by Dante King
“I would never presume to correct a member of your harem,” came Godfrey’s careful reply. “I would, however, hasten to assure Mareth that the Fae are very real—and very dangerous. The part about turning the Earth into a barren wasteland is incorrect, however.”
I brightened. “Yeah?”
“They would never pass up the opportunity to spend a few centuries torturing mortals, first.”
My heart fell into my stomach. “So is that where Lilith and Judyth went? To this Fae Realm?” Something occurred to me. “How do you even know all this, anyway?”
“I am in no way desirous of repetition,” Godfrey rumbled, “but as I’ve said, explaining who I am and how I came to be here would take more time than we have. It should suffice to say that I have a vested interest in seeing you succeed as Lucifer’s heir and become the Archlord of Hell. I am on your side, Master.”
“He’s telling the truth, Luke,” Maddie said from the backseat. “I can feel it.”
I remembered Maddie flipping over cards during Eiko’s divination test. The fact that if I hadn’t been in the room to fuck up the curve and blow the results out of the water, that Maddie would be the most promising student at telepathy and predicting the future in decades.
“Okay,” I said. “I trust you. So we need to go to the Fae Realm, then?”
“Not exactly,” Godfrey said. “I’ve been performing a scan of the Realms as we had this conversation, and I’ve located both Infernal Headmistress Lilith and Celestial Headmistress Judyth. Both have left their respective Academies for the moment—but they are not in the Fae Realm.”
This was getting more confusing by the moment. “Where the hell are they, then?” I asked, thumping the steering wheel with my fists.
“Both of them have entered what’s known as a ‘liminal zone’,” the car explained. “A sort of doorway between the other realms and the world of the Fae. Given what I know of the situation, I’d assume the Fae are using this liminal zone as a beach head to establish a permanent portal to the Infernal and Celestial Realms.”
And if they succeed, bad things happen, I thought. And I thought I only had angels and demons to worry about!
“If my aunt is working with an angel,” Mareth said, “it must be the end of the world.”
I made my decision. “We’re going,” I said turning the goat’s head stick shift into drive. “Can you take us there, Godfrey?”
“Indeed I can,” the car rumbled. Its engine let out a leonine roar as it prepared to peel out of the Infernal Academy’s parking lot. “It’s liable to be a bumpy road, Master. I suggest everyone buckle up!”
Next to me in the passenger seat, Christina pouted. “I’m not going to have time to give Luke road head, am I, car?”
“I’m afraid not, Miss Christina.” Godfrey actually sounded contrite about it.
“Fuck,” Christina said, her upper lip curling. “Well, I’m making up for it later. You are definitely getting a blowie once we deal with this Fae bullshit, Luke. You owe me one!”
“And I will be glad to pay you back,” I told her with a smile. “Trust me, as soon as we save the world, I plan to do some hardcore celebrating—”
That was as far as I got. The car took off like a rocket, throwing Christina and me back into our seats. The highway to hell stretched beneath us, the familiar tunnels full of sinners and unholy fire blurring in my vision as the engine kicked into overdrive.
“Holy shit!” Mareth howled. She’d been between our seats as the car started, and now she’d curled up in the backseat in a heap, licking her wounds. As the car accelerated, she pressed against the back, her nails digging into the leather. “Oh my Satan, oh my Satan we’re all gonna die…”
“I need to reach terminal velocity in order to pierce the liminal zone!” I couldn’t tell if Godfrey had raised his voice, or if the engine was just so loud it was like a jet taking off in my ears. Either way, I could no longer hear Mareth screaming. “Hold on—I need to bring us to full power!”
The corners of my vision went black. A film of gray covered the world, like the car had just gone down a steep hill on a roller coaster. The roar of the engine was strangely muted in my ears, replaced by the sounds of ringing.
I’m going to pass out, I realized, gripping the wheel weakly. Shit…
An ordinary human would probably have already been dead. Godfrey took us to utterly absurd speeds as he shot down the highway to Hell—after all, there were no speed limits. At the crest of a hill, the car shot straight into the sky, each flame of the fires of Hell elongating like the light show that occurred whenever the Millennium Falcon jumped into hyperspace.
I glanced over at Christina. She lay comatose in the passenger seat, a thin trail of drool trickling from the side of her mouth. Much more of this and we wouldn’t be able to hold together—we wouldn’t even need the Fae to conquer us.
“Godfrey,” I muttered, unable to hear the word in my own ears. “Stop…”
Just as my consciousness crumbled, the light show ceased. A massive tear ripped through the center of the sky, shredding the Infernal Realm.
We were through. Barely alive, but through.
Chapter 15
The car came to a stop in darkness.
Smoke poured from the hood of the car, rising into the black in shimmering waves. This was no chuckle or chortle from my guardian angel—the transition into the liminal zone had dealt Godfrey some serious damage. I sat up, willing movement back into my limbs—they were all on pins and needles—and pulled feebly at the seatbelt, trying to get free.
“Godfrey?” It came out as a croak. “Are you alright, pal?”
For a moment, no one replied, and I had the awful feeling the car was dead. Could a guardian angel even die? Or would its soul just be trapped in the liminal zone forever?
A coughing plume of steam joined the smoke. “I am alive, Master. The transition to the liminal zone hurt me more than I expected.”
A groan from the passenger seat caught my attention and held it. Christina had ceased drooling, and she was going through the same process of slow healing that I’d started. Rather than tug, however, she’d simply used her claws to slash through the seatbelt, freeing her breasts to sway back and forth in her scaly armor.
“I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck,” Christina gasped. “And the truck was made of several smaller trucks…”
Godfrey’s voice was pensive. “Master, I’m sensing a great deal of danger up ahead. You should gather your party and venture forth. I’m certain now that Headmistresses Lilith and Judyth will need your help to stop the incursion of the Fae Realm.”
“Working on it,” I said with a weary nod. Energy flowed back into my limbs as I embraced my demonic nature. It trickled back more slowly than I’d have liked, but it was there. “Are you going to be able to get us out of here?”
“I have begun the process of self-diagnosis and healing,” Godfrey said, sounding distracted. I suddenly realized the car was probably scanning the area, scanning itself, and carrying on this conversation without breaking a sweat. “At my estimation, it will take a considerable amount of time for my engine to recover enough to break free of the liminal zone. So much so that, should you fail to stop the intrusion of the Fae, we will not be able to escape this Realm before being drawn in ourselves.”
So there was no turning back. Great. “Alright,” I said, shoving my shoulder against the driver’s seat. It didn’t move, but Godfrey automatically popped the lock a moment later and let me out. My fingers managed the catch on the seat belt, and I took my first step into the liminal zone. It was cool and dark, like the inside of a cave.
Because it was a cave. Godfrey had parked us inside some underground structure. The ground sloped upward, so dark that I could barely see my fingers at the ends of my arms, but a single point of light shone in the darkness a few minutes’ walk up the slope. If we could make it, that is.
“Mareth,” I grunted, remembering the way the demon girl had been slam
med into the backseat. “Maddie! You two okay?”
The rest of the doors slid open. Maddie groaned, letting me know she was alive. Mareth didn’t move, so I went to her first.
For a horrible moment, I thought the succubus had died. An angry bruise covered half her face where she’d been battered around in the back seat like a kid shaking up a snowglobe, slamming into the ceiling and the back windshield with a force that would have snapped a human woman’s neck. Only her demonic strength saved her.
I lifted Mareth out of the backseat and held her to me, my strength rapidly returning. “Come on,” I grunted, commanding her the way a Master was supposed to. “Don’t you dare die on me, succubus. Your Master commands you to get the fuck up…”
One of Mareth’s eyes opened a crack. “M-Master?”
So much relief rushed out of me that it was almost sexual. “You scared the shit out of me,” I said, hugging the succubus tight.
She chuckled weakly against my chest. “It takes more than that to kill one of Lucifer’s daughters,” she said with a wheeze. “Besides, you know I like a little pain.” Her finger strayed to her cheek. “How bad is it?”
“Not too bad,” I lied. “Demon girls on campus will probably just think we got extra rough in bed.”
Mareth grinned. “I’m okay now,” she assured me. “Set me down.”
I did. The succubus swayed a bit, but she remained on her feet. That left just Maddie, who lay recovering on the driver’s side of the backseat. She blinked rapidly as I came to her side, feeling at her face as if something were wrong. I saw no marks or bruises, so it wasn’t until she opened her mouth that I understood.
“My glasses,” Maddie whispered. “My glasses are gone!”
I looked in the back seat and the front, checked the cup holders, but Maddie’s glasses were nowhere to be found. Either one of Godfrey’s windows had come open a crack during the transition into liminal space, or they’d been shaken around so hard by the car’s speed that they’d broken into little bits. Either way, we weren’t going to find them here.
“I’m sorry,” I told Maddie, lifting her from the car. “We’ll get you another pair as soon as this is over. In the meantime, I’ll tell you where to aim.”
Maddie laughed. “I can see just fine,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve had perfect vision ever since I got my wings. I just... I like them, you know? They remind me of my old life.”
I nodded. “I know. As soon as we get out of this, we’ll hit up a LensCrafters or something. Get you whatever pair you want, Mads.”
Still struggling to recover, the four of us made our way up the slope. Godfrey refused to budge, saying he’d done all he could and to try and make it up the hill would only injure him further. I left him to his healing and climbed.
By the time we reached the cave opening, I felt like crawling. Maddie had her wings open and was half-walking, half-fluttering the second half of the slope, helping Mareth and Christina on their way. Some backup we are, I thought with a snort. At this rate, Lilith and Judyth are going to have to rescue us—
It was then that I heard the first scream.
Instantly, my senses sharpened. I reached for my demonic powers without thinking, wings emerging from my back to tear through my already tattered robes. My tendrils swarmed out of me, writhing like demonic serpents. Next to me, Christina and Mareth transformed, their beautiful features going savage as they opened themselves up to their Infernal natures.
All of us knew that voice. It was the Headmistress of our school—Lilith.
I emerged from the cave’s mouth at a dead run, my wings beating against the balmy air while my tendrils swarmed a dark shadow behind me. We stood in a deep glade, old-growth trees surrounding a clearing that seemed carved out of the landscape rather than naturally allowed to grow. Two moons hung in the sky, bathing the forest in an eerie glow.
Figures were engaged in combat. I didn’t think—just flung myself into the fray, ready to help out. As I did, I counted five roughly human-shaped figures and one massive round one, trying in an instant to reason who was on which side.
A head whipped around as I landed. I found myself staring face-to-face with Lilith, the Headmistress of the Infernal Academy. Lucifer’s ex-wife.
She grinned, showing her fangs. “I should have known you’d find some way to show up,” the mature demon purred, shaking her head. “Did you bring my niece with you?”
Just behind me, Christina, Mareth, and Maddie landed in the clearing. Each of them had their long, lustrous wings wrapped around their bodies, their transformations fully complete. This wasn’t just a harem I’d brought with me to the liminal zone—it was a miniature army, ready and willing to fight and kill to protect each other. I loved them fiercely.
“Figured you could use some help,” I said with a shrug. “The Headmistresses of both my schools get called away on an errand, I get curious, you know?”
“Oh, I know,” Lilith said with a lusty purr. “Help me kill this troll, would you?”
Troll?
I barely had time to think the word before a massive granite fist swung at my face. I ducked backward, my wings flapping spasmodically as I put distance between myself and the first monster I’d seen from the Fae Realm. It was huge! If you’d put every member of my harem on each other’s shoulders with Maddie on top (and believe me, that’s an orgy I’d like to see), then the troll would still have stood taller than Maddie’s head. Mosses and lichens covered the stone mass of its torso, with a face only a mother troll could love.
The thing had no weapons—and didn’t need them. Its fists were enough.
My eagerness to escape only enraged the troll. It charged forward, beating the ground with its fists like the drummer of a death metal band. The earth beneath my feet shook, nearly throwing me off balance, so I took to the air on my wings.
Its big stone figures grabbed at me as I soared—only for a gray blur to slam into the troll’s side. The beast rolled, as smooth on its side as it was upright, and changed targets. The gray figure unrolled like something out of a nightmare, going from four legs back to two as it parried the troll’s blow.
Holy shit. I knew this guy. That was Bryan—a demon called a Rake, who Christina and I sparred with back at the Wrath School. That meant—
A beetle-backed demon dropped from a nearby tree, a spear glinting in its hand. It pierced the back of the troll’s neck, driving the hilt deep into its flesh, and the monster screamed.
Suddenly, Christina was in flight, hovering over the troll’s head. “Aztomund,” my girlfriend said with pleasure. “What are you doing in the Fae Realm, asshole?”
“Same thing you are,” the beetle demon said with a guffaw. “Getting my fight on!”
Fireballs sprung to life in Christina’s hands. “Oh hell yes! Luke, let’s do this!”
The troll had been holding its own against Aztomund and Bryan, but with the addition of my harem, it was clear it couldn’t fight us all off. Countless spells rained down on its head, battering it with flames and lightning and ice as it tried to pick a single target to strike out against. It didn’t help the beast that every member of my harem could fly, dodging out of its grip before it could slam them to the ground the way it did with its fists.
Before long, the troll was down for the count. I finished it off, my shadow tendrils snaking out to grip its four limbs and tear them off. The limbless troll rolled for a moment before my tendrils snatched its head in their grips. They squeezed and squeezed until the troll’s skull popped like an overripe watermelon.
“Fuck yeah!” I said, throwing a fist in the air. “We did it!”
I landed back in the clearing, my girls forming a circle around me. Bryan and Aztomund landed a few feet away—and all the while, Lilith stood near the trees, watching us with a mixture of lust and caution. What was going on in the Headmistress’s brain as she watched her star students destroy a threat from the Fae Realm?
I decided I wanted to find out.
“Hey,�
�� I told Lucifer’s ex-wife, sounding for all the world like a guy who’d just spotted her at a bar. I made my way across the clearing, slowly releasing the demonic power flowing through my body. “Looks like we got here just in time.”
Lilith stared at me for a moment, cocking her head to the side. Then she began to laugh.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did you think that was all you had to do?”
My eyebrows furrowed together. “Huh?”
The smell of ozone hit my nostrils a moment before the portal opened. A swirling green vortex of magic appeared at the edge of the clearing, right next to the woods. I tensed, expecting another monster, but instead Judyth stepped through, looking pissed.
I soon discovered why. She wasn’t alone.
An angel carrying a flaming sword stepped through the rent behind her, his face carved from stone. While Lilith had brought two heavies with her to the liminal zone, Judyth had only seen the need for one—Holofernes. Considering what he’d done to me during our last encounter, I couldn’t really blame her.
Fucking asshole, I thought, glaring at Holofernes’s back. I wouldn’t try anything, not at a time like this, but if some monster from the Fae took the Angel of Vengeance down, I certainly wouldn’t cry any tears.
“They are regrouping,” Holofernes said without preamble. “Another attack is imminent.”
Judyth looked exhausted. Dirt and blood clung to her pure white robes, as if she’d run through a battlefield on her hands and knees. Her halo hung half over the side of her head, nearly forgotten in the fight. A sword hung at her side, not as impressive as Holofernes’s, but coated in far more blood.
She looked less happy to see me than Lilith had been. “You,” she hissed, aiming for rage but landing on weariness. “I thought I told you to stay at the Celestial Academy.”
“You didn’t tell me anything,” I shot back. “Eiko was worried about you.”
Judyth’s eyes narrowed. I don’t know how she knew what Maddie and I had done with the gorgeous divination instructor, but of course she did.
