Ashmodaen Ch. 01

Author's Note: Not much to say at this point. Check my profile if you want more of an update, I'll be editing that once I've submitted this.

Tags up front: Demon, magic, succubus, incubus, nonhuman

"Fuck," I growled emphatically, gently feathering the brakes and merging two lanes to the right in response to the red and blue lights that had lit up right behind my car. It was almost 8 in the morning and my shift had sucked balls; did my busted tail light really demand I get pulled over this morning?

Throwing the gear into park and turning off the radio, I rolled down the window and planted both hands on the steering wheel, slouching back in my seat and sighing heavily. Hopefully this would just be a quick stop and talk, maybe a stern warning, and then I'd be on my way. All I wanted to do was crash in bed and sleep until next week. Violent detoxer patients were just the best, and last night was my third shift in a row sitting with that little shit Ben.

"Good morning, sir." I looked up sharply at the distinctly feminine voice, which, to be fair, in this day and age shouldn't be surprising.

The policewoman was a blonde, bombshell beauty, to put it in polite terms. Her hair - which was pulled up into a sensible, tight bun - seemed to almost shimmer in the early-morning sunlight. She was slender, but had luscious curves, matched by the generous swell of her chest. Her face was gorgeous, with high cheekbones, arched eyebrows, and a narrow jaw and chin, though her eyes were hidden behind her mirrored shades.

For the briefest moment, I considered asking if she was available, but then two things dissuaded me. First, I remembered that she was a cop and I just got pulled over - not exactly a dealbreaker in all cases, but it's not a great start. Second, the moment I fully faced her, her carefully cultivated expression of neutrality morphed into a poorly-suppressed scowl. I wasn't even really checking her out - most of the details came to me in my peripheral view - so that confused me a lot.

"Er, morning, ma'am. Tail light, right? I've got an appointment to get that fixed on Thursday."

"License and insurance, please." I barely managed not to flinch at the harsh chill in her voice, then muttered an affirmative and pulled out my wallet. She nearly snatched the cards away before returning to her cruiser, and I sighed again. Why the fuck did I feel so on edge? Sure, she seemed to have a bad attitude, and she seemed to actually dislike me (maybe I reminded her of an asshole ex?), but that was no reason to assume the worst.

Then she came back to the door, her stance cautious... and her hand resting on her gun. "Mister Ashmoor, I need you to turn off the engine and step out of the car."

My heart froze. I swallowed heavily. "I-is something wrong, officer?"

"Do as I say, sir."

I forced myself to take deep breaths as I twisted the key and opened the door, hoping that controlling my breathing would stop the tremor in my hands. "Turn around and put your hands on the roof of the car," the policewoman said, her voice still harsh steel. So much for stopping the tremor.

Once my hands were on the car, I felt her start to pat me down. Since I had just come off work, my scrubs were stuffed with things; a book, my Nintendo Switch in its case, and my phone and wallet. She took everything out, but I didn't dare look or ask where she was putting them.

When she was finished, she pulled my arms back and slapped a set of cuffs around my wrists. Without a word I was 'escorted' to her squad car, and none-too-gently pushed into the backseat, and quickly buckled in by the woman, who then got in the driver's seat and started driving. I opened my mouth to ask what the actual fuck was going on, and then I woke up.

Yeah, one second I was sitting up about to ask a question, the next I was opening my eyes in a slouched position with a tiny bit of drool drying at the corner of my mouth.

Oh, and we were in the middle of a forest, apparently, not a building in sight.

"The fuck?" I breathed, looking around in a panic. When the hell did we get here?

The door opened and the policewoman was glaring at me with confusion, her shades gone and revealing her ice-blue eyes. "How are you awake?" she demanded. It was only then that I saw her nametag: Angela.

"What?" There was so much more I wanted to ask, but that was all that my brain managed in its state of shock.

She snarled. "Nevermind, it won't matter in a minute." Then, with absolutely none of her earlier, minimal restraint, Angela reached across my body, unbuckled me, and then all but dragged me out of the car.

"What's going on?" I yelped as she strongarmed me away from the car, struggling to keep my feet under me while tripping over roots and rocks. After almost falling on my face twice, I started to wonder at Angela's strength. She was just dragging me along as if I weighed nothing!

We finally reached wherever we were going, and Angela simply tossed me forward. I landed with a grunt, then froze at the sight of an empty, shallow grave right in front of me.

Turning quickly, I watched with wide eyes as Angela leaned down and pulled a slender, long dagger from under her pant leg. "You should have concealed your aura if you really wanted to hide yourself. With such a thin glamour, I'm shocked nobody caught you sooner."

Her words mostly just went right by me, but some of the odder phrases caught my attention. 'Aura?' 'Glamour?' What the hell was she talking about?!

I was frozen with fear as she approached, the blade of the dagger glinting in the sunlight. Then, when she paused, standing over me with an expression of disgust and hate, I reacted instinctively. Twisting, I kicked out at her knee, landing the blow hard enough to make her cry out and drop. Scrambling to my feet, I took off away from her and the shallow, unmarked grave I knew was for me. With my hands still cuffed behind me, I had to tuck my chin and shoulder through the undergrowth, and I felt dozens of scratches forming on my exposed face and neck as I whipped by branches and bushes.

I stumbled to a halt suddenly when I found myself in front of a wide, quick-flowing river. Glancing back, my heart leapt into my throat as I caught sight of golden hair coming up behind me.

I glanced left, then right. Seeing no easy path through the forest, I took a few steps back. Then I charged, jumping into the river.

Almost instantly, I floundered. Swimming without the use of your hands is difficult in ideal conditions (re: a calm pool), let alone a wildly-racing river. Struggling to orient myself in the current, I tucked my knees for a moment and got my hands in front of me, giving me a bit more control over my course, at the cost of doing a somersault and a half. But the current and rapids were too strong, and I was dragged under.

It felt like ages, but it was probably only seconds. Regardless, my lungs burned as I struggled futilely towards what I thought was the surface. Then the current threw me against something hard, and I felt my skull impact before blacking out.

When I woke up, Angela was leaning over me, a look of consternation on her face. I saw the glint of her dagger in my peripheral, but a small, logical part of me pointed out that if she still wanted to kill me, she had ample opportunity after I had hit my head.

Wait. I'd hit my head hard enough to get knocked out, but I didn't even have a headache right now. And I knew that those bits in books and movies about hitting someone over the head to knock them out only for them to wake up fine was a myth. So, how was I fine?

"You are rather stupid for such a powerful Ashmodaen," Angela muttered, her voice some odd mix of consternation and disgust.

I blinked in confusion. "Ash-what now?"

It was Angela's turn to blink, and her expression became one of surprise. "You don't..." Then she frowned, anger burning in her gaze. "Surely you don't expect me to believe that you are ignorant of what you are?"

"Look, unless Ash-mood-an," yeah, I butchered that pronunciation, "is some weird way of saying 'nurse aid' or 'human,' I have no fucking idea what you're talking about. And the only thing I'd consider 'powerful' about myself is my ability to sit in a chair for five hours straight playing computer games."

Her fiery expression slowly leached away, then she stared at me with intense concentration for a long moment. "You're not lying..." she murmured eventually, shock blooming across her face as she said it.

I glared at her. "Of course I'm not lying! I'm not..." I broke off as she abruptly stood and turned aside, fishing out her phone, the knife suddenly gone. Now what was she doing? And where did the dagger go?

After a moment, she held the phone up to her ear, and after a moment. "Come on, Arden, pick up."

"I'm afraid I can't allow that, little angel," a strange voice said from the trees, an instant before Angela's phone literally blew up in her hand.

As both Angela and I turned towards the voice (Angela somehow unharmed by the spontaneous combustion of her phone in her hand and against her cheek), seven shapes burst through the undergrowth, surrounding us. And when I got a look at them, my eyes almost popped out of my head.

There were three males and four females, and they all wore medieval-looking armour and bore similarly primitive weapons. And none of them could possibly be real.

Two of the males were reptilian in appearance, one with gray-green scales, the other with bluish-green. Their faces were long, snouted, almost like overgrown snakes, and they had large 'beards' of fins, as well as fins on their shoulders. A frill of bright green fins was raised on each of their spines, and down their long tails. Both wore only leather loincloths and bore large tridents.

One of the males and a female were largely human-looking, aside from their ruddy skin tones and black nails. Oh, and the huge black-feathered wings sprouting from their backs. They were also stunningly attractive, and wore shiny black plate armour. The man held an ornate, broad-bladed spear in both hands, while the woman had a massive shield on one arm and an equally massive sword in her other hand.

Another female was somewhat reptilian, with yellow-green scales, and a large frill of fins around her head, though her face was more human than lizard, with a mixture of skin and scales. Noticeably different from the two reptilian men, however, was the set of four arms she had, and the long tail that replaced her legs. A complicated collection of fabrics adorned her chest, and a long loincloth was wrapped around where her waist would have been had she been human. She held a matching set of four wicked-looking curved swords.

The final two females were twins as far as I could tell, with nearly-white skin and slender, lithe bodies, which they covered with scant amounts of material - one with small gold-trimmed red plates that must've been held in place by fucking glue, and the other with bands of ornate violet and gold-trimmed cloth draped from thin golden chains. The 'armoured' one had shockingly red hair and held an ornate rapier, while the other was silver-haired and carried a slender glaive. Both had large, black bat wings sprouting from their backs.

"I truly must thank you for causing My Lord's aura to react to your magics, little angel," the silver-haired twin said, and I recognized her as the one who spoke from hiding, with her strange voice that seemed almost to trill as she spoke (a lot like the Siren unit from Warcraft III, I realized once I'd thought about it, though her actual voice was different than the voice lines from that game - higher pitch and softer). "It allowed me to finally find Him, after years of fruitless searching. But now, I'm afraid you must die." She didn't sound at all upset by that.

She looked at me, and I was momentarily captivated by her bright, violet eyes. "Come, My Lord, step away from that vile angel, and we will take you home."

I blinked after a moment upon realizing she was talking to me. "Wh-what do you mean? Why are you calling me a lord?" I glanced around at the others, noticing absently that the red-haired twin's eyes matched her sister's. "Who are you?"

The silver-haired woman smiled kindly. "Of course, you must be confused, My Lord. I doubt anyone you've met until now was aware of the birthright that awaits you. The simple version is that we," she gestured to her six companions, "are the Sins of the Ashmodaen, sent by Lady Irilith to find you, My Lord, for you are the Inheritor of the Throne of the Ashmodaen." She bowed slightly, a hand over her heart. "I am terribly sorry that we did not arrive sooner, when this angel," she spat at Angela, "was threatening your life. We were across the continent in Alaska when your aura became active."

Straightening, she flourished her glaive, glaring daggers at Angela. "Now please, My Lord, step away from her, and we will eliminate her and take you home."

My mind whirled. This couldn't possibly be happening. None of this could possibly be real. I glanced at Angela, then did a double-take. Were those... wings on her back?

Faintly, with a golden glow around them, I could see a pair of white dove wings sprouting from Angela's back. She looked at me, then scowled slightly more than she already was, and with a bright flash, the wings became fully visible, and a long sword appeared in her hands, virtually an exact replica of her dagger from earlier aside from being several times larger. She kept the sword pointed down, though she seemed ready to use it at a moment's notice.

"My Lord," the silver-haired woman said, and I turned towards her. This was all insane, but if it was real...

"If what you say is true," I said slowly, carefully choosing my words, "then I am technically your boss, right?"

The silver-haired woman glanced at her twin, then looked back at me and nodded. "Yes, My Lord," she replied, a hint of cautious intrigue in her voice.

"So you would have to do what I say, correct?" I pressed, hoping this would work. Another confirmation. "Then, as your... er, Lord, I command that you take the... angel as a prisoner - relieve her of her weapon, but do not harm her unless there is no other choice. Understood?" I looked at Angela and almost laughed at the incredulous look she was giving me. A look mirrored by all the 'Sins of the Ash-whatevers.' At least, as far as I could tell; the two reptile-men's faces were inhuman enough to be hard to read, but I think it was something like incredulity.

"My Lord," the red-haired twin said, her voice nearly identical to her sister's, "a Guardian Angel can summon her weapon to her at any time - we cannot prevent her from being able to hold it at her whim without the use of powerful sealing magicks, which we cannot work here and now."

I looked at Angela. "I don't think she has any interest in dying today. And if killing me was really her only goal at the moment, she would have done so when I was unconscious - or tried since we've all started talking." After a tense moment of staring hard at me, Angela sighed and nodded, then held out her sword to the nearest of the seven surrounding us, one of the lizardmen, who took it cautiously.

I nodded, once, then looked at the twins again. "She is under my protection," not that I really could do anything at this point but talk, "and anyone who harms her will answer to me. Am I clear?"

The twins regarded me with mixed expressions of confusion, caution, and respect. Then they nodded simultaneously, and the seven came closer together.

"I am going to Gate us to the Ashmodaen stronghold on Earth, My Lord," the silver-haired twin said. "Assuming this will be your first experience Gating, you may feel... ill. However, the magic is harmless, and any discomfort you experience will pass quickly."

I swallowed, then nodded. Returning my nod, she closed her eyes and started to speak silently. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the hairs on the back of my neck stood up straight.

Suddenly, there was a wrenching across every single fibre in me, as if everything was being stirred up by a blender, and then we were standing in a bare, stone room.

I almost fell to my knees, but managed to keep my feet under me and just leaned heavily on my legs, bent over and gasping. Man that was unpleasant.

After a few moments the effect passed, and I straightened. Most of the others had moved towards the one door in the room, but the twins were still standing near me. The silver-haired one smiled softly at me. "How are you feeling, My Lord?"

I chuckled slightly. "Better than I was a moment ago. Is it always like that?"

She shook her head. "No, after the first four or five times you'll hardly notice. In fact, the second Gate is hardly half as bad as the first."

I smiled. "Good. I would hate to imagine going through that every time you had to be anywhere fast." I frowned and tilted my head. "Is that how you got from Alaska to the continental States so quickly? I assume it's only been an hour or so since I encountered Angela, but I... seem to have fallen asleep when she drove me into the forest."

She shook her head. "Partially - the stronghold is closer to where you were in Minnesota than Alaska, but we still had a ways to go; and yes, from the moment you encountered the angel," she spat the word, "it's been about one hours and twenty minutes. Anyways, Gating only works between Gates or to return to a Gate you know intimately from anywhere - as I helped construct this one," she gestured to the floor, and I then noticed the various runes and sigils and shapes that appeared painted onto it in blood-red paint, "I can return to it with no issue."

I nodded slowly, thinking over what she said. "Okay, so how did you get across hundreds of miles in an hour?"

A grin answered me. "Short-ranged teleportation is quite simple once you get the hang of it, and experts can string many together quickly."

The red-haired twin grunted, forestalling any of my further questions. "We shouldn't take any longer. Lady Irilith is expecting us."

Her sister nodded, her expression becoming serious. "Right." She beckoned to me, then turned towards the door. "This way, My Lord. Lady Irilith is quite... eager to meet with you."

I took a deep breath, then followed, the others of the group falling to a rough formation around me, keeping Angela on the other side of two of my new protectors at all times. Emerging from the Gate room, I was surprised when we entered a hallway made of concrete rather than stone.

"Hey uh," I began, then paused when I realized I didn't know anyone's name aside from Angela. "Er, you know, I never caught your guys' names."

Ahead, the silver-haired woman laughed softly. "Of course, how silly of me. I am Neida, and my sister is Naide. We are Succubi. The Naga is Atzesz, Sarn and Gadok are the Izaril, and the Cadei are Kellos and Diae."

With the exception of Naide, everyone glanced over as they were named, so I figured out that the snake-bodied woman was Atzesz the Naga, the lizardmen were the Izaril (Sarn the gray-green one and Gadok the bluish-green), and the two with the black dove wings were the Cadei, Kellos the man and Diae the woman.

"Thanks," I said. "I was wondering, where are we? You're all wearing medieval-looking armor and using swords and spears and stuff, so when you asid 'stronghold' I thought of a castle or something. But this looks like concrete, like we're in the basement of a modern building. And how far did we Gate?"

Neida looked over her shoulder at me, smiling. "The stronghold itself is regularly renovated to meet modern standards of appearance, as well as to install any modern technologies or comforts that require less upkeep than a magical equivalent. It originally was a castle, but over the centuries it's been a manor, a villa, a fort, and now a mansion - magic allows a lot of flexibility in that way.