**The relationships count in this tale. Most demons on this plane (as I've written it) don't care to have any. They're just promiscuous if they get the chance. These ones are trying to build something important to them. Even so, they're not human, so one can't expect conventional human reactions from them - just something a little like that. O_o
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He knew where to start looking -- finally. From the final earthbound thoughts and impressions of a twenty year-old vampire, no less.
Not twenty years AS a vampire, Tereth smirked, since he'd only lasted two months, twenty years old when he'd been turned. The hunter had been forced to sift through the testosterone-soaked thoughts of a post-pubescent waste of space who'd been turned into an undead waste of space, eternally post-pubescent, and so full of himself.
Well from Tereth's point of view, his last look over his shoulder as he strode away had indicated that the kid was about to be full of something else now, the way that the sand giant was pounding him. From what he'd seen, his second death at the hands of a hellhound had been entirely preventable -- unless you thought that you had something to prove. Now, of course, he was sobbing and shrieking for his mother.
Tereth smirked as he wondered if she was here as well somewhere.
The last impressions were of the ass end of a green pickup truck stopped on a snowy road. The hunter thought it over as he made his way to the scene. On the way, he dug deeper into the memories that he'd scooped. From that, he got a view of a license plate, and that told him where in general. He thought about the sign next to the mall earlier that night and headed that way.
He found the mall.
He found the roads that had been seen in the memories.
The soul had been held inside another. Well he was hunting a huntress, so,...
Where had the soul been held before transfer? Where was the 'holder' then?
Where?
He left the scene and went higher, looking for communities. From high enough, you could see plenty of them. He looked around, and went in the direction that just felt right to him.
Thirty minutes later, he was in the garage, looking at the ass end of a green pickup truck, and he was feeling that he was right in the groove now.
The door wasn't even locked, not that it would have changed anything. Tereth went inside.
He stood there, just feeling.
Tereth wondered why he was feeling what now came to him from the inside of a human's dwelling, not a normal place for his kind. There'd been demons here not long ago, more than one.
Why?
Why more than one?
What was this?
He walked around, trying to get some reason, or sense to this. He began to grow frustrated, since he knew that he was so close to something that might get him out of the future that he'd gotten a glimpse of earlier.
He walked around aimlessly and his hand came up to his face unconsciously. Without being aware of it, his fingers ran over the ripped out feature that had once been a rather handsome cheek to his way of looking at it. But the red bitch had changed that for him.
He'd walked in to the old lord's main hall and saw her perfection almost a century before. The wonderful hunter girl who never failed to bring back what was wanted, and often what others like Tereth had failed to retrieve.
The bitch had stood there, waiting for the slimy lord's attention and carrying a soul that Tereth himself had failed to get three times running before the job was given to her, of all hunters. She'd stood there, all demure and pretending to be respectful. When the lord had nodded to her, she'd bowed so low that no male could have looked at that and not felt it in his balls. So he'd only done what was natural for any male. He'd walked up to that perfect ass and grabbed her hips to get started. Anyone would understand.
That was when she'd ruined his face -- and she hadn't even looked to see who it had been yet. What she'd done to his prick had been far worse. It still didn't work right. Any worthy demonlord would have seen it his way, surely, but not the slimy asshole that he had the misfortune to have to work for. Tereth had gotten a year on the table then, a year strapped down in an elevated kneeling position where anyone could just come by, pick up one of the flame whips there and flay him to their heart's content with no fear of reprisal.
Most of the time, the bastards had aimed at his nuts. They still didn't work right either, and they looked like shit.
After six months of yelling out his hatred for her, she'd stopped by one day. She didn't say a word, nothing apologetic or anything else as she applied the sticky salve to his torn up cheeks and balls. And she'd done it so thoroughly, too.
It felt very nice and he told her so.
She'd said nothing.
He'd almost gotten to like the way that she'd slathered on the runny ointment. He could even remember the way that she'd made him groan, applying the stuff onto his dick and then sliding her finger into him to get some of the stuff in there. He hadn't been hurt there, but he'd liked what she'd done -- as though she was promising to make it up to him.
He'd watched as she'd come around into his field of view drooling the golden salve onto the ground in front of him so that he could see what she'd been applying. Honey. It was ordinary honey.
He'd asked her why.
She shrugged, "Because I was forbidden to kill you. I'm just here today to lay down the honey and the drum there. I just do what I'm told. I always do as I'm told. If it were up to me, you'd already be dead."
Then she'd walked to the metal drum and knocked it onto its side to release the large fire ants.
