The Pleasures of Hell 01.003

~~Mia~~

Counter-clockwise, that was their direction. No North or South. She asked about a map, but Adron just laughed and shook his head. Maps were the tools of spire rulers and few else.

The more she listened to them, the more it became obvious the demons weren't... smart. In tune with their environment and perfectly comfortable with it, sure. Capable of navigating kilometers upon kilometers of harsh mountain terrain through skill and memory, sure. Capable of hunting with their bare hands, sure. Capable of defending themselves against creatures even bigger and stronger than them, sure.

Capable of thinking about the future? Apparently not. Demons, the ones she'd seen anyway, lived in the moment and didn't care about much else. Caera cared about other stuff, but even then, book smart, demons were not.

Maybe Zel would be different?

Diogo took lead. Strong, massive, tough, and probably just as dumb as the rest of the demons, he marched ahead. The type of prideful man -- demon -- who'd have taken point even if he was smaller and weaker, and would have promptly died first for his stupidity. But sometimes, dumb people -- demons -- were really big and strong and got away with stupid shit because of it. Natural selection was a bitch. But at least Diogo wasn't a coward. There was a strange power in that, and why the other demons followed him without hesitation. Fear, and respect.

The other two brutes, naked, followed beside him, left and right, like henchmen. Behind them, the two tiger ladies, walking on all fours with their huge tails swaying behind them. Between the two tiger ladies, walked the succubus and incubus, and Mia and Hannah, and the two men she didn't know the names of yet. Behind them, Adron, the other vrat, and the gargoyle walked, rear scouts.

Surrounded. Protecting her from the dangers of Hell, according to Diogo, but it also meant there was no way she'd get to run away while everyone was awake. And naked as she was, it wasn't like she could pick up a sharp object and not have them notice. There were sharp objects around though, big stone chunks that'd broken off the tall rocks and mountains. Bones too, most ground into powder but plenty more broken, with sharp tips. A femur bone would be perfect, if she was lucky enough to stab one of the demons in the eye. The rock would be the safer bet for penetrating skin at the soft spots like the throat. But she couldn't risk grabbing any of them.

She glanced over at the two men with 666 on their foreheads. Big and strong, handsome too, with muscles and abs. One blond, the other a black man with short hair. But as attractive as they were, they were nothing compared to the incubus walking ahead of them. The dark red skin, two small horns, and long skinny devil tail didn't detract from how hot he was; if anything they added into the exoticness. Unlike the humans, the succubus and incubus wore some simple loin cloths of the dark red leathery material that apparently all demons harvested somehow. The succubus also used some of the material to create an X strap across her chest to hold her ridiculous breasts in check.

Every moment near the two sex demons, Mia could feel their aura, invisible but there and something her ghost brain understood innately. Just another thing on the list of strange shit Hell had. She felt auras from the other demons too, quiet ones that didn't have any particular, specific sensation to them. A little lust, a bit more violence, but it was all background noise in her mind. The two sex demons' auras were stronger, and aligned on one very specific, obvious thing.

And they both kept glancing Mia's way. Not Hannah's, or the two men's. They were looking at her. They looked hungry, licking their lips and small fangs as they looked her up and down. Fuck, they were so pretty.

She needed a distraction. Hell was a good one. The burning sky. The distant, colossal mountains. The spire tower in the distance. In particular, the occasional metal pillar with its brazier skull top were strangely beautiful, and the burning bushes left her pondering. She'd never read the bible, but who the fuck didn't know the story of Moses?

But, after a few hours of brisk walking, she could only admire the crazy landscape so much. She needed a better distraction.

"So, Hannah," she said. "How long have you known Adron?"

Hannah rolled her eyes. "You mean how long have I been a betrayer?"

"I... guess. Just trying to make conversation." She gestured to Diogo, the two other brutes, and the two tiger ladies. They were chatting, quietly and infrequently, but still chatting, using a lot of words she didn't know: Gazra Crag, Tacitus, Thorn Mountain, Geeraz Tombs, stuff like that. Far as she could tell, they were people and places, and the more she heard, the more complicated Hell sounded. And big.

Hannah sighed, but shrugged eventually. "Fine. Just, quietly. Last thing we want is for a pack of hellhounds to find us."

"Hellhounds?"

"Think wolves. Big, hungry wolves. Breathe fire."

"Jesus."

Hannah laughed, quietly. "No Jesus is going to help us. So be careful."

Nodding, Mia stepped in closer to her fellow naked woman. "So, how long?"

"I became Adron's betrayer... must have been five years ago. Maybe more."

"Five years. That a long life?"

"For a betrayer, decently long. For a normal soul, it's unheard of." Hannah glanced back at Adron, who grinned at her from twenty feet away. A spark of amusement, annoyance, attraction, and even fondness crossed her face, but she was quick to squash it.

"You two seem to be pretty sexually compatible," Mia said.

That earned a squint from the betrayer.

"What're you getting at, unmarked?"

"Nothing! Nothing. Just, this morning, you looked... It looked..."

"Demons know how to fuck. That what you're getting at?"

Mia gulped. "I mean, yes, but I didn't expect that. I didn't expect Hell at all, but I didn't picture the demons being, uh, talented lovers."

"With giant cocks."

Gulp turned into cough.

"That, too."

"Much as I can't stand that bastard," Hannah lied, "Adron knows how to fuck. So does every demon, really. Not every demon is nice enough to give a shit about the person they're fucking, though."

"Do demons... need to do that kind of stuff?"

"Rape and torture?"

Wincing, Mia took a deep breath.

"Yeah, that."

"No, they don't need to do it. Plenty of them don't. Plenty of them do. Can't say I blame them. Growing up in a place like this, where your prey falls from the sky, runs and hides, and begs for their lives but you have to kill them anyway? And then you're surrounded by fucking remnants every day and night? I'd grow up fucked up, too."

But she was fucked up, a bad person in some way. She was in Hell, and she wasn't here by accident. Mia had to be careful.

That wasn't exactly fair, was it? Just because Hannah was in Hell didn't mean she was doomed to forever be a horrible person. Right? That'd really suck, if souls were sent to Hell to suffer, but were incapable of repentance, or changing and becoming better people. Too late, but still.

"I'll try and remember that, then. Caera seemed nice."

"She is, usually."

"And, um, Adron, he seems... charming?"

Hannah coughed on a chuckle. "Just ask."

"Just ask?"

"Just ask. You saw it up close. How did I fit that fucker inside me?"

Mia was going to have to get used to how blunt everyone was, she knew that, but she hadn't expected it from another human. Hannah sounded even more direct than Adron.

"It was... pretty shocking."

"Yeah well, these afterlife bodies are more durable than their living counterparts. A bit, anyway. Plus Adron's been fucking me for years. You get used to it."

"Used to it? I dunno--"

"Trust me, your body will adapt. Mostly. Still feels like I'm getting my guts rearranged."

"In... In a good way, right?"

Hannah grinned at her. "Usually, yeah. Pisses me the fuck off, but you saw, no point in me lying about it. The sex is good. The sex is really fucking good. If Zel doesn't just eat you, she might keep you as a pet or something, so you'll probably have to get used to taking a couple dicks, bigger than Adron's."

"W-What?" Oh no.

Hannah gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder.

"Zel's got a couple of close guards she keeps with her all the time, far as I know. And far as I know, she likes to share things with them. Everything."

Shivering, Mia rubbed her arms as she looked down. Okay, that was bad, very bad. But it was Hell, and she was just going to have to get used to it.

No. Fuck that. She was going to escape. She was going to escape and kill any demon that got in her way.

Then again... She peeked at Hannah a bit, and looked the naked woman up and down. Hannah walked with a strange pride Mia had been struggling to put her finger on before, but now, it clicked. Hannah was oddly happy. There was definitely some conflict going on in her noggin', but she found some way to be satisfied in Hell. She enjoyed great sex with an attractive demon and his massive penis regularly. Maybe that could be Mia?

How quickly someone questions their plan when shit gets difficult. She frowned as she looked down and watched her toes press against the stones. She didn't want to die, again. She wanted to live. She wanted to escape and find David, but how the fuck would that work? Just, run off into to the mountains and die thirty minutes later to a hungry demon, or apparently a hellhound or whatever? It was stupid. She had to come up with a better plan.

She glanced at Hannah again, memory conjuring up images of the blond girl sitting on Adron's enormous length, as the handsome creature choked her and played with her clitoris. That would have made Mia cum her brains out in minutes. And then there was the other girl she saw getting DP'd by two vrats, and Mia knew that would have turned her into a giant puddle, too. Just the idea of those brute demons, even bigger than the vrats, holding her and both trying to fit enormous girths into her small body, had her skin tingling again. Would it be so bad to give in and be part of that?

Yes! Yes, it would be bad! Holy shit this place was getting to her. The place, and the nearby incubus and succubus drowning her in their auras.

The plan only needed a slight tweak. Still escape, but don't get herself killed in the process. She was no good to David dead.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Holy shit," she said, wiping sweat from her forehead. "How the fuck do people get around in this place?"

Adron laughed as he stood high on one of the big rocks. The path hadn't been too bad, a mostly straight, flat path that wound between the hills. It occasionally cut up through the mountains, not too high but damn well high enough it left Mia winded. And she was in good shape! But Hell didn't care. This wasn't a stroll along a mountain path. This was a proper hike, and the only reason she wasn't on her knees, exhausted, was the lack of a backpack full of camping equipment.

"Wimp," Adron said, grinning down at her.

She growled up at him, but that only made him laugh more. It was one of those damn tasty laughs that made him endearing, but also made her want to punch him in his stupid grin. No wonder Hannah liked him, and was frustrated by him.

Hannah and the two men were winded too, thankfully. It'd have been a pretty big blow to Mia's pride otherwise, or more importantly, terrifying to think she was the straggler, and they might punish her for it. But thankfully the demons expected the humans to slow them down. Why though? Why take them, Hannah and the two men? For an emergency snack? Or, an emergency fuck?

The hill ran alongside them and connected to one of the huge mountains. Beside them, a ravine, at least a hundred feet drop down onto the red river, and the walls of the ravine were covered in nasty rocks. That explained why the path took them up, so it could slide near the river before getting around the mountain and back to ground level.

"Don't let him fuck with you," Hannah said. "Demons don't do well over long distances, either. They're stopping because if they keep going, they'll suddenly get tired, pretty hard, too."

"Like... predators, on the surface. Lions and bears and whatnot. Sprinters, but not equipped for long distance?"

"Kinda. They're stopping before it kicks in."

"Oh no," Adron said, squatting on his rock, like a perching bird, "she knows our secret. Demons aren't good at cross country running."

Hannah and Mia rolled their eyes. But after a few more seconds of panting, Mia strolled up to Adron's big rock, and looked past him. They still had a long way to go, but she could see the spire in the distance, especially now that they had some altitude. Too far to see the details of the spire, but not so far they couldn't see it.

It was so fucking tall, it touched the burning sky. It got skinnier on the way up, but if she was guessing right despite how far she was, it wasn't as skinny as she'd originally thought. It was thicker, and taller, maybe a kilometer tall, had ten disc-like levels up its length, protrusions that stuck out horizontal from the tower and circled it. Landing platforms?

What the spire was made of, she couldn't tell yet. From this far, it looked like more dark rock like the rest of Hell, but it had a bunch of giant spikes that almost looked white. The fire sky colored everything, and the distance filled the air with shimmering haze, just like the heat in a sand desert would. But the spire stood tall and horrific, nestled between two tall mountains. She had a feeling the closer they got, the more ugly it'd become.

"Not sure why we don't send a flyer," Mia said, earning a confused glance from every demon. "Uh, like her?" She gestured toward the gargoyle. What, they didn't understand how wings worked?

Diogo, still at the head of the pack, snorted once, but said nothing. Annoyed with her, but not so annoyed he'd start yelling. He definitely radiated 'piss me off and I'll break you in half' vibes, but Mia was just a little too exhausted at the moment to pick her words more carefully.

"Demons can't fly," the gargoyle Loria said, shrugging as she pulled her tail around her, and flicked off a piece of rock stuck to its black, leathery skin. "Glide, but not fly."

"Oh." That, actually kinda made sense. "Even the little ones?"

"Even the pests." Loria shrugged, walked past her, and hopped up onto the rock with Adron. "Boss?"

Diogo gestured out to the path ahead. Like a giant eagle, or more like a giant bat, Loria spread her massive wings, and Mia stared at the enormous wingspan. But sure enough, once Loria jumped off the rock and took the air, the issue was obvious. Loria had big wings, but not big enough to deal with her weight. David would probably talk about square-cube law, or that birds had partially hollow bones and little total blood volume, blah blah. Why would Hell care about rules like that?

Ten minutes later, Loria returned on foot, and perched on the rock beside Adron again.

"Nothing, Diogo," she said.

"Then we move."

All four humans groaned. Even if demons didn't have the stamina to go hiking for hours and hours, their bodies didn't seem to get worn down by it, dark skin impervious to wear and tear. Last thing Mia wanted was to tear her feet up again, and even toughened up, knowing they still had a massive hike ahead of them had her terrified of cutting them. Her fellow humans watched the ground as they walked as much as she did, too.

The demons though, they walked the rough terrain as comfortably as any predator who lived in it. Not a single misplaced step, no wasted energy. They fell into a comfortable formation, brutes at the front again, humans and sex demons in the center, though Mia found herself drifting a little closer toward Adron as the hike resumed. One of the tiger ladies looked at her, strangely beautiful like Caera, but with a little more hunger in her black and red eyes than Mia was comfortable with. Not the good kind of hunger, either.

"It's kinda surprising," Mia said to no one. "I mean, the sky of fire makes sense. The river of red water... and blood, and bones. The remnants. But it's still all... physical, you know?"

"Physical?"

Mia snapped her head to the side. The incubus spoke. Anyone with ears would have noticed the immediate singer's voice, a pleasing baritone, deep enough to sound nice but not deep enough to make her teeth vibrate, unlike Diogo. The other incubus she'd seen back at the cave had a more beautiful, almost feminine look to him. This one was decidedly very masculine, but his gentle eyes sent tingles through her. Bedroom eyes, twenty-four-seven.

"Yeah, physical. A lot of the stuff I read about Hell suggested it'd be like... spiraling planes on top of planes. Unending lakes of fire. Just, things that are more... dream-like? Or nightmare-like, I guess."

"Caera," the incubus said, "says what records she'd found tell of a Hell similar to that."

"Yeah?"

"Hundreds of thousands of years ago."

"Hundreds of thousands? That's... That's a long time for any language to survive." And longer than any human language existed.

"You'd have to ask Caera about that, but we find runes all the time, too old to read. They're not Estian, or Hellian." Shrugging, the incubus gestured out to the path between the mountains ahead of them, spread out enough that they could see hundreds of kilometers of land, and the spire standing between it all. "Zel might be able to answer your questions."

Mia frowned as she looked at the gorgeous incubus, and then at the demons around them. They weren't being quiet anymore, but then they were also much higher up now. Safe from ambushes or hellhounds up here, maybe.

"People keep saying Zel, but no one's told me a thing about her. I'm picturing the Queen of England, on a throne, big white wig or something."

It was the succubus's turn to speak, after a predictably sultry chuckle.

"There's a reason Diogo is going to see her in person, unmarked."

"I figured that was because you're demons, and you prefer doing things face to face and stuff?"

"That's part of it. But, the bigger reason, is because Zel is a tetrad demon. You do not send messengers to speak to tetrad demons. You speak to them yourself."

"Tetrawhat?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~David~~

When he wasn't afraid of being torn up and eaten, or being tortured, Hell was actually kinda awesome.

Yes, he wasn't supposed to be here. Yes, as far as he could tell, no angel was going to swoop down and save him. Yes, he was probably doomed to a very shitty life in Hell, and he had no idea if it'd even end with one life. Other souls became remnants when they died, and had to live and die shitty lives in unending, excruciating pain, without even the ability speak to the people around them. He very much did not want that to happen to him. But, Jes and Dao insisted that was determined by the number written on souls' heads, the mark of the 'Beast', something even they didn't really understand. Far as they knew, 'Beast' was just ancient language talk, and meaningless.

So they didn't know what would happen to him if he died, and he was in no rush to find out. But, now that he wasn't intensely worried about incoming pain and death, he could actually take a moment to look around at Hell's landscape. It was badass, like a metal album cover. The massive mountains of jagged stone, most of it black but some stones stained a suspicious shade of red, the weird metal pillars with metal skull braziers on them, the amber veins that glowed and pulsed slowly, the bones, even the fucking sky of fire. Hell was kinda awesome.

Easy to say since Hell wasn't currently trying to kill him. If he'd had a mark, demons would have either eaten his heart already and he'd be spending X lives as a remnant. Or maybe they'd have taken him back to their lair, tortured him, raped him -- some demons were that fucked up, according to Jes and Dao -- and then eaten him. Or, he could have willingly accepted some demon blood, and become a betrayer. Stronger and faster than most humans, but doomed to 666 deaths in Hell.