The Pleasures of Hell 01.018

"Thought I saw you gliding out of the spire. Get knocked out by the quake?" Jes whip cracked her tail behind her. The tall demon underneath her had a tail too, smooth like Jes's, but not long enough or thick enough to be dangerous. "Give me one reason I shouldn't rip your throat out, you fucking bitch."

"I have done nothing to deserve such treatment!"

"Yeah? You're a fucking asshole and the worst zotiva in Hell."

The nine-foot-tall demoness hissed and squirmed, but for all her superior height, she didn't take a swing at the gargoyle.

"I was hard on the hatchlings. I had to be. Zel wanted--"

"Yeah well, Zel's dead. Rider got her. And on top of that, you're stuck on this side of the canyon." How Jes managed to lie without even the smallest break in her voice, David couldn't fathom. Might as well have asked him to lift a building than lie smoothly.

"Jes," David said. "Who is this?"

"This," Jes said as she got up and off the much taller demon, "is Acelina, one of the spire mothers. A royal bitch. Most mothers are at least a little nice to the hatchlings, and tell them what's up when they're old enough to come out. Acelina might as well have been a drill sergeant."

Acelina hissed a few more times as she stood up. For Jes to let her up probably meant Jes wasn't scared of her. Surprising, considering how huge Acelina was, and it wasn't like those claws of hers or her big hooves wouldn't be able to rip and tear and crush. Or at least, they could definitely rip, tear, and crush David.

"I--" Acelina didn't get to finish.

"Shut up," Jes said, and she pointed a claw up at the demon. "I still haven't decided if I'm gonna let you live. I'm hungry, and David here needs food."

Acelina slowly turned her head and aimed it at him. If she was anything like Dao, that was her way of letting him know she was looking at him.

"Another unmarked... Zelandariel was convinced an unmarked girl would be a useful tool."

"My sister," he said. "She's trapped on the other side of the canyon, now." Which of course earned a quick, harsh glare from Jes. Okay, don't tell Acelina anymore than she needs to know. Got it.

"So how come you fell out of the spire?" Jes said. "Where're the others?"

"I don't know where my fellow zotiva are. Probably still in the spire." Acelina folded her arms across her chest and set her eyeless gaze on Jes. She was trying to not bare her fangs too much, but having trouble. Apparently, she had trouble controlling her temper. "I had heard Zelandariel was in the dungeon, and was on my down to see her when... when..." Her shoulders drooped, her wings followed, and her tail dangled behind her. "The rider killed Zelandariel?"

If this spire mother knew nothing about that, she couldn't have been the demon David saw in the dungeon behind Mia.

"He did," Jes said. "Turned into a big clusterfuck in the dungeon. I had to swoop in there and get my boy out, and then... ah what the fuck am I telling you this for?" Shrugging, Jes gestured to David, and resumed the walk down the curving tunnel. "That way just leads you back to the canyon, by the way, and the tunnel pinches tight. Your giant tits won't fit through."

Grumbling, Acelina hooked her wings to her shoulders, just like Jes would. With how skeletal and spindly her giant wings were, and the membrane thin, it kinda gave her bat-ish vampire vibes. The insane curves, ridiculous tiny waist, long legs -- and arms -- and regal set of four giant horns sealed in the image of a regal dominatrix or something. Super tall demon vampire dominatrix?

After a heavy scowl and frustrated hiss, Acelina turned and walked in the opposite direction, ahead of Jes and back the path she'd come from. David stared. Yeap, even the way she walked was like someone on high heels because of the hooves, much more pronounced than Dao. And that ass was--

"David!" Jes spun around and marched up to him. "I can feel that aura. Stop it. You can't trust this bitch."

"I didn't... I wasn't..."

Acelina stopped and looked over her shoulder, tail still drooping.

"Jeskura..."

"Save it! You can't get back across the ravine, and we both know what that means, Acelina. You're dead. I'm happy to walk away and just let you die."

"Dead?" David asked.

"Ha, yeah. She's screwed. Zotiva never leave the spire, and the only things they ever have to fight are some uppity hatchlings. She can pump out some powerful sin auras, but she can't hunt or fight for shit."

David raised a brow and looked back at the tall demon. Couldn't fight? She could probably kick his ass, sure, but if Jes was right, she wouldn't be kicking other asses very well.

Acelina looked down, her back to them, every part of her drooping.

"Stop it," Jes said. "Stop acting all pathetic. I don't care if you loved Zel. Bitch had it coming."

The spire mother spun around and flared her wings, teeth bared, but one step was all she took.

"Zelandariel brought Death's Grip back from chaos!"

"And nearly destroyed it trying to kill Alessio for the hundredth time! She--nope, nope, I'm not doing this again. I got out of the spire for a reason. Christ, you're almost as bad as Diogo."

"Diogo was a horrible, vile creature!"

"Then why'd you fuck him!"

"That is none of your concern!"

David inched away until his back hit the wall. Uh oh.

"That fucker called for a hunt on my head!" Jes yelled. And the tunnel was happy to make her voice echo.

The spire mother whip cracked her tail behind her.

"You defied Tacitus!"

"He's just as bad as Zel! Worse! The things he did to Daoka--"

"You defied Zelandariel because of a woman!"

Jes marched up to Acelina and pointed a finger up at her.

"You can't give me that shit! I saw the things you did because you--"

"Zel--"

"Interrupt me a third time, I fucking dare you!" For all Jes's declarations of 'not doing this', she seemed very intent on doing it.

Acelina flared her wings out until they pressed to the tunnel walls. Jes did the same.

And somehow David ended up between them. Strange. A moment ago, he'd been doing his best to stay out of the way. Now he stood between them, hands up and playing referee. Clearly God had put him between the two ladies, because no way in hell he'd be stupid enough to do that himself. Ah well.

"Okay! Okay, we're all stressed. Shit has hit the fan and no one knows what to do. But so far, Acelina is one of the few demons we've run into actually willing to talk to us, Jes. That's worth something, right?"

Jes glared at him. Yeap, his life was now in danger.

"And?"

"And, we know she hit a fork in the tunnel somewhere that way"--he pointed down the way Jes and him had been walking--"and came this way. She'll know which way we shouldn't go, if we don't want to end up at the tunnel entrance she'd flown to, right?"

Jes folded her arms across her chest and tapped a foot on the stone as she narrowed her eyes at him.

"Yes."

"And Acelina is a spire mother. If we run into other demons down here on the way up, maybe she can convince them to leave us alone? Sounds like she was kind of important."

"Leave us alone!? She'll convince them to kill us! She'll..." Jes frowned as she looked up at Acelina and scratched her horns. "Now that I think about... Demons are stuck on this side of the ravine. No way back to the Spire. The rules are different, and I know a lot of demons want to kill this bitch."

Acelina folded her arms under her breasts -- wowza -- and closed her mouth, turning her entire face and head into an onyx mask he couldn't read at all.

"I am not that despised."

"You shitting me? You're that evil step mom everyone hates."

"I see you continue to watch the scrying pools with obsession."

Jes's tail swayed behind her at a frantic pace, like an agitated cat.

"Thing is, Acelina isn't just screwed because she can't take care of herself. She's screwed because other demons will see a spire mother and think free meal, with no repercussions because no one can even get to the Death's Grip spire anymore. Usually, zotiva are off limits because they're always in the spire, and under the spire ruler's protection." Jes laughed and pointed a claw at the spire mother again. "Lot of demons want a piece of that, for a whole lot of reasons, Acelina especially because she was such a bitch."

Acelina snarled, showing her big scary shark teeth again, but otherwise didn't retort. Jes had her.

"Okay," David said. "So, how about we don't be one of those assholes, and at least work with her until we're out of the tunnels?"

"Give me one good reason."

"Because--"

"And if you say giant tits, so help me god I'll fucking throw you into that void that wants you so much and lie to Daoka about how you died."

David winced, squirmed, winced and squirmed, and shrugged. Acelina tilted her head.

"She didn't attack us," he said. "She doesn't have Zel anymore. She lost her home. She knows the way out--"

"She knows whether to take a left or right at the next fork. That's it."

He shrugged again. "Okay, let's do that, and then we can figure out what to do after?" Slowly, he looked up at the ridiculously tall demon, and made a wide turn with his eyes to avoid looking at her breasts and pierced nipples. "How about it? Friends, for at least a little while?"

Acelina sighed, hooked her wings to her shoulders and neck, classic cape style, and let her arms droop.

"I have no choice."

"That... is true," Jes said, doing the same. "She doesn't have a choice. She's kind of... hopelessly fucked without us. Without me." The growing grin on the gargoyle's face was positively evil. "I admit, I kinda like that."

Acelina lifted a hand and showed some of her long claws. Damn long.

"I am not as weak and useless as you think I am."

"Sure, sure." Laughing, Jes gestured ahead, to the path Acelina had come from. "Fine, you can come, but you're going first. I'll use you as a shield if we get ambushed."

"You wouldn't."

"You think? 'Cause I'd love--"

"Ladies, ladies." David put up his hands. "I'll take any opportunity I can in Hell to find some demons willing to talk and not fight. Seems to be rare."

"It will be," Jes said, "now that half of Death's Grip is cut off from the spire, our half. The Gorzen Mountains are gonna turn into a clusterfuck with Diogo trapped on the other side of the ravine, if he's alive." She drew a cross over her heart and set both hands together for a second. Fake praying. David smiled. "Tacitus and his Gazra Crag on the other side of the canyon, counter-clockwise. We're stuck on the other side, clockwise from the spire, with the Gorzen Mountains now without a leader, and Domicela and the Geeraz Tombs in our way."

"In your way?" Acelina asked.

David opened his mouth. Jes covered it.

"None of your business, bitch," Jes said. With Jes covering his mouth, he didn't get to make a poking comment about how Jes was the one who brought it up in the first place, or how she'd given up the information that the void had come for David and Mia. Probably for the best.

"If you're leaving Death's Grip and heading toward the Grave Valley, you will have to deal with Domicela if you are caught."

"Yeah, and?" Jes asked.

"And, Domicela and I are friends."

Jes shook her head. "No one's your friend."

Which, of course, earned an annoyed growl from the tall demon, and an eyeless eye roll.

"Regardless of what you think of me, I did my duty for the spire and did it well. I helped Zel when choosing a bailiff for the Geeraz Tombs, after all. I suggested Domicela. She owes me."

Sighing, Jes lowered her hand from David's mouth.

"Okay, she has value. Assuming she's not lying." Jes gestured toward the tunnel. "You're still going first, tall-ass bitch, and if you so much as look at me funny, I'll leave that giant ass of yours behind. Okay?"

The slow, deep, inward hiss from Acelina was all too familiar to the sounds Mia made when she had to swallow her anger.

"Very well."

"Awesome," David said, smiling at the two of them.

They parted, Acelina walked forward, and their journey continued, this time with a nine-foot-tall demoness taking the lead. Ten, if you included the horns. So damn tall, and she walked like a fashion runway model, high heels included considering the hooves and long legs. Long, curvy legs, topped by a huge, perfect ass, and--

"David! Stop it!" Jes whipped him in the ass with her tail, and again his leather skirt saved him a lash. "Stop thinking horny thoughts."

"He has the strange aura the other had," Acelina said. "Can he also read the ancient language?" Jes and David both stopped and looked at each other in the corners of their eyes. "By your reaction, I assume yes."

"You talked with my sister?" he asked.

"Only a little. She visited the hatching room and pit once, with Kasimiro as her bodyguard."

"Kas was her bodyguard?" Jes winked at David and laughed. "That sarkarin was smoking hot."

"I hope he lived," David said. "He fought the rider. I didn't see what happened. That vratorin Adron seemed to know Mia pretty well, and he was fucked up, too. And Mia..." Well, there went the horny aura, now replaced with a nice blanket of doom and gloom.

"Hey, we'll get her back," Jes said, and she again hooked a wing around his shoulders.

"We don't even know where to start."

"Caera will."

"Caera?" Acelina asked. "She's here, as well?"

"She is," Jes said, snarling at the tall woman. Taller woman. "Caera and Daoka. We're gonna find them, and I'll let Caera decide what to do with you."

"Caera is an intelligent tregeera. She will decide I am worth aiding."

Jes rolled her eyes and leaned in toward David.

"Don't trust her, okay?"

"I won't."

"I mean it, David. Spire mothers can talk smooth as a succubus and make you dance on puppet strings. And the sin auras they can craft are heavy duty."

"And we're not deaf," Acelina said.

Jes bared her fangs. "Shut up!"

Acelina sighed and shook her head. "As much as Jeskura aggravates me, she is correct. I am... out of my element, out of the spire." She gestured around at the tunnel, the rocks, the amber veins, and the bloodgrip vines. "I don't even know where to begin to find food."

"How'd you get food in the spire?" David asked.

"Simps," Jes said. "Lot of young demons try to stay on the mothers' good sides. They have influence."

David choked on a laugh. The next time they found a scrying pool, he had to ask Jes to show him the sort of shit she watched, to pick up words like that.

"I may be at a disadvantage," Acelina said, "but don't be so quick to assume I am useless. Jeskura thinks other demons will seek to eat me, but as she said, some demons strive to stay on my good side. I am royalty."

"Royalty?" David asked.

Jes fake gagged, one wing still holding David close.

"Spire mothers are very rare," Jes said, "as rare as tetrads, and all spires want them. Without them, you have no one to vet which eggs are worth hatching, and which hatchlings have earned the right to get out of the pit." Growling, she nodded toward the spire mother. "Not that it matters anymore. She can't get back to the Death's Grip spire, so who cares? I think demons are gonna realize that and just eat her or something."

"But, we're trying to get to the Forgotten Place, right?" David said. "Or at least, I am. I--"

Jes glared at him. "Stop telling her everything!"

"Shit, sorry." Yeap, he was nervous and doing nervous talking. Acelina was imposing. Royalty was imposing!

"You're trying to get to the Forgotten Place?" Acelina looked over her shoulder and set her eyeless gaze directly at David. "Why?"

"We're not telling you," Jes said, and the thumb claw of her wing snuck around David's head and covered his mouth. "And if you tell this bitch one more thing, I am going to shove some bloodgrip up your ass."

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

It was not a brief trip. Every moment was tense, with frequent pauses to make sure the silence was genuine, and not a trick laid by sneaky demons or Cainites hiding around corners. Every so often, he heard Jes and Acelina take deep sniffs, checking for scents, but so far, nothing.

David was in pain. His body was healing at an unnaturally fast pace, but if it'd taken Dao and Jes a few days to recover from breaking bones, it'd probably take him twice as long to do the same, or more. And every moment he was getting hungrier.

His mind was in pain, too. All that work, down the drain. Over a week of trekking across literal Hell, running through a battle, one giant clusterfuck, and all for naught. Much as it felt good that he knew Mia was alive, she knew he was alive, and they both had the same goal, it sucked the wind out of his sails that the ultimate goal had failed.

And for some reason, his stupid fucking brain could not stop looking at the nine-foot-tall demon in front of him, her amazing long curvy legs, her huge ass and the small tail dangling from above it, and the absurdly tiny waist over wide hips. He'd seen a few succubi in the spire, and they'd all been utterly gorgeous, busty, thin, and very human-like. Acelina, however, was a strange mix of beautiful, and utterly horrifying. The black mask-like face that hid all its features in obsidian, and only revealed her wide mouth and shark teeth when she smiled, was straight out of a horror film.

He kinda liked it.

The many piercings, the dangling chains, the ridiculous massiveness of her breasts, even the way her thin wings hung on her shoulders almost like a nightgown, he couldn't tear his eyes off any of it. And Jes couldn't either.

"If you don't get control of your dick," Jes said, "I am going to--"

He put up his hands and put a few more inches between him and Jes, the two of them still following behind the spire mother.

"You're not doing any better."

"I'm not you. I can turn my sin aura on and off whenever I want, and I can fight one off. Your aura is like this... tingling feeling in the air and in the ground. I can't fight it. And it's getting me all riled up!"

"Please," Acelina said, chuckling. "Any demon would consider themselves blessed to taste of my succulent body." Despite also having an apparently angry disposition, Acelina was nothing like Jes. She had a bit of that haughty attitude about her that fit the royalty title she claimed.

"You let Diogo touch that body."

Acelina hissed, but looked ahead and kept walking.

"A mistake, but Diogo is also the strongest devorjin in Death's Grip."

"And a fucking asshole who killed my friend for no reason."

Acelina shrugged. "I know little of what he's done since becoming bailiff of the Gorzen Mountains. I only know of your tiff with the demon due to Tacitus, and his pursuit of the riiva."

"Oh shut up," Jes said, and she dug her talons into the stones. "David, stop thinking about sex, okay? It's driving me nuts. Cover your eyes if you have to."

"Sorry. Sorry."

With a chuckle, Acelina turned around, and cupped her breasts. Bounce. Jiggle. Even while dark red and firm, they still had enough mass to conform to her hands and ripple. He could only imagine what they'd be like if she got aroused, skin reddened, and breasts softened. The way they must feel--

Jes poked him in the ribs.

"Ow! Okay! Jesus fuck."

"Acelina," Jes said, waving a wing at her, "could you fuck off?"

"I was merely curious. He is like the other unmarked, incapable of controlling his unique aura, and putting every nearby demon into a near sexual frenzy."

"Mia did that?"

"Of course. Wherever she walked, soon demons devolved into orgies of bliss. Mia herself spent several nights being ravished by Kasimiro and Adron. At the same time."

And like someone sucker punched him, thoughts of sex went out the window.

"Same time?"

Acelina grinned a big, shark's grin, white teeth terrifying and beautiful against the pure black backdrop of her face.