The Pleasures of Hell 01.005

~~David~~

David and the three demons walked alongside a mountain cliff face, rock on their right and a steep drop into the red river on their left. Caera walked with David on all fours, Daoka behind them, Jeskura ahead. The path had taken them higher and higher, until a good few hundred meters of falling awaited for anyone who stepped in the wrong spot, either by rolling down the mountain, or straight into one of the many ravines. But at least there weren't any flying, er, gliding demons this high up, and the chances they'd stumble onto hunting demons, or humans, this high up was low as well.

He had a giant penis.

He grinned to himself. Every time the memory came up, he wanted to laugh, and he had to fight to keep it down. Of all the weird things to happen to him in the past few days, getting sent to Hell was horrible, and getting a giant penis was awesome. What the fuck?

"Last time I walked a path like this," Caera said, "three years ago, I stumbled onto a gorujin."

"What do they look like?" he asked.

"One of the tetrad, so, big. Must have been ten feet tall at least, with two giant wings. Four huge horns and a long tail. Big sword."

That did sound pretty awesome. Scary, but awesome.

"Do demons usually use weapons?"

"Not usually. Hard to use them without practice, when you have wings and spikes and claws getting in the way. And they lack the satisfaction of grabbing flesh with your own hands and ripping it apart."

He blinked down at the prowling tiger woman, and she grinned up at him.

"You're scaring me."

"Good. I'm playing nice, but make no mistake, demons love violence. We love the sensation of skin and muscle tearing apart, and bones breaking under our grip. Even Daoka loves it."

David looked back, and Daoka clicked softly at him as she smiled. But she did nod after a couple seconds, hopped in closer, and pat his head once.

"It's still a lot better than I figured demons would be," he said, smiling at the satyr. "I mean, not that I expected demons to actually exist, but, yeah. Much better."

Daoka's grin brightened, and she rubbed the back of his head with the side of her curling horns, before getting back into position.

"The gorujin was skinning another tregeera's skull at the time," Caera said. "If I had to guess, the gorujin was Romakus."

"Romakus?"

"He's been making trouble for the spires this side of Hell. Probably a member of the Damall."

"Damall?"

Caera laughed. "You were right, Jes."

"Told you," Jes said between chuckles. "Dude just can't stop."

Hearing a demon say 'dude' was never going to sound normal.

"The Damall," Caera continued, "is a group of troublemakers. When one spire gets uppity and tries to spread its borders, the Damall have a habit of showing up and giving them a hard time."

"That... is a strange goal for an organization. They do this for all the spires?"

"Yes."

"Weird."

"Yes."

"Okay, next question. You want help killing the Cainites. Who are they?"

It took her a second to answer. Sensitive topic, or he was asking too many questions. Both, probably.

"Humans who are devoted to Cain."

"Devoted to Cain? So not exactly real Cainites then, from human history?"

"I'm not sure. Cain was a real person," Caera said. "Died tens of thousands of years ago."

"On the surface?"

"Well, yes, but also in Hell. I don't have any of the details, no one does, but back then he managed to stir enough humans and demons to his cause, he prepared to assault Heaven. Cain's War."

He stared down at the tiger woman. A human did that?

"I'm sorry, what?"

Caera managed a shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine. It's not written anywhere how he accomplished any of the shit he did, but he did some amazing shit. He had all eight spires working for him, and he'd taken False Gate for himself. His plan was to use the vortex, but how, no one knows."

"And the Cainites down here worship him?"

It'd probably forever eat at him that they called them that, when they weren't actually Cainites or Cainians. What little he knew about the real sect was that they didn't actually worship Cain, but considered him important to their views, and they had a lot of gnostic beliefs. But, whatever, roll with it.

"Sort of. They think Cain had the right idea about one particular thing."

"Yeah?"

"Humans can ascend and become stronger than they are by eating demons... and angels."

"Angels too? What the fuck? Does eating a demon even have a benefit?"

"Far as I know, no," Caera said. "Humans do occasionally kill a demon and eat them, but I haven't seen any humans get stronger for it."

"Me neither," Jes said. "Just a full belly."

Daoka clicked twice.

"But an angel," Caera said, "that I don't know. No one's eaten an angel. At least, I don't think so. Any demons who did died ages ago, and I haven't found anything written about them, either."

He nodded as he looked down, stroked his chin, and watched his toes find grooves in the rocks to walk on. So, Hell had its own organizations, like rebel groups, and raiders, and cultists, and probably other things. And--

"Eight spires?" he asked.

"What?"

"You said Cain got eight spires? You mentioned earlier about the Nine Spires War?"

Caera smiled. "You paid attention."

"He's the brainy type," Jes said. "Another reason we're keeping him around."

"The ninth spire," Caera said. "The forgotten spire, in the Forgotten Place. Middle of Hell, an island in that sea. No one goes there anymore."

"No one?"

"No one. The sea can't be crossed."

"Just... can't be crossed?"

"Can't be crossed. If you ever get near the inner shore, you'll see why."

He frowned as he looked down again. That was a shitty answer, but Caera was already answering many of his questions, and if she thought that answer was good one, it must have been.

"Sounds like an important place. Too important to be forgotten."

"Yes. Ironic, right?"

"So there's eight spires in use, then? Eight rulers?"

"Yes. Zelandariel rules Death's Grip. Clockwise, the Grave Valley is ruled by Azailia. Counter-clockwise, Alessio rules the Black Valley."

"Grave Valley and Black Valley? Sounds like we're surrounded by a necromancer's wet dream." Oh shit. "That... That isn't a thing, right? Necromancers?"

"Fuck me I hope not," Jes said. "Zombies are scary."

"Damn scary," Caera said, nodding, as if what she said made perfect sense and wasn't the most ridiculous thing David had ever heard.

"You guys know you're demons, right? Super strong? Lift big rocks and tear people apart like they're made of tissue paper?"

Daoka hopped in closer and unleashed a flurry of clicks. Hand gestures included running, chasing, and something that looked like falling and being swarmed.

"Daoka's right," Caera said. "A few billion human corpses, with probably no resonance to eat, walking after every demon, endless? That's horrifying!"

He threw up his hands. This place was crazy. These ladies were crazy.

"How about Jesus?" he asked. "Did he exist?"

"I've never found runes talking about him," Caera said. "Why would someone like that be in Hell?"

"Touché. I--"

The mountains broke away, a valley opening between them as the path rounded the corner of the cliff. Hell, was massive. The mountains were massive, and some of them were two, maybe three times as tall as the one they were only maybe a third of the way up now, but in front of them it all opened up and pulled apart. No mountains blocked his view, at all, and while the hazy heat of Hell warped everything, he could see, and see, and see.

Hell, was flat. It didn't have a horizon. Past the valley and the enormous spire structure inside it, the valley didn't come up high enough to block his vision of what lay beyond. Something black, and long. The Black Valley. To his left was the inner sea, but he couldn't see it with mountains in the way. To his right was the ocean that surrounded the big donut of Hell, but he couldn't see that either with more mountains in the way. But facing Hell's counter-clockwise, he could see all the way through Death's Grip, kilometers upon kilometers away, hundreds, maybe a thousand or two, to where the Black Valley's outer edge touched the outer ocean in the distance. The heat blurred it all. But it was endless, and somewhere in the distance the surface of Hell and the burning sky merged.

There was no horizon. The distance went on and on and blended in a seam, like a weird painting your eyes got lost in.

For the first time in his life, vertigo hit him, and he snapped his hand out to catch his weight against the cliff wall. Away from the death fall, thankfully.

Daoka hopped up behind him and helped stand him straight, clicking away like a worried hen.

"I'm fine. I... I just, didn't realize how... strange that would look."

"Strange for you," Jes said, chuckling. "I don't understand how people on the surface can stand living on a big rock ball floating around in endless nothingness. That doesn't make you sick?"

He couldn't help but laugh a little at that. Laughter was good. It helped settle his heart rate he didn't notice spiking.

"It did get a little overwhelming thinking about it sometimes," he said. "Just, a big ball of rock, pulling us down with gravity, floating around in a big emptiness. Here, it's... it's not that, is it? It's almost like, it's more solid than the surface world, in a strange way." The opposite of the floating islands of Heaven.

"Hell is the bottom of the Great Tower," Caera said. "It makes sense it feels more anchored."

Finally, more Q and A.

"What is the Great Tower?"

"No one knows."

Fuck.

"Really?"

Caera nodded, and prowled ahead. He jogged after her.

"It's an old term that gets thrown around, but no one knows what it means. Maybe the angels do, but down here, all anyone knows is the Great Tower, sometimes called the Forlorn Tower, has three levels. Hell, the surface, and Heaven."

"Forlorn..."

"Like I said," Jes said, "if God or whoever was ever around, they aren't anymore. Fucker fucked up and left us." The gargoyle flapped her wings, jumped ahead, and resumed leading their little group along the high mountain path.

"I can't believe that," David said. "He, or they, couldn't have just left. You don't go creating universes and then just leave them. Right?"

Daoka clicked a few times, lower pitched than usual. She didn't sound convinced.

"Whatever happened," Caera said, "it happened fucking ages ago, long before Cain's War. I haven't even found a rune referencing a rune about when God left or where they went. But they're gone, that's for sure. Gone, or happy to hide and do fuck all."

That was damn depressing, but also, an interesting mystery. Judging from what the demons were saying, the fact God existed was taken as a given. But was it? Hell apparently wanted people with 'evil' resonance, and Heaven wanted people who had 'good' resonance, but that didn't necessarily prove God existed, just that humans, demons, and angels existed on planes that had their own ecosystem. For all he knew, the Great Tower could have been created from the big bang, or some equivalent.

Then again, he was trying to rationalize that God might not exist, while in Hell.

"So, the Great Tower," he said. "Jes said I might only have to die once to go back to it? Because I don't have a mark?"

"She means going back to it so it can spit you back out again. I haven't found a rune about it, but it does seem what most demons assume happens. Your deaths in Hell cleanse you, and then you go to the Great Tower, clean and ready for another round. Or maybe you get broken down and used as fuel for a new wave of souls."

Another point for the ecosystem theory.

"So souls are like fertilizer for new souls?"

Caera shrugged. "No one knows, David. At least not down here. Maybe the angels know more, but down here, all we have are old runes that most demons don't even know how to read anymore. Very old forms of Estian, and some runes I don't even recognize."

"Estian, the language we're all speaking right now."

Doaka clicked once.

"Sorry. Except Daoka." He smiled back at the satyr, and she returned it.

"Yes," Caera said. "Everyone understands it, but like surface languages it has a nasty habit of evolving over centuries."

"Problematic."

The tiger demon grinned up at him. "Very."

He returned the grin. She liked the way he talked. He liked the way she talked. It was nice talking to a demon who cared about things like details, or the past, someone who wanted to figure out how things worked, and why.

Plus, she was beautiful. She had a slender-ish sort of face, like Daoka, but he could see a little more age there, maturity, like a milf. Or, cougar. A tiger cougar. He forced himself to not laugh. And unlike Daoka, who had slender, small lips, Caera's mouth was wide, and every time she spoke he could see her many, many sharp teeth, like a cross between a shark's and crocodile's.

"Jeskura," he said. "She said I could see the vortex if we got high enough."

"We're not nearly high enough for that."

"Damn."

"And from this far it's just a tiny vertical line in the distance."

"Damn damn."

Caera laughed. "All these questions about Hell. I figured you'd be more interested in trying to figure out why you're special."

"I am. I need details about how everything works, so I can put together the infrastructure in my head. Turn the black box into a white box. Once I understand why things do what they do, and then what they'd do if certain variables were changed, I can deduce what's going on with me and Mia. The more information I have, the more..."

Jeskura stopped and stared at him. Daoka stared at him, in her own way. Caera stared up at him, eyebrow raised.

He groaned. "Just, keep giving me information and eventually I'll be able to figure out what's going on. Hopefully."

"He's one of those thinker types," Jes said, rolling her eyes before resuming down the path. "Gonna bore me to death."

"Thinker types have a habit of dying quick down here," Caera said. "You don't respond fast enough when shit hits the fan."

He winced. Like when he hadn't helped Jes and Dao with the humans.

"But," Caera continued, "I'll do what I can to keep you alive, and deal with Diogo. Then I'll have two unmarked with me when I get those Cainian sheep. And from there, we--"

Daoka clicked several times, loud and rapidfire.

"Yes yes we can figure out what to do about Tacitus, too. Either way, I want to see what happens with these unmarked. I definitely want to see why you have this strange... large aura, that gives us a tingling sensation."

"It changes a lot when he's horny," Jes said. "Like... from being around a gentle breeze, to a getting swept up in a fucking tornado."

"You guys get tornadoes down here?"

"Sometimes," Caera said. "Rare, but they happen. Deadly. Lots of fire."

"Scary."

Daoka clicked once. She thought so, too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As much as part of him was looking forward to experiencing last night again, lots of sex with his new awesome amazing best-thing-ever giant penis, the trek took them up higher, and by the time the fire sky dimmed and the amber veins in the rocks softened, they were exhausted. Strong as demons were compared to humans, they tired just as easily. More easily, maybe.

They found a vertical crevice in the mountain wall, and slipped inside. Before he knew it, he collapsed on his ass, and let out a long groan.

"I keep expecting to get hungry," he said. "I mean, if I don't need to eat except to heal injuries, which makes no sense by the way, then why do I get tired? Where's the line between injury and exhaustion, biologically speaking?"

Jes sat across from him, the crevice meaning their legs touched and passed each other, and she rolled her eyes.

"This kid, I swear. Just accept it and adapt."

Daoka clicked a few times as she sat down, with him, not Jes, which earned another eye roll from the gargoyle. Chuckling, Dao gave Jes a playful grin, and snuggled into David's side. She rubbed her closest horn against the top of his head, and put a quick kiss on his ear. Okay, maybe he wasn't too exhausted?

Caera slumped down on the ground, flat out on her stomach with arms and legs splayed out, like a cat, or maybe a dog, giving in to total exhaustion. Thankfully she did it at the entrance of the crevice ten feet away, or her claws would have slammed right into the side of Dao's legs.

"Hell is a reflection of the surface," Caera said. "How that works, I don't know. But Hell changes as the surface changes, and it warps the rules. Sleep when you're tired, but being tired doesn't drain essence. Not in humans, at least. Demons burn through their essence pretty quick, and we burn through resonance replenishing it. At this rate, I'll need to eat in a day or two."

Hell was a reflection of the physical world? Which meant, the surface world was ground zero, the starting point? Did Heaven work the same way as Hell? How did any of that fit into the Great Tower idea?

Caera didn't know the answers, so he didn't ask. She knew a lot, and a lot wasn't enough.

"Resonance and essence," he said. "Anything I should know about them?"

The tiger lady managed a weak shrug. "Not really. I assume Jes and Dao already told you how the basics work?"

"Mhmm. But I don't really get... like... how resonance works. Why do humans have it? What is it?"

"We don't know. Everything I know about resonance is just repeated word of mouth. Humans are probably born with resonance, and alter it during life. It's the measure of how good or bad a person you were. If you're more bad than good, you come to Hell, and die, and die, and die, until the last bit of the bad resonance is wiped away. Supposedly."

"The numbers on people's foreheads represents how bad they were."

"Exactly. But having a higher number doesn't mean you have more resonance, just that what you have is more tainted, and tastier." She managed a weak grin. "It takes longer and longer to correct, so you have to die more."

He shivered, remembering how awful remnants had it. At least it wasn't eternal torture, but being used as mortar in a wall of stones, bleeding and screaming, for who knew how many days, or years, only to have to do it again and again? Fucking terrifying.

"Hell is wiping people clean before sending them to the Great Tower, to get reborn, or turned into fertilizer for new souls? Why?"

Another shrug.

"You know all we know, now. You're asking the big questions most demons just don't care about, and we couldn't answer even if we did. I've spent a hundred years digging through ruins and old tunnels. I've been all the way to Angel's Spine, and I've seen the edge of The Red Pits. I've never, ever found any sort of explanation for why God set things up the way they did, David. They just did."

The most infuriating answer. 'Because'. But it wasn't her fault, so he sighed and groaned a little, leaned back against the wall, and closed his eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~Day 19~~

~~Mia~~

It happened again.

Instead of waking up to the quiet chirping of her smartphone bird alarm, her LED lights slowly turning on, and the dread of having to go to morning classes, she woke up to a sky of embers growing into flames, and she was surrounded by grunts and moans.

Day three of their trek. One more night and they'd arrive at the spire late tomorrow, according to Scilra. Mia had no idea how to feel about that, or how she felt waking up to an orgy, again.

~~♥♥♥~~

Adron and Hannah were only a few feet away, quietly fucking, Hannah lying on Adron's chest on her back. The angle really pushed the bulge on her stomach up and out, turning it from subtle to blatant. And because Mia was a moron, she lifted her head enough to get a look down and along Hannah's gorgeous naked body, and down between her legs. Adron wasn't in her slit. The angle hid it from view, but seeing Hannah squirm and pant in bliss as Adron fucked her ass, sent more tingles through Mia's body.