-joked as I hung up the phone and then looked at the succubi somberly. “This is bad.”
“So she wasn’t trying to set us up?” Libidine asked.
“No, Liby.” I shook my head. “Even worse. I think she was found out, and now she’s in danger.”
“Where else could the cult be holding their ritual?” Cupiditas pondered. “If we find them, we will almost certainly find Jane.”
Sia slapped her palm to her forehead. “How could I have been so foolish?” she muttered.
“What’s wrong, sister?” Libidine asked as she put a hand on the redhead’s tender shoulder.
“I don’t remember much from my limited interactions with the cult,” the madame explained. “But I do remember them saying something about performing their most sacred of rituals ‘as close to the Heavens as possible.’ Azazel liked to laugh about the spiteful irony.”
“They couldn’t have gotten too far, considering Jane’s battery was still alive.” I nodded. “What’s the tallest building in San Francisco?”
“The internet says it’s the Salesforce Tower,” Todd said as he tapped away at Jane’s phone. “It’s over one-thousand feet tall, and it has a perfectly flat roof. Perfect for demonic rituals.”
“Then that’s where we need to go.” I turned around and motioned for my friends to follow behind me.
These fuckers were already going to die for trying to bring back Azazel. But now, they had one of my women, and I was going to make them suffer dearly.
Chapter 17
The drive back from Muir Woods was unusually tense.
Now, we were literally in a race against time to stop the conception of the Nephilim and to rescue our newfound friend.
Silence enveloped Shadow’s interior. Even Todd, the imp who normally always had something witty to say, was silent and somber. He just sat there in the passenger seat, tapping his foot on the leather interior and taking a pull from his joint every now and again. He was either on edge about our situation, or he was just completely baked.
The three succubi sat in the backseat of the vehicle, and they each wore a look of concern as they watched the beautiful coastline pass them by.
We crossed back over the Golden Gate Bridge at breakneck speed, and finally found ourselves in the metropolitan area of the city.
“It’ll be okay, everyone,” I weakly promised. “We’ve still got almost an hour until the ceremony starts, and I’m sure Jane is still alive. She gave me a run for her money in battle, so just imagine what she did to a bunch of weakling cultists.”
“I would second that sentiment.” Sia finally spoke up. “The Cult of Azazel is undyingly loyal to their brethren. They wouldn’t just kill one of their own even though she betrayed them.”
“Then where do you think she is?” I asked as we drove down the streets of San Francisco. “At the tower with the rest of those assholes?”
“I’d bet money on it.” The redhead nodded in agreement. “Though I don’t know what they intend to do with her.”
“I do,” Cupiditas said grimly. “She’ll probably be sent to be ‘reformed’ like Sister Tris and I were when we would misbehave.”
“Reformed?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“It’s just fancy talk for ‘tortured until we promised not to do it again,’” Libidine growled. “My sisters would be gone for days at a time when they were being reformed.”
“Azazel and his minions found that fear was a good way to keep people in line,” Superbia explained. “There’s a reason that all of his succubi are familiar with their fear powers, even if some of us refuse to use them.”
The succubi’s words caused a fiery rage to simmer up from the very core of my being.
“They are dangerous, sister,” Libidine argued. “Ira’s magic destroyed an entire island, Cupi’s black fire sent her to purgatory, and mine--”
“Let’s not even talk about it.” Cupiditas interrupted. “Unfortunately, we can’t all have the same control as Pride over here.”
“I couldn’t control it at first either, girls,” the madame explained. “But being the mediator between Azazel, Earl, and his succubi, I had to learn very quickly.”
“Lucky you,” Cupi grumbled.
“What are your black Hellfire powers, Jacob?” she asked. “I’ve never seen you try to use them before.”
“The Shadow World,” I said as my temples throbbed.
“Oh.” Sia responded fearfully. “I understand. Say no more.”
“Jacob,” Libidine gasped, “Your horns--”
“They’re huge!” Cupiditas exclaimed.
I reached up and felt the appendage on the right side of my head. The succubi were right, it felt like the blue horns had nearly doubled in size from the last
time they appeared.
Then again, I had made multiple new connections since then.
“I didn’t even realize I’d summoned them,” I said in disbelief.
“It’s okay, bro,” Todd joked. “Popping ‘em randomly is all just part of puberty. It’s completely natural, and nothing to be ashamed of. You’ll be able to control it better when you get older.”
“Welcome back to the world of the living.” I looked back over the seat at the imp.
Todd stood up in the seat and stretched.
“Sorry about that,” he apologized. “I was just coming down from a maaaaajor high. But now I’m just fucking starving. Can we stop for some donuts?”
“Seriously?” I asked. “We have to get to the Salesforce Tower and stop the Nephilim from being conceived. And find out what happened to Jane.”
“Bro,” Todd begged. “Dunkin Donuts has a drive-thru.”
“Let’s stop Lucifer from single-handedly winning the war for the fate of the universe,” I chuckled. “Then maybe we can stop for donuts.”
“Fuck yeah!” the imp pumped his fist into the air.
As Shadow rounded the corner of Market Street and 1st, there it was. The Salesforce Tower. The exterior of the building was made entirely out of chrome and glass, and even in the darkness it reflected the lights from the surrounding buildings. Lights from the tower’s interior illuminated the dark building and created a checkerboard pattern all the way up its sixty-one stories. It kind of looked like a thick blue pencil with a white graphite tip, and it was much taller than the surrounding buildings.
“Finding a parking spot at this time of night is going to be a bitch,” Todd sighed. “Not that I have any change for the meter, anyway.”
“What year do you live in?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“The current one.” Todd shrugged. “I dunno what the big deal is. Credit cards are way easier for the government to track, so I’m a cash-only type of imp.”
“I don’t think we’re going to have to worry about a meter.” I pointed to a small spot up ahead on the sidewalk, between the road and a set of chrome bollards. It was going to be a tight fit, but it would be just large enough for the Jeep Wrangler.
