The Pleasures of Hell 01.003

"Okay, so assuming you were born in the early 1960s, that means you're... probably around sixty years old?"

"I guess, yeah."

"You uh... you look good, for sixty years old."

Jeskura stared at him, and he winced, waiting for the inevitable laughter.

She didn't, other than a small, warm chuckle. She grinned, winked at him, and returned to walking the path.

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

Half a day. He didn't know how he knew that, but he did. The swirling maelstroms of fire overhead had an ebb and flow to them, somewhere between ocean waves and a lava lamp, except flames instead of water and blobs of oil. No sun, no moon, nothing, just fire and a warm breeze that never provided relief. Somehow, his afterlife ghost brain knew the night and day cycle, kinda, sorta. Good enough.

Cries and groans ahead brought him to a standstill, but Daoka gave him a gentle push from behind.

"Just remnants, David. Come on." The gargoyle flicked her tail, and continued down past him into a small ravine, walls only eight or ten feet tall and the same distance apart.

It wouldn't have been hard to go up and around, but it did mean completely exposing themselves on all angles. Dangerous, but not too dangerous, with Jes and Dao protecting him. But they wanted to take the ravine, so, the ravine it was, right into the noises. He'd seen a few remnants, walking through the mountain paths with these two, but he'd never gotten close to one.

This, was the shit Dante wrote about.

The screaming men and women, naked and emaciated, reached out for him from the walls. 231. 145. 412. Many more. Their eyes were bloodshot, and their fingernails bled as they tore at the rocks that bound them. Broken teeth. Ripped skin. Desperate cries.

David froze at the entrance of the ravine, and clenched his fists tight at his sides. A bead of sweat dripped down his face, and the sound of the remnants, their weeping screams, couldn't block out the sound of his heartbeat in his ears. All he could smell was blood, to the point he could taste it. Small pools of the red liquid littered the ravine, disappearing into the red-stained stone before new pools appeared, created from the blood dripping from the remnants above them.

Before, he'd been wondering why Hell felt so real, so natural, so evolutionary. Where were the metaphors given form, the poetry, the insane shit from the bible, giant creatures with many mouths breathing fire, and shit like that. He'd almost been looking forward to seeing some of the more epic stuff. Not anymore.

Daoka clicked softly a few times, and pushed him along.

"Dao's right. Don't feel bad for remnants, fresh meat." Jes raised a hand, aiming for one of the remnants, and--

"Don't!"

Jes stared at him. He'd have stared at himself if he had a mirror. That wasn't like him.

"Don't? Fresh meat, I know you don't belong in Hell, but you're gonna have to toughen up. You got a problem with killing a remnant? The fuck you gonna do when another human jumps you and tries to strangle you to death? Or eat you for the essence?"

"Cannibalism?"

"Humans need essence. You think they're strong enough to kill a demon? Forbidden fruit are rare, and humans are not. And in case you forgot, this is Hell. The souls down here are fucking horrible, and every single one of them will end you if it means they avoid becoming this." She gestured to the remnant closest to her. A man, old, broken, reaching the furthest out from the wall because the stone swallowing his legs didn't reach past his hips, unlike the others.

Jeskura slashed her claws across the remnant's face, and they ran deep. Soft flesh. Soft bone. The remnant died instantly, desperate eyes rolling up before the whole body fell apart. The joints tore apart, skin and flesh fell away from the bones, and the pile of gore splattered on the rocks.

The number on the forehead changed, from 426, to 425.

"Yeah I know it sucks, Dave, but toughen up and get used to it. Dao doesn't want to lose her new pet." Like she'd done it a million times before, the gargoyle swept the blood and bones aside with her tail, and continued on.

David sucked in a breath, and walked. The exact center of the path was enough to avoid the reach of most of the remnants, but not all, and there were a couple times he had to yank his hand or foot away from one. They had weak grip. Not so weak he could afford to get pulled into the wall, and have forty weak hands working together to rip him apart, though. Many hands make light work.

Yanking his hand free caused one of the remnants' wrists to tear open. David kicked the hand off him, and tried and failed to hold back his groans.

"I feel like... there should be some sort of lesson to learn," he said. "Like, I can't just... just... walk through what might as well be the valley of the shadow of death, and not figure out... something."

Daoka clicked a few times as she pat his shoulder from behind.

"Dao says there's only one lesson to learn down here, fresh meat. Hell sucks."

"It's Hell!" He yanked his hand away from another remnant, and hissed as the woman's fingernails cut his skin. She'd probably lost her fingernails to do it, but he didn't look back to check. "There has to be some purpose to it all, right?"

"Oh, that's what this is about? 'Cause I can tell you right now, even the oldest tetrad demon doesn't know the answer. If there's a purpose to Hell, it's long forgotten. If God exists, the asshole hasn't shown themself in fucking ages." She shrugged, like it was a perfectly acceptable thing for her entire plane of existence to not make sense.

Dao clicked a few times, and rubbed David's head, all too much like petting a puppy.

"Yeah, true," Jes said. "She said some of the older demons call all this shit the Forlorn Tower." With an almost depressed chuckle, Jes gestured around them, and upward. "Heaven, Hell, and the surface. Forlorn. Ain't nobody here but us."

"No God?"

"No God."

"Just... wow, really?"

"If we get time, maybe we can take a climb up Adam's Back, and I'll point out the False Gate vortex. A big fucking tornado, from the burning sky all the way down to nearly touch to the ground at False Gate, filled with lightning and hellfire and energy no one fucking understands anymore. Far as anyone knows, Lucifer created it so it could open a path to Heaven, so they and their demons could attack the holy city. Which of course didn't work, I'm guessing, considering we're all still here, in this shit hole."

"But..."

"But? But there's no but. The vortex is still there."

He pushed past the last of the remnants double-time, and caught up with Jes as they climbed out of the ravine. Plenty of mountains and cliffs around, big rocks, places for them to hide as they walked, but they crouched low anyway.

"Wait, so... you know for sure Lucifer existed?"

"We don't know shit, just some stories, or some ancient runes if you can find them and read them. Don't matter. My point is, if God was still around, you'd think they'd leave a vortex that cuts straight to Heaven there?"

No, no he... or they, wouldn't. Not that he knew shit either, but it did seem like something God would fix, since it kinda shit all over the Heaven Hell dynamic if people could go from one to the other.

"So, there's really a vortex connecting Heaven and Hell?"

"Yeap. Dangerous as fuck, and since demons can't fly, the only people using the vortex are angels. Or at least, that's what I've heard. Closest I've been to False Gate was, what, somewhere between the Black Valley and Angel's Spine? How the fuck would I know?"

"I... don't suppose you can just call? There's no magic bauble, crystal ball, special kind of scrying pool? How do the spires communicate?"

Jes laughed, struggling to keep it quiet.

"Welcome to the Dark Ages, pipsqueak. Want to talk to someone? Get on a hellbeast, maybe a goort, and ride. Usually takes a month of hard running to get from one spire to the next."

It was like a slap to the face. Cold, harsh reality, completely at odds with the warm air and absurdity around him. It was the number one thing people took for granted about the modern age, and that was instantaneous communication. There was a time when it took months for news to circulate even a small country. The only people you really knew were the people in your village, and anyone within twenty minutes of walking distance.

He shook his head. "That can't be right. We have puddles of water that let us see anything we want on the surface, but we can't talk to each other unless it's face to face?"

"Hey, if you can convince an angel to fly around carrying messages, by all means. But for the rest of us, you wanna say something, you say it in person. That's why I know Diogo's going to take you to Zel in person, remember? You can't just--" She crouched lower, and snapped her head back at David and Dao. "Down. Quiet. No sounds."

"N--"

Daoka slipped her hand around his mouth and pushed down on his shoulders with the other. Not a single click.

His heart jumped up into his throat, and his eyes shot around in a panic, but Jes and Dao didn't move. They were listening. All he could hear was the remnants behind him, but Jes heard something else, and she held up a finger to her lips as she looked at him.

After a few seconds of nothing, long enough for his heart rate to slow down to just very high, not absurdly high, Dao removed her hands, and nudged her horns against the side of his head before walking past him. Jes and Dao crept ahead a little further, talons and hooves silent on the stones. A few feet further along the rock and path, Jes poked her head up over a ridge.

She gestured for David, and he came, doing his best to not make noise. Somehow, despite being barefoot and having no talons or hooves, he still managed to make more noise than the two demons, but quiet enough it was lost under the remnants, the roaring fire above, and the relentlessly warm breeze. But if he misstepped, one slip on one pebble would make a sharp sound, and that'd punch right through the background sounds.

Jes motioned him closer. With a slow, deep breath, he came up beside her and peeked over the rock ridge.

People. Humans. A dozen humans crept along through the rocks and stones, each wearing cloaks made of the same dark red leather Jes and Dao slept on. They worked amazingly well, a perfect shade that fit into the glow of the burning sky, the dark rock, and the blood stains that coated everything. Perfect camouflage.

He half expected to see them wielding primal spears, but there weren't any trees anywhere, not ones any sane person would turn into a weapon. Forbidden fruit were at the top of the food chain of importance. Instead, the humans had swords and axes. Big, black things that were more like slabs of metal banged together. Heavy, hard to use. Only half the humans had them, the bigger six, every one of them bigger than David, and every one of them obviously weighed down by the huge weapons strapped to their sides.

One of the humans turned, and looked up to the rocks. David froze.

They looked perfectly normal. A woman, a regular woman, the kind you found billions of on the surface, albeit wearing some of the same armor bits Jes and Dao wore. Curved chunks of black metal, beaten into shape the same way the weapons were, held on by leather straps darker than their cloaks. Not as much, just enough to cover a few body parts, usually the stomach. But none of that scared him.

It was her eyes. Her eyes looked up to the rocks, and stared, wide. She was too far to see David as anything more than a bump on the rocks that matched all the other rocks, but her eyes were so damn wide he could see them clearly. Ice shot up through his veins, staring into those eyes. If he moved, it might give up where he was, but he couldn't move even if he wanted to. All he could do was stare at the woman as she scanned the billion rocks around her, including the ones David, Jes, and Dao hid behind, before she moved on.

The three of them watched the twelve humans continue. Like them, the dozen souls didn't stick to any simple, easy path. They climbed up and down ravines, cliffs, and slipped around rocks like they knew the place as much as the demons did. Whoever these humans were, they'd been around for a long time.

Once they were gone, Jes sat down against the rocks they hid behind, and David and Dao followed suit.

"I'm surprised you didn't run out and join them," Jes said, smirking at him.

"You... You said I shouldn't trust other souls."

"I did, but for all I knew you wouldn't listen to me. Good thing you did. I've seen fresh meat run into Cainites, thinking they'd found friends, only to get chopped up and eaten."

"Fucking christ."

"Cainites, or just roaming bands. And that was just a scouting party. You can find groups of hundreds of humans working in these mountains, hiding in the tunnels, killing random demons unlucky enough to stumble onto them."

"Really?" he asked. "Diogo doesn't just, summon a hunting party and exterminate them?"

"Ha. You really overestimate how organized Hell is, David. Maybe up in the Navameere Fields or the Red Pits, Morgana and Khazeer might have the demons under control. Everywhere else, not so much. Zel's doing her best to get Death's Grip running smooth, and she's made some progress. But..."

Daoka clicked a few times and gave David a pat on the knee.

"Exactly," Jes said. "Humans, even humans ready to eat each other, have this nasty habit of getting into groups and cooperating, especially when they have something to group up around. A person, or an idea. Cain's both."

David groaned as he let his head hang.

"I fucking hate people."

"Ha, yeah?"

"Yes, I fucking hate people. Mindless animals without a single critical thought going through their heads. Stupid, selfish, self-obsessed, ignorant sheep. They can't reason. They can only follow the group." He looked at his right hand, and squeezed, imagining punching a moron, any moron, with enough force to break a jaw, like he'd imagined a hundred times before.

That rant came out of nowhere. He blinked down at the ground, and then Jes, as if she could explain. Jes just smiled at him, reached out, and poked him in the shoulder with her wing's thumb claw.

"That's the sort of thinking that'll get you sent to Hell."

He petrified. Living flesh to solid stone in half a second.

"...r-really?"

Jes choked on a laugh, but she couldn't stop it, and it came out loud as she clutched her gut.

"No, you fucking puppy. I mean, it sounds like you got some personal issues, but I don't think Hell goes around scooping up people like you."

He let go of the breath he didn't know he was holding.

"I guess. I didn't--"

A battle cry cut through the noise, the remnants, the wind, their voices, everything. A shadow sped over the stones. David froze again.

Two blurs grabbed his eyes. One came low, close to the rocks, a dark red leather cloak billowing around them as they came in with a battle axe obviously too heavy for them. One came high, someone jumping, someone with a sword held in both hands over their head, a sword too big and heavy for them. Gravity appreciated the height and weight, though.

Jes dove to the side, and the man with the big sword smashed the huge slab of black into the stone hard enough it drew sparks. But the woman with the axe was waiting. She came at Jes from the side, and swung the axe horizontal. Jes jumped back, but not fast enough, and the axe hit her in the arm, deep enough a splatter of red blood cut across the stone, and over David's chest. He didn't move.

Daoka charged past him. For a second, some cogs in his brain somehow still turning, he thought maybe Daoka aimed for the woman with the axe she struggled to wield. But she went for the other target instead. The satyr rammed into the man with the sword hard enough the crunch of ribs was almost as loud as his screams. That didn't stop him from swinging his sword at Daoka anyway, eyes wide, foaming at the mouth like a starving, rabid dog.

Somewhere in the dark matter of David's brain, a strange thought bubbled up to the surface. Daoka grabbed the man's sword arm, and ripped it off, as the quiet words fell out of David's mouth, lost under the sounds of murder. 'Don't hurt them'. He tried to say the words louder, but nothing came out. The only sounds were more screams, as Daoka threw the sword wielder against the nearest boulder, and charged into them again. More crunching bones, her four horns hitting him in the chest with all the grace of a large ram breaking down a door.

So much for David's supposed hatred of people. For some stupid fucking reason, watching this man get beaten and broken, felt horrible.

The man went down, clutching his chest with his one arm, and Daoka sliced open his throat with an almost casual slash of her claws. Before the man even realized it was his blood gushing out onto his chest, Daoka jumped over to Jeskura.

Oh shit, the gargoyle. David forced his eyes away from the dying, one-armed man, and the sword he still somehow held onto with his one hand, and looked at Jeskura. The woman she'd been fighting was already dead, and in worse condition than the swordsman. Demon strength, was unreal. Ripping off an arm was already an extremely difficult thing to do, something no normal human could do, not without years and years of training and probably an unhealthy amount of steroids. Ripping off a leg, was another thing entirely.

"Fucking hell," Jes said, snarling as she clutched her arm. "Fucking fucking fuck. Let my guard down. Fucking David making me laugh and shit."

Daoka clicked furiously as she helped Jes back up to her feet, and held out Jes's arm in front of her.

"Yeah yeah, I know. I blame you, you know?"

Daoka stood up straight, clicked some more, and hit Jes in a horn with one of her own hard enough to earn tiny yelp from the gargoyle.

"He's your pet! I shouldn't be explaining things to him."

More clicks.

"Well fuck me, I can't help it. And besides, it'll take years to teach him Hellian. You think he'll last that long?"

Sighing, Daoka reached down for the one-legged corpse, and slid the one piece of metal that covered her chest and one of her breasts, down to her stomach. And just like she did with the imps and grems, she slammed a hand down into the corpse's chest hard, hard enough her claws broke through flesh and skin. With some arm power, she used both hands and pulled apart, and David gulped down the need to puke -- he couldn't anyway -- as the woman's ribs broke apart.

David watched. He walked past the now dead man, half sitting against the rock David had been hiding behind, and looked down at the mess Daoka made as she ripped the woman open. And tore out her heart.

She handed the bleeding thing and the torn tubes still on it to Jeskura, and the gargoyle smiled at her lover before munching it down. A human heart. Similar to the other hearts he'd seen them rip out, but not the same. This was a heart he'd seen before, during his autopsy.

He stared down at the body, the broken rib cage, the hint of guts he could almost see under the skin fold flaps by her sternum. The blood flowed, and the stones of Hell drank it down like a hungry sponge. A human body, just like his own, lying on rocks under a fire sky, instead of a metal table and cold LED lighting.

And the two demons were eating a chunk of it.

Daoka grabbed the dead woman's cloak, ripped off a long chunk of it, and tied it around the deep wound in Jeskura's arm. The woman had hit her just above the metal armor covering the outside of her right bicep, almost deep enough to hit bone, and the blood Jes leaked was more than enough to risk a death to blood loss. But she shrugged it off like it didn't matter, and used her good arm to hold the heart to her mouth as she scarfed it down.