Hell Hath No Fury, page 7
“She came to our realm under her own accord. She has exercised her free will, so we are not responsible for what harm may come to her. If she makes it past the blood bog, I will ensure her timely demise. Likely she will die before then. Her mortal form is already growing weak with each passing moment. Her soul shall be ours, albeit prematurely.”
The Imp relaxed and took a deep, relieved breath. “Good, okay.” He picked up the cat carrier and waved to the Overseer. “Keep up the good work,” he offered up to a distracted Overseer, along with a casual middle finger as he marched off with the cat. Then he mumbled under his breath, “Dick.”
The Overseer simply huffed as the Imp sauntered off with a renewed sense of confidence. Those around him continued to recoil at the presence of the cat, and the Imp’s confidence turned to a sour resentment. He lifted the carrier as he walked. “I hate you, and I hope the Dark Lord devours every bit of your foul essence.”
The cat hissed in return.
“Speaking of devour,” a boisterous voice came rolling in, “Can I interest you in a soul or two, or have you eaten since we last spoke?”
The soul vendor waited eagerly for the Imp’s response. The Imp couldn’t help but notice the vendor did not seem to care about the cat one bit.
“I did eat,” the Imp replied, walking over to the booth, around which hung various souls, in various states of ego death, ripe for the eating. “Living beasts from the mortal realm it so happens.”
He set the cat carrier down and took a seat on one of the boulders in front of the vendor’s booth. Knowing the woman would soon perish, his mind was at ease and confident that his task would soon be completed. Before that, however, he found himself still hungry. He deserved a treat. He folded his hands together and rested them on the counter.
“Living beasts you say.” The vendor shot him an incredulous glance. “Tell me Imp, how did they taste?”
The Imp looked over the selection of souls, along with the few caged mortals, with a practiced eye. “Oh, you know, not much different from the mortals. A bit tougher, I guess.”
“I see.” The vendor leaned his bulbus body over the counter as best he could and eyed the carrier that sat on the ground beside the Imp. “Is that one of them? I’ve never been to the mortal realm. Can I see it?”
The Imp gave him a sideways glance, never trusting of a salesdemon, and studied the vendor’s hungry eyes.
“This creature is meant for the Dark Lord,” he replied. “Besides, aren’t you repelled by it? I am, as are all the demons I cross.”
“I can certainly see why.” The vendor returned his attention back to the Imp. “There appears to be something divine about this beast. I am a collector, you see. I sell most of my wares here, but I keep the rarest finds for myself. Might I have a closer look at the creature?”
The Imp gave the request careful consideration. He didn’t trust the vendor, but he knew the vendor would not be foolish enough to try anything stupid with a prize meant for their Dark Lord. His stomach growled, and he had an idea.
“I’ll let you have a closer look, if you let me have one of your good souls.” The Imp gestured to the paler colored ones that hung up high. “You know, the top shelf. How far ripe are they anyway? How much have they suffered?”
“Ah.” The vendor leaned back, looked up, extended one of his long thin arms, and plucked a soul from the top of his booth. “A demon of discerning taste. This one was found lost in the tunnels between the Killing Fields and the Hunting Grounds. Nearly free of all mortal hopes and desires. Brimming with pain. Besides the souls our Dark Lord devours, this is likely one of the purest I have. I can give it to you for part of that creature. Perhaps a leg.”
“A leg? You know I can’t give you one of its legs,” the Imp replied. “The Dark Lord would not have it. I can give you some hair. That’s the best I can do.”
The Vendor squinted, then slowly hung the soul back up high on its hook. He grabbed another soul in its stead and put it on the counter. “Here’s the best I can do for some hair. It is moderately ripened, as you can see. Its color has started to fade nicely.”
The Imp nodded, then hoisted the carrier up onto the counter. “You can pluck a tuft of hair but nothing more. I will not be opening the door, so you’ll have to reach those tiny little arms in there yourself.”
The vendor sneered at the Imp, then nodded and slid the soul to him. The Imp let his jaw slide open, wide enough to suck the soul down in one big bite, then closed it with a swift snap. The soul’s energy filled his belly with delight, and a smile washed over him as he licked his lips. He felt renewed. The vendor, reaching into the carrier, saw this and smiled. “It’s good, yes?”
Before the Imp could confirm the delectable taste of the soul he had consumed, the vendor let out a yelp and yanked his hand back. “That thing bit me!”
“Well,” the Imp chuckled, “it is a beast. That is what they do. What’s a little pain anyway?”
The vendor shot him a cold look as he rubbed his injured hand.
“Look,” the Imp continued, less amused now, “do you want the hair or not? I need to get this despicable creature to the Dark Lord.”
“Just go,” the sour vendor replied, shooing him and his carrier away. “And take the horrendous beast with you.”
The Imp took the carrier and walked away, waving at the vendor behind him without looking. His stomach was full, and his appetite was satiated.
12
As Delilah stood there among the running masses, atop the barren stone waste where there was no place for her to hide and starring down the looming flock of flesh hungry furies, she began to wonder if trusting a demon was a good idea at all. She looked nervously behind her where, in the distance and near the shore of the blood bog, there stood the dumbest demon she could possibly imagine. He was just smiling and giving her two very enthusiastic thumbs up.
Slowly at first, she walked backward toward the bog. Only a couple of furies had noticed her, but in no time at all, more of them had come to see the meal that taunted them so. Waving her arms and shouting them down, Delilah was successful at luring them in. As it turned out, not surprising Delilah in the least, these powerful, winged demons did not like being compared to pigeons.
For every inch closer she drew toward the gentle sound of bloody waves and the demon in whom she had little faith, the winged creatures seemed to gain ten feet. She held her dagger at her side, constantly turning the handle of the toothy blade over in her increasingly sweaty grip, and prepared her mind for the fight that was coming. Whether or not Larry was actually going to help her, or simply pushed her into this predicament for his own amusement, she knew this wasn’t going to end without a fight of some kind. She only hoped she could maintain her strength enough to fight it.
Suddenly, two demon hands were pressing against her back. “Whoa there, you can stop now. I think you got their attention.”
She stepped to the side and back, until her and Larry stood shoulder to shoulder. Furies closing in quickly.
“Now what?” Delilah asked, bringing her dagger up in front of her, ready to strike.
“This is the hardest part.” Larry sounded fairly calm about the entire ordeal. “We just have to hold them off until a blood worm notices. They usually avoid demons if there are damned people to eat, but look.”
Larry pointed past the cloud of death that swarmed toward them. The path on which the people had been running was now at a standstill. No one pressed forward, not wanting to approach the very visible danger of these furies, but not wanting to go back toward the certain death that awaited in the place they had fallen to. Instead, they formed a crowd of hapless onlookers. Each of their faces confused and scared. Delilah had seen faces like this a few times during her career in law enforcement. Whatever life these people led, she wasn’t sure they all deserved to be in a place like this.
“You see,” Larry continued, “It’s only a matter of time before one of those blood worms realizes all the food is over here, on land. We just have to fight off the furies until that happens.”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Delilah was incensed. Not only was she feeling weaker by the minute, but she was under the impression they only needed to lead these demons to water, “You didn’t say shit about having to fight them. You don’t even have a weapon.”
“Ha, why would you think we wouldn’t have to fight them? And, I’ll have you know, I do have a weapon. Two in fact.”
Larry held out his hands and formed two fists, “See? I’ve got more weapons than you now. You’ve only got the one, so don’t lose it.”
Delilah shook her weary head and closed her eyes, “Yeah, whatever you say. Let’s do this.”
The furies made a cackling-like sound as they approached.
“Are they—"
“Yeah, they’re laughing,” Larry chuckled along shaking his head, “Probably because we’re pretty much dead, and we’ve got nowhere to run.”
“But you said—"
“I know what I said. Just get ready.”
Not a second after the words left Larry’s mouth, a shadow flew past them, followed by a gust of wind.
“What was tha—" Delilah couldn’t even finish the question before she felt the searing pain along her right shoulder. Her grip loosened and she dropped her blade. While she knelt to pick it back up, doing her best to stop the bleeding, Larry stepped out in front of her.
“Alright, fellow human.” He puffed out his chest, spoke in a deep voice, and held his clawed hands out at his sides and growled. “Stay behind me.” He turned around and smiled. “I saw that at what you call a drive-in. Not sure if you’ve ever been. Hid in the bushes the whole time. It was fun.”
Another shadowy figure swooped down and hit Larry in the ribs, sending him spinning through the air.
“Larry!” Delilah watched helplessly as he flew over her and landed just shy of the bog. She got off her knees and stood back up. She held out her dagger once again and braced herself. This time she saw the attack coming. A third fury plummeted toward her, its thick, claw-tipped feet were positioned to strike her dead center. Before it hit, she felt something pull her feet backward, sending her falling forward.
A hot gust of air went blasting by her. She rolled over on her back and looked up. Larry stood above her, holding the fury by its neck.
“That was a close one.” He gave it a squeeze, until an audible snap could be heard and the winged demon went limp. “You stay low and get over to the bog. I can handle this. You’re looking pretty beat up.”
She only responded with a gasp as she caught her breath, followed be short nods in rapid succession. The rest of her didn’t seem to want to move.
Larry threw the corpse of the fury into the bog as another came and landed on his back. It was roughly the size of Delilah, but its leathery wings wrapped around Larry completely. He was quick to run his sharp fingers through the leathery membrane, eliciting a shriek from the fowl creature. It released Larry and attempted to fly. He simply grabbed it by the ankle and swung it at another that came swooping in.
“You’re not moving,” Larry grunted at Delilah as he fought off the flock of certain death. “Do you know you’re not moving? You’ve got to move.”
Delilah nodded and started to move toward the bog, keeping as low to the ground as she could. A third fury came swooping in. It hovered above him, quickly joined by another, and they took swipes at him from above with their taloned feet. He batted away at them.
The pain in her arm from the single cut began to take its toll. Delilah had to grab her dagger with her left hand as the feeling in her right faded away. The blood seemed as though it would never stop pouring from the gaping wound.
A loud splash came from behind the chaotic struggle. Delilah couldn’t help but feel as though it was a mistake to be so close to the bog’s edge.
“Larry…” She wasn’t sure he heard. “Larry, I think it’s coming.”
Even the furies above them began to make the most terrible sounds as they fled the area. Larry had managed to grab the two above him by their ankles. “Where are you running off to?”
“LARRY!” Delilah shouted. That got his attention.
“Yeah?” He turned to face her. Slashes now covered his body, and rivers of black blood ran down his face and back. He didn’t seem at all fazed by his injuries. “What is it?”
Delilah simply pointed, and Larry let his gaze follow her finger. A curved segment flowed up then back into the bloody waters not too far from them.
“It’s the blood—"
Without warning, the ground exploded around them, and the blood in the bog splashed into the air. Delilah could feel the ground upon which she lay rocket upward, and the dim world around her lit up even more with a much closer orange glow coming from beneath her. Through the mist of blood and the dust that came with crumbling stone, she could make out a circular pattern to the area around her. It didn’t take long for her to see what it was. Rows of teeth surrounded her. She stopped moving for a moment and her stomach turned in on itself as she hung weightless.
She gripped the edge of the rock that hung just a few inches beneath her while her feet flew into the air, and Delilah began her downward decent. It was a stomach-churning fall that ended as abruptly as her ascent had started. The impact left her gasping for air.
The ground beneath her rocked slowly and vibrated steadily as she worked her way back up to her feet. A cramp in her side stabbed at her painfully. She looked around for any sign of Larry. The air was warm and thick, and a viscous liquid dripped from above.
“Hey,” Delilah heard a voice call out from over the side of the slab she struggled to find balance on. “You still alive?”
It was Larry. She’d only known him for a short time, and in that time this demon had not only save her life, but also doomed it. Delilah knelt back down and crawled to the edge of the stone, peering over it with hopes to find her idiot of a demon alive, well, and ready to help take up her cause once again.
“Larry,” she called back as he slid into her field of view. “Oh, shit! Larry! Are you okay?”
Larry looked down at his body. From his stomach, a long, jagged tooth stuck out, and he was trying to pull himself up and off it. His blood, however, made the task impossible. His grip kept slipping, sending him sliding right back down.
“I’m okay, but I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been better.”
“No shit! How are you still alive?”
“Eh, it’s one of those situations where I’m glad I’m not human, you know?”
“I guess. Doesn’t it hurt? How are you so calm?”
“You know, if you’ve been in Hell as long as I have, you kind of get used to pain. Pain’s kind of the point. Think you could help me up?”
Larry reached a hand out, and Delilah responded in kind. “Oh crap, yeah, of course.”
Before they could connect, the teeth shifted and sent Delilah rolling to the other side of her small section of ground. She tumbled hard to the other end, nearly rolling off completely. The sound of crumbling stone followed. Delilah looked around to find the section she’d been previously lying on had now broken off. She quickly crawled to the new edge, now at least a yard from where Larry was last.
“Larry, you still there?”
She couldn’t see him at first, but then a pile of rocks shifted before rolling loose.
“My legs are gone,” Larry’s top half lay there, still impaled on the tooth, but where his legs had been now sat a large slab of stone. “I liked my legs.”
Delilah was shocked to find that not only did Larry appear to be as good as dead, but also that she was much closer to the orange glow, and he was still exactly where he had been.
“Larry, you’re too far. I can’t reach you.”
“Yeah, well, that’s tough shit for me, I guess.”
Delilah felt worn. The aches in her body multiplied with each passing second and despair followed. “What now? Was this the plan? This couldn’t have been the plan, right?”
“Oh no.” Larry was nearly shouting now as the worm’s insides shifted again. “This was just phase two. Phase one was before this, obviously, but neither of the phases really went according to plan. What are you gonna do, huh?”
“That’s what I need to know, Larry. What am I supposed to do?”
“Well, phase three was to drive this blood worm straight through Hell, but I can’t help with that.” He pointed to the tooth jutting out from his abdomen. “So you’ll have to do it. Still got that dagger? You’ll need it.”
Delilah felt the sudden grip of panic, and her eyes shot wide. “Fuck!”
She searched the stone but couldn’t find the dagger. Her heart began to race. She wondered how she could be so careless. She became incensed with the thought that if Larry had just told her the entire plan, she would have held on to it. Tears started to roll down her face. Angry, desperate tears. But Larry’s voice came cutting through the moment like it always did, with a complete disregard for the stakes.
“Oh, never mind, I found it. Want me to throw it?”
“Jesus Christ, Larry.” Delilah rubbed her eyes and a hint of a smirk shoved its way through her otherwise distraught expression. “What is wrong with you?”
“Me? Probably a lot if you ask a demon, even more if you ask that Jesus Christ of yours. Though, I’ve never met the guy, so I give it fifty-fifty he’s even real. Could you imagine if I was Jesus thou—"
“Larry!”
“Yeah?”
“Throw me the fucking knife!”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Catch.”
Larry tossed the knife in Delilah’s direction, taking almost no time to aim other than tilting his head back and eyeballing the distance for half a second.
Delilah scrambled.
She missed.
The bone blade clacked up against the stone, bounced wildly past her, then skittered toward the edge of the stone. She gave everything she had in her to dive backwards toward it, spinning her body around in midair. She wrapped her fingers around it inches from the edge. Then, exhausted and weak, she simply lay there, counting her blessings and catching her breath.
