30. The Devourer of Souls.
30
The Devourer of Souls.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, 2053.
Three months later.
“Fuck… yes…” I breathe out as Azeroth’s tongue pushes inside me.
I’m on the bed, belly down and ass up as he feasts on me. I woke him up with a blowjob at sundown, and now I’m riding the high after choking on his knot and swallowing his cum.
I can’t remember my name thanks to the heightened sensations.
Azeroth’s energy is wild this evening. I’m sure the entire neighborhood can feel the effect. Robb must be furious from next door. He rents one of Tina’s other apartments for that reason, but it seems he can’t get far enough to avoid Azeroth’s dark power entirely.
“Hu—hurry,” I gasp.
I can’t take it anymore. I need more.
I want to be bitten and ruined, or I’ll lose my goddamn mind. Azeroth knows it; he can taste my despair in the air. His fingers scratch my scalp, sending shivers down my entire body, before pulling my head back by the hair.
Yes, yes, yes!
He buries his cock, slippery with lubricant, inside me, and my eyes roll back from sheer pleasure.
In the last months, we could not keep our hands off each other. His hunger calls to mine, and we’re never truly satiated.
“You were made for this,” Azeroth purrs. “You were made for me.”
“Yes…” I sob as he pounds into me.
With him, I dropped all pretense and denial. I’m needy, demanding, perverted. A few State Exorcists we’ve encountered since the government had no choice but to work with our team have called me the ‘ demon’s whore ’. The term pleases me, and so their feeble attempts to rile me always fail. I was Lucifer’s host, and I’m Azeroth’s lover. These simple truths can’t hurt me.
The exorcists shunned Robb as soon as his mutations became known. We tried to exorcize Lilith, but she has a deadly hold on his soul. The demon queen, it seems, has more in common with Lucifer than it looks. She’s comfortable in her human host and isn’t eager to leave Earth.
Robb was better off as far away as possible from the temptation of the Angels’ Tears, and so he stayed with us, to Leo’s delight.
Azeroth drags his tongue along my spine, and I quake. My wings are gone, leaving no scars behind. In the days following the fight under the Devil’s Tower, I reconnected with Erin. She’d moved to Colorado with her son after my warning ten years ago. She flew to Los Angeles at my request and cut my wings and horns once again for me. I couldn’t always count on Azeroth’s glamor to hide them. We burned them in the local crematorium. I know they’re not lost forever. They’re a part of me, like Lucifer.
Videos of me and my feathered wings are already circulating all over the internet. Demon or angel, the viewers don’t seem to agree.
We’ve hunted down a few powerful soldiers of Hell since the invasion. Some demons have started calling me the Devourer of Souls.
“Say that you’re mine, ashy one,” Azeroth whispers in my ear as he thrusts into me.
For an incubus, he’s incredibly possessive. He loves the way I taste when he affirms his ownership of my body and soul. I crave attention, and he’s happy to oblige. I want to be the center of his world, even if it borders on toxic. With time, our relationship might settle into something more healthy, but not today.
Today, I want him to crawl inside him and nest.
“I’m…yours…” I gasp between hip thrusts.
“Good,” he growls, biting into my shoulder.
Since we started sleeping together, he has shown no interest in other people. I feared when his nature as a demon of lust would catch up to him, and he would turn his dark power back on other partners. So, I asked him about it a month ago.
“It’s in my nature, yes,” he said. “But I have decades of experience as an incubus. I’ve had many partners over the years. And yet, nothing can compare to the pleasure of feeding off you, ashy one. You’re everything I ever craved for. I have no need for other partners. If one day you want to experience other people, it would be my delight to do it with you. But not now.” His eyes grew predatory. “I’m not ready to share you just yet.”
I learned demons can spend years with one partner. Lucifer loved Lilith for half of his long life. He still does, if I can trust the feelings I have for the demon queen inhabiting Robb.
Azeroth’s teeth pierce the tender skin between my shoulder and neck, and the little pain is a catalyst that sends me over the edge. I come all over the bed as he keeps pounding into me. Stars explode behind my eyelids and I lose all sense of self. Azeroth’s knot swells, blissfully crushing my prostate. He can rarely control himself, and I spend a few hours a week impaled on his knot, drunk on his magic.
Heaven on Earth. Tina was right. Except for my world to become paradise, a demon needed to cross over.
Azeroth holds me as my mind drifts and his knot goes down. He buries his nose in my hair and whispers sweet nothings. If I die today, I would die happy and satisfied.
An hour later, I’m sipping my first coffee of the day, sitting on the couch. Azeroth is making breakfast in the kitchen. For a demon of lust, he’s surprisingly domestic. A dust storm is raging outside, turning Los Angeles into a mirage as the sun lowers on the horizon. The air conditioner is making a weird noise. We’ll have to change the filters soon or risk suffocating.
The TV is on the 24/7 News channel. The report is about a lower demon—a real one—wreaking havoc in Santa Monica. Then the anchor switches to the daily report on what’s now commonly known as the Hell Zone.
In the days following the events at the Devil’s Tower, the State Exorcists and the military closed off the surrounding of the gate and built a high security base to monitor it and stop the demons from returning. Scientists are studying the healing rate of the wound in the fabric between worlds, and they estimate it might take a few decades for it to close. Seismic activity frequently originates from the other side. The demons, it seems, are still eager to make their way to Earth.
The report shows the tall buildings, always from the same angle, and the rows of tanks, helicopters, and heavy weaponry to reassure the public of their safety.
The rate of demonic possessions is still at an all-time high, and I’m not running out of a job soon. But my newfound ability to devour demons’ souls comes in handy.
There’s a knock on the door, then the jingle of keys.
“Good evening, boss,” Leo says, balancing a tray with coffee cups from Tina’s.
Seconds later, the runes on my door frame activate, and Robb appears. “Are you guys done fucking?” he growls, annoyed.
My old friend’s hair has turned an even deeper shade of red in recent months. He now wears long-sleeve shirts with turtlenecks most days to hide his scales.
“Envious?” says Azeroth from the kitchen.
Robb glares at the wall separating the two rooms and mutters something unintelligible.
Leo blushes and hands me a cup of coffee even though I haven’t finished the one I made with my old coffee machine. “Any job for tonight?” he asks.
I gesture to the TV, where the news report has switched back to the demon on a rampage in Santa Monica. The creature, a hydra—a four-legged beast with scales—is climbing a building with its long claws. Exorcists are in action, but they seem a little overwhelmed by the task. It’s difficult to tell with the dust storm obscuring the video.
“I give it an hour before they call us,” I say.
Robb laughs, and it’s the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard. My old friend is slowly coming back to himself. He won’t ever be like the Robb I met on Ketron Island—too much happened to him—but he has found his way back to his humanity. Funny that a demon queen was the reason for it.
“I’m surprised they’ve been holding that long,” he says.
As if on cue, his phone rings. He takes the call.
“Let me guess, they’re expecting us yesterday?” I say once he’s hung up.
Robb nods. “Of course.”
“I’ll get the van ready!” Leo says eagerly.
“You’re not coming!” Robb shouts, but it’s too late. Leo has already disappeared down the hallway.
“Oh my god,” says Leo from behind the wheel. “It’s bigger than I thought.”
We’re parked a safe distance away from the building where the hydra is wreaking havoc. The scaled beast crawls over the side of the sixth floor. The State Exorcists are shooting at it with machine guns, but the demon is fast and very few bullets find their mark. Night has fallen, and the soldiers shot flares over the building to illuminate the creature through the dust storm.
“That’s nothing,” says Azeroth, dropping an elbow to the side of Leo’s window. “Count yourself lucky no marsvok crossed over to your world.” His deep voice comes out muffled. We’re all wearing masks with filters to avoid breathing dust.
Leo’s eyes widen behind his goggles. “What’s a marsvok ?”
“You have a myth inspired by them. The Kraken.”
“Holy shit. You’ve got to be kidding me. Does that mean some crossed over at some point?”
Azeroth smiles. “Oh, yes.”
“Wicked!”
My assistant and the hybrid became fast friends in recent months, to Robb’s chagrin. My old friend shares a look with me over the hood of the van. Leo’s too delighted by the prospect of danger, so Robb has made it his mission to keep him safe.
“You stay in the van,” I say to Leo. “If I see you put one foot out, you’re fired.”
He snorts. “No, you won’t fire me. You like me too much.”
I sigh.
“Then I’ll personally whoop your ass,” Robb says.
But it doesn’t have the desired effect, and Leo blushes furiously. His crush on Robb isn’t a secret.
Azeroth laughs and shares a knowing look with me. Then he says, “I’ll bring the hydra down to the street.”
I nod. “Thank you.”
His glamor falls away and his wings and horns appear, taking my breath away. He’s.. magnificent, as always. The most perfect creature I have ever seen, born from both worlds, Earth and Hell.
He showed us once with his power what he used to look like in his real body. Impossibly tall, with skin as dark as night and giant wings. Body lean and muscular, alien and yet so beautiful. A true demon of lust, crawling out of my dirtiest nightmares. Only his golden eyes and horns remained unchanged on his human body.
Azeroth senses the change in my energy and winks through the lense of his goggles before disappearing into the dusty sky.
Some of the State Exorcists are fools enough to aim their machine guns at my lover from their position at the end of the street. I point a warning finger at them and call Lucifer’s power—my power. White flames surge over my extended arm, making me glow in the storm.
Some soldiers made the mistake of attacking Azeroth a few weeks ago during a raid on which we were called to assist them. I set fire to their trucks in retaliation. We might be monsters in their eyes, but we’re useful monsters and they can’t deny our efficiency. Humanity needs all the help it can get to resist Hell’s ongoing invasion. We are the best demon hunters, whether they like it or not.
The exorcists lower their weapons with sour looks. Most of them are unknown to me. Robb is the only one remaining from my time on Ketron Island.
Above our heads, Azeroth dives at the hydra and buries his sword between the demon’s scaly shoulder blades. The beast twists and tries to bite him with its dragon-like head. It loses its grip on the side of the building and falls. The ground shakes on impact.
Leo whoops from his seat.
“Stay in the van!” Robb roars before rushing to fight the hydra.
He has freed his arms, and his red scales shine under the light pouring down from the flares. Robb’s favored way to fight now is with two blades, one in each hand, ensuring that he stays faithful to his moniker as Carver. Azeroth informed us it was Lilith’s combat style and I couldn’t help but wonder how she influences my friend.
“Oh my god, can he be any cooler?” says Leo adoringly.
I point a flaming finger at him. “He’s right, stay in the van. No matter what happens. And close the damn window, there’ll be dust everywhere.”
“Yes, boss,” he promises reluctantly.
At the end of the street, Azeroth has pierced one of the hydra’s legs, offering an opportunity of attack to Robb, who slashes its underbelly. The scaly beast roars and sends Robb crashing into a building. Azeroth backs away just in time to avoid its bite.
“Uh, I think they might need your help,” Leo says anxiously, window halfway up. “Come on, show them all what the White Exorcist can do, boss!”
I laugh and focus on the warmth deep in my core. The name the demons gave me years ago has never rung so true. White flames explode outward as I run toward the fight. Lucifer fights alongside me.
And with the Devil on our side, we might win this war.
The End.