Succubus Lord 9 Read online

  Suddenly, the street lights around me went out, one-by-one.

  “Ah, shit,” Todd sighed. “They’re totally Batman-ing us, bro.”

  I summoned red Hellfire into my hands and tried to light our surroundings, but I couldn’t see much beyond a few feet in front of my face.

  Suddenly, the street lights came back on, and I gasped in shock.

  There were at least one-hundred men surrounding our position. They all wore dark gray robes with a large “OE” logo written in Greek letters, and each one of them had eyes that were lit up with a glowing yellow light.

  “Bravo, Jacob Ralston,” a snooty, nasally voice mocked. “Truly a performance for the ages.”

  I turned around just as one of the robed men stepped forward and pulled off his hood. I recognized him immediately as Russo Cancio, the centuries-old leader of the Order of the Exalted.

  “Cancio,” I growled and took a fighting stance.

  The cult leader let out a high-pitched, mocking “ohhh,” as he glanced around at his followers.

  “It looks like I have a fan, boys,” he snickered, and they all followed like a horde of mindless zombies. “It’s so nice to finally meet you, Mr. Ralston. That’s enough, Luca.”

  “Thank fuck,” the man underneath Aruna’s boot said as he changed his whole demeanor. “That whole ‘grovlin’ for my life’ shit was getting old.”

  “Enough for what?” I demanded, but then I saw my answer.

  A few of the cultists who were standing next to Cancio had their phones out, and they were all pointed in my direction.

  My heart dropped as I realized what was going on. They fucking got me on tape, interacting with one of my “followers” who was confessing to mass murder in my name.

  Without so much as a warning, I roared and blasted a flurry of red Hellfire in the direction of the cultists. Unfortunately, these guys were all too prepared, and they threw up a wall of purple Hellfire to dispel my attack.

  “My, my,” Cancio chuckled. “You’re every bit as brash as I’ve heard. Unfortunately, I’m gonna have to cut our little visit short.”

  The leader snapped his fingers, and instantly all of the surrounding cultists’ hands lit up like wildfire.

  “Wait, Cancio!” the man beneath Aruna’s boot begged. “I’m still in the--”

  Before he could finish his sentence, the rest of his brethren unleashed their attacks on us.

  I threw out a dome of violet Hellfire around the four of us and fell to the ground as we were assaulted by Hellfire of all colors. Even though my shield was holding up, I could tell these bastards were way stronger than any of the regular cultists I was used to facing.

  Aruna pulled back her bhuj, intent on finishing off the man beneath her foot.

  “Hold it, Tony the Tiger!” Todd exclaimed. “Don’t kill him yet. We need him to talk, remember?”

  “I’ll never betray my brethren!” the man screamed over the sounds of the spells crashing against the barrier. “Go to Hell, imp.”

  “Already been there,” the imp said with a shrug. “And you’re really gonna defend the guys who were about to light you up like a firecracker?”

  “I will never conspire with the Divine,” he reiterated. “Long live Beelzebub and his new order!”

  “Testify, or I’ll eat your face off,” Todd snarled. “Remember how I said I hated raw meat? Well, I lied. I cut my steaks straight from the cow, bro.”

  “I said, go to H--”

  Todd lashed out at the cultist with his claws, and the man let out a shriek as his left eyeball was ripped from its socket.

  “Eligor!” I called out as I felt my shield begin to weaken. “You guys seeing this?’

  There was some static from the other side, but otherwise nothing.

  “Maybe it doesn’t work through the Hellfire?” Ariel asked with a hint of terror in her voice.

  “They should be here by now,” I observed. “There’s no way they haven’t seen this fireworks display.”

  As if right on cue, I heard the sound of machine gun fire from above.

  A few of the cultists went down as their brains exploded from the back of their head. Some of them turned their attention to the sky, but most of the fuckers refused to let up the assault.

  Then, on the other side, I saw a giant pillar of stone burst forth from the ground, enchanted with lime green Hellfire. A second pillar shot up just on the other side of the cultists, and then they quickly moved toward each other. Screams of agony rang out through the air as several more of the cultists were crushed between the rocky tendrils of Eligor’s magic.

  Thanks to the cavalry, most of our assailants were either dead or distracted. We had to move now.

  I looked over at Aruna and Ariel and gave them a slight nod.

  The redheaded angel summoned her Divine claws, while the Rakshasi readied her bhuj and her chakram.

  “Todd,” I ordered, “you make sure dickless here doesn’t go anywhere.”

  “Aye, aye, Jakey!” the imp agreed, and then he hopped onto the fucker’s head feet-first.

  “On three,” I commanded. “One … two … three!”

  I let go of my protective spell as all Hell broke loose. Shots of yellow, blue, red, silver, and green Hellfire rocketed past my position as I ran toward the nearest line of cultists. I quickly created a large shield of purple around my one hand and used it to deflect spells as I approached. At the same time, I summoned emerald flames into my free hand and teleported the Unhallowed Sword out of the trunk of Shadow and into my possession.

  I dispelled a blast of blue Hellfire, and then I spun around and lopped a cultist’s head off with the swing of my blade. As his viscera geysered out of his neck and splashed onto his friends, I skewered the second bastard through the chest. Then I spun around with his body still attached and used him as a human shield.

  The fucker screamed as chucks of his body were melted off his bones and his back was turned into an enchanted pincushion.

  I heaved him forward so his body knocked down a small group of cultists. I was forced to throw up a shield of purple as I finished off the guys on the ground with my sword, but then I turned my attention to the few remaining enemies in my quadrant.

  There were six men left in my immediate vicinity, and I had forced their backs literally up against the wall. A brick wall, to be exact.

  I summoned green Hellfire into my hand as I dispelled their blasts and engulfed the wall behind them with my telekinetic magic. I closed my open fists, and dozens of individual bricks shot out of the wall and smashed them in the back of their heads.

  My enemies stumbled forward, dazed, and I made sure I finished them off quickly.

  The first one got my new combat knife straight through his eye socket, while the second one took the point of the Unhallowed Sword through his stomach. In one fell swoop, I spun around, stabbed the combat knife into the temple of the next cultist, and then blasted another one in the face with red Hellfire.

  The last two opponents raised their enchanted hands in a panic, but they weren’t even close to being quick enough.

  I called forth purple Hellfire and tossed the protective spell around their hands just as they released their attack.

  The two men screamed in pain as their hands were incinerated by their own attack, and then I took them both out with two swift swings of my sword.

  As I wiped the blood off my weapons, I tried to take in the rest of the battlefield.

  Aruna’s chakram was causing absolute chaos as it zipped around on its own, slicing up tendons and slitting throats. The Rakshasi herself was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with several of the cultists, who had now drawn enchanted daggers.

  Meanwhile, Ariel was acrobatically tossing around cultists with her legs like they were little more than ragdolls. Every few seconds, she’d halt her momentum and stab her claws through the fleshy meat of some poor fucker’s body.

  Up above, Raphael was blasting at the Order of the Exalted with a mixture of Divine Lig
ht and a hailstorm of bullets from his FAMAS. At the same time, the Archangel was turning around on his wings and dodging the attacks coming his way.

  Then there was Eligor. As I looked in her direction, the blonde knight stabbed her two swords through the skull of one of the cultists up on a nearby roof. Then, she held onto the hilts, threw up her foot, and kicked the guy’s body off the side.

  As he plummeted to the ground, I glanced over at Todd. The imp was still standing on top of the downed cultist’s head, cackling maniacally as he jumped up and down on it like it was a trampoline.

  He was having way too much fun with this.

  Then everything stopped.

  The spells stopped shooting, weapons stopped clashing, and even the wildlife in the desert seemed to go silent.

  There were still about fifty or so cultists left alive, and they seemed to go into a trance-like state in unison. They all called forth large purple shields in front of their person, and then they slowly began to back up and form a perimeter around us.

  “I don’t like this, guys!” I exclaimed. “Everybody get back-to-back, now!”

  Eligor, Ariel, Raph, and Aruna all dashed back to the spot where Todd was standing, and I wasn’t far behind. The six of us stood there as we held our weapons at the ready and waited for whatever was about to happen next.

  As we waited, the cultists formed a large circle around us and then fused their violet spell together to form one large, ring-like wall.

  That’s when we heard the sound. It started off as a distant hum, similar to the sound a hummingbird makes when it flaps its wings. Then, as it grew closer, the droning noise seemed to fill the entire landscape as it rattled our eardrums.

  “It--It can’t be … ” Raphael gasped.

  A lanky shadow with two massive, curved wings appeared above us and then floated down to the ground. This thing had to have been at least eight feet tall, with dark green flesh and two short, thick black horns that curved out like a goat’s. As he landed, his wings wrapped around him like a royal cloak, and his eyes narrowed atop his beak-like nose.

  “Beelzebub,” Raphael growled.

  “Raphael?” the King of the Eighth Circle mused. “You’re a long way from Heaven, my old friend. And hanging out with a so-called Demon King? What happened to you, Archangel?”

  “Jacob is nothing like your lot,” Raph shot back.

  “No, I suppose he’s not,” Beelzebub sighed. “If he was, Baphomet and I wouldn’t be trying to kill him, now would we?”

  “You’re Beelzebub?” I scoffed, even though my heart was in my throat. “I didn’t expect the mighty King of the Eighth Circle to be such a string bean.”

  The demon raised an eyebrow at me as he took in my words. Then a devilish smile spread across his face, and he began to roar with laughter.

  “Your wit is amusing,” he admitted, “but it’s not going to get under my skin like it did with that oaf, Azazel.”

  “I’m more surprised that you’re here,” Raphael mused. “You’ve never been one to do your own dirty work.”

  “You know me too well, Raphael,” the demon snickered and crossed his arms over his chest. “The truth is, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. I figured Cancio and his men would be competent enough to get the job done on their own, but I should have known better. They are going up against the King of the Fourth Circle, the mortal who killed Azazel, after all.”

  “So, it’s a fight you want?” I growled. “I’ll be more than glad to give you that.”

  “Not really a fight,” the King of the Eighth Circle said as he yawned and looked at his claws disinterestedly. “More like, evening the odds. You’ve killed far too many of my men for--”

  The words of the Demon King were cut off by the sound of Aruna’s chakram slicing through the air. The enchanted weapon swirled like a UFO as it flew around, turned in the sky, and aimed directly for the bastard’s throat.

  Beelzebub simply held out his hand and caught it as if it were a harmless frisbee.

  “You’ve got gusto, assassin,” he laughed. “If you somehow survive my wrath, I’ll have to hire you sometime.”

  Then the King of the Eighth Circle placed his other hand on the chakram, held it out in front of him, and snapped it in half like a twig.

  There was a short burst of black ectoplasm and smoke as the weapon broke in half, and then Beelzebub tossed it to the side.

  Aruna let out a primal scream of rage as she charged the demon with her bhuj at the ready.

  “Fucking hell,” I groaned. “Let’s show this bastard what a real king can do!”

  Raph, Eligor, Ariel, and I all charged at Beelzebub, prepared to go in for the kill.

  Unfortunately for us, the Lord of the Flies was quick on his feet. He raised his wings out so they were parallel with the ground, and I saw the damn things glint in the light of the street lamps.

  “Get the fuck down!” I ordered my friends.

  Beelzebub began to spin around as quickly as he could, and his movement kicked up dirt as he turned his wings and whole body into a deadly buzzsaw.

  I hit the deck just as the razor-sharp wings passed over my head, and then I lashed out at the fucker’s feet with my sword.

  Beelzebub halted his momentum instantly as he leaned his body backward and struck me in the face with his fist.

  I stumbled backward, and Beelezbub seemed to summon a bow out of thin air. Then he called forth an arrow of pure Hellfire, put it against the string, and released.

  I tossed out a shield of purple just as the arrow would have hit my chest, and I felt myself being tossed backward violently. I smashed into the wall of a nearby building, fell forward, and landed on my knees.

  As I looked up, I saw all of my friends were attacking the King of the Eighth Circle.

  Todd was throwing small fireballs from afar, while Ariel and Aruna were striking at him with their blades. Raphael and Eligor remained at a distance as they shot blasts of Divine Light and Hellfire at him, respectively.

  But nothing seemed to hurt him.

  Beelzebub had his wings back over his body, and all of the attacks were bouncing off as if they were made of rubber. Most chilling of all, however, was the Demon King’s expression.

  His eyes were cold and dark, and they were locked directly on me. He paid my friends no attention as he began to walk in my direction and continued to shrug off their attacks.

  “Son of a bitch,” I mused as I pulled my aching body back to my feet.

  Once he was about one-hundred feet away, I used my green fire to pick up a large metal dumpster and hurl it at the bastard. Just like my friends’ attacks, it bounced right off his wings without leaving so much as a scratch.

  Now, Beelzebub was about fifty feet away from me, and he threw open his wings like a cobra throws open its hood. Instantly, another Hellfire arrow rocketed toward my position, and I rolled away just as the wall behind me exploded into ash and dust.

  I came up with a blast of yellow shuriken, but Beelzebub was quick to throw his wing back over his body.

  But apparently not quick enough.

  He let out a grunt of pain as a few of the tiny yellow throwing stars struck his arm, but then his face contorted back into its emotionless state.

  That was it. I just had to wait until he opened himself up to attack.

  Unfortunately, with the distance between us, that also meant I had to get up close and personal with the King of the Eighth Circle.

  I tightened my grip on the Unhallowed Sword, threw a wave of purple armor over my body, and then let out a battle cry as I ran toward Beelzebub.

  He reared back his bow again and launched another flaming projectile in my direction.

  I leapt over the attack, closed the gap, and then plunged my sword into his right shoulder.

  Beelzebub let out an inhuman hiss as the enchanted weapon burned his flesh, and for a moment, I thought I had him right where I wanted him.

  I was wrong.

  “Fool!” he cackled through his
pain, and then he summoned another flaming arrow into his hand.

  Before I had a chance to react, he stabbed the arrow into the back of my leg.

  White-hot pain shot through my calf, and I fell down onto one knee in agony.

  “Jacob!” I heard Eligor scream, and then I heard my friends’ attacks become more intense.

  However, Beelzebub seemed unaffected. He grabbed a tuft of my hair and raised my head so we were looking at each other eye-to-eye.

  “Now, that’s what I’d call even,” he sneered. “It’s a shame you won’t see your kingdom razed to the ground and your friends tortured for the rest of eternity. But, small price to pay for--”

  “You talk too fucking much,” I hissed as I unloaded all the Divine Light I could muster directly into the Demon King’s chest.

  Beelzebub’s body was tossed up into the sky, and then he caught himself on his massive wings. The demon was grimacing in pain, but he was doing his best to hide it from us. His eyes looked crazed as he knocked away more attacks with his powerful wings and floated toward Todd and the cultist.

  “Out of my way, imp!” he sneered

  “Fuck no, Brundlefly,” Todd shot back proudly. “You’re gonna have to--”

  Before he could even finish his sentence, Todd was knocked away with a swing of Beelzebub’s fist. His body slammed into a nearby car, denting it and causing its alarms to go off.

  “Todd!” I screamed and began to fire off every spell I knew at the bastard.

  “Master!” the cultist exclaimed as he stood up to greet the Demon King. “I knew you wouldn’t leave me behind.”

  “Of course not,” Beelzebub mused. “I couldn’t have you testifying to the Divine, now could I?”

  Realization spread across the cultist’s face, and he lifted his arms to try and plead with the Demon King.

  “Wait, I--”

  Beelzebub grabbed his cultist by the throat and then took to the sky. Once he was about one-hundred feet above us, he halted his ascent and hovered in the air. My friends and I were still blasting him with everything we had, but nothing seemed to be getting through those wings.

  “I was going to make this easy on you, Ralston,” the King of the Eighth Circle sneered in an amplified voice. “But now? I don’t even know if I want to kill you. I’d much rather watch you suffer.”