Page 7 of Fiends and Familiars
Yeth took off with his tail between his legs, and I renewed my efforts to punish the scammer.
“It’s impossible to get good help,” I complained to the man. “Maybe I should send Barghest instead. Or Cerberus.”
The man moaned.
“I know, I know. Still, I shouldn’thaveto go myself to do such a thing.”
I really shouldn’t, but perhaps I was trusting Yeth a bit more than I should. With his fear of birds and his apparent weakness of being bribed by meat products, I worried he might fail once more.
“Here.” I handed the whip to the scammer. “Keep hitting yourself with this. I’ve got something I need to do.”
Heading out into the mists, I made my way past the torture rings and into the residential areas of hell. I didn’t often use my home because work was so incredibly enjoyable. Why would I want to do something such as sleep or socialize when I lived for my job? There was no need for hobbies when my nine-to-five was my hobby. When you love what you do, then it’s not really work, is it?
But for this I needed to concentrate, and that was hard to do with souls screaming and wailing.
My residence was a bit stark and smelled of brimstone—which was understandable since it had probably been two months since I’d been there. I brushed the ashes off my bed and sprawled across the crimson sheets, resting my horned head on the pillow. Just a quick peek, and then I’d get back to that scammer. I’d just project myself into the mortal plane, using Yeth’s location for guidance. Once he had Faust’s soul, then I’d return to my work. But if the hellhound got distracted by liver treats or scary giant parakeets, then he was going to find himself the one drinking a quart of spoiled milk and running on the treadmill.
I closed my eyes and projected myself, racing through the ether, across the fields and to a completely unremarkable neighborhood. If I hadn’t seen Yeth skulking his way across the lawn, I would never have known this was the house. They all looked exactly the same. What a perfect place for Faust to hide. With a blink my spirit was inside the house, inside a bedroom that did not smell like brimstone and did not have ashes on the sheets. I took a second to orient myself, and noticed the truly giant bird on the footboard of the bed.
Huh. I guess Yeth wasn’t exaggerating after all. That reallywasone big-ass bird. I waited a second to see if the vulture could see me, but he remained asleep. Reassured, I opened up my senses and took it all in. There was a lingering scent of buttery popcorn coming from outside the bedroom, and a stronger aroma of vanilla and ginger inside. The bedroom was a bit of a mess with clothes tossed in piles, and wrinkled clean laundry in a basket. A dresser sat off to the side with cosmetics, a few books, and a bra on top. I couldn’t help but pick up the bra, because hey, I might be a demon, but I’m a guy. And I’m nosy.
It wasn’t a very exciting bra. Nothing lacy or red or silky. It looked like the kind of underwear human females wore when jogging or going to their gyms. I heard something stir, and quickly put the bra back.
The noise came from the bed. I glided over, hoping to find Faust under the covers with the woman who owned the utilitarian bra, but there was only one occupant in the bed—the woman. I caught my breath, thinking I had been very, very wrong in my assumptions about this woman from her choice in bras. But before I could do more than admire her silky auburn hair, I was sucked unwillingly into a dreamland.
By Satan’s leathery wings I hated this. Human dreams blew. You never knew what you were going to end up doing. I could wind up salsa dancing with an elephant, or I could find myself discussing embroidery with a blue-haired woman who smelled like medical ointment. But this time I found myself chasing the woman through the woods.
Oh, hell yeah. Nowthiswas a good dream. She was wearing a gauzy white thing that did nothing to hide the sweet curves of her ass as she ran. Her auburn hair swung around her shoulders, her bare feet pounding through the leaves on the dirt trail. Just as I was closing in on the woman, the dream changed. Suddenly we were beside a truck. The woman faced me, and I’ll admit I was suddenly struck speechless.
I’d thought she was beautiful as she slept, but here, awake in a dream, she was gorgeous. She was fucking jaw-dropping sexy in that gauzy thing that was suddenly so short it barely covered her crotch. Not that it mattered. I could see her long muscular legs, her round breasts, the curve of her hips and the slim line of her waist as if she were standing naked right before me. Her mouth opened, and I found myself transfixed by her lips.
Then she screamed and began throwing cages at me—cages that opened and encased me, trapping me in a mesh of wires. I’ll admit, it only turned me on further. For her, a human, to face down a horned, glowing-eyed demon and try to cage him? That took some serious balls. Or the female equivalent.
I melted the metal of the cages, only to have her continue to throw them at me. Just as I was beginning to think I was going to spend the whole night breaking out of cages, this sexy woman moved away, the dream changed again and I found myself once more chasing her down.
But this time it was different. It was almost as if she wanted me to catch her. The white gauze vanished and she was naked, her pace about half of what it had been before. I easily caught up to her, inhaling the smell of the vanilla and ginger lotion on her skin as I wrapped my arms around her and took her to the ground.
Only we weren’t on the ground. We were in her bed, and her warm brown eyes stared into mine, filled with desire. It was as if she wove a spell around me, as if I were trapped far more securely than those wire cages could ever have done. By all that was unholy, I wanted this woman. I rubbed against her, everything but my need for her fading from my mind. Then just as I was about to seal the deal, an infernal sound filled my ears. Some horriblekuk-kuknoise. The woman vanished from under me and I fell—fell through the ether and back to the ashy sheets of my own room. The smell of popcorn and lotion was replaced by that of brimstone. I sat bolt upright in my bed, now knowing why Yeth had been so afraid of that bird, why he’d been seduced by the liver treats and rib bones.
Seduced.I’dbeen seduced as well, and not by scraps of food. Me, Master of the Hellhounds.
I’d been seduced by a witch.
