Cemetery Summons Ch. 24

"Sorry to interrupt, but we've been here for a while. We have only to hear him speak before those of us that have minds to use." To Jack's surprise, it was Limarei that spoke to them. The red-haired girl blew Jack a quick kiss and returned to her mother's side. The dark succubus, however, looked extremely peeved.

"Well, go get them riled up for war. I'll bee cheering you on," Anathane teased.

"What? I don't get it. What am I supposed to be doing?"

Anathane put a hand to his lips. "You go speak to your troops. It's a tradition here in hell to make an ass of yourself with a speech. Like I said, I'll be cheering for you." She pushed him to a large rock and he found a gathering of sorts waiting for him.

The fifteen others that had been in the war council not long ago were there, along with a full rank of Volna's guards, a group of mercenaries Nyx had bribed, and a small gathering of connected friends that Anathane and Jaelani had spoken to. All in all, a few hundred stood before Jack, in full expectation that he was going to give them the most powerful sermon ever said.

He clambered up the side of the rock and almost fell when he saw the castle up the path. At the moment, he stood in its black shadow like an ant next to a mansion. He glanced at the Army of Darkness and suddenly found it very lacking, despite its enormity and sheer endless strength. Jack turned and stood tall despite his nervousness.

"I don't know how we made it this far, but I'm glad I get a chance to do this, I guess. Thank you, everyone."

"Real inspiring," Limarei droned.

"Hey, fuck you! What do you want from me? You want me to say that that-" He stabbed a finger toward the castle looming over them like a stone colossus. "-can be beaten by us?"

'Um, be a little more arrogant if you could...' Anathane said mentally.

Jack rolled his eyes. Well, time to write your own epitaph, he thought. "Well we can! This giant, this thing before us, it is no more a fortress than Dalaria is a demon! We are the sons and daughters of gods and goddesses, and some of us are actually goddesses in our own right, but that's neither here nor there."

'Good...'

"Are you afraid? Well then make them afraid! You want to win? You want victory? Then shed blood, make it flow like wine, make it flow like water! You are the blade of vengeance, the righteous fury that burns inside me now." His eyes glowed with electrifying vigor. "I'm going to use you to break apart this place stone by stone. This is my will, and nobody, not even God is going to deny me what is mine. Dalaria is trying to do just that, and for that, Dalaria is going to die."

'You're on fire incomplete boy...'

"I will set the world aflame beneath your feet. The very stones of the earth will tremble at the coming of my wrath. The sky will crumble and be naught but dust and ash by the time I am done with this place! Your march has been long and uncomfortable, but today is your day. Our day! This is a day that defines the rest of history. All those that come after us will know that what we did today is worthy of legends!"

'And to finish?' Anathane giggled excitedly.

Jack grinned with grim satisfaction. "So go and be legends in your own right! Make the Nine Circles fear your strength! Make the Seven Rings remember your sacrifice! Make the Nine Rings War look like a street brawl! Carpe diem! Carpe noctem! Carpe Omnium!" With that, Jack drew his sword and raised it as high as he could. A great cheer arose, even from the Army of Darkness as far back as it stretched. Jack felt a smirk make itself home on his face.

The black tide of humanoid figures moved forth like an ocean breaking its boundaries to flood the helpless land in its path. Jack lowered his arm and took a last look at his friends. "Everyone," he said to them slowly, and with much admiration. "May you live forever."

With that, everyone departed for the commencing battle. Jack found three tall Anathanes waiting for him on the ground, but not their creator. He looked around for her, but the Nordic-dressed clone simply pointed her axe toward the ramparts of the castle and Jack saw his demon surrounded by a sweeping wave of Grymir's army.

He found a bit of relief in seeing that she was surrounded on all sides by allies.

Jack joined in the charge up the hill toward the castle, realizing now that there was a hail of arrows and streaks of light raining down from the castle's walls. An arrow struck him in the arm and he cringed. Surprisingly, it hurt a lot less than he had expected, and he was hardly fazed by it. He ripped the arrow out and tossed it aside. The armored Anathane drew her rapier and batted away two arrows that would have hit Jack in the chest.

"Cover his flank," she commanded. The barbaric clone stepped forward and raised her axe to ward off arrows coming at her head. Jack felt bad that they were acting as human shields for him, but he couldn't do anything but follow them up the hill.

It wasn't long before the arrows waned, and then stopped falling altogether. Jack passed through the gate with his small entourage amidst the moving entity of shrouded figures and clawed hands and fanged teeth. One of the gate's doors was flat on the ground, broken beneath the force of something enormously powerful. The other door hung on its hinges, split in half and shorn to splinters.

The courtyard was a picture from the Renaissance. The Army of Darkness milled about in ordered columns, piling through every entryway there was until there was no more space to fill with bodies. Dead soldiers lay everywhere, some friend, most foe however. Jack had little time to wade through the blood and ruined corpses before the three Anathanes shooed him toward a clearing in the army's swirling ranks where the major conspirators were waiting on him.

He listened to the orders, and everyone went to do their part. Jack did what he was told, which was follow Anathane through an arched hallway lined with depictions of conquest and enslavement and torture. Jack found a common theme of Dalaria in all of them.

A commotion up ahead drew Jack's attention. Grymir had stopped briefly as well to see what the matter was. Anathane, even, was curious as to what could hold up such an important objective in this hour of haste.

"Mother, I had so much sex! Everyone wanted me! So I played and fucked and played and fucked, and played! Oh, mother, it was the greatest thing I have ever felt! I wrote so much music!"

Jack paled.

Helena had returned from her concert.

"Helena, that's wonderful, but now is not the time. Find your brother Thanatos and tell him all about it, alright?" Nyx sounded nervous.

"But mother!" the daughter protested, raising her cupped hands. "I have birthday presents for...for...Jack! Nineteen! Nineteen little penises for his nineteenth birthday! Won't he love them?" she exclaimed, holding said items in her cupped, bloody hands.

"Holy..." Nyx said, at a loss for words. "...alright, go find your brother Thanatos. Jack is with him. I'm sure he'll love them. Go on now, hurry!" The succubus shooed her lucid child away and then glanced around at the spectators. She leveled her gaze at Jack. "You had better never even think about my daughter again, do you understand me?"

"You think I'll have time for that?," Jack managed as he continued on with Anathane. Ahead, a massive set of double doors cast in bronze stood before them. Silent sentinels guarding the path to sanctuary and the freedom of four maidens in the depths of despair. Jack growled low in his throat. One more door after this, he thought to himself bitterly.

Grymir gave Jack a knowing look and the doors began to slide apart, grating together, grinding ancient stone and metal that had scarcely trembled beneath the weight of use since their construction. Jack watched with grim resolution as a vortex, not unlike the one Dalaria had dragged his lovers through, wind like a piece of clockwork machinery. Jack no longer feared what he saw; he embraced it.

He didn't know if his mind had been altered to make him think like this, but he guessed that was the case. He watched colors and bright flashes of white light dance across the liquid surface of the ingress. Before he knew it, his feet were moving toward it.

Rushing ahead of him, hundreds of black figures disappeared into the monstrous gate between realms, swallowed whole as they merged with the pure aether of hell. When it came to Jack's turn to enter, he took Anathane's hand in his and she kissed him on the cheek.

"Be strong, for them. It only hurts a little."

"I'm sure," Jack replied sarcastically. He squeezed his eyes shut and jumped through the pallet of color and light. He felt something tug him away from a great weight, but the feeling passed and a scorching wind blasted his entire body. He opened his eyes, only to find that he had needed them closed.

A cloud of dust covered him in a dry, grimy coat of brick red and his eyes burned as the stuff dug into his retinas. He wiped his eyes vigorously with his palms, getting rid of most of the dust and dirt in them. He took a look around, and it was not the scene he expected.

The sky above was blue, like the one he had gazed at thousands of times for nineteen years. The sun was bright red, but it gave off a healthy, yellow light here that made things seem a bit more normal than he had been preparing for. Red dust coated the ground, and dark green grass grew sparsely in it, huddled around rocks scattered about the barren ground.

Ahead, a series of spires broke the black-lined horizon like rips in a big blue tablecloth. To the horizon, there lay nothing of note between the Army of Darkness and the thin black line that lay on its boundary. Jack searched about for Grymir and the others, but he couldn't find any of them. Maybe they had gone ahead?

"Hey Anathane, what is that thing way out there?"

She replied, "You mean the wall?"

"Oh, crap. That's gonna take a while, isn't it. It's fucking huge, right?" Jack sighed despondently. More walls. More and more and more fucking walls!

"No, we're all sunshine and smiles from here on in. Things have gone better than expected. Dalaria doesn't even know we're here thanks to Helena ripping the captain of th...well, the captain of the guard is dead in ay case. Two walls shouldn't be a problem if we can get them fast enough. You know what they say, take the gatehouse and the castle becomes your home."

"Okay..." Jack said uneasily. "So, what we just head for the walls and hope things turn out for the best?" He practice swung his blade and the barbarian Anathane next to him bent over and grinned widely.

"I'll make sure you won't be needing that blade, honey," she said in the most sensual, provocative way she possibly could. She stole a kiss from him and then jumped away from the real Anathane's heavy punch. "Too slow!" she teased.

"You steal another and I'll take that life I gave you and put someone else in charge," Anathane growled. She grabbed Jack around the waist and pulled him to her protectively. "He's mine until the core gets at him."

Jack pushed away from the big, tanned demon. "Alright, Anathane. Let's just get moving so I can see my three women again. I'm sure Anthony's pretty anxious to get back to Kan too." Anathane nodded and grabbed both of Jack's hands tightly.

"Jack?"

"Yeah?"

Her voice quivered. "After all this is over...will you..." Her eyes fell and her cheeks turned dark scarlet. "It's almost too embarrassing to ask here, but..."

"What, you can ask me anything! Come on, after everything that's happened, you're still embarrassed? You can tell me anything. I know it sounds cheesy, but you can."

She turned even redder. "After this, would you...marry me?"

"Hell yes!" Jack shouted, and smothered Anathane in a hungry, happy kiss. She picked him up and the three clones of her hugged each other and bounced up and down excitedly. I guess marrying her means they're my wives too, Jack thought.

Volna raised a brow nearby. "What wrong with you?" she asked.

Anathane twirled around and broke her kiss with Jack. "He said he'd marry me!"

"Well," the demon replied boredly. "It's not like he was gonna say no. It was really just a matter of time before it happened."

Soon, just about everyone knew that Jack had said yes, and they all congratulated her in one way or another. Grymir's was a very brief one, because he had an army to lead, and that afforded him little time to do as he pleased. Kadae's was a tad longer, but she was eager to keep with her master, and moved to follow him immediately after Anathane let her go.

Jack found himself with little else to do than follow Anathane and her clones as they headed for the massive black shape hugging the horizon. It wasn't as bad as the one before. Now, things were less tense, because the apprehension before the battle was over. They had proven that they could fight it out effectively, and that their force was vastly superior to Dalaria's.

He saw it in Ekana's face especially: hope. Hope, not just the hope that they would get this far, but hope that they would succeed. Before this point, it had all been a gamble. They'd thrown all their dice a once in a blind roll, and come out on top. Now all they had to do was manage to steamroll while that lucky roll still had Dalaria caught by surprise.

The Army of Darkness swept forward like a tide of dark specters, with their leader buried somewhere among them, calculating numbers and strength with Kadae as he had done since they'd arrived outside he outpost on the other side of the portal.

Jack felt his throat choke up as he realized that behind the walls ahead, his three lovers were waiting for him. All he had to do was reach out and take them back, and they would be his again. He rubbed his eyes to ward off tears and ground his teeth.

Only a little longer now.

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Dalaria grabbed the corpse by the neck and tossed it away, savoring the wet slurp that arose from its removal from her axe. She looked around and found that the guards had done well in killing the rest of the escaped prisoners in the room.

She moved forward, a number of her soldiers falling in around her as they continued through one of the corridors to the next cell block. No matter now this prison riot had started, she was going to end it personally. This was not the first one she had been forced to quell, but it was one of the most troublesome.

She'd had to mobilize the entire garrison to put it down, and still block after block of prisoners found their freedom due to some little rat slipping through the cracks in the floor and hiding away while his comrades in defiance were slaughtered. She would have a special fate for him once he was found and brought to her with no hands.

Dalaria found the next cell block empty, and a dead warlock with several guards lying in a heap on the floor in one of the cells. She looked up at the rune above the door, and paled. The blue demon had started all this. She looked at the rune next to the demon's,a and found it almost as troubling. The fallen angel was on the loose as well.

"Find a blue hermaphroditic demon named Kan, and bring her to me. And kill the fallen angel named Tirol on sight. I don't want any delay, go!" she ordered. Immediately, the guards left to relay orders and begin searching the prison and surrounding areas for the two. Hopefully, one of them would at least be dead within the prison. If not, they would be found soon. There was no way they could have made it far, especially not with the entire garrison mobilized at this point.

She marched through three more empty cell blocks before coming through an area that was filled with guards and a number of tables with maps strewn across them. This was a staging area of sorts where the collective efforts of the garrison could be allocated properly, instead of these little firefights here and there between four of her guards and twenty prisoners.

Dalaria was greeted by the captain, and he informed her that the situation was slowly coming under control, even though two more cell blocks had opened up and spilled their contents into the fray. She growled, but said nothing.

"Three of the jailers are currently mobilizing their forces to keep the rest of the cell blocks in check, and the other two are busy killing those that have already escaped. If things keep going like this, in two days' time we will have the situation under control and finished, milady," the captain finished.

"That's not fast enough," the snapped.

Her attention was grabbed by one of her couriers before she could say anything else. She turned, and glared down at the dark little rodent, long ears bent down in submission. Fucking little demons didn't know what it meant to wait for anything.

"Milady..." it began softly.

"What!" Dalaria roared.

"Milady, there is an army approaching. We have put together that the jailer Grymir is at its head," it said, scooting back of bleeding, webbed feet. Dalaria grabbed the courier by its fleshy pink tail and raised it so that its dark eyes were on level with hers.

"What?"

"An army is headed this way with Grymir as its commander." it shrieked, and then gnawed at its tail in an attempt to escape. Dlaria tossed it to the ground and snarled.

"Show me."

"This way!" the creature answered, and led her to the battlements of the keep. Dalaria stared at the horizon with a look of despair on her pale, noble face. The head of her great axe hit the ground and she felt her knees weaken.

The entire horizon was filled by black shapes. She couldn't fathom how many there were in the black tide that was going to swarm her fortresses one by one, or all at the same time. There was no hope. All was lost.

She suddenly grew furious, and her jaw settled into a firm, clenched position. She grabbed the courier again and held it out over the crenelations by the scruff of its neck.

"Wake Anatithenai," she commanded, and threw the creature down the stairs to assist its speediness. She waited for what seemed like hours before the familiar, uncomfortable presence of the Second Circle's oldest living being became painfully noticeable.

"What do you want, Dalaria?" asked the ancient demon, annoyed.

"I want you to assassinate someone for me."

The demon perked up. "Who? Grymir? Isn't he a jailer here too?"

"No, not Grymir. There is another I know is here with him. He's the reason this entire situation has come to pass. I want you to kill him and bring me his head to hang over the gate before Grymir gets here with his army." Dalaria gripped the stone hard. This betrayal would not go unpunished. Grymir was going to die for this affront to her authority after this battle was over.

"Then tell me his name or what he looks like and I'll prepare something nice to throw his way," the demon giggled. "Oh, you haven't let me kill anyone in so long! This is going to be so much fun!"

"No," Dalaria said firmly. "Do not play games with him. I want him dead as soon as possible. I want his head, do you understand? His name is Jack. Kill him without delay and return here immediately."

"But-"

"As long as I have your precious flower, you will do as I say!" Dalaria snarled. "I expect his head by tomorrow." With that, Dalaria descended the stairs to find the jailers and pooled their forces together to throw at Grymir's massed army. One of them had to kill Anathane as well. And however long it would take, that could be done with a bit of effort and planning. Her body was still within reach of Dalaria's forces, at least for a while.

But while Dalaria descended the tower, Anatithenai looked at Grymir's army and pouted.

"Every girl is entitled to a little fun." She stuck her tongue out at the retreating figure of Dalaria. "A few minutes couldn't hurt..."

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