A Devilish Solution (Chapter 2) (Patreon)

Somewhere in Hell (otherwise known as Sheol, Annwn, Naraka, Xibalba, and among many others, the Underworld) lie the Dead Lands, a vast stretch of wastelands for miles. The sun is forever obscured by passing clouds, its full display never showing, and the sky is never blue even for a second. The ground is drier than dry. Nothing can grow there. There are dead gnarled trees every so often, but they are so ancient that even the Devil himself doesn’t know how old they are.

Two naked demons danced around a firepit like monkeys. Skinny and scrawny, Pict and Mor cackled and poked their torches at each other, each one daring to go further than the other. Typically, the more unruly and insane imps like them liked pass the time by torturing each other. The denizens of Hell often viewed imps as humans viewed wild rabid dogs, few of which had any sense of awareness.

They went at it for hours, until they finally stopped to take a breather and giggle at their demented fun.

The rustling of gravel made their heads turn round. They held their breaths wondering if a dead soul had found its way there. They narrowed their eyes instead with a scowl when they noticed the figure was a fellow demon, this one different. Much different.

“Ey, look at this asshole,” Pict said. “Is he clothed?”

“He is.”

“I’m not just imagining it. Right?”

The demon walking by indeed wore clothes, something unbefitting of all demons. The most demons were used to wearing were loincloths and, if the occasion arose, battle armor. Several of the more powerful demons, like the Princes of Hell or the ancient demons who could even control nature itself, were known to garb themselves in long robes and hoods. But for the most part, the average demon ran around gleefully enjoying nakedness. It was the one thing that distinguished themselves among pious mortals.

This demon dressed as though he was on the way to work – a human sort of work at a human sort of job. The two scoundrels first thought he must have been human, but as their fellow demon came closer walking by, his horns and red skin were unmistakable. He trudged onward with his hands in his pockets keeping his gaze low. It wasn’t until he passed by that Pict cried, “HEY ASSHOLE! NICE PANTS!”

He and Mor burst into laughter, rolling over dirtying himself on the ground like it was the funniest thing in the universe. The demon stopped walking and turned to face them. The two scrawny imps eventually stopped reveling and started to growl, wondering if they should be ready for a fight. Still not saying a word, the wandering demon casually strolled up to the fire, sighed, and said, “Do you mind if I sit here for a while?”

#

The city of Pandemonium reeked with a thousand unpleasant odors. Unpleasant for the mortal human soul that is. To the demons that resided there, born within the fiery pits, they relished in the horrid stench. The vast network of craggy streets, broken by jagged rocks and open pits leading to despair, varied in their grotesque nature. Every day was a beautiful gloom - mostly cloudy with a vague hint of burning sun. Hell in general wasn’t necessarily filled with screams, but Pandemonium was an exception. Like its name suggests, wild screams and shrieks filled the city from night to day. Nearly every street saw endless gore and violence. It was here that the damned were cursed to suffer the most painful torment imaginable and die a thousand times over, repeating the process for eternity.

For Mack, however, he tuned out to these unpleasant sounds. He worked in the Tower of Lust. When damned lustful souls found their way there in the afterlife, they were herded to the tower in Pandemonium, which looked vaguely phallic. Asmodeus, one of the Princes of Hell, the demon of lust, reigned at the tip. Everyone else worked the shaft. Mack worked deep in the basement, the dungeon. He liked it down there, where the unpleasant sounds were mostly drowned out. He had his own private torture chamber with an adjoining room that had his study.

He had been watching the woman who had been brought to him for some time, thinking deeply. She was only thirty-three years old. Her ex-husband had murdered her after finding her sleeping with another man – the tenth one in a year. Of course, the ex-husband would have his place in Hell too. Sometime, someday. Maybe Aeshma would probably take care of him. He dealt the most brutal blows to murderers.

Mack’s servants had chained her ankles to the wall. As for her arms, he had her locked in stocks – a wooden hinged board with holes for her head and hands. He liked that old medieval tool. It rendered her so vulnerable. She was dressed in the last thing she wore before her ex-husband blew her brains out with a Smith & Wesson revolver; a tight green tank top and bright blue jeans. She had been hysterical since coming here, first thinking she was dreaming and then slowly realizing that she was in Hell.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she moaned. “I couldn’t control it. He was distancing himself from me. I couldn’t relate to him. But I couldn’t divorce him either. Oh God. Oh God. Please let me go!”

Her face haggard and sweaty, she cried and cried. Mack did nothing and said nothing. He sat across from her on a wooden chair, smirking.

Awkward minutes dragged on. The woman started to realize that Mack was just sitting there staring at her. He liked to wait a while to get them to calm down before starting. Entering Hell was a big shock after all. He often winced at the more distressing souls who really didn’t think they earned it.

They locked eyes. She was pretty – very pretty. He liked the way her strands of hair fell over her eyes.

At last, she stopped crying. She sniffled hard and wiped her nose with her arm.

“Well?” she said, shakily. “What’s going to happen now?”

Mack sighed through his nose. He clasped his hands on his lap. “What’s your favorite food?”

The woman blinked several times, confused. She mumbled something before saying, “Um. I don’t know.”

“Of course you know,” he said smiling. “Everyone has a favorite food.”

She narrowed her eyes. All terror and despair escaped her as she half-shouted, confused, “What is this? This IS Hell, isn’t it?”

“Just answer the question, please.”

“But why?’

Mack growled. He was a little impatient today. Asmodeus questioned him about his torture methods earlier before the woman arrived. He hated when his boss was up on his ass about what he was doing with his prisoners. There had been…disagreements about Mack’s methods in the past, and word in the halls were that Asmodeus was considering firing him.

“What’s your guilty pleasure food? You know...the food you would binge on the most. The food you knew you always craved but knew you shouldn’t have. Tell me!”

The woman reeled back a bit at his persistence. “Ummmm. I guess.” Her eyes darted around, then settled with, “Pizza.”

Mack deflated. “Really?” The revelation wasn’t so amazing to him. He had hoped for something else. But pizza was pizza.

“Yes!” she said. Her face told him that she didn’t think he believed her. She sat up as best as she could with her restraints. “I LOVE pizza. I’d eat a whole pie if I could. Stuffed crust pepperoni. I’d eat that shit faster than—”

There we go. That was what he wanted to hear. The desperation. The craving. Mack smirked and snapped his fingers. The woman gasped when a large pie of pizza, so fresh she could smell it from where he was sitting, appeared on his lap. He got up and slowly walked to her. The woman looked fearful as his shadow loomed over her. Mack opened the box of pizza and could see the hunger in her eyes as the aroma of freshly baked pizza hit her nose. Human pupils widen when they see something they want or like.

“What would you like to drink?” he asked.

The woman scoffed. “What is this? Restaurant service in--”

Mack let out his frustration with the small wave of a finger. “Just…tell me.”

She sat back against the wall sighing. She clicked her tongue and smiled. “Do you have beer? Blue Moon? Yuengling?”

“Which one?”

“Blue Moon.”

And with another finger snap, he produced a bottle of Blue Moon.

The woman raised a brow. “Just one?”

He produced a second one, to which she said, “Just two?”

Mack smiled. He was beginning to like her. He produced a one-liter glass of Blue Moon. She went “Ahhhh, there we go!” Then she frowned and said, “But how am I going to eat it?” She wriggled the stocks that were around her wrists and neck, and the shackles on her ankles.

“That’s the fun part,” Mack said.

She looked at him nervously, then was about to say something when Mack shoved the first slice of pizza in her mouth. She moaned at first, then chewed and chewed and swallowed it. Before she could speak, he shoved another slice in her mouth. She started to gag and looked like she was panicking. Mack reassured her by saying, “You’re dead. So don’t worry. You can’t die again now, can you?”

This seemed to calm her down. Mack was impressed by how quickly she ate. He glanced down at her waistline. Her belly was bulging a bit underneath that tight tank top.

With her mouth full, the woman motioned to the beer glass. He brought it to her lips and tipped it over. She moaned and swallowed quickly. She probably did this sort of thing in college. She nailed it like a champ, guzzling the entire liter in mere seconds.

When she finished, she smacked her lips and sighed in relief. Mack dabbed any remaining liquid from her lips with a handkerchief. She thanked him, obliged, and then said, “You know…Hell isn’t half-bad. A bit weird. But not bad at all.”

Mack smirked. Despite doing this a million times over, for as long as he could remember, a part of him was nervous. Just a little. He heard about how humans courted. He never experienced any of that. But that anxiety quickly dissipated as he reached out and rubbed her belly. She tensed, unsure of what he was going to do. He gripped the fat folds of her belly and growled, uttering nonsense in intrigued tones. She moaned in fear, and then that moan turned into pleasure as he began stroking her breasts underneath her tank top. She turned red – really red, and Mack stopped.

“Is that okay?” he said deeply, his face now closer to hers.

She turned to him, probably wondering about the eyes behind his sunglasses, and why he was dressed the way he was. Maybe to her he even seemed…human. A bit. He must have given humans a sense of familiarity with his slacks and dress shirt. He even forgot himself that he had a tail poking through his pants.

She breathed heavily. “Yes.”

He caressed her more. He went for her erogenous zones, lightly touching her arms with the tips of his fingernails. She developed goosebumps, giggling and shivering.

“What’s your name?” he whispered in his ear.

She took a second to answer. “Kara.”

“Well, Kara. I’m going to keep feeding you. And if you keep eating, then…I’ll give you something special at the end.”

He reached down to her crotch, where her jeans hugged her skin. He very deftly caressed her clit, a passing brush. She heaved; a hint of excitement.

Mack snapped his fingers. Another large pie of her favorite pizza appeared at her feet. She looked daunted at the pie. She hadn’t a moment to reconsider before Mack stuffed the next slice into her mouth. Halfway through, he tugged her jeans at the waistline.

“Looks pretty tight.”

Kara winced. She now had crumbs on her lips and some streaks of tomato sauce.

“Are you going to quit now?”

Kara then glared at him, signifying she wasn’t going to.

Mack smiled thinly. “Good.”

He also had her drink another liter of beer. At the end, Kara was positively stuffed. She hiccupped and let out a monstrous belch. It was so loud that it echoed across the dungeon and rose to mingle with the cries of the other prisoners. Her eyes widened in shock at the violence of the sound. She shut her mouth and avoided eye contact, mortified.

“I’m sorry!” she blurted. “Excuse me!”

Mack slowly laughed. He burst into a guffaw. His laughter dragged on to the point where she appeared uncomfortable and confused.

“You’re cute,” he said. “You don’t need to excuse yourself in here.”

Kara gave him a sideways look. “Really?”

“Really.” He stroked her belly. “You were really holding that in, eh? You didn’t burp at all after the first liter.”

Kara grimaced. “I’m used to holding it in. All the men I slept with really hated that sort of thing.”

“Lucky for you, you’re here now.”

Kara narrowed her eyes. “Am I really in Hell?”

“Unfortunately.”

“But this really isn’t…” she shifted her weight, “all that bad…”

For a terrible moment Mack wasn’t in the moment. The joy of this had completely left him, like smoke lifting from a dead fire. He knew this wouldn’t last. Sooner or later, he’d have to let her go. She’d be passed around the tower…room to room…for all eternity like all the others. She might even be taken to the Dead Lands. Sometimes demons toss them there. It might be a thousand years until she crossed paths with him again, in which she might be a completely different person by then. Endless torture changes a person…

Mack shoved that thought away. Violently. A grumble actually interrupted him anyway. The very audible gurgle made them both look down at her pregnant-sized gut screaming to be free from those jeans.

“Uggggh,” she said. “Am I still lactose intolerant even though I’m dead?”

Mack’s pointed ears perked up. “Oh?”

Kara shifted her weight again, trying to find a better position to sit in. “Yeaaah. That’s why pizza is my guilty pleasure. I can’t have it but…ugh…it’s so delicious. Is that why this is Hell? Is Hell actually a place where you can enjoy your guilty pleasures?”

Mack didn’t answer her. He’d prefer not to. Instead, he kept massaging her belly. The more he did so, the more it grumbled and gurgled, until it became clear that she was ready to blow…

Kara turned beet red. She winced. “Uhhhhhhhh.”

“What’s wrong?” Mack said, smiling so wide that it unnerved her.

“Ummmmm.”

Kara winced at another wave of gurgles.

Mack reached down for the button of her jeans and, with a single flick that looked like a dagger flashed by, freed her belly.

Kara instantly sighed in relief. She looked down at her belly hanging over her jeans. The zipper automatically unzipped under the weight of it.

“Jesus,” she said, staring at it in amazement. Then she quickly spat, “Oh shit. Am I allowed to say that here?”

Mack snickered. She really was cute. Like extremely fucking cute. Dangerously cute. He wondered what her life was like to have her stray down here. Then again, he didn’t consider it straying. The powers that be may have deemed it that, but he fiercely disagreed. She must have been a product of circumstance. A deeply troubling and unsatisfactory life that caused her to succumb to sexual addiction. The fact that she was down here and her ex-husband was still out and about enjoying life felt wrong. He didn’t care how others saw it. He wanted to please her deeply. Dangerous emotions welled up inside of him.

Don’t… he thought. Don’t. Remember last time.

Another gurgle interrupted his thoughts.

She moaned, biting her lip this time.

“If you need to fart, just fart,” he said.

“What?” she half-cried.

He scowled in her ear, “Do it. You know you want to. Just relax. Do what you always wanted to do in front of another man.”

When she still didn’t fart, Mack grinned and pressed hard on her belly.

PPPPPPFffffffFFFFhhhhHhhrrrrrrrRrrrrRRRRrbbbbbBPPppPhhhhhtttTTT!

The fart erupted out of her. Mack could tell by the look on her face that she had tried to hold it in but there was nothing she could do anymore to hold it back. The fart sounded furious, angry that it had been brewing for so long.

Despite her embarrassment, Kara eased into it by sighing in relief. She relaxed and slumped her shoulders. She looked the most comfortable she had ever been so far since Mack found her in his dungeon.

“Oh my god,” Kara said after some time. “I think that’s honestly the loudest I ever farted in my life. Ha! My life. I’m dead! Oh man. I can’t believe I went through life holding it in just for men.”

The fart deeply aroused Mack. His cock had developed a boner so big that it brushed up against her thigh.

“Oh,” she said innocently. “Hello there.”

Mack withdrew himself from her. He began unshackling her ankles.

“Are you…freeing me?”

“Something like that.”

He stood back. “Try to get up.”

Kara, obviously struggling wearing the stocks, wobbled and tried to get up without the use of her arms. She groaned aloud and collapsed on her side, gut poking out to the side. She huffed trying again, looking like an awkward turtle trying to get up.

Mack went to the chair and sat watching her, keeping his hands low by his crotch.

“Wait where are you going?” she said, a hint of disappointment in her voice.

Mack smiled. “Nowhere. Just try to stand up.”

“And then what?”

“Just try. And maybe you’ll get something nice.”

Mack said there for an interminable period of time. Time meant nothing in Hell. It existed, but it still meant nothing. He stroked his massive cock beneath his pants watching her wobble her way to him. She fell a second time, this time on her belly, and let slip a loud, abrasive fart.

“Oof! Sorry.”

She rolled around like a bloated whale, moaning and groaning and letting slip farts so casually that Mack started to hunger for her. He finally felt the lustful rush, that point of no return. He HAD to have her. Watching her inchworm towards him so helplessly…

In a flash, Mack was on her. He unlatched the stocks and turned her on her back. She gasped, excited. “Whoa!”

Mack tossed aside his sunglasses, revealing heavy red dots. He growled, “Tell me what you want.”

Kara breathed heavily. He could sense the heat rising inside of her. She wanted to say things but was still holding back.

“Tell me!” he growled. “Every deep dark desire. Right now. Whatever it is, I’ll make it come true.”

“I want to see that cock!” she blurted, staring down at the bulge in his crotch. “I really want to see it. Just a peek. Oh shit, I really want to see it!”

He pulled down his pants, and her eyes sparkled and her mouth curved into a frozen “o”.

“Holy shit!” she cried. “That’s a FUCKING cock if I’ve ever seen one.”

Demon cock. They all were amazed by it. Mack’s was by no means any more or less average than the rest. But compared to humans, they were beastly. They were typically girthy and dangled. When aroused, they shot up like a fat rocket.

“Oh my GOD,” she said. “I really want to feel that. Holy shit. Holy shit.” She began writhing under him. “Gimme that! Gimme that! Oh God. I REALLY want to feel that inside of me!”

Mack shoved it in her wet soaking pussy without a further word. She cried out loud and held a high-pitch squeal. Too stunned to say anything, she screamed like crazy as he thrusted wildly inside of her, never stopping to take a moment to breathe. They didn’t need to breathe down there, really. People think too much of the horrors of Hell that they don’t realize the little miracles. The dead can do anything.

Mack contorted her in a way she had never felt in her waking life before. She found herself completely vulnerable to his craving for her. Her legs bend back all the way past her head with her toes touching the floor. She only ever tried yoga a couple times and never thought she could do such a pose. The slut in her always wanted to be able to do that for a more exciting sex life. And to think – in Hell was where she finally got that pleasure.

“FFFfffffuuuuuck!” she moaned. “IT’S SO GODDAMN DEEP!”

She could feel his cock nearly breaking her, pushing against her stomach. The fucking acted like a massage that pumped the farts out of her. She didn’t care anymore. In fact, the farts turned him on even more, his cock reaching its zenith.

Mack and Kara lost themselves in sharing an explosive orgasm. Kara felt a flood of hot semen fill her cavity. Mack cried out with his hands over her on the floor. He hadn’t had a good fuck like that in ages. A thousand feelings rushed through his head. Maybe this was the one. Maybe they could…maybe they could…

No.

The feeling began to fade. He became aware of his surroundings again.

Kara continued to ride her orgasm. Mack meanwhile was tapering. His cock was still large and plowing her. He slowed down gently, wanting to let her ride it out for as long as they could.

“Oh my God,” she kept uttering, flushed and holding her face with her hands. “Oh sweet Jesus. Oh my fucking God. Ten fucking guys. Not one of them was like this. Holy shit. Goddamn.”

Mack smirked a little – only a little. The feelings faded faster than he had hoped this time around.

He stayed on top of her for what felt like hours, feeling her and letting her cling to him. They locked eyes for a while. Kara completely forgot that she was in Hell. She wanted to giggle and hold him and it felt so weird to think that about a demon.

“Are you sure this is Hell?” she said for the millionth time.

Mack didn’t answer her. He got up, zipped up his pants, and sat back at his desk in the study. He slumped.

Kara remained on the floor, wondering what was next for her. When she laid there in silence for a long time, she propped herself up on one elbow and noticed Mack flipping through a massive tome.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

When he didn’t answer, she stood up, albeit still wobbly both from still being bloated and from being fucked like a true and proper slut. She went “oof” as she still felt the vibrations of his monster cock inside of her.

When she leaned on his desk, half-trying to get him to see her breasts and half-interested in what he was doing, Mack said, “This is my summoning book.”

“Summoning book?”

“Yes. If someone wants to summon me.”

“Oh. So they need to sell their soul to you?”

“No. Just trade something I want.”

“And what do you want?”

Mack looked up at her, grinning. “I think you know that.”

“I knew a guy like you once. He liked burps. He wasn’t into me. I actually wished he was. But it came out accidentally when I burped in front of him and he went all shy and weird on me, to the point where I had to wring it out of him and he confessed.”

Mack continued flipping through the pages.

“Has anyone summoned you?” she asked.

“No.”

“That’s a bummer,” she smiled. “They’d have a heck of a good time.”

When it became clear that Mack wanted time alone, Kara walked around his study, trying to find anything of interest in his bookshelf or knickknacks. He had a plethora of chemical apparatuses on a far table. It looked like a lab from medieval times. Mack hoped she didn’t ask about it. He didn’t feel like explaining his summoning requirements.

“So how does work?” she asked. “Am I bound to you or something? Are you going to—” she used air quotes—“’torture’ me for all eternity? Are we going to stay here in this dingy dungeon forever?”

Her questions may have been slightly annoying, but he still found her endearing. He hated that. He flipped through the pages aimlessly, wondering why nobody had ever summoned him yet. Well, he knew why. The terms of agreement put people off. He didn’t think they would. Maybe he needed to venture off into the Earth realm again to try and make pacts with people to spread his summoning book. He missed Earth. Genuinely. They had ice cream and funny bad movies.

But of course…. the last time he went there…

Mack put it in the back of his mind. He shut the book. He wouldn’t sacrifice his desires. If nobody wanted to summon him, then so be it.

A hard fist rapped the door.

Mack curled his fingers into fists. His heart skipped a beat as his blood boiled. Kara swerved to the door and clutched her chest.

“Who’s that?” she said.

The knocking became louder the second time around, more violent. When Mack refused to answer, the hulking demon behind it kicked it down. Kara shrieked and stood back.

Accompanying the large hulking demon with sinewy muscles with a robed figured – the head demon of the tower - Asmodeus. His face obscured by the darkness within his hood, his voice slithered as he spoke.

“Maaaack. We have been lisssssstening and are disssssapointed.”

Mack gulped at the sight of the bodyguard. He didn’t think Asmodeus would send someone like him this time around. Usually when Asmodeus bugged Mack about his job, he came by alone and gave him a slap on the wrist. Asmodeus was probably the least violent of all the Princes of Hell. Mack usually had the upper hand in persuading him to keep him around, as he was stouter and more physically imposing than the slim robed figure. The fact that Asmodeus brought over someone to intimidate Mack meant something. His bodyguard was not to be trifled with. The creature almost looked comical, with bulging muscles all around its body that dwarfed its head in comparison.

Before Mack could even utter a reply, one of Asmodeus’s tentacles lashed out from underneath his robe and grabbed Kara by the legs. She cried out and reached for the bookshelf to hold onto something, but it collapsed. She tried grabbing the tiled floor. Mack went for her, but the bodyguard smacked him across the room with a light wave of its wide forearm. Mack’s head spun when he hit the wall.

Asmodeus chuckled underneath Kara’s screams. Asmodeus, like most of the princes and the higher demons, were beings of unfathomable power and size. Mack had only heard the screams of those he personally tortured underneath Asmodeus’s robes. Carefree, giggling demons were said to fall quieter once they caught a glimpse of what tortures laid underneath. Mack didn’t want to think about how a cry of orgasmic ecstasy could be misinterpreted as a cry of sheer pain.

Kara tried so hard to cling to the tile floor before she slipped underneath Asmodeus’s robe. Her cries instantly muffled.

That was the last time Mack saw her.

Asmodeus continued chuckling and turned to leave. Mack expected the bodyguard to follow him. Asmodeus then stopped at the doorway and said, “Kill him,” before closing the door.

No second chances this time. They really meant to send him to oblivion.

The bodyguard let out a deep chuckle as it pounded its fists together. A single punch could splatter the head of a mere human.

Mack dove for the chains that Kara was once tied to before the bodyguard charged for him. The walls shook as it slammed against the stone. Unperturbed, the bodyguard already began charging again for Mack.

Mack pulled the chain at the last moment and tripped the bodyguard. That gave him ample seconds to bolt for the door and escape…

To where?

The second the tower guards spotted him running about the corridors, they knew he was a wanted man. A demon gone rogue. (Or soft?) They flew towards him, mosquitoes with lances. Demon guards were oftentimes the ugliest of the lot.

Mack had left behind everything but the clothes on his back. He put the thought of his summoning book away and focused on escaping through the ground floor. He didn’t think nor glance at the prisoners reaching out for him to help them. A thousand hands groped in the darkness from their cells. He brushed them aside like leaves.

Once outside in Pandemonium, he knew the only place they would be crazy to continue pursuing him – the Dead Lands.

He ran for a good minute and a half down a quiet alleyway. A loud crash of stone and rubble behind him told him that Asmodeus’s bodyguard was now hot on his tail. He broke into a sprint. From somewhere, a disembodied voice, Asmodeus cried, “MACK ZZZZAAACK SHALL NOT ESCAPE!”

Mack leaped over broken streets and shoved aside any demon in his way, even human prisoners.

A stray thought of Kara’s last expression nearly made him trip into a pit of boiling waste.

Pandemonium’s gates were ahead, wide open. As he neared, the portcullis began lowering. His legs wanted to give way but he ran even faster. He didn’t know what he would do from there on, but he couldn’t be sent to oblivion. There was so much he wanted to do. Someone had to summon him one day. It was his lifelong dream. Pandemonium was all he knew ever since Satan conceived him from one of his many dirty thoughts. His little dungeon at the basement of Asmodeus’s tower was his only home. Leaving to literal nowhere was going to be one heck of a change

Mack slid underneath the portcullis before it shut behind him. He didn’t stop there, not even to see the bodyguard eventually break through that. Ahead was nothing but miles and miles of rock and sulfur. The sight actually amazed him. He never got to see the Dead Lands like this before. For a moment, it actually gave him hope – the thought of infinite possibility. Strange, being that there was no hope in sight. But something about a wide expanse made him feel better.

Now if only there was a way to get this bastard demon off his tail. He really followed Asmodeus’s command.

Mack nearly slipped when he realized that he was coming up on a drop. He gasped aloud and caught his sunglasses before they fell into a ravine below – an empty vast ravine that was blacker than black. Hell be like that sometimes if you weren’t careful.

He turned around to face Asmodeus’s bodyguard. He figured the giant was dimwitted, but to add an extra effect Mack fell to his knees and pretended to plea. The bodyguard guffawed as it charged forward. As it got closer, it bared its claws and roared across the empty plain.

Mack dove backwards and grabbed the ledge as Asmodeus’s bodyguard leapt for him. He caught the look of terror on its face as it realized its face. Its haughty roar turned into a long moan as it plummeted into eternity.

Mack caught his breath. He waited to hear anything else. He shifted his weight and a tiny pebble fell. The sound echoed off as the abyss swallowed it.

With Pandemonium behind him, he set off deeper into the Dead Lands.

#

Mack stared into the embers of the firepit. A cold nightly wind began to whistle across the plain. His fellow demonkind stared at him for a moment after he finished telling his tale, and then burst into laughter.

“What a WEEEIIIRDDDOOO!” Pict cried.

“Yeah! You’re fucking weird, man!” Mor said.

“Farts? What the fuck is that about?”

“Never mind that, he actually pleased a human.”

Mack ignored them. A part of him smirked, and then the other part made him clenched his fists. These two dimwitted scrawny guys were no threat to him, or anyone for that matter. He could easily tear them apart. They didn’t call it the Dead Lands for nothing. All he needed to do was lash out at Pict’s throat and---

Mor shrieked like a monkey when Mack gripped his friend’s throat and squeezed it. Pict let out a throaty cry that ceased as Mack’s grip tightened. As his eyes began to roll, Mor reached for his spear and plunged it into Mack’s side---

And they all looked down at the spear having gone through him without any apparent injury. Mack let go of Pict and looked down at his hands – they were becoming more and more transparent by the second.

A mighty wind blew that snuffed out the firepit. Pict and Mor shrieked and huddled together in terror. Thunder boomed and lightning flashed as dark clouds grew above Mack. A large slit like a fleshy wound opened the fabric of reality.

Mack had been internally panicking thinking that Satan himself had come for him. Instead, he realized—

“Oh shit. Someone’s summoning me.”