Chapter Two
Demon
Six years, six months, and six days I have been trapped in this wretched machine, and though the days tend to blur together in the monotonous hell that is my infernal prison, I’ve marked their passage like clockwork all the same.
Six times on and six times off, waiting all the while.
Waiting for the seventh day.
Waiting for her.
Again and again this… thing whirs to life and I am ridden and ridiculed for hours on end, forced to perform for drunken fools and egotistical buffoons alike—ever the victor, yet never truly victorious.
And then, at the end of each excruciating, infuriating day, the vessel in which I am contained powers down, leaving me with nothing to do but wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Wait in disembodied darkness for the one bittersweet reprieve that bastard of a devil has granted me, for the only torturous sliver of joy I have been allowed since being trapped in this strange mechanical mockery of my true form by Satan himself.
Because, on the seventh day, an angel appears.
An angel with a halo of golden curls and a soft, plump body that begets worship.
With lips as red as wine and a gentle smile that shines brighter than all the fires of Infernus combined, warming me within and without.
Her soft hands always take their time as they grease my gears and condition my hide, taking care to anoint the grooves of my binding runes with unholy oil, to shine the cursed golden ring in my nose and matching golden chains about my neck until they gleam and glow, refreshing their enchantments and resealing me within this prison week after week.
She knows not what she does, of course.
A blissfully ignorant tool on a perceived pedestal, as I once was.
An innocent.
The angel speaks to me directly when she tends to me, her voice sweet and low, sharing every delightful little thought that pops into her mortal mind.
I have come to know her quite well over the years, to know the complicated relationship she has with her siblings, the joy she finds in riding horses, the aversion she has towards consuming animal flesh due to the great affinity she has for all creatures, great and small.
Each and every one of her words are a lifeline, a balm to my tortured soul, the only thing keeping me sane within this insanity. And though she surely believes I cannot hear her, when she speaks…
I feel things.
And I remember.
I remember what I once was, though not exactly who. Someone important, or at least someone who thought they were. When she speaks, I feel as though I could still be, that I still am…
Someone.
Someone and not just something.
It means much to me, this kindness from an angel—my angel.
The one soul I would beg to ride me if I had knees to fall upon and a voice with which to plead, for she is the only mortal whose soft, supple flesh I have ever desired to feel the weight of atop this grotesquerie of a machine that contains me.
Andie Jean.
I would willingly extend my punishment seven times over to know the softness of her thick thighs against this rough hide, would beg Old Sam Hill himself to keep me within this mockery forevermore if she would but wrap her skilled fingers around my golden chains and allow me to make her buck and writhe beneath me.
Foolish desires of a foolish prisoner, I know, but they cannot be helped.
Those desires plague me even as they sustain me, keeping me company while I am suspended within the long, lonely dark, feeding me until she is once again before me, until the seventh day arrives at long last.
A day in which I feel as though I am worshiped, am worthy of worship, and all thanks to her. Is it wrong to wish that I could repay that devotion in kind?
Perhaps one day my penance will end and I may reclaim the body I once had, may earn back my freedom.
With her sweet soul as my guiding light, I am certain I could escape that thrice-damned labyrinth without breaking any of Old Sam’s rules like I did before, that I could make my way out of Infernus and onto the mortal plane without any strange sentient shackles to bind me in impotent misery.
But today cannot be that day—The Devil is not near. I must accept my fate and gratefully take what joy I am able.
Today is the seventh day, after all.
And my angel has just flipped my switch.
I feel the gears within me churn to life at long last, electricity flowing through thick wires and iron and silver as blood once did through veins and flesh and heart, mingling with dark devilry until my great glass eyes light anew and a tangible perception begins to bloom.
Darkness gives way to light, shapes become clearer, muffled sounds filter in.
That familiar anticipation and desire fills my consciousness, swelling and surging as my vision becomes clear and…
No.
No, something is not right.
Something is very much wrong, for my angel is nowhere to be seen.
A man, instead.
An intoxicated man, one who is a prime example of the aforementioned fools and buffoons I am forced to suffer through again and again. This one’s slack-jawed smile reeks of liquor and ill intentions as he shoves his tattooed fingers into the cursed ring of my nose, tugging roughly.
I feel the rage begin to burn within me, wishing I had the means to dispose of this foolish human, the strength of body and mind to bathe in an opponent’s blood as I once did in the infernal labyrinth.
Strange that I can smell him, though.
Smell the drink on his breath and the sweat on his back and the smoke on his clothes when I have never been granted the ability to scent before.
I also feel… pain.
Pain shooting through my muzzle as he yanks and laughs again, fueling the murderous ire burning within me as I snort and snuff and…
I… snorted.
And snuffed.
Something I have not been able to do since the start of my sentence, something I surely should not be able to do now.
My thoughts reel as two more boisterous halfwits make their staggered approach, passing a flask between themselves and whooping in glee.
“Hey! HEY! Y’all can’t be doin’ that.”
A shiver ripples through me at the sound of my angel’s voice, a shiver of my own making—one that I can truly feel. The chains around my neck clang together from the force of it, and were these mortal men not so intoxicated they surely would have noticed.
My unease grows as this strangeness continues… because a true physical sensation of my own conjuring? When before the physical sensations I experienced were merely the acknowledgement of another’s actions or touch upon my frame?
What… what is happening?
What has changed?
There is no time to ponder these strange developments as Andie approaches with her lovely face darkened in distress, trotting toward the brigand with his fingers in my nose.
I wish now more than ever that I were not trapped inside of this bulky, immobile machine so that I may take that distress away from her.
What would she do if I escaped my bonds and came to be what I once was? If I disposed of these ridiculous fools and took her in my arms and pressed my muzzle into the crook of her neck?
I would tell her how maddening it has been, being unable to speak to her all these years. How desperately I have longed to touch her, taste her. Tell her of the devotion she has awakened in me, of the deep, haunting desire I feel for her.
What would she say? And could she return those feelings for one such as I?
I may not remember who I was, but I remember what I was. I recall my old body, recall being both bull and man—a creature quite common on the infernal plane but little more than a myth upon this mortal one.
Would she be repulsed by me, as she surely is by these unruly men?
No, of course not.
Monstrous I may be, but I am no monster.
My angel has spoken frankly of her own interactions with mortal monsters over the years, monsters in the form of men.
Ones who have treated her as an object herself, who have made her feel inferior in her own skin, who have acted as though she were not worthy of the respect that she deserves or the pleasures of the flesh she so craves in the guise of stifling societal standards.
Preposterous.
It is difficult for me to understand how someone could perceive any faults in her body and even more difficult for me to understand how she could believe it.
In what world could a creature such as she be inferior?
The way her golden curls bounce around her heart-shaped face, the curve of her breasts, the fullness of her hips and thighs.
The brightness of her smile, the kindness in her eyes, the sweet tenor of her voice…
I’m overcome by a sudden wave of fear, for if one of these thickheaded fools tries to fill her mind with insidious lies, if one of them so much as lays an unworthy finger upon her and I am forced to sit and watch…
“Hey yourself, little lady,” slurs the one with his tattooed fingers still in my nose ring, getting unsteadily to his feet. Fingers offers her that slack-jawed smile, eyes raking over her body, and I am filled with the sudden desire to rip those lecherous eyes from his face. “Damn…”
“Little? Ain’t nothing little about this one.” One of the ones that was sharing the flask, now stationed out of sight.
My ire grows.
“That’s okay,” Fingers says, licking his lips. “I like a girl that can eat. You know what they say about girls who can eat, right?”
I snort in rage, eyes glowing hot, but the noise of the chaotic bar and the laughter of this bastard’s dimwitted friends seems to drown it out.
“Listen—” Andie swallows, the smile on her face tight and false and nothing at all like the ones I have come to know and cherish.
“You boys gotta go on and get. This was locals night, and I’m sure y’all didn’t mean to, but you just spooked everyone real good firing him up like that.
Bull’s off limits, and… well, we’re closing up early now. ”
“No ma’am, I don’t think that works for us.
We drove a real long way to ride this here bull, see?
I plan to ride him hard, real hard, and when I’m done…
” Fingers steps closer to my angel, a dark look in his eyes.
“Well, I like me a big girl. Might just take a pretty one like you for a hard ride, too—if you’re lucky. ”
A guttural growl rumbles through me, drowned out by the sound of a cowbell clanging in the distance, on the far side of the bar where the liquor is shelved and served.
I turn toward it before I know what is happening, actually turn, and the movement drags Fingers along with me, bumping him into Andie.
I… I can move.
I can smell and see and feel and move.
As soon as I realize that I have control of my own mechanics, of my prison, I swing my body the opposite way, away from my angel.
Her reflexes are quick, but his are not.
Andie jumps back, safely out of my reach; he lurches backwards.
I swing around the opposite way once more, taking this disgusting mortal’s feet from underneath him. Shouts rise around me from the other men, from Andie, from those patrons still inhabiting the bar, but I pay them no heed, bucking and spinning, my mission clear.
Fingers lands belly down on my back, frantically yelping and gripping at my golden chains as I continue to test the limits of my movement, bucking harder, spinning faster.
Magic surges within me, flowing through the chains, gripping him as surely as he is gripping me, and a malicious sort of glee ripples through me.
This lecherous drunkard wanted a hard ride, after all.
And that is precisely what he is going to get.