Good Intentions 3: Personal Demons (39 page)

  After sixteen hundred years, she could still remember her first master’s habits all too well.
He’s gone
, Lorelei reminded herself.
By the hands of your lovers, and your own
.

“Hsst! Wait,” warned a raspy voice. “You smell that?”

Lorelei slipped up behind one of the thick pillars that supported the towering ceiling. Leaving nothing to chance, she renewed her enchantments of stealth and obscurity.

“Do I look like I can smell anything, Kierrk?” replied a much lower voice. This one was louder, too, but seemingly without effort, as if the speaker were of much greater size. “You see a nose on my face?”

“We’re not alone,” Kierrk hissed.

“So? Who cares?” asked a third, vaguely feminine yet animalistic voice. “We’re not the only ones to use the castle for a breather. Let ‘em hang out and rest here, too. No use fighting anyone in here. Everyone knows that. Why should they mess with us?”

“All that hippie
Kumbaya
bullshit is why no one likes you, Mandah,” said the deeper voice.

“Really, Hank? Demons need a reason for dislike? And what the fuck does ‘kumbaya’ mean? Or ‘hippie?’”

Lorelei stole a glance around the pillar. The trio huddled near the tall double doors, which stood closed and barred—not with wood or metal, but rather by virtue of Damned souls shoved under the grips of the door handles to make up for lack of a crossbar.

She recognized Kierrk from her servitude here long ago. His bulbous body combined all the worst aspects of spiders and beetles, with pincers, a scorpion’s tail, and spider eyes jutting out from under his ebony chitin. The others were new to her. One was a thin, grey humanoid of a vaguely feminine shape, though seven feet tall and boasting large horns and a spiked tail along with large, pitch black eyes. She nursed a sheared wing along with several other ugly scars. The other demon took up a great deal of space along the wall with its disgusting worm-like body. Tentacles thicker than firehoses lined its body, though they all hung limply or lay tucked under its girth. Its round face offered only a series of black eyes set in an arc all around the top half of its completely round mouth—where jagged teeth pushed in and out with every breath.

None of them looked to be in good shape, yet they would recover. Torment was eternal here, even for the staff. That thought spurred her on and precluded any inclination toward mercy. She stepped out of hiding and released her enchantments of stealth.

Kierrk gasped in surprise and shifted into a posture approximating a bow, at least as far as she could tell. “Lady Lorelei!” he hissed. “You have come!”

The others seemed equally surprised. As Lorelei confidently strode across the chamber and Kierrk escalated his display of submission to literally scraping on the floor, they followed his example. Mandah knelt and bowed her head. The worm couldn’t mimic such a pose, but it meekly pushed its monstrous face down onto the floor.

“Why are you here?” asked Lorelei.

“We rest, my lady,” answered Kierrk. “We rest for another go at…at the crown. As you commanded,” he added hastily.

“The struggle continues?”

“Yes. Without end,” added the grey one.

“What is your name? Mandah?”

“Y-yes, lady,” she answered. “I rose to Baal’s service after you…departed for Belial.”

“Tactfully put. And you? Did I hear your name is Hank?”

“Yes. I am new.”

“Of course. Is anyone else here?”

“Most of the servitors and imps have hidden here in the fortress to escape the chaos,” Kierrk explained. “They obey whoever stands before them.”

“And the forges? The pits? The Damned?”

“Untended. A few times, one lieutenant of Baal’s or another has tried to seize control to gain some advantage, but such resources cannot be claimed without cooperation from others. Efforts always end in betrayal.”

“You three seem to be getting along,” Lorelei observed.

The other demons exchanged wary, somewhat guilty looks. “For the moment, ma’am,” Hank conceded. “Can’t expect it to last.”

“Backstabbing twat,” muttered Mandah, but then she bowed her head lower in apology to Lorelei. “Oh, he’s right. Damn him.”

“And it has been this way for four months?”

“Has it been that long?” asked Kierrk. “We haven’t noticed.”

“I don’t even know what year it is now,” said Hank.

“Such is not our concern,” said Mandah. “The crown compels us to fight. Your orders compel us, Lady Lorelei. Even those who weren’t present when you gave them.”

“I was tending the shores of the Lake of Immolation when I felt it,” said Hank. “Even all the way out there, we obeyed.”

Lorelei frowned in surprise. “Tending the lake? You look like a juggernaut.”

The worm shifted at that, possibly in appreciation or pride. Lorelei couldn’t guess at the meaning of the foul thing’s body language. “I am!” it declared, but then sank down again. “Only I’m kind of new.”

Her lip curled slightly. “I’ll not ask how you came to this.” She held up her hand as his horrid face rose again. “No, I mean that. Keep it to yourself.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Hank sighed.

The patter of feet drew her attention to the entrance of a winding stairway to her right. A pair of imps appeared, both standing as tall as Lorelei’s hip. The diminutive red demons ran in with their arms overhead to carry a skinless human shape tied to a spit. “Sustenance!” they cried out with the eager joy of a job well done. The instant they saw Lorelei, though, they carelessly dropped their burden to the floor and threw themselves at her feet.

The soul tied to the spit groaned in pain.

“Round up the other imps and servitors in the fortress,” she ordered the newcomers. “Tell all others taking shelter here to assemble at the gate. Immediately. Go.”

They scampered off. Lorelei glanced again at the soul they left behind. The Pit functioned on the suffering of the Damned. She had no illusions about that. Still, she stepped over to the bound, tortured soul and heard its faint moans.

She, too, had once been deemed fit for damnation. Lorelei recognized her sins. She also remembered how she’d come to commit them. Kierrk and Mandah may have been born of the Pit or they, too, may have come from mortal lives. Hank surely lived at least one mortal life, as had countless others.

Most were truly wicked. Others simply unrepentant. Even Lorelei knew not who judged such matters or how, but she remembered how she had been judged.

With two swipes of her talons, she cut its bonds. The soul curled up in pain, but soon crawled away to lick its wounds.

Lorelei turned back to her audience. Kierrk, Mandah, and Hank watched her in apparent shock. By the standards of the Pit, she’d committed an act of unspeakable charity. Even that was enough to inspire the loyalty of some demons.

“I require escorts,” she told them. “Come with me.”

* * *

She remembered the warfare of ancient times, when armies smashed together in a contest of iron, muscle, and sheer weight. She’d witnessed a few such battles. In more recent years, Lorelei had seen massive concerts, where incredible crowds stretched out as far as the eye could see. The scene before her seemed like a blend of both, as countless demons swarmed and fought in a maelstrom of violence. Clashing blades, pounding limbs, and roaring, screaming voices of pain and rage created a cacophony like nothing she’d ever heard.

No one had a partner, much less a team. No one called out orders. Here and there, wounded demons staggered away to the outskirts of the fight. More often than not, the defeated were thrown out of the scrum—at least, at the edges. Those who fell deeper in were simply trampled. Some were devoured. Across the Ashen Plains, it was every demon for itself. The only organization in view was that of her own guard detail, made up of those demons she found within Baal’s fortress.

Her appearance on the field changed the dynamic. She led from the front, ending the violence before her with her mere presence. Warring demons parted as she strode across the plain, and those who did not make way felt the wrath of her ever-growing wedge of supporters. Some stood aside. Others knelt. Flyers dropped their feuds and swung around in the skies to take up places in her defense. A rocky, bull-headed lieutenant wielding a trident and club blinked at her approach only once before falling into line and calling out orders to the rest.

A few challenged, of course. Hell was built by rebels. Yet those who dared raise arms against Lorelei instantly found themselves outnumbered. Having any faction at all proved far better than having none. Kierrk, Mandah, Hank, and her growing mob of supporters put down or knocked aside every malcontent or lunatic who stood against Lorelei in her march toward the battlefield. More often than not, those who objected fell in line once they picked themselves up off the ground again.

She thought this would be far more difficult. Her early encounters went well, with demons readily joining her as the best chance to return to some semblance of order. Such a good start felt like a stroke of luck, though an understandable one. Even in Hell, hardly anyone wanted this sort of endless, unchecked violence and anarchy. Yet as she drew closer to the crown, she felt much more unsettled.

This felt too easy. Too natural.

“Make way!” bellowed Hank, Kierrk, and others. “Make way and kneel to Lady Lorelei!”

Most did. The few that didn’t felt the wrath of the rest.

Close now, so close to the power that pulled at her, Lorelei watched a pair of huge, muscular demons brawl for supremacy. They fit the traditional mold: horns, wings, tail, and a human shape with bright red skin. They clashed with their oversized weapons until one knocked the other onto his back. The ground shook, startling the lesser demons that fought all around them.

The apparent victor raised his thick, jagged sword for the final blow.

“Stop,” called out Lorelei. She recognized him as another of Baal’s top lieutenants. “Terrez, lower your sword. I have need of you both.”

Smoke trailed from his snarling mouth. His eyes blazed with hatred. “You! You come back to us now?” He lowered his sword—straight into his rival’s gut, without ever breaking his defiant glare. “You’ll be on your knees for me, whore, as you were for—”

“Oh, you’re right, I’d quite forgotten,” she lied. “Hank?”

Like an arrow finally let loose from a bow, the great worm shot past Lorelei in a frightening lunge at the giant. Other demons dove out of his way. Terrez pulled his sword free to meet Hank, but not fast enough. Hank’s maw plunged straight into the great demon’s chest, engulfing all but an arm and leg that flailed helplessly as Terrez fell onto his back and roared in agony.

The crown lay nearby amid a field of bodies, some unconscious, most others dead—or at least, dead for now. Here in Hell, everyone rose to endure further torment. Everyone except the realm’s former master and his top hunter. Baal’s iron crown lay tipped almost upside down, propped up by one of its curved iron spikes. The blood of Baal’s former servants stained the jewels at the base of the crown.

No one interfered. Lorelei’s escorts fanned out in an arc. Beyond them, most of the fighting ended. Soon everyone watched and waited.

She felt the bonds of predator and prey forged between herself and Alex as succubus and mortal. She also felt the power of the ritual intended to enslave her to another mortal, disrupted and redirected when Alex intervened in an act of benevolence she never thought she deserved. In mere days, that bond of servitude weakened, but never truly died off. She still shared his pleasures, as the ritual intended. Alex only gave orders in the course of consensual play, yet privately, she thought of the bond as a safeguard.

Without that bond, she might well have cast Alex aside on their first night together. She may never have given him a chance, nor won his love. Nor Rachel’s. She would not have earned the friendships that led her to this spot.

That bond of servitude led to her first sense of freedom. The crown offered freedom of a different sort.

“I am so sorry, my loves,” she murmured, and took up the iron crown.

Severe tremors ran through her hand and arm, swiftly overtaking her whole body. Lorelei fell to one knee. Nothing like this happened when she lifted the crown after Baal’s death. In that moment, it had only been a symbolic trinket. Though startled, she felt no pain, but rather a deep, visceral renewal quite different from the sexual joys that usually defined her power.

Lorelei’s breath came out hotter than before. Her muscles flexed on their own, while talons sprouted unbidden from her fingertips. The wings on her back stretched and then stiffened with a feeling of strength they hadn’t known before.

She opened her eyes to find new cracks in the ground beneath her. Black, predatory stripes appeared along her limbs. When she looked up, she saw a horde of demons look back—and then kneel. The long ripple of submission spread out in every direction, stretching out as far as the eye could see.

Then she saw past that, far past the Ashen Plains, to the borders of
her
realm. Scouts hidden in the mountains took wing, their bulbous eyes having seen events they had to relay to their master. She recognized the flyers. The sight of them left her seething with hatred, but also a distant thought of approval.
Yes
, she remembered.
Excellent
.