Hell For Feathers Ch 06

Chapter 6: No Time to Wallow in the Mire

Ashley immediately and enthusiastically returned to her work of watching the surface, inspecting them for demonic activity... a very particular kind of demonic activity.

As she twirled her view around the globe like a bored student, nothing was jumping out at her. She chose to investigate some large cities. Surely, there was some sin to be found there...

Ashley focused her lens on a woman standing near a lamp post, waving her arm over her head, out towards cars in the street. A yellow taxi pulled up and she stepped inside.

In that short amount of time, Ashley saw as the strap on her camisole fell past her shoulder as she lowered her arm... and how the back of her shirt was low enough to see the little plastic buckle of her bra. Weren't those out of style? She remembered seeing them being burned in public displays... it didn't seem like that long ago.

She nearly slapped herself. Why was she looking at some random human's body? Yes, the woman had a lovely back and a generous bust, but that was not important. She should be watching for demon activity... like Skyler popping out of a changing room naked pretending she decided not to buy anything. That sounded like the sort of silliness she would do.

Ashley kept scanning the surface, looking for demonic presence. She didn't spot much, though there were a lot of women dressed for the summer, with short shorts and bare legs... bare feet... freckles on bare shoulders...

She spun her view of the globe upside-down. The southern hemisphere was experiencing winter, wasn't it? If Skyler had her druthers, she'd appear on the surface in an area with some snow... it certainly was odd how half the world had different weather. This was either evidence of a designer or evidence against it.

Maybe the designer wanted to make sure there was always some copious nude flesh on at least half of the beaches of the world. Maybe she should stop looking at Australia, which didn't have much snow, but did have lots of people on the beach... lots of black bikinis and surfers... and a few humans discretely engaged in sexual activity hiding in the tall grass.

Ashley quickly moved her lens away from them. There was no longer the sudden red-faced retreat... but the understanding of how embarrassing it was to be caught like that. She'd leave them to their fun, feeling an ache in her body and her heart.

She spun the globe back around, scanning through more metropolises and trying to find something devilish on the surface.

She found one! A mighty dark stain on the world and good behavior, tainting all it touched. Could it be? Ashley immediately suited up and appeared at the epicenter of the dark cloud, opening a portal and jumping through.

She appeared, appropriately enough, in the main sanctuary of a church. She wasn't sure what day of the week it was. It was always the same in the elysium, so it hardly mattered. It certainly wasn't Sunday, as all the pews were empty. There was a priest cowering on the floor, one arm outstretched with a crucifix in his hand. He was unharmed, but for how long?

Before him was a demon. Horns, tail, cloven feet... the lot. Her clothes were tattered, her hair matted, her teeth sharp like a shark, a few other features that made her look less than human...

It wasn't Skyler. It was some other condemned soul, someone who evidently had felt like exacting revenge on the surface dweller responsible for spreading that good word.

The demon looked at Ashley with a hideous smile. "Aahh... finally here to save your man, are you?" She snarled with an unnaturally deep timbre. "Well--"

The demon didn't get any further. Rather than grab her sword, Ashley opened up a hole to the pit below her hooves. With no wings to hold her aloft, she tumbled down back into the pit, the hole sealing quickly behind her.

The church was silent again. The priest didn't yet come back to his feet. "Thank you!" He sputtered. "But... this thing didn't stop her!" He shook the crucifix in his hand, like a disappointing maraca with nothing inside. "It's broken!"

"Give me a second, please." Ashley talked to him like she was putting him on hold.

In the pit, the recently escaped and recovered demon thrashed and stomped her hoof on the stone. She felt herself in a spotlight in the dark, smoky pit. She turned towards the light.

Ashley was looking through a portal, just barely wide enough to get her head through, her fingers resting on the edge. "Hey, he didn't summon you with a pentagram of salt or whatever, did he?"

"I ain't a narc!" Said the demon.

"Look, I could have dropped you a thousand feet in the air and broken all your bones. I gave you a reasonably gentle drop." Ashley responded testily. "Now, if he was responsible for you being brought up here, I'm going to kick him in the buttocks."

The demon sighed. "No, I was targeting him for working for the man upstairs. You know how it is."

"How are you getting up here, anyway?" Ashley asked.

"I'm not telling you." She sneered. "What are you going to do? Send me someplace really bad and torture me?!"

That, at least, sounded like something Skyler might say. Ashley closed the portal before anyone else tried to use it as an emergency exit.

"Hey, are you listening?" The priest yelled, trying to get Ashley's attention. "I want a refund on this thing! Or at least send me an updated manual. I'm not going to be damned because you didn't tell us you updated the sacraments!"

"Be quiet!" Ashley shouted. "If you think you can hold any secrets from us, you are sorely mistaken! We see it all, and we don't approve, so you need to knock it off if you intend on continuing to lead the flock."

Ashley dropped into a portal in the floor like she was jumping down a water slide, leaving behind the terrified priest. He wasn't sure what transgression she was referring to. Maybe it was his toupee... to thine own self be true, and so forth. It's not like everyone couldn't tell it was a toupee... his gray temples stuck out the sides. Or could it be... those scandalous periodicals he had in his desk...

But he couldn't help it! Mad Magazine was just so damn funny!

--

Ashley kept looking at the surface from the sky for unapproved demon activity. She had checked the plateau where she'd left Skyler again, but she wasn't there. Not that Skyler could get back up to that plateau if she had left it. For whatever reason, she had wandered off, looking for trouble. How she could choose danger over boredom and stability, she would never understand.

Thus, Ashley could either search the pit for Skyler, like dipping a drinking glass into the ocean to find one particular fish... or she could wait for Skyler to do whatever it was she was doing to escape this realm and appear on the surface.

She spun her view of the world like a rascally student spinning the classroom globe, trying to spot anything amiss. She didn't even trouble herself with trying to solve problems long-distance. If she saw a real catastrophe going on, of course she would intervene...

But she'd REALLY feel so much better if she found Skyler first.

And not just because she had a near constant erection, as if it was another limb reaching towards the earth to touch all of its beauty... but mostly Skyler.

After many hours of exhaustive monitoring, checking essentially every city in the world... she started looking at less populated areas. Maybe she'd emerged in a pasture somewhere and was cornered by an angry bull who thought she was red and also that they were both in a Warner Brothers cartoon. Maybe she hadn't made it out yet...

Ashley eventually saw a thin plume of activity, tangled up with clouds of smoke and noise and other sin. She'd almost not been able to pull the foul demon essence out from the activity.

An outdoor rock concert.

Not a specifically 'occult' act that might lead towards Skyler's sensibilities, but not a religious one, either. Just some musicians who loved electric guitars. If the way the speakers were operating was intentional, they seemed to also love enormous sound distortion. They popped like gunfire at the loud guitar notes, or even loud singing. It did not seem like an improvement on listening to the record at home, or the old reliable radio.

She looked at the event closer. Hundreds of humans jumping and swaying to the music, clouds of smoke and dust rising into the air from drugs and the current headliner's pyrotechnics. She could not tell the source of the demonic energy.

She closed her lens and stood from her reclined position. If it's not Skyler, she would just toss them back into the pit. If it was...

Ashley appeared in an inconspicuous area within the concert grounds. She had her new longer skirt to keep her knees and other stuff hidden. She might still stand out as by far the cleanest person here. The grass of this arena had long been stomped into mud, caking everyone's legs in flecks of dirt.

She held her hands against her ears. Rock music could be nice, but this made her appreciate what a quiet workplace she really had. It also made her appreciate the rock bands were actually halfway decent live. Sure, she should probably disapprove of Blue Oyster Cult for their occult themes, but they made good music. And John Fogerty was almost certainly a believer, but he didn't make any of that awful "Christian rock."

With her hands over her ears, she had no choice but to experience another sense. Sure, the crowd was sweaty and dirty. Ashley was mostly accustomed to that. But the stench of marijuana was everywhere, mixed with patchouli. It all had that powerful, brain-invading strength of a scratch-and-sniff sticker affixed to the inside of her nose. She had to resist the urge to wave the stink away with her invisible wings.

Ashley scanned the thick crowd of dancing, jumping music fans. She felt a bit like a dove in a chicken coop. She didn't know who these people were, or why she was so different, but she just wanted to get out of here. But not before she found who she was looking for. How was it so hard to find the ONLY purple woman in a crowd?

Once again, Skyler somehow got the jump on her, grabbing her in a near running tackle and tossing them both to the mud. Skyler fit in a little better with the crowd with her halter top and hot pants with high boots. Most of the other customers didn't seem to think that hard about looking nice. Skyler got a few kisses in before Ashley brought them both out of the crowd, tumbling through the floor as the crush of dirty bodies closed in around them, nobody noticing their absence.

Ashley brought them behind the stage, behind the temporary privacy fencing that extended past the proscenium, a thin ribbon of grass in front of a line of evergreen trees where none of the people who actually paid to see the concert would be happy to be, even if they could still hear the music.

"Oh, it's so loud and dirty here..." Ashley opened a tiny portal that disgorged an arc of clear spring water. She would not have glanced at this water normally, but this was all she could think to summon at the moment. The spout splashed down on her chest. She wiped the mud from her legs. She offered the spout to Skyler, who did much the same. She surprised Ashley when she drank from the font like it was a garden hose.

"Oh, gosh, I might not do that."

"What?" Skyler held her hair back with one hand. "Is this a toilet? I assumed if it was fine for washing, it was fine for drinking."

"No, it's spring water. It should be fine. I just... wasn't going to drink it."

"They're selling bottled water here." Skyler put her head under the tap. "Even if I had any money, I'm not paying anything for water."

Ashley brushed the rest of the moisture from her body. "Not even ice water?"

The literary reference didn't land with Skyler. She bucked away from the crisp cold water spout to ask, "What?"

"It's Nelson Algren. 'There's people in hell who want ice water.'"

"I don't know who that is. What is that supposed to mean, anyway? Sure, people in a very hot environment would like a cool beverage."

"I think it's another way of saying 'wish in one hand...' As in, 'you ain't getting it.'"

"Is that what passes as wisdom on the surface?" Skyler sneered as she scrubbed herself standing under the spout. "People stuck in a bad situation want to get out of it? What a huge revelation! I hope he can let everybody know how married men want to have sex with someone who isn't their wife. Let's crack that one wide open while we've got their ears already pricked up."

Ashley closed the portal to the water, but there was still the sound of dripping. It wasn't coming from Skyler. Almost all the water touching her poofed into steam once the spout closed. Rather, the dripping from coming from Ashley's form, drops landing in the puddle at her feet.

Ashley looked down to herself. The delicate yet indestructible cloths that made up her clothing... she had never gotten them wet. She always dismissed it before bathing... naturally. Thus, she was surprised just how... translucent it became when so thoroughly soaked. Her nipples stood out like two little half-cherries off the end of her large round breasts, the rippled fabric barely hiding anything... not even her latest feature that she had altered her skirt to keep hidden.

When she saw Skyler's hungry gaze fall on her, Ashley grabbed the hem of her dress and held it down... which only caused her cleavage to grow deeper, her nipples straining the edge of her decolettage, a few drops of water tossed into the air, her whole body shining in the sunlight like limestone speckled with gems. Even with both arms trying to hold down her skirt, her turgid cock would not be deflected by that little ribbon. The hem held it in place until it slipped away, rolling up like a window shade as it slid down her cock. Her knees pointed together, bare feet tucked together, her body quaking... and her face turning red.

Skyler pounced and pressed Ashley back against a support beam at the back of the amphitheater. The sound of their impact got buried under the noise of the concert. With one hand on Ashley's throat, thumb and forefinger splayed out under her chin, Skyler pulled her in tightly for a kiss. Ashley tried to break away for a moment, but couldn't bring herself to resist Skyler's lovely hot form. She mewled like a kitten as her lips smacked loudly against Skyler's.

"You..." Skyler panted. "really are incorrigible. You're standing there naked and soaked and acting all innocent, with your amazing tits and your Jazzercize abs and your delicious hard cock. This is entrapment. This is what you angels are for... force me to think all the sins that anybody would think of when looking at you. I don't care if it's a sin. Send me back for being the world's nastiest dirtiest slut, then. I don't care. I'll survive for centuries dreaming of your taste, of how much fun we'll have when I finally get out, no matter how long it takes... and how I will FUUUUUUCK you like I just got back from WAR."

Ashley was trembling. Somehow, this filth was the most romantic thing that Skyler had ever said. Somehow, Skyler restrained herself and presented Ashley with a simple, if long, closed-mouth kiss. Ashley's clothes burst with puffs of steam as it touched Skyler's blistering body, her skin just as hot as an iron.

Between Ashley's legs, her cock throbbed as it rubbed between their bellies. But she started to feel the presence of something else. It started to feel... crowded down there.

Ashley gasped with horror, like a rattlesnake had somehow materialized in the synthetic grass of an Easter basket. She pushed Skyler off her by the shoulder. Swiping her hand down like a bear's paw, Ashley hooked her fingers into the waistband of Skyler's hot pants and pulled them down.

It was purple, like the rest of her... but with a faint shade of red. It was long, about as long as Ashley's own. It was stiff and hot to the touch, like a hot rock nearby lava flow. It wasn't coated in veins like a bodybuilder's bicep, somehow. More smooth like a piece of volcanic glass. And below it, the two accessories that were evidently indispensable... those orbs that just seemed to get in the way and make hiding everything even more troublesome.

Skyler yelped, staggering back with her knees knitted together with the booty shorts. She fell to her knees. "Ahh! Oh no!" She cried. "I wanted to surprise you!"

"You have!!" Ashley immediately interjected.

"Oooh, how could you?!" Skyler whined. "Pulling out my big secret cock in front of everyone!" Her hand went to it, pulling up and down. "Oh, I just can't stop myself. I've been using it a LOT since I got it. Am I doing this right? It feels so GOOD!"

Ashley did not fear the attention of humans, especially those at an outdoor rock concert. Maybe there was a bit of the free-spirited hippie energy still within them. Nevertheless, masturbating in a public place like this was of those things that would be hard to wriggle out of with a wink and a clever explanation. She hastily tossed open a portal, both of them falling through the grassy ground and immediately into a queen-sized bed.

"Where are we NOW?" Skyler said, a little annoyed.

"Just an unoccupied hotel room, like always."

"Aw, I can't jerk off in public here."

"Yes, that's a good thing. I recommend not doing that, or else you'll get the cops involved."

"You're afraid of the cops?" Skyler sneered.

"No, but they have this weird idea that they're in charge of things like people not masturbating in public." Ashley scolded. "And I find my work is easier when they don't get involved."

Skyler rolled onto her back, tugging her cock straight into the air and making a lot of unrestrained moans. "This is so awesome! No wonder these things are so popular! I never knew how easy these things are to use! I thought I was good at sex, but it turns out, these things just feel amazing! Aaangh!"

"Stop that!" Ashley put her hands on her head. "I'm trying to think."

"Go ahead and think of all the things we can do with this! I'm coming up with a lot of them right now!" Skyler kept going. "Get over here and test drive this hot rod!"

"No, no..." Ashley's head and hands were shaking. "I am not currently interested in sex."

Confused, Skyler's hand stopped. She sat up. "Well, you huge boner says otherwise."

Ashley was not persuaded, but nor was she even concerned about her state or arousal or dress at the moment. "I am completely serious. I don't want to mess around right now. I am exclusively interested in exactly how you got that thing."

"Why are you so tense and angry right now?" Skyler opened her arms. "You never told me how you got that thing when I first saw it. I didn't know it wasn't always there. And I didn't give a shit either way! I just had a nice footlong party favor to mess with all night long. Now you've got one from me. What, are you a dedicated top? Why is this such a crisis?!"

"Because maybe this was a mostly-secret operation among angles that was evidently very complicated to pull off, so I am a LITTLE surprised that a demon was able to manage to pull the same trick on their own without support!" Ashley said, very sternly. "So if there is somehow an angel somehow assisting you with this transformation, then we need to bring this to a stop immediately."

Skyler looked lost. "The only angel who has ever, EVER assisted me..." She sighed. "is you."

"Is there someone down there fashioning these things? Some demon cocksmith in the spirit of Hephaestus?"

Skyler responded by tipping over on the bed, burying her laughter in a pillow.

"I'll take that as a no, then."

Ashley came back to the bed, sitting near her. She held herself up with her hands on her knees. This thing that she had gained... what had they unleashed onto the world?