Author's Notes
This will (probably) be a 2-3 part series.
Enjoy this first part and Happy Halloween. As always, thanks for reading :)
***
Belial watched a young woman come through the make-shift door as he sat perched high above on a smashed roof of the ruined building. It had been converted into what now passed for a dingy bar and its patrons sat hunched, mostly in silence, as they nursed their precious alcohol to dull the pain.
"Lexa," he murmured, leaning down a bit more for a better look below, careful to stay in the shadows and not reveal himself.
From beyond the twinkle of the haphazardly strung Christmas lights, he saw that she was dirty, bloodied and fresh from a fight. The faint scent of blood on her -- demon blood--wafted up, even this far above. It didn't surprise him; she was the last of her kind in this dying world, human world.
"They're all cleared out." Belial heard Lexa say tiredly to a grizzled man at the make-shift bar. It was just a long plank of dirty metal held up with the charred remains broken cinder blocks. "My payment?"
The old man looked at her for a moment. His mocking laugh started low and rang louder.
"She wants her payment!"
The other men around her joined in, and crazy-eyed, doddering old women in rags cackled. Her eyes narrowed and dirty little children scurried out of sight like small animals who knew that a disaster was coming.
"Something to eat and something to drink isn't too much to ask." Lexa said coolly. "We had a deal..."
"I'll give you something to eat!" one of the men sneered, obscenely grabbing his crotch with one hand as he reached out to grab her with the other.
Belial watched as Lexa deftly wove away from the man, and snake-swift, her hand went to the whip curled at her hip. It unfurled with a quick snap of her wrist. The man who'd tried to grab her, screamed as he held his bloodied hand.
"You ungrateful bastards!" Lexa hissed, her wrists rolling and twitch, daring for someone else to come at her.
Belial raised an eyebrow, intrigued by the whip she wielded. He had heard many rumors about how she favored that weapon, and for the first time in a very long time since his exile, he felt the first embers of desire begin to burn in him.
"Get her!" another man growled.
"Go to hell!" she barked, defiant, as others moved to try grabbing her.
Lexa reached behind her and Belial thought that she might pull the shotgun from its sheath that rode low on her back. To his surprise, she pulled another whip, she became a deadly dance of black tendrils. The snap of supple leather lashing out at the men who attacked her, was music to his ears, his cock growing hard at the sound of it.
Fury lit Lexa's blood; she hated these ungrateful people almost as much as the demons she slew to protect the likes of them. She kicked a man away as she cracked one whip across the tender flesh of the neck of another. Her whips came around in deadly arcs, as she laid two more low.
By the time she was done, the floor was a mess of moaning, bloodied men, as she wound her whips back up, disgusted.
Belial's wings rustled excitedly behind him and a smile tugged at the corner of his glacially pale mouth. Lexa's powerful display had left him nearly breathless, his lips slightly parted, exhaling ragged breaths. She hadn't used any magic at all, and he could only imagine what she was like when she was on the hunt. Lexa was every bit the furious grace Belial sought and he watched as Lexa backed out the door and into the night.
****
This was a hard life, Lexa knew that. Everything was hard after the Fall, everything was scarce and crumbling, including people keeping their word. She'd made vows to fight for humanity, but it seemed that humanity never recovered. Vows aside, she wondered why she still did this at all.
She shook her head as she hurried in and out of shadows cast by the frost light of the moon. Twisted, skeletal remains of steel that that hand once been buildings, loomed threateningly as she hurriedly passed them by.
"Lexa...," a sonorous, masculine voice intoned, her name reverberating through the air.
She stopped abruptly in the middle of the blasted street, unable to tell which direction it came from. Lexa reach for the shotgun then, barely twisting away as something tried to grab her. Lexa felt the demonic presence, dark and cloying now, as she hefted the shotgun up to aim. The barrel was roughly carved with arcane sigils and they glowed a faint blue in the night.
Out of the corner of Lexa's eye, she saw a dark shape dodge past her. She turned abruptly, trying to train the shotgun on it. It was too dark for her to see what was moving around her.
Is this how I die?
she wondered vaguely.
Lexa always asked herself that; ironically it was her lucky charm. She lightly pulled the trigger back on the shotgun, ready.
"Fiat lux," she muttered and a bright ball of light sprang up at her shoulder, casting its strange, bluish witch light around her immediate radius.
Lexa turned slowly, shotgun still up and ready, not seeing anything around her. She felt days of hunger gnawing at her stomach and the weight of little to no sleep crashing down on her. Lexa briefly wondered if she was hallucinating.
No,
she thought, gritting her teeth and forcing herself to focus.
No--something called my name, damn it..,
Lexa reluctantly started to drop her guard and the dark shape that she had glimpsed before, was nearly on her. She jumped back, shotgun raised, the business end of it started to fiercely glow with arcane energy. It was a demon--the biggest one she'd seen in a while. It probably stood seven or eight feet to her five.
"Lexa," he intone, once more. "I mean you no harm."
There was a rustling in the shadows, and the demon emerged, dark wings behind him.
"Right," she snapped. "Just like I don't mean to put a bullet through you, and send you back to hell!"
Fiery--Belial liked that, but there was something else, something more potent in the air around Lexa. He inhaled slightly, catching the rich scent of her arousal underneath all the aggression and fear. The fight she'd just been in at the make-shift bar had done something for her, but he sensed something old, something unfulfilled about it.
"Such a vulgar thing," Belial murmured, gesturing to the shotgun with a clawed finger. "I rather prefer you use the whips."
Lexa pulled the trigger without another thought. The demon leaped, as the shot rang out and she heard the rustle of large wings over head. She turned abruptly only to find him behind her and she leveled the shotgun at him again.
The demon was close enough now that Lexa saw his unearthly beauty. His bare, glacially pale chest was taught with wiry muscle. Deep, crimson hair spilled around black, curling horns and down past his shoulders. It was his eyes that held Lexa in that moment. Those chilling, alluring eyes amber with black sclera and the pupils where ringed in a dark, bloody scarlet.
A Noble of Hell? The demon had to be a Noble of Hell. He was a far cry from the ugliest of demons that roamed around here on earth. He was far too pretty to be anything else. The Nobles were largely legend -- rumor and hearsay. Lexa had never actually seen one or known anyone who had ever seen one, and lived to tell about it.
"I mean you no harm, Lexa.", the demon repeated, taking a tentative step closer to her. "I have a proposal for you."
The closer he got to her, the more he sensed her arousal sharpen. Perhaps this could work out for both of them.
"That's close enough," Lexa snapped, her finger on the shotgun's trigger again. " I don't make deals with demons. I kill them."
"That's precisely why I'm here." the demon said, "I need you..."
Lexa laughed -- she actually laughed at him. This demon could rip her throat out before she even uttered a ward of protection. Yet, he only looked at her with a vague smile on his face.
The demon saw that she was ragged and tired, no doubt hungry, and bordering on hysteria of some sort. He reached out to stroke away some of her short, dark hair from her face when she dropped the shotgun, grabbed for her whip, and unfurled it with a snap of her wrist. There was a faint arcane glow to the black leather as it lanced out and snapped the demon across his arm.
"Don't touch me," she growled.
Lexa glanced up at the chilly moon over head that wasn't quite full. Had they finally figured out that she was tied to the moon? Had they sent a demon to try and seduce her? She felt that ever-present, nagging ache between her legs, the one that she was constantly forced to deny. The longer she looked on the demon's unholy beauty, the harder it was for her to resist. Guilt and repulsion washed over her and she steeled her resolve.
The demon recoiled as the sweet sting of her arcane lash burned his arm. A faint violet welt started to rise and he smiled darkly at her, showing his fangs.
"Ah...," he purred, his own ardor sparked all over again. "There it is. Such prowess; your reputation with the whip is not undeserved. I need you, Lexa. I need your...protection."
"You've got to be joking" Lexa uttered harshly, as her wrist rolled idly, her whips dancing in the dirt like an anxious snake ready to strike.
