A Taste of Hell: Janneke

Merric managed to come to his senses and jump back away from the monster. Two gigantic wings spread out from beneath the red, sending blood splattering everywhere as the gargantuan demon threw the gremla corpse to the side hard enough she crashed into the wall. The blood tunnel echoed with the sounds of more snapping bones.

Jann stared up at the demon, gulped, and took several more steps back until the chain in Glor's hand went taught. Oh Lord, that was a tetrad demon. That was a gorujin.

The ten-foot-tall demon threw himself at Merric. No conversation, no warning growls, no challenges, nothing. Whoever this beast was, he meant business, and he sank gigantic claws into Merric's shoulders as the devorjin fought back. The impact of their weights colliding was enough to have the blood river churning into rapids.

Glor threw himself at the gorujin as well. He might as well have been fighting a mountain. The titan was bigger than them, with a towering body of epic proportions. He was just as muscular as the devorjin, but easily twice as heavy considering how much taller he was. Four colossal horns raised high and coiled back over his head. Two colossal wings spread out, dwarfing Jann's, black leathery things with claws on each finger. His tail whipped about in the blood, stirring up a frenzy and bubbling mess, creating only more chaos as the titan ripped into Merric.

Glor, one hand still holding Jann's chain, crashed into the titan's side hard enough to force him back several feet. The tetrad demon got one hand around Merric's throat for balance, and as Merric tore at him, fighting to penetrate the layers of dark metal strapped to the invader's arm, the newcomer ripped open Merric's throat. His power was absurd, having done far more than simply cut Merric's throat. He'd ripped the front half of Merric's throat off.

But he was stumbling back from Glor's attack. Even as Merric clutched at his throat futilely, stumbling back as well before falling into the river, waves of his blood pouring out from between his fingers, it looked like Glor had created an opening on the gorujin. He threw himself onto the stumbling giant, dragging Jann closer to the mayhem as he took advantage of the gorujin's blunder.

The gorujin reached back, as if he were about to fall into the blood backward from Glor's tackle. But he didn't. His hand found something solid well before he fell back. And before Glor realized it, the gorujin's wings snapped out, bracing him in the blood, as the gorujin's hand pulled something out from under the blood river.

A giant sword, an ugly slab of metal that must have seen a hundred battles without ever being repaired -- if such a hunk of metal could ever truly need repair -- crashed down on Glor's head. Onto, and through, splitting the large demon's head in half before cutting down deeper, propelled by sheer mass and momentum, to cut down through Glor's throat, and into his chest.

Glor fell to his knees, his chin... chins now skirting the surface of the blood river. He didn't fall over, not with the titan's sword lodged in his chest. Everything went silent.

Jann stared up at the giant beast as he chuckled, reached for Glor with his free hand, reached down into the blood, and ripped the demon's heart free. With another chuckle, he yanked his sword free of the devorjin, let Glor's corpse disappear into the blood, and bit into his prize. Some of the blood within the heart squirted out from the monster's mouth and into the endless red around them, but the flesh quickly disappeared behind the creature's sharp teeth.

The gorujin nodded to Jann, a satisfying smirk on his demon face, as he set his sword behind his back between his wings. He'd attached it to something between his shoulder blades.

Whoever this gorujin was, he was smart, to feint a stumble, only to withdraw a blade he'd hidden in the blood ahead of time.

"I see I'm not too late," the beast said, voice deep, rumbling. Almost pleasant, and mostly terrifying.

"T... Too late?" A gorujin. One of the tetrad. She was looking at, and standing only ten feet away, from one of the demons of the old world.

For all her centuries of training, and even several encounters with demons, she knew she was afraid. Blood pumped through her, readying her for a battle she could not hope to win.

"I heard an angel had been captured, and was being carted to Zel. To get eaten, probably. Bitch really has high expectations, to actually have demons out hunting angels. I bet Zel's just dying to get her hands on one." The demon licked some of his fangs, and smiled at her.

Gorujin faces were, as the humans said, 'demon' faces. Skull-like, with flat noses that were almost non-existent, and defined eyebrow ridges that reminded onlookers of skulls. Alien and terrifying a face as it was, like many demons, it did have a strange attractiveness to it, a defined jaw that seemed strangely masculine, with deep black eyes with red irises.

Many demons were oddly attractive. The carnage and blood lust offset that.

"I... see."

Shrugging, the titan reached down into the blood, down, and down until his torso and face half submerged into it. He came back up with her chain in hand. She almost screamed in rage, but the painful truth quickly squashed the rising fury. Even if she had ran in that split moment Glor's corpse had let go of her chain, this titan would have ran her down. That, or the hundred demons in the path behind her would have found her, raped her, and eaten her. And perhaps not in that order.

With another playful, deep chuckle, the titan licked some of the chunks of heart stuck in his teeth free, before he reached down for Merric's corpse. One hand still held her chain, while the other tore at the corpse beneath the surface of the river, again hiding the tetrad demon's face as he dipped below the surface. But soon he came back up, another demon heart in hand.

"I'm Romakus."

"... Janneke." Well, this was a first. A demon polite enough to introduce himself, unprompted.

He nodded, gently pulled on her chain, and walked toward the corpse of the gremla with her in tow. With a flick of the hand, he wrapped her chain around his enormous wrist, freeing his hand for use, and used both to surgically remove the gremla's tiny heart with his claws.

"Hello Janneke. I suppose you think I'm here to rape and eat you, like Merric was."

She shivered with the vulgar imagery.

"Disgusting. Abhorrent. Vile--"

"Agreed. Horrible behavior."

"I--what?"

"Agreed. Never understood demons who feel the need to torture their meals." Shrugging, Romakus started back into the river of blood, the way he came from. "And I'm not going to eat you, either."

"You're not?"

"No. But you are coming with me for a bit. Come on."

"Why? So you can feed me to--"

"I'm not going to feed you to anyone, either. Come on." He gave her chain a tug.

She almost argued. He wasn't going to kill or, or get her killed. But, also wasn't going to let her go? What then? She would not be his slave! She was no betrayer.

For the moment at least, it meant she had more time to look for an escape. And yet, while escaping from a devorjin brute would have been near impossible without being able to use her grace, escaping from a gorujin? One of the terrible four? Her chances had fallen from slim to none.

"How did you sneak up on them? How did you breathe?"

He grinned back to her, titanic horns turning like some sort of majestic, imposing crown. "I held my breath."

This beast was difficult to read. He smiled constantly, playful, evil grins, and he tugged on her chain every so often just to see her stumble. But like him, her wings were vast, and more than capable of keeping her from falling, especially with them catching waves of blood instead of air. Unlike him, her wings were half submerged, and moving forward was difficult.

"Slow down. I'm... I'm exhausted."

"Yeah, thought so. How'd you drain your grace?"

"That is none of your--" He gave her chain another hard yank, this time almost sending her forward into the blood river, despite her wings bracing her. "Alright! I was scouting. I got too close to a mountain."

"Death's Grip is full of mountains. How stupid are you?"

She snarled and yanked on her chain, but the beast didn't so much as budge.

"I am not stupid, gorujin. Some demons were expecting me."

"Ah. I doubt they were expecting you specifically. Just that there's been a few angel sightings lately, and they were hoping there'd be more."

"And risk another confrontation? Just for the chance at a meal?"

He laughed and gave his giant wings a small shake. His long tail slithered behind him under the blood, occasionally brushing up against her leg, despite her attempts to avoid it.

"Heaven is weak, angel."

"That is not true."

"And yet you angels never make your presence known."

"We have no reason to."

"Uh huh." He laughed again. Considering how often he laughed, and how merry a laugh it was, she almost suspected the gorujin was secretly a gremlin or impin. Maniacal, absurd creatures. But no, he truly was one of the terrible four, and he guided her down the blood river with a purpose.

"Here," he said, ten minutes later.

"Here?"

"Yep." He looked up. The cave roof twenty feet up was covered in remnants, pleading, crying, screaming, many of them tearing at each other as they struggled to pull their bodies free of the rock. It was pointless. Most remnants had no legs. Some had no arms. All of them pried at their tomb as if they could free themselves from the Hell that bound them.

"I don't understand. What--"

Romakus crouched low, and jumped. Blood erupted from where he stood, and she tried to jump back, but the chain was only twenty feet long. She was pulled into the wave of blood, and she sputtered as the vile liquid hit her mouth. For a moment she pulled desperately at the chain, afraid to get crushed by Romakus as he came down from his leap, but he didn't.

She looked up, and stared as the demon climbed through the remnants, into a hole in the ceiling of the cave. It'd been hidden, completely covered by dozens of remnants that grew in the cracks of the stone, along the slabs of rock of the sharp opening. The only way anyone could have seen the hole would have been to both remove a couple dozen remnants, and somehow latch onto the cave ceiling, making it a near impossible hole to discover, and again clear for use. Romakus had, and did. With chain still wrapped around his wrist, he sank his left hand's claws into stone, actually piercing the rock, and he raked through the remnants with his other.

Jann covered her head as limbs, organs, and blood fell upon her. Romakus didn't so much as hesitate to end the lives of three or four remnants with each and every swing of his right hand's claws. A head plopped into the blood in front of Jann, floated to the surface, and the number changed from 312 to 311. And like an idiot, she looked into the remnant's eyes, the human's eyes, before the head floated away.

She wanted to weep. Never had she been in such dire circumstances, trapped deep in the stones of Hell, grace drained, and nothing but death and gore about her. But it wasn't her circumstances that had her struggling to hold back tears. It was the cries of the remnants. Blistered souls, weeping endlessly, many struggling to form words as what remained of their minds slurred and gargled. Years, decades, maybe centuries of agony for some of the more unfortunate, twisted souls. And why? Because those souls deserved to be damned? Could there not be a better way? Body parts were everywhere now, floating in the blood river, and she forced down a disgusted groan as she wiped some organ off her shoulders. A flutter of her wings against the air and blood dislodged what she could only imagine were intestines hooked over her feathers. Hell, was repugnant.

She almost didn't realize it when Romakus disappeared into the hole above, his way cleared. A hard yank on her chains quickly reminded her to look up, and she ground her teeth as Romakus pulled her up. Soon she left the still river below, and had to tuck her wings close to her body as Romakus pulled her into the hole in the cave's ceiling. Blood coated the stone, but at least no remnants reached out for her. She didn't know what she'd do if one of those things got its hands on her.

She tried to climb the stone, but it was flat, a sheer rock face with nothing for her fingers or sandals to find. But Romakus climbed without issue, each swing of his arms sinking his claws into the stone with a loud crunch and crack. As he pulled her up and up, she stared at the holes his claws left, lit by amber veins. Tetrad demons were rare, with how many died in the Spires War, and Belor's last stand. Janneke herself had never met one until now, and with every passing moment, she knew that even if her grace had been full to bursting, she would not have been able to defeat this creature in combat, not alone.

And yet, for some strange reason, he didn't plan to kill her, or indulge himself with her. Or he was lying and toying with her. If that were so, he was a true master of torture.

Eventually Romakus pulled her up into what looked like a large room, perhaps fifty feet across. A burning bush sat within a corner, and amber veins lit the room well enough, pointing to another path above, another hole. Thank the Lord, the alcove was devoid of remnants, and the cries and screams of the other thousands of remnants nearby were dulled by the stone.

Romakus sat upon a boulder, and grinned at her as he slowly pulled on her chain, bringing her ever closer to the beast.

"What am I going to do with you?"

"Release me."

"Ha! Yeah, I could do that." He licked a fang as he continued to pull her, until she was only a single foot from the titan's teeth. With him sitting, her standing, they were face to face. "But you won't survive. You're deep below Death's Grip, and many demons saw you being taken. Anyone who sees you is going to run you down, looking for a taste, or Zel's favor."

She sighed as she looked down. He was right. She couldn't defend herself from the myriad of demons swarming through the stone depths of Death's Grip.

"Then you must help me."

He laughed with disturbing merriment. "Why would I do that?"

"Why did you save me from those devorjins?"

"Maybe I just don't like Zel."

"You said you weren't going to eat me, or feed me to anyone."

"Yeap."

"Then what is your intention?" She flared her wings and flapped them toward him, pushing her back as they splattered blood outward. But the demon's grip on the chain was absolute, and she went nowhere. "I will not be... some slave to a demon. I will not do your bidding."

Romakus grinned. "You talk big for an angel with an exhausted grace and chains around her wrists." He tugged on the chain again, and how it bound her hands together.

"I would rather die."

With a chuckling sigh, Romakus set both hands onto the cuffs binding her wrists. "Don't move."

"I--" She sucked in a quick breath as the beast curled his fingers into the bonds of the chain, and pulled apart. If he pulled unevenly, he could have snapped her wrists, broken them, or ripped her hands off. But Romakus was precise, a rare quality in a demon, and he snapped the cuff apart that bound her right wrist. And then her left. His strength was unreal, to break area. Only in the council would she expect to find angels of similar strength, or angels of old.

"Now you owe me two." He held up two of his long fingers.

"I... I owe you." God forgive her, she hadn't even considered that. "Assuming you aren't lying to me."

He placed a hand onto his chest, where a slab of dark metal had been hammered into the shape of one of his pectorals, and held in place by leather straps. "Swear to God."

She eyed him, and he laughed. This titan was less a monolith of power, and more a trickster.

"Then what do you intend to do with me, gorujin?"

"Not entirely sure yet. Play with you a little, probably." His smile danced between trickster, and vile serpent. "And then I'll help you get out of here."

"Play with me? I will not... pleasure you, demon." She stepped back, aided by a flap of her wings, the single motion putting ten feet between her and the titan as she landed gracefully. Sighing, she rubbed her wrists, before looking back to Romakus, still sitting on his boulder. Considering the demon had saved her life, it did make sense for the beast to request a favor from her, but not that.

"You make it sound like I'd be a terrible lover."

She ran her hands down her body, her soaked silk garments, and over her wings, doing her best to rid herself of the copious blood. It stained her clothes red, and soaked into her feathers. No angel in the history of creation will ever rejoice as she would, once she was back in Heaven and under its flowing waters again.

"Lover? Don't abuse the word."

"Ha. Really think I'd be horrible?"

"What would a demon such as you know about pleasuring an angel?"

Romakus shrugged. "Yosepha seems to love my dick, I'll have you know."

"I... you... you know Yosepha."

Again, the titan's smile became a twisted, playful thing. "Intimately."

"You lie."

"Ha, do I? Kinda short for an angel, dark skin, very short curly hair. Emerald eyes. Lot of gold tattoos, too, in some very sexy places I might add."

Janneke stood there, staring at the titan. Surely he was lying.

"I don't believe you. You... You must have seen her once."

"Then how do I know she has a gold tattoo right here?" He pointed at his sternum. "Another here." He pointed at his abdomen, where several thick straps of goort leather crossed.

"I... don't know."

He licked his fangs and leaned toward her, still sitting on his boulder. "You have no idea how good it feels, inside that angel's ass. It's a pretty big, tight, firm ass for a small angel like her, you know? And listening to her mewl, feeling her squeeze on me as she soaks my--"

"Enough! Enough." Jann turned and raised a wing, using it to block her view of Romakus as she digested that image. "Fine, I believe you. Yosepha has been... hiding something from me, I knew that. I thought she'd found a lover among the souls of Heaven."

"I doubt any human dick gonna satisfy that ass."

Crass! This damned creature was beyond rude, and vulgar. A philistine.

"I--"

"It's this long, you know."

Stupidly, she raised her wing from blocking her view of him, curious what he meant. He held out both hands in front of him, indicating some length well over a foot long. It took a moment, but she realized he meant the length of his penis. She quickly put her wing back in place, blocking her view of him once again as she scowled.

"What could Yosepha possibly see in a disgusting creature like you?"

"Disgusting? I am handsome as fuck, I'll have you know."

"I did not mean your appearance. You have the personality of a--"

"You think I'm hot. Knew it."

She turned to face him and stomped one foot against the stone. "I said enough! Enough of this vile conversation. What do I have to do to earn your aid?"

He chuckled again. "I thought about maybe asking for a strip tease. But you've been doing that this whole time."

She blinked at him, then blinked down at herself. The blood had soaked her silks, and had rendered them utterly form fitting. What fabric that was loose hugged her tight, leaving nothing to the imagination.

Groaning, she hugged her wings about her, hiding her body but leaving her head exposed. Nudity was hardly cause for concern among angels. Humans -- and gabriem -- had sex almost without pause in Heaven. And mikalim and rapholem occasionally joined them. She had no reason to feel shame, but Romakus's mischievous attitude made her want to cover herself nonetheless.