Dashing devil omnibus 2.., p.165
Dashing Devil Omnibus 2: Books 4-6, page 165
Royce would be avenged. Boyd’s friend and handler would have justice. Boyd spotted his quarry just before he reached the end of the hall.
Victory Seeker stood in front of a glowing white semi-sphere that could only be the bright object he had seen this whole time with his black fame vision. It must extend below the floor, because Boyd knew it was a complete sphere from what he saw under his Black Flame Vision.
The big demon held up a fist in a ‘hold’ gesture just before streaking into the room, speeding up now that his prey was in sight. He sent the desire for his loves to stay safe over their Bonds as he did.
Victory Seeker was grabbing at his pocket, trying to extract something with fumbling fingers. Boyd assumed it was a control for whatever that exceptionally bright white orb was and decided he had no interest in letting the man get ahold of it. His thudding footsteps alerted his former mentor to the big demon’s approach, and he spun to face him while ripping his pocket open in desperation to get whatever he needed from it.
Victory Seeker’s face had gone pale from blood loss and fear—at least the demonic Hero hoped fear played a role. He looked haggard, bloodied, and desperate. The hilt of Boyd’s dagger still stuck out of his side, held in place by the hand that wasn’t fumbling in his pocket. His suit was rumpled and torn, his hair a tangled mess that some of the man’s blood had gotten into at some point.
He looked just like a man who had fucked around and was in the process of finding out what that entailed.
The big demon charged right at him, intent on bringing him down so he could begin the process of slowly tearing away his facade of righteousness. A man such as Victory Seeker would not be allowed a quick death. Victory Seeker’s movements as he sank into a ready stance were slow and shaky, his strength fleeing him along with his lifeblood.
At least they were until the final moment of Boyd’s charge. It was in the split-second before Boyd’s big crimson hand would have closed around his throat that his former Mentor blurred into his typical, lightning-fast motion.
Boyd was surprised when he didn’t move to evade. Instead, the older man dropped, grabbed the big demon’s armored wrist, and pulled it forward, driving them both into the glowing white sphere. Boyd didn’t have time to react before his opened hand impacted the luminous surface.
Then, two things happened in rapid succession.
First, the glowing white dome started to disintegrate into tiny motes of light that looked just like what Boyd saw under his Black Flame Vision, starting with the place where his hand had touched it. Second, Victory Seeker completed the over-the-shoulder throw that he had pulled the big demon into, sending him flying up over the top of the now disintegrating dome and into the wall on the far side of the room.
The big demon slammed into reinforced concrete with a resounding boom, his vision momentarily blurring from the impact. He fell to the floor and quickly regained his feet, only to find Victory Seeker standing over some sort of console that had been inside the white dome. His former Mentor wore a triumphant grin as he scanned the small bank of computers and began flipping switches.
“Stop him!” Boyd shouted to Silvie, realizing his mistake a little too late.
This had been the trap. He’d needed Boyd’s black flame to get through that white shell. And Boyd had played right into his hands.
A silver blur streaked across the room and slammed into Victory Seeker, her fist lashing out that the man was able to deflect before slamming his palm down on a large, red button with a victorious, “Ha! It’s too late to—”
His victory speech was cut short as a large and very pissed-off demon slammed into him in a flying tackle, taking him to the ground. Then, in a motion that felt like poetic justice for Cobolto, another trainee he had led astray, the demon bitch slapped the mentor-turned-criminal into oblivion.
Boyd stared down at the unconscious man and sucked in gulps of air that were the only thing keeping him from pulping the man’s skull. Instead, he growled, “What did he do?”
“Ummm…” Silvie’s reply was uncertain as she reviewed the console.
Hope jogged forward, which was good. Their old mentor wouldn’t be able to suffer what he had earned without her assistance. After another few seconds, Silvie finally answered Boyd’s question. “It just says ‘awakening process initiated, stand by…’ on the screen. It doesn’t say what is being awakened, though.”
She looked up with a frown. “It’s got a symbol with a big ‘A’ that I think I recognize from one of the old flags we saw in training.”
“Okay, do me a favor and keep an eye on it. Please let me know if anything changes,” Boyd growled. “I’m going to educate Victory Seeker on all the ways he is the monster he tried to paint me as.” The big demon gave a frighteningly devilish grin. “This might take some time.”
“Take all the time you need, my Lord,” Hope said with an uncharacteristic viciousness that still somehow sounded pure coming from her lips.
“Yeah, Darling… we’ll watch your back,” Silvie added with her usual bubbly cheer. “He doesn’t deserve to die easily.”
The big demon normally would have worried about how his loves might view him after doing something like what he intended, but he sensed that each of them wanted very bad things to happen to the unconscious man at his feet. Knowing he did not have to fear their judgment, Boyd intended to indulge himself; he was going to enjoy this as much as he could make himself.
Killing Victory Seeker wouldn’t replace Royce, but it might help Boyd cope with the pain.
Chapter 55
Boyd pulled three of his javelins off his harness, extending their shafts with flicks of his wrist. He bent two of the hollow metal tubes, forming sharp hooks about three feet from the tip before charging the caps. These he stabbed through Victory Seeker’s shoulders, the bent shafts crossing over his throat before the spikes on their ends were charged and pushed into the rock.
It was an improvised restraint that the man had taught the demon Hero as a child. Boyd had been eight the first time Victory Seeker had demonstrated the method and ten when the man had first asked him to put it into practice.
For whatever reason, mutilating this particular unconscious prisoner didn’t make Boyd feel as dirty inside as it had back when his Mentor made him do it to a condemned prisoner. The way he unconsciously squirmed as the coldly burning spikes pierced his flesh and then sank through the bone of his shoulder blades was more satisfying than nauseating. Young Boyd had nearly vomited after he had been forced to do it to a criminal slated for death.
He pierced Victory Seeker’s body like a worm on a hook, creating solid anchors that the restrained would have to destroy their bodies to get themselves off of. He knew that Victory Seeker had the force of will to damage his own body like that to make good his escape, so the big demon also planted his Black Flame wreathed foot on the man’s chest and pushed down until he felt the man’s sternum beneath his heel flex. He wrapped his tail around an ankle, creating a fourth anchor, just to be safe.
Boyd charged the cap of the third javelin, then let the tip rest against his former Mentor’s abdomen. Once he was in position, the big demon looked up, nodding to Hope who had watched everything he had done with an intent gaze. He sensed that the angel wanted this man to suffer almost as much as he did—which was quite the anomaly for his pure-hearted love. She found some redeeming quality in everyone, with very few exceptions. Silvie and Mindy each felt eager for what came next, neither having Hope’s kind nature.
If anything, they were looking forward to this more than he was.
Laura and Tinker had figuratively opted to look away, no longer watching through his eyes with Mindy’s assistance. He sensed that both of them understood what he was about to do and why he had to do it, but felt no need to witness it.
The big demon understood why—they were both fixers by nature, and he was about to do a lot of breaking.
He worried that Raev might be revolted by what he intended to do when she appeared with Stepper in the hallway near the entrance to the room. “He’s down already, but I’ll still stand beside Hope so she can keep me safe if that changes. This bastard tortured the man I love when he was a child and killed another good man who treated me kindly. I want to see him dead.”
“I’ll protect you,” Hope promised as she strode over to the kitsune whose tails and ears were stiff in a display of defiance.
The big demon figured that settled that, and that it wasn’t worth protesting Raev’s decision. “Stepper, are you staying?” Boyd asked when the relative stranger made no move to depart.
“I would also like to watch,” the dark-skinned elf Changed replied, though she didn’t sound certain.
Based on her concerned expression, Boyd assessed that while she wanted to witness what would transpire, she didn’t want to be seen as an intruder.
“Go stand with Hope and Raev.” He nodded to the others. “You can stay, as long as you promise to take first Raev and then Hope out of here it looks like things are going sideways. Victory Seeker initiated some process before we took him down, but I’m not willing to risk moving him to a second location.”
“I can do that,” Stepper agreed, nodding so hard her mane of curly hair bounced around her face. She disappeared from where she was standing and reappeared a few feet away from where his fox-eared and angelic loves stood close together.
Boyd looked at Hope. “Can I ask you to keep him alive until I’m done?”
“Of course,” Hope replied with a tight smile. “My former teacher and then Handler insisted that I train my tolerance for such things, after all.”
“Thank you.” Boyd offered her his most reassuring smile.
He took a mental note to dote on her later. Helping him in this way would cost her something, and he hated asking her to pay that price. He only did so because he knew it wasn’t a price that would permanently reduce her. She would recover, between his ministrations and Mindy’s efforts.
“Please fully heal him,” the demon Changed requested.
Boyd waited for the golden glow to intensify around his angel, his former Mentor picking up a lesser version of said glow. All his wounds, except for the ones left by the anchored javelins, rapidly closed—even the dagger in his side was pushed out of his hip bone and side. It fell to the ground with a clatter.
Boyd nodded his thanks, and then thrust a third darkly burning spike down through Victory Seeker’s gut, anchoring it half-a-dozen inches into the concrete floor beneath the man before bending the shaft into a ‘U’ and piercing the floor with the Black Flame charged spike on its end between the man’s legs, pinning his hips to the floor.
“Wake up,” the big demon snarled, slapping the man’s cheeks.
“Argggh,” Victory Seeker groaned.
It was the first pained sound Boyd had ever heard the man he’d once looked up to make.
The prisoner’s face contorted in agony before he regained enough consciousness to smooth it into a blank mask and silence his groans. Victory Seeker’s pale eyes opened just enough to cast a hate-filled glare at the demon looming over him. “You are too late. You couldn’t stop me from…”
“I don’t give a fuck,” Boyd cut him off. “I’ll deal with whatever you set in motion shortly. Either way, it won’t make a difference to you—you no longer have a future. Didn’t you always teach us that it is pointless to worry about something you don’t have?”
Victory Seeker snarled, his eyes flashing with a familiar hatred. “Go ahead and kill me, you damned fiend. My sacrifice will ensure that—HERK!” His words cut off as he clenched his jaw through a grimace in response to Boyd shifting his foot and then pressing down with his toes until he heard the man’s clavicle snap.
“You aren’t making a sacrifice.” The big demon refused to let this man die with anything—that included pride in whatever he thought his final actions would achieve. “I am punishing you for being the murderous monster you are. Your death will serve no purpose other than achieving some small justice for the evil you have done.”
Victory Seeker attempted to get up, but was stopped by the hooks piercing his shoulder blades, the foot pressing down on his chest, and the javelin stabbed through his guts.
Boyd pushed down with his foot until the sternum beneath it flexed as he reached down to lay a hand on the javelin sticking out of the prisoner’s abdomen and recharged its obsidian caps. Blood seeped from the deep wounds, though it mostly leaked out the exit wound in his back.
A carmine pool formed beneath him.
Victory Seeker glared up at the demon looming over him, spite and anger twisting his features. “You cannot stop what is coming... the prophecy will be fulfilled... your Changed rebellion will stop before it can start,” he hissed through gritted teeth.
“This is payback for what you did to Royce.”
Victory Seeker let out a hoarse, pained laugh, his body twitching and jerking helplessly against his restraints. “You think that worm—GLERK!”
Whatever he was about to say was cut off by Boyd’s foot pressing down a little too hard, crushing several ribs and compacting his lungs. “URRGGH,” he gasped, pink bubbles leaking from his mouth, his wide pale blue eyes filled with shock.
Before the prisoner could pass out from oxygen deprivation, the big demon turned to his angel. “Hope… if you would, please.”
Golden light surrounded the man who wasn’t allowed to die until he’d paid for his crimes. Victory Seeker’s rib cage popped back out and reformed ribs pushed against Boyd’s foot as they resumed their natural state. Boyd pressed down as the glow dissipated, causing the bones to heal with a deformity that would make taking a deep breath impossible.
He leaned down and picked up the dagger from where it had fallen out of his former Mentor’s side during the first round of healing, Boyd charged it with his shadowy fire.
“Your words no longer matter. You no longer matter. But you don’t get to talk about Royce,” the big demon growled as he pried Victory Seeker’s jaw open. He gripped the man’s tongue and pulled it out as far as it could stretch. “Let me make that very clear,” he added, then slashed the dagger through the muscle, severing as much as he could before discarding the hunk of flesh.
Victory Seeker started choking and coughing, bloody froth spewing from his lips as Boyd leaned back. His eyes widened in instinctive terror as his own hot, thick blood began filling his airway, flowing too quickly for him to both swallow it and breathe. He struggled desperately against his restraints, but he couldn’t escape. Crimson froth spurted from his nose and mouth with each cough, his ability to breathe already compromised by deformed ribs.
Boyd waited until his former Mentor’s eyes began to glaze over as unconsciousness snuck in to claim him in its soothing embrace. Such oblivion, however, would be denied.
“Hope… if you would,” he requested again.
This man did not deserve even the brief respite passing out would provide. Victory Seeker sputtered and coughed up quite a bit of blood as Hope’s healing prevented him from drowning in it.
When his eyes resumed their hateful glare, the big demon asked the murderer a question. “Do you remember the Old Earth concepts of heaven and hell?” Boyd paused for a moment, allowing the question to register for a moment. “You should. You assigned the readings… we still use the words, saying things like ‘seven hells’ or ‘heavens above’. But they have lost their meaning.”
He leaned in. “Heaven was a place where good people went when they died, and there they were rewarded for the good they had done in their life. Hell, on the other hand, was the place for bad people to suffer for the crimes they committed when alive. It’s a wonderful concept that I’m sure brought many people comfort. Bad people would suffer—for all eternity. Justice prevails in the next life, if not in this one.”
Boyd leaned in even closer, glaring into his former Mentor’s pain-filled eyes, and snarled, “You deserve to suffer for all eternity for what you did to Royce.”
He settled back and continued with just as much venom, “Unfortunately, we don’t know for certain that heaven or hell exists—if there was one and we left it back on Old Earth, or if it was never more than a story people told to make life’s burdens easier to bear or induced through fear more appropriate behavior. Since we can’t be sure, I’m taking it upon myself to make your last moments as close to Old Earth’s descriptions of hell as I can.”
He gestured to himself. “I took the form of a denizen of hell, after all. A demon. Since you are convinced that makes me one, I see no reason not to carry out my responsibilities.” The big demon sighed and shook his head. “But Royce was a good man, and he would be disappointed in me if I punished you just for his sake.”
Boyd removed his foot from Victory Seeker’s chest. “Fortunately, you earned a spot in hell long before you murdered him. Shall we move on to paying for some of your other monstrous acts?”
Boyd moved down and lifted his black flame covered foot over the man’s ankle. “This is for Adam,” Boyd snarled as he pressed down until his foot reached the floor, crushing into a paste the flesh and bone that had been under it with a satisfying crunch.
Victory Seeker grunted.
Boyd moved his foot up the man’s leg several inches and growled, “This is for Amy.” Then, he slowly pressed his foot down until it once again reached the floor, pulping the next segment of his and the children’s PAC enforcer’s leg. Again, he shifted his foot up a little higher to repeat the process, “And this is for Becca.”
It was with the third name and segment of crushed leg that he sensed a moment of startled realization over his Bond with Silvie. Boyd looked over to her with a sad smile as he repositioned his foot and muttered, “This is for Carl and his twin Cassy.”
The big demon saw sorrow blend with shame and then acceptance in Silvie’s bright blue eyes. He sensed the pain this realization brought along their Bond. She’d never wanted him to learn what happened to the kids that ‘transferred out’ of the Hero program in their PAC.
