Cemetery Summons Ch. 18

"Down here?" Anathane restated to herself. "I don't know; let me rejoin with the other me's." She held her tanned arm and the manifestations she'd created earlier joined with her in a spectacular flash of light and wave of sheer power.

A thin cloud of white smoke covered the floor, spreading outward from her body. The temperature dropped as it lapped at the walls like a foaming sea, and then began to settle like a calm, lifeless fog. Jack sat, amazed at the sheer amount of energy that she had in her body. The fog now coating the floor was plain and dull, but it made the hairs on his body prickle and his skin tingle.

Anathane stood with her head thrown back and face toward the ceiling. Tresses of bright teal hair hung down behind her like a glowing waterfall, all the way down to her shapely hips. She really did look like a goddess, with a sort of majestic nature about her person.

Never in a million years would Jack have guessed he would have been her fuck buddy. She was just too damn beautiful for him to have ever gotten. Jack, the guy in highschool who hadn't gotten past second base with any of his three girlfriends, had some of the most gorgeous women in all the universe and other places at his heels. He didn't deserve any of them, but for some reason, they all said that he did.

"Hey Anathane?"

"Yes, Jack?"

"Why do you and Elassa and Niaf and Fain love me?" he asked.

Anathane sighed. "Asking that kind of question is like asking why people pay you for doing work when you have an eighteen-hour day in a coal mine and a ton of cash. We just love you, and me personally, it's because you're never satisfied with something good. You want to understand why this good thing came to you." She began to saunter toward him. "And if you really want to know why I cum to you every time we bump uglies...it's because you're incomplete."

"Well, now we're back at square one. I already know that," deadpanned the incubus as Anathane helped him to his feet. She shook her head in amusement.

"Then why ask about what you already know?" She started walking. "Come on, we have to go see a man about an army. He's going to make his decision about whether to lend us his support or not based on your end of this story."

"My end? Why?"

"He wants to know what love is," replied the demon as she walked on ahead of him. Jack furrowed his brow, thought for a moment, and then hurried to catch up to her.

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Grymir wasn't the massive demon with huge horns and a tail dipped in acid and covered in spines and skulls. He wasn't a very imposing demon, or even a very hostile one. Jack had expected all the men down here who were demons to be monsters. Grymir wasn't a monster at all. In fact, he wasn't even that tall.

In front of Jack stood someone who looked like he was sixteen, with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. He looked bored, and scratched the base of one little horn absentmindedly as his cock rose to the occasion.

"This is not the type of man I expected. Are you sure he's an incubus? He looks a little too nice and caring," said the apparently ancient demon, turning his attention away from Jack and toward Anathane. Behind him, a flat-chested beauty with dark orange hair glared daggers at Anathane, seething with jealousy.

"I don't like him, Milord. His choice of company is appalling," the beauty spat, folding her arms across her flat chest. Anathane stood next to Jack and possessively rubbed one of her enormous soccer ball-sized breasts against his shoulder.

"You're just jealous these tits can win yours over too..." She gave Jack a glance and her eyes widened. "Oh, I'm sorry Jack. I didn't mean to speak like that. I was still sorting out the fragments when I was talking. I'm sorry," she said worriedly.

"Don't fret, incubus. I wouldn't try to take her from you. She's not much my type, but she does have special talents that I cannot yet find in another. A thousand limbs at once is hard to find, right, incubus?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess. Me, personally, I don't like the tentacles. All she does is try to rip me to pieces with them," Jack stated as Anathane ran two fingers up his neck to his ear. Grymir shrugged and turned his head toward his woman.

"To each his own I suppose. Right, Kadae?" he asked.

The flat beauty behind him smiled. "Of course, Milord." Her hard gaze softened as soon as their eyes met and her tough exterior melted into a pliable, mushy façade in a second flat. She stepped forward and kissed Grymir hard before wrapping her arms around his chest.

Grymir broke the kiss. "Not now. I still have to see whether or not I'm going to have my army fight for him." The demon turned, again scratching his head near his horn. "So now, where were we? Jack, is it? Why should I help?"

Jack frowned.

"Why? Because I love Elassa, Niaf, and Fain with everything that I am. And because I'm going out there to get them no matter how few people help me. I need your help, most of all so I'm told, to see them again."

"You'd move toward certain doom just to prove your love?"

"Do you not know what love is? What is she, Kadae, to you? Hmmm? Don't you love her?"

Grymir reflected on the questioned for a moment and then looked back at the demon holding him so lovingly. "I don't know what love is. I feel Kadae in my heart the same as I feel each and every one of my originals. I would go as far as it took to retrieve them."

"You see? That's love!" Jack exclaimed, a little confused as the oddly cold and distant way he regarded his lover. Jack would have been up in arms if anyone had said he didn't love his succubi, or even Anathane for that matter. He loved them all dearly.

"Is love seeing an empty replication chamber and feeling something inside you build up? If so, then I love Kadae more than I love anything." At that, Kadae brightened and flashed Anathane a triumphant look.

"No," Jack started. "I think that's called anger."

"Then I feel great anger toward her," he restated.

Kadae suddenly looked dejected and hurt.

"No, what you felt when she was gone was anger. You love her. How do I explain it? Um, do you like spending time with her?" Jack was at a loss. This was like trying to explain emotion to a robot.

"I enjoy when productivity is increased because of her cooperation. So, yes, I do."

"Could you live without her?" Jack said.

"Yes," Grymir answered flatly.

"Fuck, you know what? Would your life be anything less than it is now if I killed her right here and now?" As soon as the words left Jack's lips, Grymir's horns had extended to long spikes, and his clawed fingers were wrapped around Jack's throat.

"I would have killed you if it were not for the spirit of this enterprise," declared the demon with a snarl.

Jack nodded. "That's love. You'd kill me to save her. You hate me because you love her. Look at her now and tell me what you feel." At Jack's words, Grymir turned his head and saw his amazed companion fidgeting nervously under his scrutinizing gaze.

Grymir furrowed his brow. "I feel myself becoming aroused. And my hair is standing on end."

"Well, I can safely assume that's the closest thing we can get from you that resembles love. Love, is exactly like that, only what I feel for my lovers is a thousand times greater than what you're feeling. It hurts me not to be with them. Physically, mentally, emotionally. I'd be crying myself to sleep right now if I didn't have Anathane here to help me through it."

Anathane kissed his head. "I love you too, Jack."

Grymir took his hand from Jack's neck and returned to Kadae's side, sighing. He spoke quietly with her for a moment, confused and intrigued glances going hither thither while they spoke. It was clear that he still didn't understand what love or hate or emotion in general was. After a minute or two, he looked back up, the bored expression on his face once again.

"I will help you, Jack, but I have one condition."

"What? I'll do anything," Jack said hastily.

Anathane tugged at the scruff of his neck before he got too eager. "You remember what happened the last time you said 'anything' don't you? Or did you forget about Helena?"

Grymir interrupted. "I do not want to be instated as the Second Circle's jailer. I refuse to take part in the hierarchy of this land. I am a hermit, and always have been. And I will continue to be one for the rest of my life."

"Thank you," Jack said as he sat down to get off his unsteady legs.

"And my Army of Darkness shall break down the gates of the City of Dis if need be. I will see to the battle plans as soon as the other conspirators have arrived. Kadae, come here."

She almost pushed him to the floor in her eagerness. "Already on you, Milord." They began kissing and panting as soon as Grymir's shoulders hit the floor. His horns grew longer still, unbent spikes jutting from his forehead.

Strangely enough, his wings and tail had yet to appear. Though his blue eyes did glow with a demonic light, his horns were the only other things about him that could label him as demonic. As they began to get very passionate very quickly, Anthony was pulled up beside Jack and his lover.

"Getting hasty, are we, Grymir? Or is your army blotting out the sun outside turning you on? We're going to get caught if you decide to have night come thirty years early, you know." It was Volna, and she held Anthony beneath the arm.

"Uh, hey Jack. She said she needed more payment, so, I'm here now. She's gonna have me out here for a while, I'm guessing. And, are we going into a war council or something now? That's what she said she was called here for."

"I think our leader is a little busy," Anathane giggled, pointing a finger over to the two lovers wrestling on the floor for the top position. Volna shrugged and laid Anthony down on the floor very gently, as if he would break if she used any force at all.

"Then I suppose it's time for me to take a little break as well. Come on, human. If we're going to find your lover, I need more of your seed." Volna smiled sneakily and spread Anthony's legs slowly. She knelt down between his knees and toyed with his engorged glans with her fingertip. Anthony didn't look too phased because of it, unlike Jack, who was always on the verge of gurgling on drool when he was being teased.

The warlock seemed to be the more experienced of the two, probably because he'd been teased more times than Jack by far. Kan really wasn't that gentle of a lover when you looked at their relationship.

Jack suddenly glanced at Anathane.

She smiled gently. "Don't worry. I took my fill from you not too long ago. Let's find a map; I know Nyx has one room devoted to them somewhere around here." Anathane patted the top of his head and they searched for a map high and low.

Eventually, they did find the right room, which was a library that seemed to stretch on in every direction forever to Jack. But Anathane, somehow, pulled a column off the floor that looked like it was the barrel of a railway artillery gun, and held it over her shoulder like a giant's club.

"Was the map under that or something?" Jack questioned, curious.

Anathane shook her head. "Incomplete boy, you're so silly sometimes. This is the map I'm holding. You didn't think hell was small enough for you to hold in one hand, did you?"

Jack's jaw would have dropped to the floor had it not been hinged to his skull. He was speechless. He knew that, given all the things that had happened to him recently, he should have been prepared for this at least.

After the initial shock of it all, he just shook his head and walked with Anathane back to the designated meeting room. On the way, they saw a number of very strange glyphs written sloppily all over the walls, and dozens of hand prints accompanying them.

Anathane just grinned slightly, and Jack knew just from that gesture that she knew something he didn't and it was going to affect him in a negative way very soon.

He didn't bother with it much, because if she was scheming, then he wasn't getting out of it. No matter how hard he tried, he always got reeled back in. A little farther down the hallway, someone was on the floor, murmuring something under their breath.

Anathane held her hand out. "Don't let her see you."

"What?" Jack frowned. "Who is it? What's wrong?"

"Helena. She's gone mad with lust. All those millennia without any sexual experiences, and I raped her nice'n good." Anathane licked her lips as they walked by. Jack's face paled as he saw the lack of any coherence in her eyes. All the lucidity in her head was gone.

It gave Jack pause to see that she was writing music here on the floor, or so it seemed. She wrote in an odd, angular and sloppy patter, but Jack could recognize some notes in the scribbles on the wall and floor. They ranged in size from something written like from the tip of a ballpoint pen, to something done by a painting roller.

But, the girl was entirely content to mutter and create alone on the floor, so Jack left her where she was without disturbing her. He turned the corner and all the color drained from his face, his palms sweaty and cold.

Anathane nudged him with her elbow. "What's the matter? Ain't never seen a girl in the mood for some hot dickin' before?"

Jack shuddered. "Eternity comes to an end this day, and yet we're locked together this way. His voice so pure, his skin to red. I only wish he hadn't bled. Anathane, those were the words to what she was writing. She wants to fuck me to death. Oh God, no, please no. I don't want another one!"

"Rest assured, it's not going to happen. I love you too much to let you get sucked dry." Anathane's eyes hardened as she stared at the wall ahead. "I'm not losing any more time you to scheduling issues."

"Scheduling issues?"

"If I have to carve up any more of my time with you between another woman, I'll cut her head off and stuff my arm down her neck and pull out her heart through her throat. I won't stand for another one."

Jack understood that what she was saying wasn't that she was going to be angry with the woman, but that she would be furious with him. Even though she couldn't bring herself to say 'don't sleep around with anyone else of you're fucked' he knew exactly what she meant.

He made it a mental note not to neglect her again. Ever. She loved him more than he thought he could even feel, but that wouldn't stop her from enacting her fantasies on him until her frustration was expended. And he'd seen only a glimpse of what she called 'kinky' thus far.

Back in the meeting room, there was another new stranger and a number of house guards that Nyx had brought with her here. Currently, Limarei rode Anthony's face while Volna rode his hips, and the poor bastard struggled to keep himself conscious.

Grymir had already finished, and was standing contently next to Kadae while she lay on the floor, a panting heap covered in sweat and bruises. She looked content though, which was what mattered to her.

"Juft abolt gun here," Volna said as she maneuvered the cock in her mouth to speak semi-coherently. Anathane set the map down on its side and pushed it with her foot. It rolled for about ten feet, and surprisingly, it was entirely unfurled.

Jack blinked hard and scratched the back of his head in confusion.

"How..."

"It's not a very big place, Jack, not compared to some of the other Sanctuaries. It's just a prison, so it really has no need to be that massive." She smiled, as if that explained how something that should have been three miles long was only teen feet in length.

"Nevermind. Fuck it, it was magic." Jack sighed and sat down while the conspirators began to assemble around the large sheet of age-yellowed paper. The only noticeable sound in the room was the constant slurping of Volna's mouth.

Limarei had already finished her fun and cleaned herself up by the time everyone was ready to begin the planning stage. The newcomer, a tall, aristocratic succubus with black hair and brown eyes, stared menacingly at Jack.

"Alright, since we're all here and accounted for, I'd like to say that you have my gratitude for coming here today. We're not much, but with Grymir's army, we should be just enough to squeeze out of this situation with our lives," Nyx announced to get things rolling.

"So, what's the plan so far?" asked Limarei, looking eagerly as her mother.

"Well, Helena is supposed to begin a concert for the gate guard three days from now, and we'll slip through the front gate unnoticed. Then Hypnos will take control of one of the inner courtyard guards and have him unlock the second gatehouse for us, allowing our forces to slip into the lower levels of the guard castle without much trouble."

"And what about the garrison?" asked Grymir. "My army can only do so much away from home. I can bring reinforcements, but it will take some time to design and attach an overseer to the hearthstone."

"Volna has...Volna! Take the cock out of your mouth and listen for once!" Nyx snapped angrily. The demon reluctantly paused and glared daggers at everyone present.

"Ahlmoft der," she replied.

"Damn it. Volna will have the garrison occupied in the main corridor, with Thanatos. Meanwhile, we'll be somewhere in the westward corridor. We'll exit in the older section of the Sanctuary of the Underworld and that's where the battle begins."

"What of the supply line between the realms?" Anathane asked.

Nyx added guiltily, "I was planning on having you guard it to a greater degree. Hypnos can only be so useful in there. You'll have to be his bodyguard while he takes control of the south guard post and holds the gate open for us."

"Mother!" the god whined, probably about her insulting his masculinity.

Nyx shot him a hard glare. "Grow some balls and quit acting like a pussy! Lose a few teeth? I'll tear your eyes out and cut off your tongue myself if that's what it takes to make you hold that damned gate open," she raged, wide shoulders raised and tensed.

Hypnos shrank back in the face of his mother's lesser fury, and shut his mouth as Nyx began to calm down. Jack knew that he wouldn't want to be in the god's place right now.

"Fine. But I need someone to guard my real body. Dalaria is going to have me assassinated once she realized what we're doing down there in the Sanctuary. Grymir?"

"I'm afraid my production facilities can only yield so much, Anathane. Either the Sanctuary of the Underworld is reinforced, or your body is defended with all extra forces. I cannot do both."

"Uh...I'll help there. I don't just want to sit around and do nothing while you guys are duking it out with an army. I want to help. They're my lovers." Jack felt uneasy as everyone turned to him. Even Volna stopped sucking the cock she had fallen in love with recently to stare at him.

Anathane growled. "No. I'm not going to lose you, not for a silly war like this."

"But I want to help! I can't sit around and let you guys and everyone else fight a battle for me that I'm not going to even see! I can't sit here and wait for the outcome."

"But..." protested Anathane meekly, curling her fingers gently around his wrist. Tears formed in her eyes. "If you die...then...then..."

"I want to fight." Jack said. "I will fight," he reaffirmed after a second thought. He wasn't taking no for an answer. These were his lovers, and he was going to be there when they were freed. He wanted to be the one whose shoulders Fain and Niaf and Elassa threw their arms around and cried onto.

"If he wants to fight, then he will fight," Grymir said boredly.

"Good enough for me," Volna said as she returned to her greedy slurping.

The black-haired succubus spoke. "And how do you plan on fighting to free my sister? Do you have a weapon? The skill to wield it and kill your fellow denizens of hell? Or are you going to turn tail and flee at the first sight of blood?"