The Pleasures of Hell

~~Author's Note~~

It's been a while since I've done proper descriptions of the characters and world concepts. Forgive me while I re-describe some things and characters. Most authors do this every novel, but I've been putting it off. Book 5 is a good time to do it again, I wager.

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~~Day 98~~

~~Mia~

Another day, another night. She wanted to get moving now, but Azreal needed to recover, and Vin too, despite his protests to the contrary. His ankle was fucked, and sure, he'd heal fast, especially since she kept his belly full, but a wrecked ankle took longer than a day to heal.

"Let's wait a couple more days," she said, standing in the middle of their little makeshift cave. "The rider... Cain, is out there, looking for us and James. Beelzebub fought off those aliens I bet, and he, it, whatever, is looking for us, too. I don't think he can just wander the province, though. He's trapped and injured."

"You let him out," Romakus said, sitting against the cave wall beside Kas.

"Beelzebub's not free. I don't think it's as simple as just the location, right? Asmodeus got out back in the Black Valley, but he didn't act like he was free. He came at me like I was all that mattered, and I got lucky and put him back underground. But it never seemed like he was free." Mia waved a hand. "My point is, I don't think we have to worry about Beelzebub just popping up out of the ground like a daisy and catching me. His followers... I dunno, but we can handle a bunch of emaciated betrayers, right?" The group nodded. "Dobasi, on the other hand, I'm not sure. Think he's still alive?" Dobasi, the spire ruler of Angel's Spine, probably wanted Mia dead for the damage she caused.

Romakus sneered. "He is tough to kill. He's in his spire, recovering from using the aura, no doubt. And considering his lover died, he's going to blame you for that, Mia. Not to mention the thousands of demons who died to the invader, and Beelzebub. Not to mention the physical damage--"

Sighing, Mia wandered over to Vin and sat on his leg, like a bench. "You think he's an enemy now?"

"I think he could be. He's a smart motherfucker, but he holds a grudge, too. He invited you into his spire so he could work with you; this spire is special, with the whole archangel blood pit thing. But you kinda ruined everything to save James, so..." Romakus shrugged and gave his huge wings a small flap, making the dangling skulls lightly rattle against the stone wall. "Hope it was worth it."

"It was fucking worth it!" Mia hopped off Vin as quickly as she'd hopped on, marched up to Romakus, and glared straight into his damn demony face. Sitting down, the ten-foot-tall demon's face was eye-level with her. "Three unmarked are dead already. There's six of us left, and we're probably all scattered throughout Hell. Who knows who'll make it to the Forgotten Place! And apparently, we're the fucking key to saving the god damn universe from getting swallowed up by an incarnation of fucking oblivion!" She kicked the asshole's huge foot. "So I made a decision! I saved James's life, and I made that call because I thought, in the situation I was in -- we were in -- there was a chance I'd live, too. I trusted you, and Julisa and Kas and Vin, and Dobasi and the others, to deal with the fallout!"

Romakus smirked. "You think you saved James's life, you mean. He could be dead."

"He's not. I got visions when the other three died." A cruel shiver pulsed down her spine at the memory of staring up at her brother as he beat another unmarked to death with a rock. "James is alive, and I'm going to keep it that way. The angels said he's a nice guy. He's alive, and supposedly having a nice sex life with Livian and the others. Things are looking up!"

Hollow words. Dobasi's lover, Cillia, was dead, killed in the battle, and he probably blamed her. Hundreds of demons had died, probably thousands, because of her, too. They'd looked happy to die in battle, or at least happy for a battle, but that didn't mean she didn't feel a little sad about it.

What fucking universe did she live in? Feeling bad about demons dying? If she'd still been alive and said that to someone on the surface, they'd have thought she was crazy, for multiple reasons.

"We rest," Kas said, "and then we move on. No use in thinking about what we can't change. Rest."

Mia smiled at Kas. She'd said those exact words to David in the past because her brother was the type who couldn't stop analyzing until he'd paced himself into a ditch, and she was doing it, too. She wandered back to Vin, sat on his leg again, and motioned for Cerberus. Her big dog walked over to her, sat in front of her, and all three heads waited for pets. She stroked the tops of all three heads, rubbed between his horns, and combed back his growing mane of spikes. Her precious hellhound.

"Feeling better, Cerb?"

The three heads watched her, not understanding. That was fine. She looked to Kas, and Kas clicked a few times. Cerberus's boss head clicked once in his throat.

"He says he's strong." Kas shrugged and patted the ground with his giant tail. "Hellbeasts aren't smart enough to understand nuance, Mia. It knows strong and weak, that is all. It thinks it is strong."

That made sense. Strong creatures survived. Weak creatures did not.

She rubbed his faces, leaned in, and gave each one a headbutt. He returned them in kind, and dopey head nudged his nose into her neck, looking for more pets. Not hellhound behaviour, despite how Cerb was obviously a hellhound. The only difference between him and a cannam was he was a bit bigger for his age, and had three heads. He had the small horns, body spikes, cat-like claws, a spiky tail, a mane of spikes like a lion, and cat-ish, dog-ish snouts.

He didn't act like a cannam. He was special.

"Azreal," she said.

The large angel, sitting alone but nearby, slowly lifted his head. "Yes, Mia?"

"How you feeling?"

The man spared her a small smile, the intensity of his purple -- amethyst -- eyes gone, but he gave his two wings a gentle flap. Barely.

"I will live."

"Anything I can do? You really saved my ass, you know. Flew back when I told you to go for James."

He shrugged, again a small motion, as if the effort were too much. "The sound of battle could not be ignored. Noah and Yosepha were confident they could handle the betrayers and mutants Beelzebub sent for James. You needed a protector." He gestured to himself with some fingers dangling over his knee. "I am rapholem. A protector."

She beamed at him. "You are. You--" She squeaked as giant red fingers circled her waist and set her higher upon Vin's leg, close enough she could lean against his chest.

Vin, the twelve-foot goliath with four arms, kept one hand around her waist, and rumbled quietly.

"The angel is wounded. I will protect you," he said.

Mia blinked up at the giant before poking him in the ribs. "I appreciate that, Vin, but let's be real, you're not as... stable, as an angel. You're a demon with big plans and big desires. You want to rule Hell and indulge your appetite, right? And hey, I don't blame you. Demons do demon things. And--"

"And you lack control," Kasimiro said. He walked over, walking on all fours using his long, thick arms, and he squatted down beside Cerberus. "Mia needs someone who can protect her with focus."

Kas was the most unusual-looking in the group. Romakus looked like a classic humanoid demon, with a demony, almost skull-ish face, two wings, clawed feet, a long tail, and big black horns. Julisa looked similar, just four arms instead of any wings. Vin looked like a bigger, scarier version of Julisa, four arms, giant tail, giant body spikes, giant horns, but with a short dragon snout.

Kasimiro, on the other hand, looked like a shark-dinosaur. He had short legs, body spikes, a huge tail covered in spikes, and thick, heavy arms he sometimes walked with. But most telling was his head. It was a shark's head, flat, and completely black. Eyeless, with two horns jutting forward from the sides for ramming and stabbing. He was almost as big as a tetrad, too, but with all the slouching, he never gave away his size.

Vin snorted down at Kas. "I am bound and I am committed. Do not test me, sarkarin."

"I am testing you, ragarin," Kas said. "You and all your kind could never see past your own impulses."

Mia straightened up on Vin's leg. "Kas... how old are you? I mean... I thought--"

Kas snorted and aimed an eyeless gaze up at Vin. "Old enough to be wary of a child of the Old Ones."

Mia blinked at her bodyguard. That wasn't what Kas had said before. No wonder he was such a good fighter. Demons didn't live long, but apparently Kas had been around for a very long time, longer than he'd let on. Of course he had to be the kind of asshole who didn't like talking about himself. Did Adron know?

"I think," Mia said, "that Vin's been a pretty awesome companion, all things considered. I mean, I have him leashed, and he's still helping, willingly."

Kas snorted again. "He just wants to fuck you."

Mia gulped. Kas never talked like that. She also blushed, because damn, that was forward, and she squirmed on Vin's leg.

"Well, I mean, I am very pretty," she said, summoning some bravery, spontaneity, and a smile. She grabbed the flaps of her long red toga thing -- more like flimsy strips of fabric barely held on around her neck and waist -- and gave them a little shake. "If Vin wants sex as payment for his cooperation, I'm willing to give it. And I like him. And you, too."

Julisa snorted, earning everyone's attention. But she said nothing, content to roll her eyes, smirk at Mia, and go back to doing absolutely nothing.

"Poor Julisa," Romakus said sarcastically, and he gestured to Kas with a colossal wing. "Gets to have sex with this sexy piece of man meat all the time. Well, what about me!? Yosepha isn't here! I have no one."

"I'm sure Yosepha is fine," Mia said, raising a brow at Romakus's compliment toward Kas. Kas took them in stride, even sitting a little straighter and taller. Demons were weird. "James is alive, so I'm sure she's alive, too."

Romakus groaned and rolled his eyes. "Yes, but she's not here! You've seen her naked ass, Mia, many times. You have no idea, no fucking idea, how much I need that ass in my life. It is the most amazing, perfect ass. A huge ass on a slim, fit woman! Bigger than your ass!" He gestured to Mia's ass, which was plentiful considering how tiny the rest of Mia was. She'd worked hard on it, damn it. "I need that ass back here, right now. We'd finally gotten comfortable fucking around you assholes, so I was looking forward to having my dick in that ass every night again." He gestured at the air, as if caressing two ass cheeks that weren't there. "So perfect and round and firm and--"

"We get it," Mia said. "We'll hold off on the sex until we're all back together, okay? Or at least until Yosepha is back with us. Fucking christ."

With a heavy sigh, Romakus leaned back against the cave wall and let his wings and limbs go limp, as if he'd died. "I need that ass, Mia. That perfect, black ass."

"Dude! The ass is not made for sex! Have you ever had sex with Yosepha in her... you know."

"Sure. But that's not nearly as fun."

Mia glared. Maybe if she glared hard enough, she'd drill her thoughts straight into his brain. But it wasn't like she didn't enjoy anal sex. Not as much as regular sex, but still, she did enjoy it, and Yosepha enjoyed it even more. But no way she'd admit that to Romakus. He'd use the information against her, somehow.

"How about you, angel?" Julisa asked, and she gestured to him with two of her four arms. "In what ways do you most enjoy sex?"

Azreal sighed and let his head roll back against the stone wall. "It's been a long time for me, demon."

"So long you can't remember?"

"I am no gabriem. I don't--"

"Don't be absurd," Julisa said. "Surely you must enjoy a certain part of a woman's body more than others." The fujara tetrad stood up, gave her tail a flick, and did a small turn in front of the angel. She wore her armor, but a few pieces of metal bent into shape and held on with leather straps left plenty of her skin exposed. And for all the bitch's bad attitude, damn she was built, muscular but curvy in all the right places, with large breasts the breastplate struggled with.

Azreal spared her only a glance before closing his eyes and relaxing back again. "Do I have to play this game, Mia?"

Mia couldn't help but laugh. "Uh, would you obey the order if I told you to?"

Poor rapholem. He tried to groan with annoyance, but it turned into a groan of pain, and he clutched his side as he forced himself to relax again.

"I am surrounded by demons and the horniest soul in the afterlife," he said.

Mia frowned, but it didn't last. "Okay, yes, I am a horny soul. But--"

"Very," Kas said, nodding.

"Hey! You can't say anything. Don't think I've forgotten what you and Adron and Zel did!"

Kas lowered his head and stepped back, sitting beside Romakus. Oh wow, she actually hit him in the gut with that one.

"Sorry," she said. "That was... a weird time. And, uh, yeah, Zel kinda forced the situation, but that was Zel being a bitch. Not your fault, or Adron's."

Vin rumbled, and everyone looked up at him. "I like the stomach." With his grip still around Mia's waist, he lifted her, brought her tiny body close to his short dragon snout, and licked her stomach. Her flimsy potram red toga left much of her body exposed, stomach included from the plunging cleavage, and Vin happily ran his tongue up her flat stomach. She squealed and bopped his nose, but all that got her was another lick of her belly.

The group was getting along, at least better than before. Plus one for budding psychologist Mia.

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~~David~~

~~Day 112~~

Caera hopped around. Pegasus hopped after her. Caera ran ahead, and Pegasus kinda sorta maybe ran after her. He mostly stumbled, falling over sometimes, and sometimes landed straight on his chest, but unlike most goorts, he had wings. With a flap of his wings, he kept from landing too hard, and another flap got him back on his hooves, and he chased the tiger again.

The land flowed with shallow hills, and each time the group topped one, they looked down over the mostly flat land ahead, and the thousands of red craters that dotted it. Pits, deep pits full of remnants, and true to Tatiana's word, sometimes pits just opened up randomly, remnants crawling up out of the rock and sinking the ground. The quicksand concern David had had as a child was now relevant.

"Your girlfriend," Tatiana said, "is going to get your new pet killed."

Tatiana was a succubus, a volara, and also a bailiff of the Scar province. She was damn tall, as tall as the angels, with large horns -- for a succubus -- and a slim body and small breasts. A runway fashion model sort of build, and she knew it. She strutted with every step, red silks dangling off her body and doing an even poorer job covering her skin than the two angels and their potram runes did.

"She's keeping an eye on him," he said. He adjusted his own potram rune clothes, a flimsy red toga with some black jewelry, and black gladiator sandals.

Tatiana stepped closer to him, squinting down at him. She didn't want to be on this trip, and she made damn sure he knew that. And with her so close, he was forced to look up. He was a small guy, after all, five six on a good day.

"This isn't a time for games," she said.

"Preaching to the choir. But Pegasus needs to learn how to move ASAP, and if he falls into a pit, Caera will save him. Or someone else will. He's fine." He hoped. He trusted Caera, and the logic was sound, but seeing his new pet jump near the edge of pits shot his blood pressure through the roof.

He'd never known this feeling, to be so firmly attached to something else like this, and feel... protective. But the day Pegasus had been born, when the horse had pressed his head into David's palm, and then cuddled up next to him, his soul had ripped in half. That very night, instead of cuddling with Caera or Jeskura and Daoka, David had held the winged horse to his side, and slept well. It was such a strange feeling.

David looked around at the group. Ahead of him walked Laoko, a ten-foot-tall titan of a woman, a bolstara tetrad; four arms, hooves, no tail or wings, and a flat-ish face that gave her a mask-like quality. Beside her walked Moriah, a mikalim angel with tan skin, red eyes, long black hair, and currently wearing her potram clothes, flimsy white, revealing silks exposing gold tattoos, and some gold jewelry.

Behind him walked Jeskura, a nearly seven-foot-tall, lean gargoyle, with her somewhat shorter lover Daoka, a satyr with no eyes. Instead of eyes, her forehead was tall, black, and merged with her four ram horns. Behind them walked Acelina, a nine-foot-tall goddess of curves on thick legs. She was the only demon David had ever seen who both had wings and hooves, and her long, thin tail slithered behind her as she walked.

But most unique was Acelina's face. Like Daoka, she had no eyes, and had four colossal horns that merged with the solid black surface. Unlike Daoka, her entire face was black, a smooth obsidian canvas all the way down to the top of her neck. There was a scary mouth in there, wide and full of deadly sharp teeth, but unless she opened it, it was invisible, which made it all the more scary.

Between her thick legs ran four little ladies, each around four feet tall. Two impas, and two gremlas, who looked like red goblin versions of Jeskura, except two ran on hooves and had no tail. They giggled and smiled, flapped their wings, and once Acelina gave a small gesture forward, they ran ahead past the group, and chased after Pegasus. Pegasus ran away, half hopping around, frolicking. Despite their size, the Las had no trouble dealing with the weight of the few bits of black metal armor they wore. Strong little ladies.

Tsila, a slim gabriem angel, walked in back of the group, forever smiling. If Moriah looked Latina, Tsila looked Indian, with emerald eyes and a long black ponytail. But despite her eternal smile, the angel carefully avoided speaking with the six betrayers in the group, and instead focused on talking with Tatiana's entourage of succubi and one incubus. She talked with Tacharius a lot, too, the trickster incubus who'd somehow gotten deeply involved with their group over the past month. Maybe she liked him?

And then there was Caera, who had somehow become David's girlfriend, despite the weird romantic and sexual dynamics of their, and every demon's, relationship. She was a tregeera, a tiger, with black spikes on her spine and on her joints. She could walk on her hind legs like other demons if she wanted, and hit over eight feet tall when she did, but tigers usually walked on all fours, with forward-pointing horns, and utterly massive, broad tails.

She was also missing an eye, a huge cut across the forehead to the cheek, given to her by Moriah. Caera didn't hold a grudge.

And that made everyone in their weird group. The succubi, incubi, and betrayers were kind of the odd ones out. Tatiana, her three male betrayers, her incubus, and her two succubi friends. There were also Zazee, Tacharius, and their three betrayers Fuad, Natalie, and Naoko.

Naoko smiled at David. David squirmed a bit. The girl was going to get herself eaten by Caera if she kept looking at him like that.

Caera ran back up the hill to him, smiling the whole way as Pegasus and four little ladies followed her.

"He's learning fast," she said, and she gestured to the horse. "I know hellbeasts have to learn fast, but this is pretty damn fast. A day old and already running around."