Succubus Lord 9 Read online

  Chapter 1

  That was just our fucking luck.

  My friends and I had spent months trying to figure out how to leave Hell and get back to Earth, and now we were surrounded by a small team of Divine special forces.

  “I’m only going to ask so many times, Mr. Ralston,” the Archangel Metatron sighed. “The Exalted One demands your presence immediately.”

  “What for?” I growled. “We’ve done nothing wrong.”

  The Archangel raised a blond eyebrow questioningly.

  “Nothing wrong?” he snorted. “You, a mortal, broke interdimensional law by traveling down to Hell. That alone is grounds for concern, not even taking into account the other offenses you’ve committed.”

  “What other offenses?” I demanded. “You should be thanking us! We took out Azazel. How long has your boss been after that guy?”

  The Archangel crossed his arms over his chest and huffed.

  “Yes,” he began, “you may have slain the Father of Warfare, and for that we are all very thankful. But there are rumblings you’ve taken his place as a Demon King of Hell?”

  “I got this, bro,” Todd the imp promised as he stepped forward and made a motion like he was adjusting a bowtie on his neck. “Look here, Megatron, Jakey here may have taken over as the King of the Fourth Circle, but what other choice did he have? If he didn’t do it, some other demon jabroni was gonna claim the throne. And that would be a demon jabroni who would want to lay waste to everything on Heaven and Earth, no?”

  “Metatron,” the Archangel corrected. “My name is Metatron. But you’re right. Surely, whoever would have taken Azazel’s throne would be ten times worse than Jacob. However, you’ve proven you’re not above aligning yourselves with other demons. Rumor has it you’ve formed a pact with Asmodeus? And I see Lilith is trying to sway you over to her side by offering you her cronies for your pleasure.”

  “It’s good to see you too, Metatron,” Eligor, the fallen angel and knight of Hell, shot back sarcastically. “Really, it’s been too long.”

  “My client here’s just working with what he’s got,” Todd argued. “We were all stuck in Hell. Wouldn’t you try and make some allies so you didn’t end up stuck to a pole with maggots in your eye sockets and a sharp stake rammed up your ass?”

  “Perhaps,” the Archangel admitted, “but I have already been given my orders. Now, are you coming with us, or are we going to have to take you by force?”

  “This is why Starscream always tries to overthrow you, bro,” the imp grumbled and returned back to our circle.

  I didn’t know what this guy was talking about. Sure, traveling to Hell as a mortal was taboo and all, but we’d done so much good down there. We killed a ruthless dictator and made the entire Fourth Circle a somewhat decent place to live. My friends and I had been through literal Hell and back just to find a way back to Earth, and now this pompous ass wanted to bring us in?

  Not on my watch.

  Of course, these weren’t demon grunts we were looking at. These were Heaven’s special forces, and I didn’t know if the seven of us could handle them all on our own.

  Immediately next to me stood Todd, the three-foot-tall imp. He wasn’t the greatest fighter, but what he lacked in combat skill he made up for in trickery.

  Then there was Superbia, the succubus who acted as the madame for the Circle of Sin. Her magical abilities were mostly subduing spells, with black Hellfire that could negate weaker spellcaster’s magic and suffocate those with little to no power.

  The submissive half of Ira, the Sister of Wrath, was also present. She was quite deadly with her enchanted whip made out of her own arm bone, but she also had a tendency to let her enemies gain the upper hand in battle. Pain and pleasure went hand-in-hand for Ira’s sub, and the more damage she could take, the more intense her orgasm.

  Libidine, the succubus who started this whole adventure, stood to my right with her hands aglow in yellow flame.

  Last, and certainly not least, was Eligor. The blonde knight was by far the best warrior on our team, with her elemental magic and her two deadly swords.

  The Shade of Angelo Martatelli had traveled with us to Earth, as well, but he was now little more than a ghost. In his current spectral state he looked like a floating blue hologram, and there was no way he would be of any use to us in battle.

  The odds were stacked against us in every conceivable way. What else was new?

  “Alright, guys,” I whispered as quietly as I possibly could, “non-lethal takedowns, alright?”

  “Non-lethal?” Eligor hissed. “Are you crazy?”

  “These people aren’t our enemies,” I reminded her. “They’re just misinformed.”

  “Coulda fooled me,” the blonde knight grumbled. “But fine. Non-lethal it is.”

  Metatron snapped his fingers, and a spark of Divine Light danced from his lanky digits. The bits of glowing white began to swirl in the air behind him before they mixed together to form a large portal.

  “Now,” the blond man asked once more, “shall we be on our way?”

  “Sure,” I lied and nodded to my friends. “We wouldn’t want to keep the Exalted One waiting.”

  I took a few steps forward, and then I quickly summoned red Hellfire into my hands. In one quick motion, I hauled back, threw my hand forward, and unleashed a basketball-sized fireball at the Archangel.

  Metatron was quick to react, but not quick enough. His eyes went wide as the fireball struck him in the chest, and then the angel tumbled backward through the portal. His body disappeared in the glowing white light before the gateway snapped shut behind him.

  The soldiers on the SWAT team were already raising their weapons, so I didn’t have a moment to spare. I called forth purple Hellfire and tossed up a large wall around our position. The enchanted bullets ricocheted off the violet barrier like hail on a windshield, but I knew we were going to have to strike quickly and efficiently.

  “Alright guys,” I ordered. “We only have a minute or two before Metatron recoups. As soon as I release this shield, we have to take out as many of these soldiers as we can.”

  I counted down on my fingers from three, and then I decast my spell. The second the wall was gone, my friends and I made our move.

  The air was filled with the sound of swishing bullets and empty casings hitting the ground as I ran toward the men on my left. I dispelled a couple of their shots with a cast of purple Hellfire, and then I was upon them.

  The first SWAT member held an assault rifle that looked like an SR-88, and he swung its barrel around to meet me as I approached.

  I threw up a small portal of green Hellfire directly in front of the bastard just as he pulled the trigger, and the barrel of his gun reappeared directly behind his right calf. The enchanted bullets tore through his lower leg as if it were made of paper, and bluish-red blood splattered onto the ground in front of him.

  Meanwhile, the second SWAT soldier turned his twelve-gauge shotgun at my face and squeezed the trigger.

  I threw up a barrier of purple right in front of the gun, and the force of the slugs against the shield caused the barrel of the gun to split open like a watermelon.

  The soldier in white grunted with frustration as the shotgun flew from his hands, and he reached for his combat knife.

  Unfortunately for him, I was faster.

  I threw my left hand down to prevent him from drawing his blade, and then I slugged him across the face with my other. While he was stunned, I spun around and snatched the rifle out of his wounded partner’s hands. Before the first SWAT team member could react, I smashed his face with the butt of his own rifle.

  Blood sprayed from his broken nose as he collapsed onto the ground in a heap.

  I turned back around to finish off the othe
r SWAT guy, but he grabbed the barrel of the rifle. The soldier pushed the gun to the side as he lashed out with his fist and found the hard steel of my breastplate. There was a loud, metallic thunk as the metal was dented in, but the blow seemed to do more damage to my opponent than it had to me. As the bastard stumbled backward and clutched his newly-sprained wrist, I flipped the rifle around and swung it like a baseball bat at the man’s head.

  The butt of the rifle connected with the side of his skull, and there was a loud crack as his entire body spun around and then collapsed into the dirt.

  I turned back to check on my friends and saw they were holding up surprisingly well.

  Eligor had one of the SWAT members wrapped up with a tangle of vines while she dueled the other two with her swords. The soldiers lashed out at the knight with their oversized bowie knives, but all of their attacks were parried by Eligor’s blades. Finally, the fallen angel was able to flip the knives out of their hands. However, instead of beheading them like she normally would, the knight threw her blades against their glutes and sliced them open like a hunk of raw meat.

  Blood ran down the pristine white garments of the soldiers as they fell to their knees in agony, and then Eligor used her elemental magic to pick up a nearby rock and smash it into their heads.

  The soldiers crumpled to the ground as I ran over to the knight’s position.

  “I was wrong,” the blonde woman admitted with a grin. “Non-lethal can be fun after all.”

  “Yeah,” the disembodied voice of Todd exclaimed from a couple dozen feet away, “breaking arms, cracking skulls, and crushing windpipes are all still allowed. Sure, they might be left in the hospital for weeks or maybe even crippled for life, but at least they don’t die! I call it ‘the Batman method.’”

  One of the SWAT members was desperately trying to pinpoint the imp’s location, but he was mostly shooting his pistol into thin air. Every now and again, a small fireball would smack him in the back of his head, and he would get even more pissed off. When the soldier finally noticed Eligor and I approaching, he abandoned all hope of catching the imp and turned his attention to us. Then the bastard pointed his pistol at me and squeezed off a few rounds.

  I simply dispelled the projectiles with a wave of my hand, and then Eligor used her lime-green Hellfire to launch a medium-sized rock at his head.

  The soldier knocked away the projectile with his weapon before he rapidly reloaded it and took aim once more.

  However, Todd was already on it. An unseen force seemed to grab the man around his ankles and yank them out from underneath his body. The soldier’s arms flailed wildly as he went down, and then his head smashed onto the rocky ground with a hard crack. The man in the white SWAT uniform went limp as his body began to twitch.

  “Oh yeah,” Todd’s voice observed. “He’s totally gonna survive that.”

  There were still eight enemies left, and they all seemed to be engaged with the rest of my team.

  Superbia and Liby both dodged a hailstorm of bullets as they fought against three more of the Divine SWAT members. Superbia held one of her attackers with her black Hellfire, while Libidine delivered a swift punch to another one’s face.

  Meanwhile, the last remaining attacker was trying his damnedest to hit the agile succubi with his machine gun.

  “Should we help them?” Eligor asked.

  “It looks like they’re doing fine to me,” I noted. “Now, Martatelli, on the other hand … ”

  I pointed over to the floating spectre of the Renaissance scientist.

  His astral form hovered in the sky above two more of the SWAT team members as it glowed intensely with a sickly blue plasma. Martatelli was joyfully shouting in Italian as the bullets passed through him harmlessly, and he gave his attackers obscene gesture after obscene gesture.

  “He looks like he’s having the time of his life, bro,” Todd observed. “Let him have his fun.”

  “He might be having a blast,” Eligor argued, “but he’s not doing any damage. Sooner or later, they’re going to realize they can’t hurt him and turn back on us.”

  “Then we need to bring them down while they’re distracted,” I observed as I turned to the imp. “Hey Todd, you remember that fighting move you’ve been begging me to try, but I always shoot it down?”

  “Human bowling?” Todd gasped.

  “That’s the one,” I confirmed. “You still up for it?”

  “I was born ready, bro,” the imp retorted, completely giddy.

  Todd did a few quick jumping jacks, stretched out his calves, and then cracked his knuckles. He gave me a nod, and we began our combo.

  I threw up a portal of green Hellfire just above my head and then quickly created a second set just below the feet of the SWAT officers. Then, I raised my hands, grabbed around their ankles, and yanked down so the entire lower half of their bodies were now in front of me.

  At the same time, Todd took off into a sprint. He summoned black Hellfire around his body, leapt up into the air, and curled himself into a ball. The spherical imp-missile rocketed forward, smashed the first SWAT officer in the face and then bounced up into the air. Without another moment’s hesitation, Todd redirected his trajectory and came down hard on the second soldier’s head.

  I released my grip on the soldiers’ ankles, and their unconscious bodies crumpled to the Earth in front of me.

  Todd’s glowing black figure landed beside us as he rubbed his head tenderly.

  “Sonic makes it look way easier than it really is,” he grumbled.

  I looked over to check in on Ira’s sub, and my mouth fell agape.

  The succubus was laying on the ground, and she was letting the remaining two SWAT members club her with their rifles.

  “Is that all you got?” she moaned. “You guys hit like children compared to my Dom!”’

  Suddenly, there was a flash of pink, and the two guards grabbed their own faces and wailed in agony. Ira’s mirror magic was one of her most useful powers, as it absorbed whatever energy her opponents struck her with and then replicated it back onto their bodies. The sub wasted no time in dispelling the remaining soldiers as she hopped up to her feet, spun around with her whip in her hand, and lashed one of them in the forehead.

  The man’s head cracked back as if it had been hit by a freight train, and he fell down onto his ass.

  Ira twirled around, her enchanted whip following her like a glowing red ribbon, and threw the tail of the weapon around the second soldier’s leg. She gave the man a wink before she jerked the hilt upward and laid him out flat on his back.

  Suddenly, the final SWAT member’s unconscious body tumbled across the ground to our left.

  Sia and Libidine walked over to his position, high fived, and then put their hands on their hips in celebration.

  “I think that was the last one,” Liby exclaimed proudly as she wiped her hands together. “You know, for being Divine soldiers, I would have figured they’d put up more of a fight.”

  “I’m a little insulted,” Eligor added. “These aren’t even their best men, they’re just a simple strike force.”

  “You’ve gotta remember,” I reminded the knight, “they weren’t trying to kill us, they were trying to catch us.”

  “Speak for yourself, bro,” Todd scoffed. “It’s you they want. The rest of us are just disposable demon scum to them.”

  “Even so,” I shot back, “that seemed way too easy. Almost like--”

  “Jacob Ralston!” Metatron’s voice boomed from somewhere off in the forest. “You dare defy a direct command from the Exalted One?”

  “Ah, shit,” I sighed as my friends returned to my side. “We only wanna go home, Metatron. We mean you no harm.”

  The beat of the Archangel’s wings caused the trees around us to sway as if they were in a miniature wind tunnel. Then Metatron’s glowing white figure swooped down before us. The blond man wore a scowl on his face as he delicately landed on the ground and took a defensive stance.

  “Your intent
ions matter not,” he growled. “You’re coming with me back to Heaven, even if I have to take you there on life support!”

  The Archangel reached down, grabbed the opening of his robe with one hand, and then tossed it onto the ground behind him. The warrior’s white satin garment fell from his body to reveal a suit of armor underneath. The metal covering was nearly as white as ivory, and it was surrounded by a shimmer of Divine light. The detailing on the armor was extremely intricate, with a large “PX” symbol at the center of his breastplate and the image of a dove on each shoulder.

  From his belt hung a broadsword nearly twice the size of a human arm and almost four times as wide. Its hilt was shaped to form an ivory cross, with light purple amethyst gems encrusted into each of the three endpoints.

  Metatron drew his sword and held it at the ready.

  Just then, Martatelli swooped down and began to taunt the Archangel. The spectre of the Renaissance scientist blew raspberries at Metatron as he waved his arms at the warrior and yelled at him in incomprehensible Italian.

  The Archangel growled at the spectre, and then he swung his sword directly into Angelo’s face. There was a flash of light as the blade actually seemed to connect with the ghost’s head, and then Martatelli’s entire head was sent flying off his spectral body.

  The scientist’s hands wildly grasped at the stump where his noggin used to be, and then he flew off into the forest in search of his cranium.

  I felt bad for Martatelli, but I knew I could use this distraction to my advantage. I dashed forward, unsheathed the Unhallowed Sword from my belt, and prepared to attack.

  Unfortunately for me, that was exactly what Metatron expected. The Archangel quickly threw up his free hand and unleashed a powerful blast of Divine Light in my direction.

  I halted in my tracks, summoned a massive barrier of purple Hellfire, and dug in my heels as the force of the Archangel’s attack threatened to toss me across the landscape. The blast was intensely blinding, and I had to close my eyes to keep my retinas from searing out of my skull. The next thing I knew, the blunt end of Metatron’s blade struck me in the back and threw me face-first into the dirt. The taste of mossy Earth filled my mouth as I struggled to stand, but the Archangel’s foot was holding me down.