Succubus lord 19, p.5
Succubus Lord 19, page 5
I sprang out of my roll, pulled back my sword, and took a stab at Pestilence’s stomach.
The horseman lurched to the side and completely avoided my blade, and as he did so, he summoned black flames into his left hand and then pressed it right up against my face.
I quickly commanded the ground beneath us to quake with bronze Hellfire, and the fucker’s napalm attack arched into the sky as he stumbled backward. I tossed up a wall of purple flames above my head as the incendiary Hellfire rained down on my position, and then I took another swing at my opponent.
Pestilence tried to jump out of the path of the attack, but this time he was a bit too slow.
My glowing white blade dragged across his stomach, and he screamed as it left a giant, cauterized burn mark in the flesh beneath his kimono. However, it wasn’t enough for a killing blow.
I rolled to the right seconds before another blast of napalm went off, and the heat washed over me as pain shot through my wings. Thankfully, my friends still had my back, and Isabella sent out another round of covering fire.
When I flipped back to my feet, I saw Pestilence raise his hands in the direction of Isabella, Aruna, and my two Demon Lords. He snapped his fingers, and I instantly threw a cube of purple flames around his spell as it exploded.
This guy may not have been the best fighter, but he was fairly good at playing defense. Even when all five of us went on the offensive, even after we’d taken out his horse, we couldn’t take this son of a bitch down.
We all only had one single weapon that could hurt Pestilence, so we couldn’t pull from our normal bag of tricks.
That was when it hit me.
My bronze flames may not have affected Pestilence, but it sure as fuck affected the ground he’d stood on. That meant we could still use our signature spells. We just needed to figure out how to use them in more… Creative ways.
And I already had my first idea.
“Mirage!” I called out to the former madame as I ran across the battlefield. “Multiply Isabella!”
“But the clones won’t be able to do any--” the woman began, but I cut her off.
“Just do it!” I commanded.
I blocked another spray of napalm Hellfire with my purple flames as Pestilence continued his charge. Then I watched as Mirage ran over to Isabella, summoned green Hellfire into her hands, and grabbed onto the BPI agent’s shoulders.
“What are you--” Isabella looked back over her shoulder, but Mirage cut her off with a hiss.
Suddenly, an emerald mist began to spread out from Mirage’s hands and cascaded down to the ground. The mist scattered about twenty feet in each direction around the two combatants, and then it began to take shape. Within seconds, the battlefield was filled with twenty different Isabellas.
“You think I’m an idiot?” Pestilence scoffed as he let loose another blast. “Your clones can’t hurt me.”
“Nope,” Mirage agreed. “But the real one can.”
I parried Pestilence’s attack with another shield of purple before I lifted my hand, surrounded Isabella with green Hellfire, and then made her disappear into the abyss.
Seconds after I did, so Mirage snapped her fingers, and all of the clones clustered together into a massive group.
Then I commanded my interdimensional magic to let her out somewhere in the crowd, and the real Isabella returned to the fray.
Of course, none of us had any idea which one was real.
And neither did our enemy.
Aruna flung her Chakram at Pestilence, who simply rolled away from the projectile. Before her enemy could let out another napalm blast, the Rakshasi surrounded herself in ectoplasm, turned into a black-and-white tiger, and then pounced.
Pestilence’s eyes went wide when he saw the apex predator approaching, and he instantly dove out of the way.
All the while, the Isabella clones started to dash off in opposite directions, and they formed a wide circle of bodies around the horseman.
Aruna didn’t go back in for a second attack. Instead, she kept running until she was completely clear of the makeshift firing squad.
As Pestilence jumped back onto his feet, he summoned black Hellfire into his hands and then looked around hopelessly. He tried to attack one of the Isabellas, but it simply disappeared into a puff of green smoke.
Before he could get off another attack, the rest of the BPI Agents raised their pistols and unleashed Hell. The battlefield was filled with the sound of rapid gunfire as they all unloaded their magazines at the bastard, but the bullets that came from any of the illusions were completely harmless and passed through his body like a fist through fog.
But the bullets that came from the real Isabella tore through Pestilence like a hot knife through butter.
The fucker’s torso was turned into swiss cheese as bullets pierced him through the chest and then burst through his back with a gory splash of blood. Pestilence let out a gurgled gasp as he stumbled backward a few steps, weakly raised his hand toward the real Isabella, and prepared to take her out with one final act of defiance.
Not on my watch, asshole.
I was now only about twenty feet away from the horseman, so I sprang up into the air, pulled back my sword, and slashed it as hard as I could into the fucker’s neck. My glowing blade sizzled as it passed through Pestilence’s neck like a hot knife through butter, and the horseman’s head flew up into the air with an unceremonious pop. While it was still airborne, I flipped my sword, took aim, and came up in an upward slash.
The blade sliced Pestilence’s noggin clean in half, and the two sides of his severed head plopped onto the ground like a split-open coconut.
“Holy fuck,” I sighed as I looked down at the horseman’s corpse. “Good shooting, Isabella.”
“Did you actually think I’d miss?” Isabella scoffed, and then she blew on the barrel of her pistol. “At this close range?”
“I’m just glad you waited until I was out of the line of fire,” Aruna chuckled as she walked up to the BPI Agent.
“We can’t celebrate yet,” I warned my friends as I turned back to the rest of the battlefield. “There are still three fucking horsemen to go.”
“Shall we divide and conquer?” Mirage suggested.
“Probably,” I noted, but then I got an insidious thought. “We have to go about this in a smart way. I want to interrogate one of these bastards.”
“Fuck, Jacob,” Isabella groaned. “I wish you would have said that sooner. That one we just killed was a prime candidate to give up secret information. He may have acted all tough, but I’ve been in this field long enough to know he would have squawked like a blue jay the second we actually started to torture him.”
“He was too dangerous to be left alive.” I shook my head. “Even if we’d captured him, he would just keep trying to napalm us. Plus, we’d be really limited by our forms of ‘torture,’ since ninety percent of our spells don’t work on him.”
“Who do you suggest, then?” Inpulsa questioned.
“Obviously not Death,” Aruna said as she pointed at the horseman with the scythe. “We just killed the only one who understands him.”
“Imp go splat!” War cackled from way across the battlefield as we watched him continue to chase the red and black blur that was Todd.
“He’s a no-go, too,” I chuckled. “I don’t think he even knows what’s going on inside that tiny little brain of his.”
“Then that just leaves Famine,” Aruna confirmed. “I shall go inform the others not to kill him.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Inpulsa snorted. “Ira and Lunacio are having the time of their lives right now.”
Sure enough, the two women were still laughing wildly as they had the life literally drained from their bodies, healed themselves, and then started all over.
Meanwhile, the rest of the team fighting against Famine looked bored as fuck. Oliver, Jane, and Superbia wore unamused expressions on their faces, and they unenthusiastically tossed balls of Hellfire at their opponent.
“Yeaaaaahhhhh.” I whistled. “Maybe you guys should swoop in and try and end that fight quickly.”
“I’m on it, King Ralston.” Aruna nodded, and then she ran toward the action.
“We’re on it,” Inpulsa confirmed before she took to the sky and flew after Aruna.
“What do you want us to do, my love?” Mirage asked.
“You go help those guys with big boy over there.” I pointed at the massive crowd of demons who were trying to fight with War. “They need all the help they can get. Isabella? Maybe you should try to find John. He took off when the battle began, and now I’m kinda worried he’s lying dead in the house or something.”
“I’ll find him.” The BPI Agent rolled her eyes. “Even if that means I’m going to be a glorified babysitter.”
“Thanks, Isabella,” I teased the woman in a playful tone.
Isabella turned back toward the house and took off in search of John Zeitmann. Meanwhile, Mirage took flight and darted straight for War, with her short, stubby gladius sword in her hand.
Which meant I was gonna help our angels conquer Death.
Chapter 4
I instinctively tried to take flight, but a sharp, searing pain shot through my back. Oh, yeah. My wings were fried.
Thankfully, Death and his pale skeleton horse were not aerial combatants, so I could totally take them out on foot.
Ariel and Deja seemed completely preoccupied with Death’s horse, while Raphael and Cupi focused on Death himself.
Cupi blocked a blow of Death’s scythe before she did a backward flip and kicked him in the chin.
Death let out a groan as he stumbled backward, but he then ducked before Raphael’s Bowie knife could take him out.
“Watch it!” Cupiditas gasped as she twirled out of the way.
Death came up swinging, and Raphael sprang backward seconds before he would have been eviscerated by his opponent’s scythe.
At the same time, Deja had her chain tied around the neck of Death’s horse. The tan Demon Lord rode atop the skeleton beast as she used her weapon as some sort of makeshift bridle, but the horse wasn’t stopping. Ariel flew after the two as the horse ran around like a bat out of Hell, and the whole thing looked like a scene out of a nineties Nick toon comedy.
Raphael and Cupi it was, then.
I sheathed my sword as I approached Death and then summoned forth my warhammer. This dude may have been scrappy and quick, but he looked like he would get broken in two if there was a decent wind.
Which made him the perfect candidate for some hammer time.
Death parried Raphael’s knife attack before he ducked down out of the way of a round of FAMAS bullets. Then, while he was still down on the ground, the horseman twirled his scythe and forced Cupi and Raph up into the air to dodge.
Before either of them could make a move, the horseman held out his hands. His white eyes glowed brightly as his veins pulsed, and then a shockwave knocked Cupi and Raph back fifty feet.
What the fuck was that?
“Wait, Jacob!” Raphael called out, but it was too late.
I slammed my warhammer into the side of Death’s torso and expected to hear a wet, satisfying crunch.
Instead, the bastard just dug his feet into the ground, let out a groan, and then slid a few feet to the right.
His eyes suddenly lit up with his demonic energy, and I threw out a shield of violet flames seconds before he unleashed the next shockwave. The powerful vibration reverberated through my body as it impacted my barrier, and the sheer force of the impact knocked me back a few feet.
Without missing a beat, Death twirled around my body, spun his scythe like a member of the color guard, and took a hearty swing at my throat.
Metal clanged against metal as I blocked his strike, and I quickly threw my boot up into his stomach.
Death grunted as he fell back onto his ass, but I didn’t allow him any time to recover.
In one swift motion, I brought my warhammer to my side, swung it up over my head, and slammed it straight into Death’s skull.
The earth beneath him cratered as the hammer smashed his noggin, but ironically, Death was still alive.
His eyes glowed white once more, and this time he was able to get off his attack before I could block.
A massive shockwave erupted from his hands and sent me flying backward through the air, and I growled in agony as I tumbled across the sandy Arizona ground and then smashed into one of our landscaping rocks. The world seemed to go white for a split second as pain coursed through my body, but I wasn’t going to let that hold me down.
I sprang back to my feet and tried to rethink my strategy.
The warhammer obviously wasn’t working, so maybe it was time to try something different.
I commanded my warhammer back to my belt and then drew my Divine sword, and as I ran back toward my opponent, Cupi and Raph got back into the action.
“Jacob!” Cupi growled as she cartwheeled out of the way of an attack. “You… can’t… hit him.”
“What the fuck do you mean?” I demanded as I took a swing at Death with my sword.
The bastard jumped back, knocked away my blade with the handle of his scythe, and then took a wide swing at all three of us. I fell down onto my ass to avoid getting decapitated, and then I rolled away before the blade came down where I had just stood.
“Death may appear frail and weak,” Raphael warned. “But that is the furthest from the truth.”
“He redirects any energy that gets put into him,” Cupi explained as she jabbed at Death with her polearm. “Trying to use blunt force on this guy is major bad news.”
“It’s what the kids today call a ‘catfish,’ Jacob,” Raph explained before he ducked out of the way of a blow. “I would know. It’s happened to me six times.”
That was definitely something that needed more elaboration, but not right here on the battlefield.
“Okay, fine,” I mused as I parried an attack from the scythe. “Then we fry the fucker.”
I summoned red Hellfire into my left hand and tossed a handful of flames right at the scrawny horseman.
Death rolled away from the attack and came up with an upward slash, and I quickly parried with a flash of purple.
“Good luck,” Cupi growled. “We’ve been trying that for the last ten minutes, all while Deja and Ariel play horsey.”
“Come here, Immmmmmmmmppppppp….” War’s voice boomed across the combat zone from behind us.
“Hurry up and get over here, Jakey!” Todd proclaimed in a panicked voice. “I’m runnin’ out of Regina George lines to quip!”
I ducked out of the way of one of Death’s attacks and then, before I could stop myself, I lashed out and punched him with a glowing red fist.
Death grunted as his head whipped around, but then he let out a concussive blast before any of us could land a finishing blow.
Raph, Cupi, and I were all thrown back onto the ground, and I let out a frustrated growl.
I was getting real tired of this shit.
Anything other than a direct killing blow with a blade, bullet, or incendiary spell would just make Death more powerful. And, to make matters worse, the fucker was too fast for any of those blows to actually land.
Then the lightbulb went on in my head.
If none of us could hit him with our attacks, then maybe we’d just have to make Death hit himself.
“You guys wanna see something really cool?” I asked with a smirk as I dodged Death’s scythe. “If it works, of course.”
“You know I hate it when you say that, Jacob,” Raphael sighed.
I quickly lashed out at Death, who blocked my blow with the handle of his weapon, but before he could make a move, I quickly drove my boot into his stomach and sent him backward.
“What are you doing?” Cupi demanded.
Before his ass even hit the ground, Death unleashed a shockwave from his palms.
Right as I created a cube of purple flames around his body.
The wave ricocheted off the walls of the cube and then slammed back into Death’s body. Of course, this only caused more kinetic energy to enter his system, which resulted in an even bigger shockwave the second time around.
“Dear lord…” Raphael’s mouth fell agape. “Are you doing what I think you are doing?”
“Yep.” I grinned. “And it’s about to get better.”
I let go of my sword and let it fall to the ground. Then, once my right hand was free, I summoned bronze flames into it.
Next, I combined the two spells, and the result was a tiny magical box that vibrated at a molecular level, with the strength of a nine-point-oh earthquake.
Death began to scream as endless amounts of energy were forced into his body, shot back out, and then repeated the process. The horseman’s muffled screams grew louder and louder as the box vibrated intensely, and the ground around it began to crack and crumble away as it split apart.
My hands trembled as I held my two spells, and my arms vibrated intensely and felt like they were made out of rubber, but I wasn’t about to let up.
Suddenly, there was a horrific splash of gore as Death’s entire body exploded. His blood painted the walls of the translucent purple box, and there was literally nothing left of the fucker but a puddle of gooey red goop when I finally released my spell.
Two down, two to go.
“Gah!” Deja cried out, and I turned to see her curvy figure get tossed from Death’s horse.
She caught herself on her giant bat wings and then flipped over just in time to see the skeletal horse collapse into a pile of harmless bones.
“Huh,” Ariel noted. “I guess the horse’s life is connected to the life of the rider.”
“Did you really need two people to bring down a harmless horse?” Raphael grumbled as we all walked over to the scene.
“Who are you calling ‘harmless?’” Deja protested. “That was wilder than any untamed horse I’ve tried to ride. Did you see how it totally bucked me off at the end there?”
