Succubus Lord 13 Read online

  Chapter 1

  “I really don’t like the way that dude’s lookin’ at me, bro,” Todd whispered in a voice that was anything but inconspicuous, and he gestured somewhere behind us to point out the man he was talking about. “He’s totally giving us the stink eye, and what’s with the fucking trench coat? Who does he think he is, Richard Tracy?”

  “Richard Tracy?” I asked with a chuckle and a raised eyebrow. “Don’t you mean ‘Dick Tracy?’”

  Todd glanced up at me from his spot on the brimstone pew and shook his head with amusement.

  “You know damn well why I don’t call him that,” the imp giggled at the mere thought of the name, “I swear, if I ever get a pet dog, I’m gonna call him ‘Dicky.’ That way I can finally go around asking all the babes if they wanna pet my dicky without getting slapped.”

  “Don’t ever change, Todd,” I said with a roll of my eyes, and then I turned to face the rest of the crowd.

  Here we were, in a small brimstone temple in what was formerly known as Gressil’s domain. After months of blood, sweat, and tears, two of the three members of the Unholy Trio were no more.

  Baphomet was dead, replaced as King of the Fifth Circle by my friend Mephisto.

  Gressil was slain not long after the goat-headed bastard, killed by my God Bomb in the subterranean tunnels of the Seventh Circle and left as nothing more than an ashy pile.

  That just left Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies and the King of the Eighth Circle.

  His influence was growing weaker by the second, though. With two-thirds of the trio dead, my allies and I controlled five of the nine Circles of Hell, and with all of Beelzebub’s cultists and Demon Lords dead, he had next to nothing left. Nothing but his kingdom.

  And soon, that would be mine, too.

  “You okay, Jacob?” Libidine’s angelic voice broke me out of my trance. “You look like you’re zoning out.”

  “Are you thinking about conquering Beelzebub’s domain again?” Cupiditas prodded from the bench beside her sister. “You’ve been doing that a lot lately.”

  “I mean, it’s the next logical step, right?” I shot back with a smug grin. “We figure out these weird-ass black Hellfire powers of mine, march right up to Beelzebub’s door, and then take him out once and for all.”

  “Now, when you say ‘we … ’” Tristitia, the Sister of Sloth, started with a raised hand, “who exactly do you mean? Because, like, I totally don’t want to be a downer, but Harold and Kumar are really hard to carry on long journeys. You know, with their size and all.”

  “They materialize in your hand.” The redheaded succubus Gula rolled her eyes and nudged Tris in the ribs. “Besides, we are the succubi of King Ralston. Since when have we ever complained about not being able to handle the size?”

  “Shhhhh!” Tris hissed. “I totally had an out!”

  “It’s alright, girls,” Superbia giggled as she poked her head between Gula and Tris’ noggins. “If what Lilith says is correct, Jacob has lots of training left to do before he’s anywhere near ready to use his black fire. You will still have plenty of time for rest and relaxation, Tristitia.”

  “Oh,” Tris said with a huff of relief, “well, if that’s the case, I can live with that. But, uh, how long is ‘plenty of time?’ Two weeks? A month? A year? I just need to know so I can map out my daily nap schedule.”

  “Speakin’ of nap schedule, I’m about three seconds away from hitting snoozeville, bro,” Todd sighed loudly. “What’s the holdup on this whole shindig? I could totally be off making another podcast or playing solitaire or even fucking jerkin the turnkin for all I care. Anything’s gotta be better than sitting here and waiting for Zimzagoon to come out and show off his sparkly new crown.”

  “The ceremony should begin any minute now,” Sia semi-scolded the imp, “these sort of knightings don’t happen very often, so they should be looked upon with the utmost amount of severity and dignity.”

  “Didn’t we do one of these literally, like, two adventures ago?” Todd shot back with a snort. “That makes, what, two in the last month? That’s more common than the clap at an Amsterdam whorehouse, Strawberry Shortcake.”

  Superbia recoiled with obvious frustration on her face as she tried to think up a clever comeback. Finally, a warm smile spread up her face, and she shrugged playfully.

  “What can I say?” she mused. “When Jacob is around, things tend to get shaken up.”

  “Especially my brain, when he’s riding me like a horse,” Cupiditas cooed with a wink.

  Todd made a face like he’d just sucked on a lemon and shook his head furiously.

  “I’m gonna stop ya there, Cupi,” he shuddered, “I’ll be a good boy and sit through this whole knighting ceremony without another word, just as long as you don’t say another single thing about you and Jakey’s midnight rides. Kapeesh?”

  “Sounds like a fair deal,” the blonde succubus chuckled.

  Todd reached out to shake on it, but Cupi simply stared at his hand. Then she raised an eyebrow at the imp until he finally took the hint.

  “How rude,” he half-joked as he lowered his hand back down to his side, “just because this is the hand I use to beat off doesn’t mean it’s always dirty, ya know.”

  “And when was the last time you committed self-fulfillment?” Mirage, the second succubus madame, questioned from the row of seats behind us. “Unless my eardrums mistake me, I could have sworn I heard sounds coming from the restroom only ten minutes ago … ”

  “Look, Houdini,” Todd sighed as he turned around and leaned against the back of the bench nonchalantly, “I’m what you call an ‘anxious fapper.’ You know me, I’m like, the chillest person you know, right? Well, do you really think I’d be that way all the time if I wasn’t high as the Eiffel Tower and had all sorts of weird sexual energy stored up in my giblets?”

  “I-I don’t think I want to know the answer to--” Mirage began, but Todd wasn’t going to let her finish.

  “Of course not!” the imp stated proudly. “The Toddster has to drain the splooge pipe at least four times a day, or else I’m as jittery as a fucking rabbit, bro.”

  “As his former roommate, I can vouch for that.” I shuddered as I remembered all those times Todd locked himself in the bathroom for nearly an hour at a time.

  “As much as I hate to interrupt this conversation,” Libidine lied, “I believe the coronation is about to start.”

  I turned around from my position at the front of the room and looked out over the crowd.

  There were demons of all sorts filling up the rows behind us. Some of them were familiar faces, such as Mephisto and Asmodeus, but the rest were beings I’d never met before. I assumed they were the Demon Lords, succubi, and servants of the various Demon Kings I’d allied myself with, but I couldn’t be sure. There must have been at least two hundred people here, all waiting with bated breath for the coronation of the new King of the Sixth Circle.

  That would be Ziminiar, the Great Scholar of Hell and Lucifer’s former historian.

  “I’m still on the fence about all of this,” Cupiditas admitted, “Ziminiar may be thankful we released him from an eternity in a tomb of Hellfire, but he’s still a Demon Lord. What’s to stop him from turning on us, just like that traitor, Gamigin?”

  “There are a few major differences,” I tried to explain to the Sister of Greed, “one, Ziminiar and I have common enemies. He’s still pissed off at my father for condemning him to a life of never-ending torture and casting him to the side as if he were nothing. He wants revenge on Lucifer and, even though that’s a fairly shaky foundation for an alliance, that means he’s on our side for the foreseeable future. Two … he was mostly a scholar in his time with my father. Just like Mephisto, nobody ever would have pegged
him for a Demon King in a million years. There’s no way he’d try to fuck up a chance like this. And, last but not least, he’s nothing like Gamigin. That horse-faced bastard was so difficult to work with nobody wanted him. Nobody. It was a rare case where our Moneyball strategy didn’t work out so well. Ziminiar is nowhere near as power-hungry or hot-headed as Gamigin was.”

  I could tell Todd wanted to say something, but he pursed his lips and tried to keep up his end of the silence bargain.

  Then, from the back of the room, came the voice of Daniel, my loyal Shade.

  “All rise for the arrival of Ziminiar, the demon who would be king!” Daniel called out.

  Instantly, the room went silent, and everybody stood from their chairs and turned toward the aisle.

  As their attention was diverted, I sauntered up to the stage at the front of the room, walked up the stairs, and took my position at the top.

  For this ceremony, I was dressed in my trusty silver armor, with the Unhallowed Sword strapped tightly to my left side and my goat-headed dagger hanging from my right. Since this was such a momentous occasion, I even had Ariel take all of my gear to her shop and polish it up the best she could.

  All of this equipment had seen a ridiculous amount of action in the last few months, and it had started to look worse for wear.

  Thankfully, Ariel fixed it all up, and now the armor was so shiny it could bring down a plane if the sun hit it just right.

  I was a fucking king, and in this brilliant armor, I definitely felt like one.

  There was even something regal about this whole building. It was a small temple, probably about the size of a modest cathedral on Earth Realm. Like everything else in the Sixth Circle, it was built out of the dark, rocky brimstone that made up so much of Hell’s landscape, and the interior had no fanfare, artwork, or anything to distinguish itself from the other large stone domes of this domain.

  But that would all change once Ziminiar was in charge.

  As if right on cue, the Demon Lord appeared through the archway of the door. His dark red-and-black robes billowed behind him as he wandered down the aisle between the crowded benches, and his buck teeth were so white I could see them glistening from all the way back here. As he walked, he bowed his head and held his hands at his waist somberly, and he only reached up every now and again to adjust his coke-bottle glasses.

  Meanwhile, Todd was humming “here comes the bride” mischievously until Libidine gave him a forceful elbow to the side.

  Finally, Ziminiar took the steps up onto the stage, looked me in the eyes, and then bowed.

  “It is an honor, King Ralston,” the scholar noted, and then he slowly bent down onto his knees.

  Even though I’d only done this ceremony once before, I remembered it like the back of my hand. Without another moment’s hesitation, I drew the Unhallowed Sword from its sheath and then rested it gently on the demon’s right shoulder.

  “I, Jacob Ralston, King of the Fourth Circle and Son of Lucifer, task you, Ziminiar, with guarding my domain as a sacred Demon King,” I began as I lifted the blade and then tapped the opposite shoulder, “I bestow upon you the Sixth Circle of Hell, and all the powers and glory that go along with the title. Do you swear to remain loyal to my majesty? Shall you help me wipe out our enemies wherever they may hide? Do you pledge your allegiance to Jacob Ralston, and Jacob Ralston alone?”

  “I swear, my King,” Ziminiar repeated with a slight tremble in his voice.

  “Then rise,” I commanded. “Gone is Ziminiar, the Grand Scholar of Hell. In his place has been reborn Ziminiar, King of the Sixth Circle!”

  As the demon rose, the entire crowd erupted into a cheer.

  “Long live King Ziminiar!” a voice in the crowd called out.

  “Long may he reign!” another chimed in.

  Then, through the whistles and cheers of the audience, my eardrums picked up another phrase. One that wasn’t so encouraging.

  “Viva la Revolucion!” a high-pitched, garbled voice called out from somewhere.

  “Jacob, on your left!” I heard Deja gasp.

  I spun around as quickly as I could and tossed up a large purple wall of Hellfire for protection. Just then, a huge wave of red fireballs assaulted the stage and lit up the rocky caverns with their glow. The flaming projectiles bounced harmlessly off my barrier, ricocheted back out into the crowd, and then were snatched out of the sky by a large, swirling vortex of black Hellfire.

  The tattooed succubus Eclipse was now standing atop the benches, with both her feet rested on the backs of the stony structures. Dark flames swirled all around her body as she commanded the black holes to swallow up the deadly projectiles, and within seconds, they had all disappeared.

  The various Demon Lords and succubi in attendance began to panic and charge for the exits, but not my team. One by one, I saw my Demon Lords, Todd, and my allied Kings stand up and begin to scan the crowd for the assailants.

  “Aha!” Todd exclaimed as he pointed dramatically toward the back of the temple. “I knew that fucker was just three goblins in a trench coat!”

  All around the room, I saw demons dressed just like the one Todd had pointed out earlier, and, one by one, the same guys tossed away their hats and coats as their bodies split up into multiple tiny creatures.

  It was the Targlin.

  “Didn’t we kill these things already?” I sighed as I held up the Unhallowed Sword and prepared for battle.

  “Not all of them, remember?” Cupiditas reminded me. “Several of the little bastards fled once their master was killed.”

  “These must be the remnants,” Sia noted as she tossed a blast of black Hellfire out into the crowd, “come for revenge.”

  “Seriously?” I chuckled heartily. “They came to ambush us at one of the biggest gatherings of my allies I’ve ever had? They must be dumber than they look.”

  The Targlins let out an inhuman hiss as they began to crawl across the stone benches with pure vitriol in their eyes.

  However, my friends and I couldn’t help but exchange smirks.

  These Targlins may have outnumbered us nearly five to one, but they were still just grunts. Grunts who were trapped in a large, enclosed space with four Demon Kings, twelve Demon Lords, and a pissed-off stoner imp.

  We were about to show them that they’d bitten off more than they could chew.

  Surprisingly, Todd drew first blood. He surrounded himself with black Hellfire, zipped across the temple, and then lashed out with his claws at the first Targlin. The little goblin’s eyeball popped out of his socket with a shlock as his head was thrown back, and then Todd slit his throat with one fell swipe.

  “I’m not locked in here with you,” the imp warned in a gravelly voice, “you’re locked in here with me!”

  “They’re going to try and flank us!” Deja called out as she pointed to a group of Targlins running along the wall.

  “Nah,” the electric succubi Inpulsa retorted nonchalantly, “I got this.”

  Inpulsa stepped forward, summoned yellow Hellfire into her hands, and then clapped them together. The second she did so, a massive bolt of electricity blasted from her position and lit up the incoming Targlins.

  The creatures shrieked in agony as their bodies were fried to a crisp, and then they went silent as their charred remains seized up and fell to the ground.

  “Nice work, Deja,” I nodded. “They totally had us flanked until you gave away their position.”

  “Don’t mention it,” the brunette valley girl giggled, “oh, and by the way, there are ten more of them up on the roof. They should be breaking through right about … now!”

  Right on cue, the roof of the temple shattered into a million pieces, and several tiny goblin creatures came careening down toward our position.

  I summoned yellow Hellfire into one hand, purple into the other, and then blasted the intermixed beam up into the air above us. A large violet wall appeared in front of my falling enemies before it glowed intensely with yellow, and a layer of
tiny, razor-sharp shuriken appeared at the top.

  The Targlins’ eyes went wide as they tried to stop their descent, but it was too late.

  I forced the deadly wall of discs upward at break-neck speeds until I heard a yelp, and then I continued pushing it into the air until it slammed into the top of the temple. The Targlins that had been unlucky enough to land on the edges of the barrier were crushed against the rocky roof, and the momentum of the impact launched the rest of the little fuckers through the hole in the ceiling and out of sight.

  I released my spell just as another wave of goblins was approaching. Then I raised my hand to blast the bastards with a shot of red, but Ziminiar raised his hand to stop me.

  “I’ll handle this, King Ralston,” he offered, “it is my domain now, after all.”

  Ziminiar took a step forward, closed his eyes, and then held out his arms like he was meditating. As he did so, his hands began to glow with a shade of emerald Hellfire that was nearly six shades darker than my own. Suddenly, the fire began to pull together until it looked like little beams of green electricity pulsating around his fists. Then Ziminiar opened up his eyes and launched the Hellfire into the ground around him.

  The second he did so, I felt my body become weightless, but it wasn’t the same sensation that usually happened when I traveled through one of my interdimensional portals. No … within seconds, I was floating three feet in the air as if the laws of gravity didn’t apply, and no matter how hard I tried to move, I couldn’t. It was like I was being held by an invisible set of marionette strings.

  Unfortunately for the Targlins, so were they.

  “There,” Ziminiar said casually, “now, if those of you with flight abilities would be so kind … ”

  Ziminiar’s powers may have temporarily upset the natural law of gravity, but that was irrelevant to those in the room who could fly. There were flashes of purple all around the room as my succubi called forth their wings, and then they got to work.

  The Targlins screamed in horror as they tried to escape their fate, but it was no use. They were trapped in the King of the Sixth Circle’s anti-gravity wave, and there was nothing they could do but watch helplessly as my friends descended upon them.