Succubus Lord 19, page 4
“Puny succubi!” War growled. “No one is War’s size!”
“Well, we can’t let you kill Todd,” Tris added. “Who’s gonna be the Cheech to my Chong if he’s gone?”
All five of my Demon Lords swarmed War, who swung at them randomly as their weapons and spell struck his body, but most of my teammates’ attacks did about as much damage as a BB gun.
I couldn’t watch the battle unfold for too long, since I had my own problems to worry about.
There was a sudden burst of black Hellfire inches from my face, and I had seconds to get up a protective spell before my flesh was melted off my skull. I felt the white-hot, searing heat of the attack as my barrier went up, and thankfully my spell was enough to keep it at bay.
“Nice fireworks,” I taunted. “But it’s going to take a lot more than that to kill the King of the Fourth Circle.”
I summoned both my wings and my Caliginian armor with a flash of black Hellfire, and then I sprang up into the air. As I flew toward Pestilence, I summoned red fire into my open hand, waved it across the Sword of Saints, and enchanted it with the crimson spell. The bastard tried to hit me with a few more of his magic napalm attacks, but I just dodged them with a slew of twists, turns, and rolls. When I finally got within striking distance of the horseman, I hauled back, took aim at his neck, and heaved my sword forward.
Pestilence just smiled as my weapon hit him in the meaty flesh of his neck and then passed right through.
What the fuck?
Before I could recompose myself, there was another flash of black flames, and a sharp, dull pain smashed me in the gut as my body was tossed backward.
I reoriented myself quickly and instantly threw out a handful of yellow shuriken at the fucker.
However, Pestilence didn’t even try to evade. He just continued to smirk as the spinning yellow discs struck his body and passed straight through.
“You amuse me, Nephilim,” Pestilence chuckled. “You are vastly underprepared for this fight. You don’t even know how my powers work, do you?”
“I’m sure as hell gonna find out,” I growled. “Even if that means I have to tear you apart, limb-by-limb, to do it.”
“Do try, Nephilim.” Pestilence smirked. “It’ll make your ultimate demise all the more fun.”
Suddenly, a hailstorm of bullets shot up from the ground below, but Pestilence simply glanced downward at Isabella as she unloaded her pistols at him.
“Idiot.” The horseman rolled his eyes and avoided the bullets without much fanfare before he summoned black flames into his hands.
That was when the glowing bird attacked.
A hawk surrounded by the dark glow of ectoplasmic magic smashed into the back of Pestilence’s head and sent his whole body pitching forward on his horse.
Aruna.
The horseman let out grunt after frustrated grunt as he fumbled at the bird behind his head, but Aruna held firm, and small bits of blood flew from Pestilence’s noggin as the Rakshasi sliced at his flesh with her claws and screeched wildly.
“Okay…” I mumbled to myself as I thought over what I was seeing. “So, Aruna can hurt him.”
But why couldn’t I?
I knew ectoplasmic magic was derived from the spirit, and that made it way stronger than anything a demon or angel could conjure. Still, Pestilence was a demonic entity himself. Why weren’t my attacks doing anything?
“We’ve got your back, Jacob!” Inpulsa announced as she and Mirage appeared at my side. “Let’s kick this pretty boy’s ass.”
The yellow-haired Demon Lord summoned electric Hellfire into her hands and clapped them together, and then she unleashed a golden lightning bolt straight at our opponent. The yellow Hellfire lit up the red sky as it shot forward and-
Passed through Pestilence harmlessly.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.
“What in the actual fuck?” Inpulsa pouted and crossed her arms across her chest. “I hit him head on.”
“There must be a trick to bypass his abilities,” Mirage noted as we continued to watch the horseman struggle with the Aruna-bird. “Perhaps it has something to do with the type of magic that is being used?”
“We’ve tried yellow and red,” I observed. “I guess it doesn’t hurt to try out all the other types.”
I summoned green flames into my hand, created a portal just beneath Pestilence’s skeletal horse, and commanded it to move up around their bodies, but when the green portal touched the feet of the horse, it simply passed over them both like a harmless hula hoop.
Aruna, though, wasn’t so lucky.
The bird disappeared through the interdimensional portal, so I quickly commanded it to reappear a few feet away from Pestilence.
Unfortunately, that gave our enemy a chance to attack.
I tossed up a barrier of purple around Mirage, Inpulsa, and myself seconds before another dark firework exploded just inches away from our faces. The light was blinding, and the heat was searing, but my shield held.
We were safe. For now.
With the three of us temporarily stunned, Pestilence turned around and took a shot at Aruna. The horseman’s black napalm attack exploded beside Aruna and engulfed her in its incendiary flames, but the Rakshasi was quick on her feet.
Aruna surrounded herself with an ectoplasmic glow, and her avian body quickly morphed into one that was much more quadrupedal.
I couldn’t see the animal’s full form before it was engulfed in the napalm-like spell, and my heart sank as I thought of how much pain Aruna was in right about now.
Then I saw a glowing ball of gray fall out of the flames completely unscathed, and when the mystery animal uncurled itself and revealed its form, I couldn’t help but grin.
Son of a bitch… Aruna had turned herself into a freaking armadillo.
Clever girl.
The Arunadillo surrounded itself with ectoplasm again and then swiftly morphed back into a hawk. As soon as the transformation was complete, Aruna put Pestilence in her sight and darted back toward the bastard, but Pestilence was prepared. Now that Aruna had lost the element of surprise, her tactical advantage was lost.
The horseman used his horse to dart back and forth and weave out of the way of Aruna’s swipes with ease. Every now and again, he would unleash a blast of his napalm flames, but Aruna was too fast.
The two combatants were locked in a dance of death, a dance that neither of them intended on ending anytime soon.
“He’s completely distracted,” Mirage hissed. “This is the perfect opportunity to strike.”
“With what?” Inpulsa argued. “All of our spells are just going right through him.”
“Then we hit him with every type of spell we’ve got,” I ordered. “One of them’s got to do something.”
I sheathed my sword, summoned silver flames into my hand, and then commanded the metal ball on my belt to liquify. Next, I turned it into an oblong spear and launched it right at Pestilence. The spear shot across the sky like it had been shot out of a cannon before it hit my target square in the back.
Nothing.
I called the liquified metal back into my hands and formed it into my warhammer before I looked at my Demon Lords for suggestions.
“Let us try our black Hellfire,” Mirage suggested to Inpulsa. “We haven’t done that one yet.”
Inpulsa gave her former madame a nod before her hands lit up with dark flames. Mirage mirrored the action, and then both Demon Lords blasted their spells at Pestilence.
The horseman’s eyes were immediately covered in the dark flames that were meant to show him his greatest fears, while a bolt of black lightning struck his horse with a thunderous crash.
Still nothing.
“I think it might be time to bust out the God Cannon,” Inpulsa suggested.
“I don’t know about that,” I admitted. “I only get one shot with that, and if it doesn’t work, then we’re completely fucked. Also, I’ve got this really bad feeling I’m gonna need it on big boy down there.”
I motioned over to the place in the sky where the horseman War was taking on six of my friends at once.
War continued to fend off attack after attack before he lashed out at my allies, all of whom just barely avoided getting clobbered by his meaty fists.
Down on the ground, Death was apparently trying to make good on his comment about the angels. The frail, scythe-wielding horseman fought against Ariel, Cupi, Raphael, and Deja all at once, and from the looks of it, he was holding his own.
I saw Deja’s spear and chain wrap itself around Death’s scythe as she tried to wrest the weapon away, but it was no use. Death simply let out a moan as he yanked Deja toward him and smacked her in the face with the blunt end of his weapon. He then quickly turned to parry Ariel’s blades and Cupi’s polearm, all before his horse darted out of the way of an incoming slew of FAMAS bullets.
Death may have looked like death on the outside, but he was a spry as a spring chicken.
Then there was Famine, who fought against Ira, Lunacio, Oliver, Jane, and Sia.
Perhaps “fighting” wasn’t the best word.
I watched as the horseman repeatedly charged my friends and attempted to grab them with his glowing silver hands. Oliver, Jane, and Sia attacked the fucker with a literal rainbow of Hellfire spells, but none of them seemed to do any damage.
Ira and Lunacio, however, both stood directly in front of Famine’s charge. They stood in identical fighting stances, but neither of them really made an effort to attack their opponent as he ran by. Instead, they just weakly pointed their weapons in the direction of Famine and missed him by a mile.
As the horseman passed by, he grabbed the two women by their throats, held them up into the air, and surrounded their bodies with silver flames. Then I watched in horror as Ira and Lunacio were both turned into old, decrepit women and had their life force literally drained out of their bodies.
Once he was done with them, Famine tossed them nonchalantly onto the ground and then banked his horse around to make another charge.
Of course, that was when Lunacio and Ira both activated their self-healing abilities.
Within seconds, the two women were back on their feet, and they shuddered with pure ecstasy.
“That’s pretty fucked up.” I shook my head and sighed.
Still, I had no time to worry about the other three horsemen right now. My friends seemed to be doing alright for the moment, and I needed to focus on the task at hand.
The task of how to kill Pestilence.
“Maybe bronze flames?” Mirage suggested.
“I guess it’s worth a shot,” I admitted as I called forth the Hellfire of judgement and enchanted my warhammer.
I darted forward under the power of my wings as I took aim at Pestilence. The bastard was still preoccupied with Aruna, so he didn’t even see me coming until the very last second.
Pestilence twisted upon his horse and raised his hand to hit me with black Hellfire, and I slammed my warhammer into the side of his head.
Or at least, I tried.
My body spun like a shot-put thrower as the metal weapon passed harmlessly through Pestilence’s head and then out the other side. There was a sharp, searing pain as something hit me in the back, and my wings erupted in flames.
“Fucking hell!” I screamed in pain as the flesh of my leathery appendages became engulfed by the Hellfire, and I was thrown forward like a ragdoll.
I tried to catch myself, but my wings were too damaged. Pain shot through my back every time I tried to move my wings even an inch, and gravity began to take over. I plummeted straight down toward the ground at a breakneck speed, and if I didn’t do something quick, I was going to be in a world of hurt.
I tossed out a portal of green Hellfire in front of my trajectory, passed through it, and then commanded it to reappear on the ground. My body still carried its momentum, so I slammed into the dirt hard when I popped out the other side. Pain shot through my body as I rolled across the ground, until I finally threw up a wall of violet flames to stop myself.
My wings ached and throbbed as I slowly stood back to my feet, and I was afraid I’d been grounded permanently.
“Jacob!” Isabella called out as she ran across the battlefield. “Are you alright?”
“I’ve been better,” I grunted through a painful grimace.
Suddenly, the color drained from Isabella’s face as she observed the damage.
“M-My god…” the BPI agent sputtered with horror. “He really did a number on your wings.”
“It’s nothing Sia can’t fix,” I grumbled. “Right now, I just want to figure out how the fuck to kill that guy. Aruna seems to be able to hurt him.”
“Ectoplasmic magic can override any other type,” Isabella explained. “Even the most powerful demonic spell.”
“I know that,” I agreed. “But why is he shrugging off everything else like he’s a fucking ghost?”
“Not much is known about the Four Horsemen,” the dirty-blonde woman noted as she nonchalantly reloaded her pistols. “At least, not by the BPI. All I know about Pestilence is that he is their leader, and he has never lost a battle in the history of all existence.”
“I can see why,” I huffed.
Isabella pointed her clawed pistols up into the air, took aim, and fired off multiple rounds at the horseman in the sky. Though none of her projectiles actually found their mark, one of the bullets struck the skeletal horse he rode upon.
The phantom horse let out a shrieking whinny as its femur bone shattered, and it lurched forward.
Pestilence’s eyes went wide as he was suddenly tossed from his mount, and his dark cape trailed behind him as he plummeted one hundred feet down to the ground and crashed into it with a firm thud. The horseman laid there for a moment before he jumped up, wiped off his kimono, and looked up at his steed.
“You useless quim!” Pestilence spat. “You wince under the impact of a mortal bullet?”
“It’s not a mortal bullet.” Isabella’s eyes grew wide as her lips twisted into a smile. “The BPI enchants all its bullets with Divine light.”
“Divine magic,” I corrected.
“Divine magic,” the BPI Agent confirmed.
Isabella quickly dropped the magazines out of her dual pistols before she flipped them around, slammed them into two spare magazines attached to her suspenders, and cocked back the hammers. The badass blonde then raised her weapons toward Pestilence and began to fire upon him like she was Lara Croft.
The first few bullets struck Pestilence in the side, and he let out a wail as he stumbled back. He reached down and touched the blood near his leg, and then his eyes widened in horror.
Isabella unloaded a few more shots at the horseman, but he quickly evaporated them into nothing with a few flashes of black Hellfire.
Meanwhile, I commanded my warhammer to liquify and then turn back into the ball on my belt.
“What’s the matter?” I taunted as I drew the Sword of Saints again. “You can’t handle a little bit of Divine magic?”
“I’m a horseman of the apocalypse,” Pestilence growled. “I can handle anything. Besides, it’s not like you’re going to waste your one God Cannon shot on--”
Before he could finish his sentence, I held up the Sword of Saints, closed my eyes, and called upon my friends for their energy. Almost instantly, I felt a swell of power as Mirage and Inpulsa’s willpower entered my body, and then again when my hand began to tingle. When I opened my eyes, I had a ball of Divine energy in my hand, so I ran it across the sword and enchanted it with the Heavenly powers.
As I did so, Pestilence’s face fell.
“What?” I smirked. “Didn’t my father tell you I could make any of my weapons divine now? Or was that something that slipped his mind? Or maybe this is another one of his tests for me, hmm? Maybe he wants me to kill you, so he didn’t tell you anything so I’d have the advantage?”
“Any compassion Lucifer has for you has long gone away,” Pestilence spat. “You simply caught me off guard… That will not happen again.”
The skeletal horse floated down next to the horseman and then hovered in the air beside him. The creature was missing his entire left leg from the knee down, though he didn’t seem to pay much attention to his injury.
“You know,” Isabella mocked. “Usually, when your horse breaks a leg, you have to put it down. Do you want me to do the honors?”
“Not if I can do them first,” Inpulsa said as she and Mirage landed next to us.
Aruna’s hawk form swooped down and transformed in mid-flight, and then the beautiful Rakshasi woman did a superhero landing on the ground.
“Don’t let him get back on that horse,” I commanded my friends. “If we keep him on the ground, we win this fight.”
Pestilence snapped his fingers, and I instantly formed a purple cube around our bodies. The fucker ran toward his horse as the napalm explosion went off, but the attack was harmless against my violet barrier.
The second I deactivated my protective spell, Aruna did a standing twirl, and as she spun, the Rakshasi grabbed onto the chakram on her belt, pulled it loose, and launched it like a discus across the battlefield.
Right as Pestilence reached his horse, the spinning disk of death slammed into the beast’s neck. The skeletal horse let out a pained whinny, but then it went silent as its head was severed from the rest of its body. There was a dull thud as the horse’s head hit the ground, and then another immediately after when its body followed suit.
Pestilence stood there for a second like he was stunned, but I didn’t waste any time in making my move.
“Cover me, you guys,” I commanded my friends.
Then I charged at the fucker with my glowing white sword, with full intention of separating his head from his shoulders.
Behind me, I heard the sound of Isabella’s guns as they fired in rapid succession, and I saw blasts of red and yellow Hellfire fly past me wildly.
“You bastard!” the horseman sneered as he called black Hellfire into his hands. “You’ll pay for that.”
Pestilence snapped his fingers, and a blast of black Hellfire erupted on my left.
I took a giant leap forward the second I saw the dark energy and then tucked into a ball as it exploded behind me. White-hot pain shot through my body as I rolled across my scorched wings, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from killing this cocky fucker.
