One thing I truly hate about lesser demons is that they stink, especially after they spill blood. They’re swarming us in great numbers, but they’re easy to fight and fall to the ground like flies. Mucky-colored blood sprays everywhere as we take them down one by one.
It’s just claws and teeth and growling all around, but every so often, I catch a glimpse of the portal. It glows red and is pulsing in the distance. It’s a couple hundred feet away, but I can’t get a proper view of it to phase there quickly enough. The stupid demons keep blocking my way, and they’re far more numerous than when we first faced them. They’re obscuring the reddish portal to the veil with their bodies. They know that we can phase into it if we have a clear view.
I hear a squelching sound behind me. I spin around, seeing that Valerie is guarding my back. She has demon blood staining her face and clothes, while her hair is wild and messy. Even so, she looks glorious, like a war goddess.
“Thanks,” I say. Behind her, I see our Nightshade soldiers taking down more demons. They’re holding up reasonably well.
Valerie grins. Her blue eyes are wild. “I should be thanking you. You’ve saved my butt at least twenty times since we got here.”
Another demon throws itself at me, disregarding all its comrades I’ve taken down. I thrust my dagger through its skull, ending its pitiful existence.
And around us, demons are fucking.
Yep. Rutting with each other on the battlefield. It’s a terrible sight and sends a sick feeling through my stomach, but it keeps them distracted and off our backs. They sound hideous, with grunts that are like huge bags of rocks grinding against each other. I’m extending my powers as far as I can to distract them with lust. Vickal has destroyed swaths of them with his fire, while Xeres has compelled hundreds to turn against their brethren. My companions are still within sight—so far, we’re doing a good job of sticking together.
“So… this demons-having-sex thing,” Valerie says. We’re standing back to back. She yells and slams Xeres’s dagger straight through a demon’s mouth. She is getting really good at this.
“Like it?”
She throws a punch. “Not in the least. Can’t you do something a bit more tasteful?”
“It’s my powers. Can’t bargain with what God gave me.”
“What is God like?”
“Dead. Jehovah was an angel who perished years ago.”
She frowns. “Good to know.”
“Shit, you guys are strong,” Jared says. He blows off another demon’s head with his whitefyre. I still can’t for the life of me figure out why his fire’s white instead of black. I’ve never seen such a thing happen before. Are Val and Jared truly demons? Or something else? Something more?
I cut through two more enemies, quite literally, splitting their bodies in two. Their guts spill out on the ground, icky and slimy. “We’ll be at the portal in no time at this rate.” It’s still being blocked. We need to come up with a better strategy to keep them out of the way, so we can make one final phase.
Everything is going well, but there’s a tingling in my gut. Shit always hits the fan during situations like this. I’ve lived through too many demon and realm wars to not understand that.
Belial’s form cuts through the army. He’s plated in his battle armor, made of helldragon skin. It’s an upgrade from our last fight. Maybe he got his ass kicked too hard by Vickal the first time. Helldragon hides are almost impossible to pierce, even with Vickal’s blackfyre daggers, and those are the sharpest things I know. Belial has grown from his usual human form and has fully morphed into his demon nature. His frame towers above the rest of his minions. He’s at least ten feet tall, with three horns sticking out of his head. A long, spiked tail grows from his behind and swishes around like a serpent. His human form was simply a lie—like most things with him.
Me? I’m always handsome.
As Belial moves, his surroundings bend, affected by his illusion magic. In the entirety of Hell, no one matches his command over illusions.
Xeres points his dagger at Belial. All the demons he’s managed to exert compulsion over swarm toward Belial. Four other Belials mist into existence. They form a distraction for the weaker demons, who they fan out, losing their effectiveness.
“Xeres needs my help,” I tell Valerie and Jared. “He can probably take Belial on his own, but we want to deal with him swiftly before we receive any surprises.”
“That’s Ponytail?” Valerie says, throwing another two balls of whitefyre at nothing in particular. She doesn’t have the best aim. Because there’s so many of them, however, the fire manages to meet random targets. It catches one demon in the shoulder and the other on the tail.
“Ponytail?” I ask.
“He had a ponytail the last time I saw him. I thought it made him look lame.”
I frown before whipping my attention away. “Vickal! Make sure these two don’t die! I’m going to help Xeres out.” I point at Jared and Valerie.
“I’ll try!” Vickal shouts back. He’s busy himself. There’s too much confusion around us.
“That’s highly reassuring!” Jared struggles with a demon with two heads. It’s slobbering all over him. I make quick work of it, slicing my dagger through its back, before bounding toward Xeres. I phase through the demons I can, but they keep blocking my vision, which makes phasing inaccurate. I take down tens more enemies before I reach Xeres.
I send a surge of pheromones toward Belial and his clones, but he knows my tricks, and he seems to have gotten protection from them, because he’s immune. I push harder, but the invisible barrier around him doesn’t budge. Why is it not working?
I twirl my dagger in my fingers. “Guess we have to do this the hard way,” I mutter.
He knows my tricks, but I’m aware of his, too. It’s tough to see through illusions, but not impossible. Their colors are often slightly off, and if you look hard enough, they sometimes fade before blinking back. It only lasts for a fraction of a second.
Xeres has spotted the real Belial. He’s lunging at him with everything he’s got, spinning like a whirlwind.
I release a battle cry and leap toward them. Belial’s minions are going to give Xeres a tough time by swarming him, and I have to make sure they don’t. A few of Vickal’s subordinates are also here, helping us. They throw flames and weapons around the battlefield. I slice through the horde with my blades, hearing crunch after crunch and the squelching sound of flesh falling apart. Rage and bloodlust rises in me, and my inner demon howls at the pleasure of violence.
Sometimes, how quickly Xeres moves startles me. He’s faster than even me. My eyes struggle to track him as he circles Belial, phasing with unparalleled dexterity. He makes numerous cuts across Belial’s body, spraying red all over the battlefield. Belial shrieks and groans, but it does little to stop Xeres. A demon leaps at his back, almost catching him in its razor-sharp teeth. I slam it down with my leg and thrust my dagger through it.
Two more higher demons lunge toward us. A horned male and a harpy female. They’re only gifted with weak illusion magic. When they try to distract me with a mirage, I see through them immediately, and the harpy gets a blade through her throat. The male releases a roar at the loss of his companion. He doesn’t last long either.
Xeres has immobilized most of Belial. He’s on his knees, hunched over the ground. He’s vulnerable. There are gashes all around Belial’s body. He bleeds red, unlike his lesser minions, and his blood gushes to the ground. Xeres is crouched on Belial’s giant thigh and has one hand lodged inside Belial’s chest. Xeres isn’t doing a very good job at warding off the minions in that position.
“Fucker’s heart won’t come out!” Xeres shouts at me. I toss my blackfyre at the minions, taking them out before they get to Xeres. Xeres kicks one of them and snaps its neck.
“Maybe you’re too weak!” I shout back.
“Oh, fuck you!”
I make a clear path for myself and lunge toward Xeres. I reach to help him pull. What in the world did Belial do to make his heart so tough to dislodge?
“Got… special protection… before I came here,” Belial says through his spit. “You can’t kill the son of Lucifer this easily.”
We look a bit too foolish clasping at each other’s arms, trying to pull out the heart of an immortal demon.
An arrow flies toward me and pierces my shoulder. One of Vickal’s men kicks a demon away from me, but he gets shot through the eye right after and slumps to the ground unconscious. The demons leap at him and tear out his heart, making sure he can never return.
Pain burns through my arm and forces a hiss out of me. I break the shaft and pry the point from my flesh, expecting it to heal, but it doesn’t.
A wicked grin curls across Belial’s hideous face. “You lot aren’t going to win this time.” His voice is gravelly.
My wound continues to hurt like a bitch. Why isn’t it stitching back up? I turn to where the arrow came from, and there, I see three angels, their frosty wings fanned out over the battlefield.
“You sought the help of the angels?” Xeres asks.
“They want your heads,” Belial says. He’s coughing from having Xeres’s hand clenched over his heart. Xeres seems to have tightened his grip, because Belial’s eyes start to bulge, and he wheezes.
Xeres sneers. “They’re here for the cipher, stupid. Our cipher. The ones the demons should have control over. You’re handing power to the enemy.”
“The cipher is small price to pay to rule Hell for the next thousand years.”
“Hell is a shithole,” Xeres says.
“Not if I’m the one on top of it.”
“Well, I guess your gamble failed, because you’re dead now.”
“Good luck with that.” A cry tears out of Belial’s lungs. “You… you can’t… pull my heart out. I strengthened it with a potion from the oracles.”
My shoulder continues to throb. I’m kicking away the minions that never seem to stop showing up. One nicks my side with its claws. The wound stitches up quickly, but it still hurts. “Xeres! Hurry it up.”
Belial’s chest glows, and I know Xeres is trying to weaken him by flaring flames against his heart. The demon’s screams are even louder this time.
Xeres growls. “Where’s your brother?”
“Beelzebub’s busy taking over Hell while you’re gone.”
“I so adore brotherly love.” Xeres smirks. “Oh, did the oracles give you anything for protecting your heart against flames? Or to protect yourself from beheading?”
“Fuck. Don’t… don’t do it.” The direness of the situation seems to have come to Belial late. Realization dawns on him, and the alarm I see is almost comedic. Belial’s chest lights up with black flames. His cries are piercing and horrible. His body thrashes, nearly swinging Xeres and I away.
“He’s a stubborn fucker,” Xeres says. “Sylver, give me a hand here.”
I spin my dagger between my fingers, pushing away from the lesser demons, and leap to lodge it in Belial’s throat. I attempt to saw his head off, but his neck is thicker than my waist, and his skin is as dense as a helldragon’s. The minions lunge at Xeres and I, and I see Xeres’s leg getting torn to shreds. His expression hardens with pain, but he focuses on our goal.
My dagger does the job of weakening Belial, allowing Xeres to tear the demon’s heart out easily. The heart whimpers with its final throbs and is completely black when it falls to the dirt.
The large, armor-clad figure slumps to the ground.
I wipe my hands together. “One problem solve—”
Two arrows hit me in the back. It stings, and my eyes water. Angel weapons are imbued with magic that doesn’t allow demons to heal. Not even us higher demons. If I make it out alive, these wounds are going to take ages to stitch back up.
But it feels like I’m about to die.
In my peripheral, I see Xeres busy with other demons. He’s balancing on one leg while his other heals. I don’t notice the other three arrows heading my direction and lodging in my flesh. My shoulder, spine, and calf sing with pain. Demons swarm around me, blocking Xeres’s view.
We might be strongest in the Underworld, but we were still way over our heads rushing into an army like that.
I think this is when I can say that shit is hitting the fan. Not just lightly and not just a little. It’s an entire sty full of shit, and the fan’s going at Mach fucking speed. I think I’m going to die in about five minutes.
I feel dizzy.
It’s hard to keep my head up.
My eyelids grow heavy and I slump to the ground.
Thud.
Was that my body?
Clinging on to consciousness is becoming hard. I’m not going to last long. They’re going to rip my heart out and eat it.
I’ve lived a long life. Longer than Xeres and Vickal. Longer than most demons in Hell. I’ve experienced enough pain and love and joy to last many lifetimes. It’s okay to go now. Is there an afterlife, past Heaven and Hell? Or do I just disappear forever? It’s funny how I, an immortal, am having an existential crisis. But it’s all right, because maybe I’ll be happier dead. Zrako is where all the dead people go.
At least, that’s what I’m trying to convince myself.
I don’t want to die.
It’s a shame I couldn’t spend more time with Val. I was just getting to know her.
I close my eyes and consciousness slips.