To Hell and Back Again Ch. 13

Steps led her down to the third level and the guard standing sentry outside the door of the slave cages inside. He too was more than happy to accept a cup of good wine. Onward to the second floor and the final level of slave pens.

This one she remembered was special. As the guard was accepting his cup of wine, Amber looked up and cocked her head. "Did you hear that, sir?"

"Hear what?" the guard asked as he took a sip and chuckled. "Ooh, this has some bite to it!"

"I thought I heard something from the other side of the door," Amber said.

"Yeah?" The guard unlocked the door and looked inside. He spoke to someone inside. "Hey now, just what do you think you're doing?"

Amber watched him walk into the room, having already forgotten the serving girl at his back. "Enjoy the wine, sir," she whispered under her breath. "It will be your last taste."

Quietly, she closed the door behind him and started down the steps to the barracks on the first floor where the rest of the guard slept and diced when off duty. Most were asleep though two looked up curiously as she descended the stairs. Amber tapped the now empty tray against the stone. The chiming of metal woke those asleep. She smiled at them all and held up the still mostly full pitcher.

"A taste of wine from the celebration?" she asked as men and women scrambled to find empty cups.

*****

"Hey now, just what do you think you're doing?"

Beauty lay back against the bars and moaned. Her legs were spread and her hands wandered across the wondrous curves of her naked body. "So hungry," she purred.

"Oh damn," the guard muttered as his eyes threatened to bug out of his head. "Oh, man."

"Please," she begged in a sultry voice. "Just a taste?"

The guard groaned and reached down to readjust his trousers. It had been so very long since the Baroness had allowed him any pleasures of the flesh! The temptation of a gorgeous demon, helpless and horny, was almost irresistible.

Almost.

"No way I'm letting you out of that cage."

"Ok," Beauty nodded eagerly.

He watched in open-mouthed disbelief as the Succubus turned around in her tiny cage and pressed her beautiful behind against the bars of the cage! Both her sex and the rosebud between her cheeks seemed to wink at him in carnal invitation.

"Ok then!" He grinned, knocked back the last of his wine, and set the cup down to begin fumbling his trousers open. "Now don't you move!" he laughed. "Well, other than back and forth."

Still chuckling at his joke, the guard knelt to get in position behind her. He never saw her foot fly through the bars. The blow struck his chest hard enough to lift him into the air and send him hurtling backward to crash against another cage.

The room was spinning. Pain radiating out of his chest and made it impossible to catch his breath, cry out for help, or stop the man in the cage behind him from wrapping his hands around the guard's neck and slamming his skull against the bars, again and again.

The guard's last awareness was the voice of the alluring demon girl. It no longer sounded sultry.

"Get keys. Time to fight."

*****

Logan cursed beneath his breath to see one of the watch approaching.

"What are you doing out here, sir?"

"Feeding my hound."

"At this hour?"

"Look at this monster," Logan gestured at the cage. "And think about it howling all night long for food."

The guard looked. Logan suddenly wrapped meaty arms around his neck and squeezed until the man stopped moving.

"Well, we're committed now," Logan thought as he dragged the body into the shadows of the wall and confiscated sword, dagger, and pistol. "We can only hope the girls can-"

"Look at the tower," Coyote said.

Logan turned and look. On the roof of the slave tower was a lone figure standing in the glow of a lantern as she waved it back and forth. Mahogany hair tumbled in the wind.

A fierce grin spread across Logan's face. "Hell yes, Amber!"

"We move?"

"It's on, Cousin," Logan replied. "Give me a count of twenty after I pass through the second gatehouse and then do your thing."

"About time!"

Logan started back toward the castle courtyard. When he reached the inner gatehouse, both guards looked at him, and at the sword in his hands.

"Found this." Logan held it out.

"Where?" One asked and reached for it.

Logan drove the point into his chest and spun to slice the throat of the other guard with his dagger. A second stab silenced the first guard permanently. "In your guts, you son-of-a-bitch," Logan replied to the corpse.

He watched as a hulking shadow shot out of the pens and across the main courtyard to the primary gatehouse where the winch controlling the portcullis was housed. A short, sharp scream of pain echoed into the night and was suddenly cut short. Like this gatehouse, he knew there was a hand crank that opened the metal barricade that no real Hellhound could hope to comprehend. It proved no challenge to the Native American spirit of trickery.

Logan watched it crank open. It was not a quiet operation as it began to clank and grind. Guards patrolling the top of the walls cried out in alarm. A bell rang out shattering the quiet of the night. A roar of voices answered as Alan and his people charged into the courtyard from the road outside.

A guard shouted down at where he stood in the shadow of the inner gatehouse. "We are attacked! Seal the gate!"

"How about no?" Logan fired his pistol. The man cried out and tumbled over the outside of the wall. Two more pistols lay at his feet. He tucked one into his belt, grabbed the other, and left the blades of the dead gate guards where his motley invasion force could find them.

Back in the main courtyard, another shot rang out. Someone screamed in pain. Two hundred pounds of Hellhound was suddenly on the high walls tearing through another guard in a blur of motion and shadow.

A glance confirmed the assault was well underway. The greatest danger was still ahead in the main keep but there was still one more thing that Logan could not ignore for a moment longer.

Beauty.

He raced across the inner courtyard toward the slave tower. A bullet cracked out of the darkness and gouged the dirt at his feet. He didn't even slow to look for the shooter.

Beauty. Please be ok!

He burst through the front door, dagger and pistol in either hand, ready to take on any who stood in his way. Only to find two familiar faces and a handful of ragged souls calmly going about the business of sending souls back to mist.

Amber stood in the middle of them pointing from guard to guard still writhing on the floor from the scorpion poison he and Beauty had so painstakingly gathered and harvested so many days ago. The same poison Amber had laced the wine with.

"Yes," she said as she pointed to one of them. Beauty stepped forward and ended the man.

"No," the servant girl said of another and Logan watched as the man in question was dragged away and bound.

All of this he noticed only in passing. All he truly saw was Beauty. Their eyes met. The dagger and pistol fell from his hands as they rushed across the room and into each other's arms.

"I'm so sorry!" he managed before her lips found his. Then there was only the taste and smell of her and the perfect feeling of her body pressed against his.

When they could bring themselves to pull back, she looked up at him with those gorgeous, glowing yellow cat eyes. "Logan late."

Relieved laughter burst out of his mouth. A pressure he did not even know was there eased in his chest. "Yeah, things got... complicated." He looked at her as if to memorize every detail of her face. "I am so sorry for what they did to you."

She smiled and reached up to caress the worry lines from his face. "Knew you would come." Her expression turned fierce. "Now we finish this."

"Damned right we do." He turned to Amber and grinned. "And just what are you doing, young lady?"

Amber blushed but, for the first time, she met his eyes boldly. "Not all of these men and women are bad people. I thought they deserved the same chance you gave me."

"You're a treasure, Amber. You thought right." He looked around the room. "Everyone, this is it. One way or another, it ends tonight. Are you with me?"

"Yes!" they all replied.

"Are you with me?" Logan demanded again and they cried out with one voice.

"Yes!"

Logan bared his teeth at them. "Then let's go kill those demon sons-of-bitches!"

With a collective roar of fury, Logan led them up the stairs, to the roof, and across the bridge to the upper door of the main keep. Below, Coyote was leading Alan's people in a charge through the front entrance. As planned, they charged into the heart of the enemy's stronghold in a two-pronged assault.

On the second floor, he stopped at a particular bedroom door and threw off the lock bar holding it shut. A few hard kicks shattered the metal lock. The door swung open to reveal an auburn-haired amazon dressed in a halter and skirt ripped from bedsheets, wielding a broken dagger, and eager to inflict violence. Logan smiled and tossed her a sword.

"That might suit you better."

She smiled back. "I'll take two."

A few remaining guards tried to stop them and were cut down for their foolishness. By his quick count, Logan guessed that all that remained of Graveek's defenders were in the great hall. The final battle was at hand.

They circled down the stairs. The door leading to the Great Hall was just ahead. He led them through and into swirling, screaming chaos.

The battle was already raging at the far end of the hall. Baroness Graveek stood behind the shield of her harem on the raised platform. Alan's people surged at them like an angry ocean tide. Both sides fought with a ragged assortment of weapons. Alan's people had only what he had provided or picked up along the way. Graveek's harem had what weapons had been available when the alarm bells began to ring.

No, not just weapons, Logan realized with a shock of comprehension.

Baroness Graveek stood behind her wall of blades, silver eyes glowing with fury. As he watched, she snarled and swept her hand across the enraged souls fighting to reach her. Souls that convulsed, screamed in agony and fell. Another wave of her hand and still more cried out in intense, shuddering pleasure, only to be run through as they writhed in helpless, sexual bliss.

"What the fuck?" he muttered.

"Magic." Coyote's voice echoed in his head. "What else? Now get into the fight!"

"Fuck me," Logan growled. He turned to Beauty. "We have got to break that shield wall before they slaughter our people. I have an idea."

"A bad one?" she replied in a sarcastic voice.

"Probably." He back up three steps. "On the count of three, get me into the air."

To her credit, the Succubus did not bother to argue the strange request. She simply nodded and cupped her hands together to catch his foot.

"One, two, three!"

Logan ran at her. His foot landed in her open hands and he was flying. Right up to the iron chandelier hanging overhead. Weight and momentum carried him forward in a long swing. At the last moment, he let go and sailed over the heads of the enemy line to crash into the far wall. A hard push sent him hurtling in the opposite direction like a human missile to crash into the back of the left flank of the enemy harem. Human and demon alike were sent tumbling into the seething tide of attackers. They screamed, but not for long.

He tried to leap to his feet but was too slow. White-hot pain bloomed in his shoulder as a long blade drove through his flesh and out the other side. Logan staggered back off the blade in a spray of blood.

De Sade blinked in surprise at the blood dripping from the end of his sword. "You're alive?"

"Surprise, asshole," Logan growled and drew his sword.

De Sade grinned and waved the bloody blade at him in a fencing pose. "No matter. It just means I get to be the one to kill you the first time!"

Logan squared off with him... then pulled his pistol and shot de Sade in the belly. The man looked down at the misting hole in his torso with an expression of bafflement. "What... what..." he muttered and then fell to the floor.

"Like I said, surprise asshole. That was for Karen. Enjoy the belly wound."

The battle was nearly over. The last of Graveek's harem had fallen before the combined assault of so many. Graveek herself was locked in furious melee with Beauty and Coyote.

And winning.

Logan had never imagined someone could be as quick as the Baroness was. She was a blur of deadly precision, wielding two blades as if each had a will of its own. A third weapon, her tail, struck out like a viper to entangle and confuse her attackers.

He waded into the fight, even knowing he was hopelessly outclassed by the Elder demon. Almost immediately, as if by magic, cuts opened up across his arm and chest. Graveek was so fast he didn't even realize that he had been wounded until he stumbled back spilling blood across the floor.

"Graveek is mine!"

Boudica leaped onto the platform with a sword in either hand and an expression of pure hate. Half naked in tattered swaths of white cloth and long, auburn, braid flying behind her, she looked like an Old Testament angel of retribution. Logan had no chance to even think of an objection. At the same time, Beauty darted in on Graveeks exposed flank. The three females crashed together in a windstorm of blades, skill, and murderous intent. Faced with such fury and precision, there was nothing he or Coyote could do to help except stay the hell out of the way.

Nothing he had ever seen, on the battlefields of Earth or in Hell, came even close by comparison. One woman and two Succubi tore at each other. Mist and smoke billowed out into the room. Blades and claws cut, stabbed, and crashed together in an unbroken song of metal and murder.

Graveek's left hand was suddenly sheared off at the wrist. She fell back against the wall and began to slide down to the floor, cradling the billowing stump of her missing hand against her ample chest. She looked at Logan, and at the scarlet stain of blood leaking out of his many wounds. Her silver eyes flew open in shock.

Logan looked down as well. At the spill of his blood on the stone floor and at flames rising from the scarlet spill as if it were burning lamp oil rather than human blood.

Shock jolted through his wounded flesh. _What the fuck?_

Then Graveek began to laugh.

"It's you! She did it." Graveek cackled. "The crazy bitch finally did it! Twice blooded, twice blessed! Destroyer of worlds..."

"What are saying?" Logan demanded. "What "she" are you babbling about?" He looked up at movement. "No, don't!"

Graveek didn't even have time to scream before Boudica swept her sword through the demon's neck with a scream of pure, berserker rage and her head from plum colored shoulders.

"Now it's finished." Boudica smiled at him and fell to the floor, bleeding out in a cloud of mist as his spilled blood suddenly stopped burning and was just blood once again.