The Pleasures of Hell

“Your girlfriend,” Tatiana said, “is going to get your new pet killed.”

Tatiana was a succubus, a volara, and also a bailiff of the Scar province. She was damn tall, as tall as the angels, with large horns — for a succubus — and a slim body and small breasts. A runway fashion model sort of build, and she knew it. She strutted with every step, red silks dangling off her body and doing an even poorer job covering her skin than the two angels and their potram runes did.

“She’s keeping an eye on him,” he said. He adjusted his own potram rune clothes, a flimsy red toga with some black jewelry, and black gladiator sandals.

Tatiana stepped closer to him, squinting down at him. She didn’t want to be on this trip, and she made damn sure he knew that. And with her so close, he was forced to look up. He was a small guy, after all, five six on a good day.

“This isn’t a time for games,” she said.

“Preaching to the choir. But Pegasus needs to learn how to move ASAP, and if he falls into a pit, Caera will save him. Or someone else will. He’s fine.” He hoped. He trusted Caera, and the logic was sound, but seeing his new pet jump near the edge of pits shot his blood pressure through the roof.

He’d never known this feeling, to be so firmly attached to something else like this, and feel ... protective. But the day Pegasus had been born, when the horse had pressed his head into David’s palm, and then cuddled up next to him, his soul had ripped in half. That very night, instead of cuddling with Caera or Jeskura and Daoka, David had held the winged horse to his side, and slept well. It was such a strange feeling.

David looked around at the group. Ahead of him walked Laoko, a ten-foot-tall titan of a woman, a bolstara tetrad; four arms, hooves, no tail or wings, and a flat-ish face that gave her a mask-like quality. Beside her walked Moriah, a mikalim angel with tan skin, red eyes, long black hair, and currently wearing her potram clothes, flimsy white, revealing silks exposing gold tattoos, and some gold jewelry.

Behind him walked Jeskura, a nearly seven-foot-tall, lean gargoyle, with her somewhat shorter lover Daoka, a satyr with no eyes. Instead of eyes, her forehead was tall, black, and merged with her four ram horns. Behind them walked Acelina, a nine-foot-tall goddess of curves on thick legs. She was the only demon David had ever seen who both had wings and hooves, and her long, thin tail slithered behind her as she walked.

But most unique was Acelina’s face. Like Daoka, she had no eyes, and had four colossal horns that merged with the solid black surface. Unlike Daoka, her entire face was black, a smooth obsidian canvas all the way down to the top of her neck. There was a scary mouth in there, wide and full of deadly sharp teeth, but unless she opened it, it was invisible, which made it all the more scary.

Between her thick legs ran four little ladies, each around four feet tall. Two impas, and two gremlas, who looked like red goblin versions of Jeskura, except two ran on hooves and had no tail. They giggled and smiled, flapped their wings, and once Acelina gave a small gesture forward, they ran ahead past the group, and chased after Pegasus. Pegasus ran away, half hopping around, frolicking. Despite their size, the Las had no trouble dealing with the weight of the few bits of black metal armor they wore. Strong little ladies.

Tsila, a slim gabriem angel, walked in back of the group, forever smiling. If Moriah looked Latina, Tsila looked Indian, with emerald eyes and a long black ponytail. But despite her eternal smile, the angel carefully avoided speaking with the six betrayers in the group, and instead focused on talking with Tatiana’s entourage of succubi and one incubus. She talked with Tacharius a lot, too, the trickster incubus who’d somehow gotten deeply involved with their group over the past month. Maybe she liked him?

And then there was Caera, who had somehow become David’s girlfriend, despite the weird romantic and sexual dynamics of their, and every demon’s, relationship. She was a tregeera, a tiger, with black spikes on her spine and on her joints. She could walk on her hind legs like other demons if she wanted, and hit over eight feet tall when she did, but tigers usually walked on all fours, with forward-pointing horns, and utterly massive, broad tails.

She was also missing an eye, a huge cut across the forehead to the cheek, given to her by Moriah. Caera didn’t hold a grudge.

And that made everyone in their weird group. The succubi, incubi, and betrayers were kind of the odd ones out. Tatiana, her three male betrayers, her incubus, and her two succubi friends. There were also Zazee, Tacharius, and their three betrayers Fuad, Natalie, and Naoko.

Naoko smiled at David. David squirmed a bit. The girl was going to get herself eaten by Caera if she kept looking at him like that.

Caera ran back up the hill to him, smiling the whole way as Pegasus and four little ladies followed her.

“He’s learning fast,” she said, and she gestured to the horse. “I know hellbeasts have to learn fast, but this is pretty damn fast. A day old and already running around.”

Pegasus pawed at the ground with a hoof a few times, making a clop sound on the dark red dirt. He hopped from side to side, stumbled again, fell on his side, and failed to catch his weight with his wings.

“Okay, maybe not so good,” she said.

David laughed, squatted down, and helped his pet get back on his hooves. The touch of Pegasus’s skin, warm and a little leathery, but full of young life, sent warmth through David’s chest. Maybe he was over-analyzing it, but every time he touched the goort, and the goort responded by pushing into David’s hand, he felt ... He didn’t know how to explain it. He just felt. Mia would probably have said something psychological. All David knew was that it’d taken a whole five damn minutes for this baby creature to become his complete focus.

Pegasus pressed up against his arm and leg, wing getting in the way and tangling itself around David’s forearm. Laughing again, David freed himself and patted the horse creature on the head, avoiding the unicorn horn that threatened to stab his palm. The goort didn’t so much neigh at him as whinny and roar at the same time, but with all the volume of a house cat’s meow. The half-roar was a good reminder he was a goort, not a horse, and in fact had sharp teeth and spikes on his dark red body.

But the look in Pegasus’s red and black eyes was nothing like the hellbeasts David had run into. There was something else going on in there. Thought? Adoration? Pegasus looked at David a few more times before rubbing his cheek into David’s hip, and David stroked the winged horse’s back and wings.

“Look at this dumb baby,” Jes said, groaning. She ran her claws along Pegasus’s further wing and flicked a pebble free of where membrane met wing finger.

Daoka chirped, stepped around David, and checked Pegasus’s other wing. The goort fluttered his wings and pressed to David’s side. Afraid? Or shy?

“Truly odd behaviour,” Laoko said from the front of the group. “Hellbeasts are mindless and concerned only with eating the resonance of humans and demons. They don’t ... do this.” The enormous demoness gestured down at the tiny horse with one of her many arms. “It’s behaving like some sort of pet from the surface world.”

“He,” David said with a playful squint, “is not a regular goort. I figured the wings were a dead giveaway.”

Laoko rolled her eyes and flicked him in the forehead. He blinked. That was a surprisingly playful response from the demon.

With a scrutinizing eye, she squatted down and looked at the horse, and Pegasus slipped behind David, putting him between the goort and the giant woman.

“I guess we have no choice but to accept it,” she said. “Hell herself crafted this unique creature just for you.”

“Indeed,” Moriah said, standing beside Laoko. Moriah was as tall as Jeskura, almost seven feet, but she looked like a child compared to the tetrad. “I guess we all owe David an apology for thinking dragging the egg along with him was a bad idea.”

Daoka clicked at Moriah, shaking her head.

The angel put up her hands. “Not everyone thought that, I suppose.”

David smiled at Daoka, stood up on his toes to kiss her cheek, and earned a chirp.

“It’s okay,” he said. “I know you guys can’t hear the music, so I must sound pretty crazy when I talk about it. I heard it, and it drew me to the egg.” With a shrug, he half turned to the horse hiding behind him and patted Pegasus’s head again. “And even I thought whatever came out might just eat me.”

Laara, Lasca, Laria, and Latia stood around Pegasus, nodding like wise sages.

“Pegasus is special,” the ever-vigilant leader of the Las, Lasca, said. “We’ll protect.”

“Yes, you will,” Acelina said. “I held that egg in my arms for weeks. It would be a ... waste, for my work to be rendered moot.” She spread her wings, and everyone took a step back to give her space, including the succubi and incubi in the back. Her wings were utterly enormous, long, and thin. She hooked her wings’ thumb-claws around her neck, and let the wings dangle behind her, like a cape.

Caera stood up on her hind legs and gave her tail a shake. “The faster Pegasus learns to run, the faster we can trust him not to die.”

“Him?” Laoko asked.

Caera shrugged. “What? David calls it him.”

“It is a hellbeast. It has no sex.”

“Neither do we, technically. I haven’t seen you give birth to any eggs, Laoko.”

Laoko chuckled and put her hands on her hips. Wide hips. She almost had Acelina’s absurd curves.

“Touché.”

David blinked again. Laoko never talked like that either. Was she ... happy?

---

Come night, or at least what passed for night in a place with a burning sky, David carved two large caves into the ground, complete with ceilings so they could hide in safety. In one cave, it was him and the girls: Caera, Moriah and Tsila, Jes and Daoka, Laoko and Acelina, and the Las. In the other: Tatiana, her incubus and two succubi friends, her three male betrayers, Zazee and her betrayers Fuad and Naoko, and Tacharius and his betrayer Natalie.

Judging from the sound and through the thin stone wall David had crafted between the caves, the other group spent their nights having sex. Which meant his group had to deal with quiet moans and groans, and the sex demons had unusually musical, delicious-sounding moans. If not for Pegasus, David would undoubtedly have been aroused by the sounds and had sex with his girls.

Everyone sat against the cave walls, with enough space to be comfortable. A small hole in the ceiling let in fresh air and what little light the ember sky gave at night. Pegasus trotted around in circles in the middle, circling the light in the middle as if he could catch it, including pawing at it. Clop clop. But he gave up after a few failed attempts and fell to his knees between David’s legs.

Pegasus was just a baby goort, but that was still a large animal, as large as a Great Dane dog, and David had to spread his legs wide to give his pet room.

“Las think,” Lasca said, raising a hand and wing in tandem, “that we should sex the volas. Succubi and incubi hot. Bring here, have sex? Make them sex us! David has aura. Big orgy like last time!”

David face palmed. “We’re on a quest to save the universe, Lasca. Not to have orgies every night.”

Moriah snorted. “David. You are a strange creature with your own auras, almost always sexual, and the ability to grow a second penis. Do not lie and tell us you don’t want to have an orgy every moment you can.”

“Hey! I resent that accusation.” He did his best frown and half hugged the giant tiger lying beside him. “I am a one-gal kinda guy.”

Moriah raised an eyebrow and gestured at the room. “One man. Eleven women.”

“That’s not—”

“And one hellbeast,” Latia added. The tiny little lady, skinniest of the girls, wandered over to Pegasus and sat by his tail. She teased it, and the tail flopped to the side, Pegasus uncaring that someone was playing with it, and unaware his tail reacted on its own.

“And one hellbeast,” David said, and he patted the goort’s head as Pegasus set it on David’s thigh. “And I’m not the only guy in the group! There’s Tacharius.”

Again, Moriah gestured at the room, this time with a wing. “He’s with Tatiana’s group now. You wanted all the women for yourself.”

Laoko grinned. “If that were true, David would have the volaras and the female betrayers in here, as well.”

“Nah,” Jes said. “David wants to fuck everyone with a cunt, but he trusts us. He doesn’t trust them.”

The conversation was spiralling fast, and all David could do was rub his face with his hands. But thankfully Caera came to his rescue, and she licked his cheek.

“David,” she said, “is a horny young man.” Okay, maybe not rescue. “But I think he likes us more than the others.” Okay, maybe rescue?

He nodded vehemently. “I trust you all.”

Laoko scoffed. “Please do not trust so mindlessly.”

“Okay, maybe not you, but I mostly trust you all. I don’t trust the volas or their betrayers.”

Acelina shrugged and scooped the Las back with her hands, dragging the little ladies away from Pegasus and giving the tired goort some peace.

“What about that Naoko girl?” the spire mother asked. “She obviously wants to have sex with you, David.”

Trainwreck incoming, David put up a hand. “I think she just wants someone who isn’t a demon or betrayer on her side.”

“I don’t know,” Tsila said. The gabriem angel smiled, idly combing a feathered wing laid across her lap. “I’ve seen the look in her eyes, young man. She is attracted to you. Sexually.”

He winced.

Laoko lay on her side, torso in the middle of the cave, and she smiled at David as she traced two hands’ worth of claws along the floor. “Of course. All women are attracted to a man of power and action. Even little ones like you.”

Before he could rant or defend himself, Laoko laughed, a pleasant sound. Normally, the enormous tetrad always had a certain distant air about her, but now, she seemed pretty relaxed. It was a nice change of pace.

“I think it would be fun,” she said, “to include the young woman. Not as one of your lovers, of course; she is only a betrayer, after all. But humans are delightful little sex toys. I imagine even Caera here would enjoy picking Naoko up and using her body on your length.”