had no taste for my flesh or my habits, so our paths never crossed in my torments.
“General,” I said, resisting the urge to flinch as I bowed, my neck bared for his great beak to snap. I knew he wouldn’t. Kimaris didn’t want me dead or broken by any hand but his own.
“Tsuccubuts,” Gamaeron clacked. “You turned against ussss, eater.”
“I killed one measly little general,” I said, rising and trying to find a cheeky smile to wear on my face as I shrugged. “It’s not like it would’ve been the first time.”
Hell warred with itself more often than not, especially in the centuries of its captivity in its own realm. Only now that it had claimed Earth had the legions and armies and kings been so fucking harmonious with each other.
“You have orders to take me back,” I said, as Gamaeron turned his head to stare at me through one milky red eye. “And here I am. Bet you haven’t had a day’s work this easy in a while, right, Gam?”
“I have orderts to retrieve you, yesss. And orderts to burn the little human tsettlement. Orderts to reclaim the angel for our Majesssty.”
I blinked at Gamaeron feigning innocence. “Oh yeah? That place? I just got done corrupting it.”
This caused stirrings of excitement from the crowd of hellions around us and Gamaeron cocked his head in interest.
“Oh yeah. Three priests broke their vows. Got some sodomy going too,” I said, hating myself with every little word. “Stirred up suspicion and jealousy. Broke a devout man’s faith in God.”
I hoped this was worth their safety. It had to be.
“But, you know. It got to be a little bit repetitive by the end. Profanities, fucking, threesomes, yada yada yada. I’m ready to return,” I said, my chest burning as I struggled for breath, holding Gamaeron’s too-canny gaze. “To Hell. To my Lord Kimaris.”
I bowed again, letting my eyes squeeze shut, my mouth vise-tight as I tried to bury the urge to be sick on the ground with my own lies.
Gamaeron hummed in thought and the sound was the wheeze of one hundred men’s dying breaths.
Please let this be enough, I thought, starting to rise.
And then with a rustle of sharp feathers, a hoof came down on my back like an anvil, pinning me to the ground and snapping a rib.
“I don’t believe you, eater,” Gamaeron snapped, and the hellions screamed with new excitement. “Let us tsee for ourselts, hmm?” His hoof twisted and ground into my spine, the pain blinding. “You were kind enough to leave an opening in the gate for uts, yesssss?”
No, and I never would! My scream was lost in the dirt as he pressed me into the ground. My arms and legs flailed at my sides in panic. The army would not be able to enter, but if they got close enough, a spark of hellfire could torch homes, the church, everything.
The hellions’ screams rose higher, scratching at my eardrums, and with them came a strange and horribly familiar whooshing sound.
“Hey, bird brain! Release her!” Azariah boomed from overhead.
I groaned as Gamaeron’s hoof pressed harder, suddenly regretting how much energy I had spent before leaving Bethel, unable to lift myself up. The ground was growing brighter, glowing, and I couldn’t tell if I was on the edge of blacking out or if—
“I will burn every one of these creepy-crawly little rat bastards in the meantime,” Az warned.
The pain hellion’s screams were at a fever pitch, shields dropping to the ground, plastic bags tearing and shredding as they began to boil under Azariah’s holy light. I cringed as one melted into those poisonous little worms in front of my face, and then gasped as Gamaeron stepped off of me, only to grab me up in the scorpion pincer of his tail, hanging me over the ground.
Azariah was shining in the air above me, John raised in his hand—wait, that fucker had taken my sword?!
“Az, go back, you dickhead,” I screamed.
“In league with angelssss, eater?” Gamaeron bellowed, thrashing his tail and shaking me, my ribs jostling horribly.
“Just this one,” Az said, a bright grin popping onto his face even as his brow remained furrowed with worry.
“Azariah, I am going back to Hell,” I snapped, glaring at him, crying out as Gamaeron’s tail bit harder into my shoulder, blue blood rushing from the wound.
“Fucking are not,” Az snapped.
I growled, ignoring the scream of pain, all the resistance of my weak form, to throw my good arm out and grab at the pincer,