A Sweet
Re-washing dishes in the sink after her dishwasher failed to sufficiently clean the light load she’d run after the cheerless dinner she’d served her family, Raquel Adams wiped her brow with her forearm. She was careful not to touch the reddened left side of her face, which was more than likely to bruise from the slap delivered by her husband after she’d complained about how the aging dishwasher was continuing to get worse. A simple remark, really. Though he turned it into an accusation of her belittling their most recent money troubles and his failure as a man to provide for his family.
Around the corner in the living room, her inebriated and abusive husband, Danny, watched TV in angered silence; the state in which he seemed to be in most often since his intermittent availability for consistent work with the construction company he contracted for. Danny had always had a temper and could be verbally abusive while drinking, but within the last year, his decline in self-worth exasperated his abusive tendencies towards one of physicality towards his young family. So ugly he had become.
Eyes still red from the recently dried tears, Raquel peeked around the corner into the room lit by only the television and the red and green Christmas lights wrapped around their tree with scant amount of giftwrapped presents underneath the small pine, more from their lack of funds than it being so early in December. But for the sake of her daughter and out of tradition she’d kept from when she was a child, she made sure the Christmas tree went up after Thanksgiving. She’d managed a few small gifts from her meager salary as a checkout clerk and placed a few small gifts underneath, all for her beloved daughter.
With her husband intent upon his drink, she imagined he would sleep once more in his recliner, or so she hoped. With any luck he’d pass out there for the entirety of the night and not come crawling into their bed with his beer breath and un-showered sweaty body, offering another shit apology for how he’d once again mistreated her and promises about how he was going to turn their financial misfortunes around.
With a heavy sigh as she placed the last plate in the dish drainer rack, Raquel was at first startled when she heard her nine year olds shrill voice sound from the bottom of the stairs at the other end of the living room. That feeling quickly turned to fear for her child.
“Mooommmy!”
With no hesitation Danny complained as his wife rushed to their daughter, “Jesus Christ. How many times are we gonna have to put her to bed tonight?”
Ignoring him, Raquel kneeled down in front of her daughter and grabbed her by her little shoulders with extended arms. “What is it angel? Did you have a bad dream?” She inquired, knowing her daughter had recently been suffering from horrible nightmares. She imagined they were manifesting out of fear of her father, who’d turned from only hitting her to taking out his drunken anger on their sweet innocent daughter as well.
“Mhm.” Little Kristi eked out as the little family dog began circling her legs with her little tail wagging and elicited a little bark of excitement, thinking it was time to play.
Afraid for her daughter as Danny stirred in his seat, Raquel swept up her daughter in her arms and headed upstairs. “It’s OK baby.”
“Take that yappin’ mutt with ya!” Danny’s voice echoed up the stairs, even though their dog, Lady, was already on the heels of Raquel.
Relieved her husband didn’t follow behind them, Raquel went into her daughter’s nightlight lit bedroom and eased her frightened child back into her bed. Covering her in her pink comforter, she put a palm to her forehead, noticing Kristi’s forehead was gleaned in sweat. Sensing no fever did not relieve her concern. For the past two weeks her daughter had been waking up in cold sweats she attributed to nightmares Kristi had been suffering through almost nightly. Those same nightmares awakening her had earned her a couple thrashings across her backside from her dad’s thick leather belt.
“Mommy, he came to me again. The four-eyed man with the big head.” Kristi quietly reiterated the description of the man from her dreams as she tightened her little hands on the top of the comforter and pulled it up even tighter to under her chin as she looked to the large vanity mirror, where the accoster of her dream world often liked to appear to her.
“Oh, baby. It’s just a dream. There is no such thing.” She tried to comfort, having discerned nights before that her daughter was not referring to someone wearing glasses, but rather someone who actually had two sets of eyes. Which of course was impossible.
“But Mommy…”
“Shhhh.” Raquel eased with a finger to her daughter’s lips as her voice raised in volume.
“But Mommy, he said he’s coming for me tonight. He said it is time he collected his sweet.” The nine year old insisted.
“Now, now. No one is going to hurt you.” Raquel lied, ignoring the odd mention of being called ‘sweet’, fearful that her husband might well change his mind and head up the stairs.
“Mommy!”
“Shhhh!” Raquel insisted with a stern but worried look, the swelling on her still hot face an awful reminder of what being an irritant to Danny could mean. Fear rose up in Kristi’s eyes, crushing Raquel’s heart. The last thing she wanted was to further wound her daughter.
Lady, with perfect timing, barked up at them both as the fat little floppy eared mixed breed jumped up as best she could from the floor.
“Here.” Raquel offered as she picked up her little dog, almost as old as Kristi. Placing her next to Kristi, she said, “Lady will protect you from those horrible dreams tonight. Just hold her tight and your guys’ love will keep the bad thoughts away.”
Raquel managed a smile as her daughter uncovered and scooped the loving Lady into her arms while accepting the soft touch of her rapid moving tongue on her face as she pulled her in tight. Kristi apparently accepting her protector as reason to attempt sleep once more, Raquel kissed her atop the head and issued a reluctant good night. Slowly closing the door behind her, as the girls got comfy in the bed, Raquel returned to the possibility of her own torment.
In the room, sleep never came for Kristi. Even with the love of her dog, she was too scared to attempt sleep once more. She wanted to be brave for her mother but feared the never fully visible man hidden in the darkness would be waiting for her. His grating voice attempting to win her over with sweet promises while his perpendicular set of four glowing eyes across his face stared at her from the shadows was too terrifying. In her dreams, when she denied the man’s attempts at luring her into the dark, he became angry and would switch from calling her a lovely child not deserving of how her parents treated her to a spoiled little cunt he was intent on wolfing down his gullet. The thoughts in her slumbering head seemed so real she felt the only way to safety was lying awake in silence.
She was wrong.
After a half hour of sitting up with her back to the pillow as she stroked the course hair of her dog’s back while she looked into the shadows about the room and listened to the cold wind outside her second story window, she suddenly realized she and the dog were not alone as Lady jumped to her feet and growled in the direction of the corner closest the window. Yet, no door or window had opened.
The same cold chill of fear she’d been feeling run down her spine and filter out to the entirety of her body in her dreams rose up in an instant. She was frozen in fear, wide eyed as she locked eyes with the two thin pairs of low glowing red eyes set into the wide head of her nightmarish intruder. Pinching herself, she knew in that moment she was not dreaming. Then the voice came, followed by the same strange clicking sound the stranger often produced after speaking.
“You’ve been waiting up for me, sweet, sweet, child. Click, click, click, click.”
Lady’s growl turned into a bark, never to be repeated as a flash of movement appeared in front of Kristi’s eyes as the four-eyed man rushed forward, silencing the dog with a single swipe of his weaponized two inch clawed hand, with fingers and arm proportionately longer than that of any human. The last sound Kristi heard from her dog was a wail of pain, quickly silenced as her almost instantly killed protector went flying into the wall, nearly in two. Her torn body banged against the wall, accompanied by a spray of her own blood.
“Moooommmm…”
A blood-soaked hand across her mouth silenced Kristi’s terrified shout.
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Bottle of beer a swig away from being empty, Danny pushed in the leg rest on his recliner as he began to move towards the fridge to get another of his favorite cool beverages, while trying his best not to feel the guilt rising up in him for how he’d treated his wife earlier, when the short scream of his daughter coming from upstairs rocked his senses.
Instinctively his brain knew this was not the usual account of nightmares his daughter had been suffering. In his deepest core, he knew something else was wrong. Despite his inebriation he flew into action, rushing towards the stairs just as his wife reached them from her seated position on the couch. Not intentionally, he ran into her. He was not a large man but his size and weight put him easily fifty pounds heavier than his petite wife. Raquel, who likewise knew something sinister was happening to Kristi, went flying into the wall but she bounced right off as she continued up the steps behind her husband.
Danny didn’t slow at the door as his ears caught the sounds of muffled screams. Not considering his daughter might very well be right behind the door, he crashed his shoulder right into it, taking it from its hinges. He slammed down right atop it as he landed in the room.
Behind him, Raquel let out a scream as she saw her struggling daughter draped in the arms of black cloaked and hooded figure sitting atop the windowsill of the second story window. The dog’s blood across the far wall didn’t even register, just her daughter. That is until Danny rose up and she looked from her daughter into the shadowed face of the hooded man. A man with four glowing slits of red looked back at her before the two on the right side of its wide face winked simultaneously before a low chortled laugh escaped her daughter’s assailant and he leapt from the window...or disappeared in a strange flash…her mind could not discern.
Tripping over himself and the door, Danny was first to the empty window as Raquel’s mind struggled with what she saw. Thrusting his head out the window, ready to jump in pursuit, he halted as he looked down, seeing nothing in the yard absent trees or shrubbery for anyone to hide behind. Just open yard to the neighbor’s house. So close behind the kidnapper’s jump, it wasn’t possible for him to be out of sight.
“Kristiiii!” He yelled after his vanished daughter.
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Down cemented paths being peppered by orange sparks, long bereft the footsteps of the living who’d designed and built the true place this reflected existence stole, past a coke oven and blast furnaces operating by unseen hands, Roth’taun turned down the corridor which would lead him to the depths of the steel mill with unconscious Kristi Adams draped over his shoulder. Once again basked in the bastion of darkness most prominent in their home, the hooded retriever of children for the sake of his master moved ever silent towards his destination, his stride making nary a sound.
Eyes of long dead human souls glimpsed the drude demon as they aimlessly floated past at varying heights among the machinery and scaffoldings littering the interior, not a care in the world they ended up in, past their so-called natural life on Earth. So it was for many naturally occurring ghosts unfortunate enough to find their eternal damnation in Purgatory.
Others weren’t so fortunate to have such little care and aimless wanderings through the extra dimensional space mirrored in the exact shape and function as the steel mill that had been built in their mother realm. Those naturally occurring spirits kept their distance from the likes of his kind, for ghosts with the wherewithal to understand what they were, hated and feared demons.
Then there were others. Some prior souls from Earth did not drift into Purgatory upon the death of the human body, but rather were dragged from their naturally anchored plane of existence, often by Roth’taun, as he’d just done with the little Adams girl. Though he wasn’t alone in this ability. Other Demons within his master’s service were capable of warping souls into a variety of more useful beings. Most of their captured souls were warped into the essence, or likeness to the essence, of a true demon born of Hell, while others had their souls ripped from their bodies only to be turned into evil spirits beholden to their demon masters. These torturous processes were learned thousands of years past by Hell’s demons capable of such manipulation against a human soul unfortunate enough to find itself in Hell. The earliest discovered were no better than the ones currently staying out of Roth’taun’s way. Now, multiple types of human souls turned demon essence existed. The mill alone contained multiple types.
Lowly misshapen creatures skirted away from the drude demon in their awkward erratic fashion. Simply called ‘crawlers’ by the true demons that warded over this portion of Purgatory, in service to the true master and architect of the arguably timeless space, these ravenous but undying forms of screeching and clacking deformed shells of their former selves appeared as failed man-sized wax sculptures their artist was melting down to start anew. The truth of their painful transition into a base demonic form beholden to their creator was actually far more gruesome and disturbing than even their dreadful look.
Without the need to word a warning, Roth’taun knew the erratic moving crawlers wouldn’t dare hinder his advance, nor that of any higher ranking demon in this small slice of paradise his master had carved out for the wayward band of Hell spawn gone walkabout. Not even with a fresh and very much live human child over his shoulder they all craved to sink their rotten teeth into. He knew the crawlers understood their position, albeit knowing little else. Other than making a meal out of the occasional crawler when the mood struck him or his brethren, they served little purpose. They were the guard dogs of the steel mill turned palace, not that anything meaningful from their past home had ever come looking for them.
Down flights of metal scaffold-like stairs through the maze-like bowels of the structure, Roth’taun continued. Soon no other demon or ghost was to be found, nor would there be even if he looked. The lowly did not disturb or even encroach upon the master. To do so meant death, unless summoned.
Finally making his destination through the crisscrossing extra-dimensional pockets of his master’s design, Roth’taun extended his long sinewy right arm out from under his black tattered cloak to rap his bony knuckles on the steel plated door of his master’s inner sanctum. But before his extension forward the door’s locking bar opposite him could be heard swinging up in groaned squeaks and scratches against the door’s interior.
Inside was nothing. Or so it appeared. Just a black void the low light from out in the corridor could not penetrate. Not even if Roth’taun produced a stronger source would the light pass into the entrance. Confident and familiar with the sight, he was not deterred and strode in carefree when the disappearing door stopped its squeaky opening, signaling it was swung wide as far as it could go.
Entering such a force of nothingness, one didn’t even know if there was a floor for your foot to find. For all one knew, they were stepping off of a ledge, only to fall into a pit of despair with no bottom to halt the forever torment of infinity without escape.
Roth’taun knew better and often conjured similar effects into the minds of those he accosted. Of the many facets surrounding their peculiar home, the void of black was of no consequence to the likes of him for he knew the trap’s secret. He entered as he had countless times throughout the centuries. A dozen long strides later, not veering in any way, and he exited back into the normal reality of their Purgatory dwelling. Had he changed course, he would have plummeted into the spell-like hole of infinity, never to reach the bottom. As intended, he found himself at the end of a long hallway that ended with another door.
Half a dozen other doors evenly lined either side of the white but dingy hallway bathed in an eerie and unseen source of glowing but fading in and out white light. The doors to the sides were a contrasting black, appearing sloppily painted with the heavy coats of paint flaking off of the wooden doors to the filthy tile floor.
The door at the end stood out in contrast to the other six. It was far larger and took up the entirety of the end of the hall. It was made of metal, rusted on the surface, with a porthole more akin to being seen on a ship.
Roth’taun moved towards the end of the hallway. Though the hallway didn’t appear to be long, perhaps twenty yards in total, each step gained him what seemed to be only a couple inches in distance as the hallway appeared to elongate right before his eyes. One not used to the illusionary space could succumb to vertigo quite easily.
Past the first set of doors opposite one another, Roth’taun could hear nothing from his left while stark sounds of distant echoing screams penetrated out the right. Many more steps than it should have visually taken him to get to the next set of doors, he could hear more noises. Familiar with the sounds of various tortures, he didn’t glance left or right to either of those doors either. Not even the pleasurable wails of one of his demon brethren out-sounding the muffled but loud whimpers of an attractive human female they’d recently lured into their realm, who was suffering the defiling cruelty of relentless brutal rape.
Finally set in-between the last two set of doors, Roth’taun stopped and turned left to face his destination. The far door would seem the obvious choice for the master of the place to be residing, hence the reason he was not. That far end was reserved for the master’s personal harem. Like the woman being raped back the way he’d come, all of his slaves underwent the same treatment at the master’s own hands, though he preferred to start them out much younger, which is what he thought his master wanted with the child over his shoulder. Those young souls chosen by the master were pliable enough to be turned into more than just wanton sex slaves, or failing that, food. Their souls he completely ripped of their humanity and transformed them mentally and physically, with the aid of his spell craft, into demonic figures of what passes as true beauty for the likes of a demon and fiercely loyal to their creator. His demented females live only to serve him in whatever fashion he so desires.
Again Roth’taun’s knuckles were raised. This time his knock sounded as his bony knuckles struck three times.
Hit with a breeze of a sweet flower scent as the door eased open, Roth’taun slightly bowed his hooded head, but never took his eyes off of the perfumed greeter as Ikeshia opened the door.
Roth’taun held Ikeshia in the highest contempt. The powerfully built and scantily clad three-horned mistress of his master‘s design held herself as an equal, if not more than he and his fellow true demons. He found her bravado to speak out of turn so often ill advised, but yet she did often, and loudly. As if the human born demon slut knew what it meant to be a true demon born of Hell. It was a ridiculous notion by his reckoning. The stupid bitch had never even laid eyes, let alone experienced what Hell is truly like. Her entire existence as a demon started and stopped within the confines of their Purgatory paradise.
Contempt or not, his blood quickened at the sight of her. His master’s design into accentuating her greatest physical assets while adding others more akin to what certain demons have physically evolved or transfixed to themselves with the aid of magical craft, was a work of sensual art. As were all of his harem, but she stood out among the half dozen or so he kept on retainer for his carnal needs.
One never knew exactly how many he still had. Those that displeased him were killed, reconditioned for another purpose, handed to his loyal warriors for their amusement, or worst of all tossed to the one devourer demon they had in their company.
Still waiting while Ikeshia just stood there, her essentially bare breasts framed in a bra-like harness that cupped the enormous wonders, Roth’taun waited for the inevitable roll of her dull red eyes, so like his own, before she was done inspecting him and his unconscious package over his shoulder. Then she turned with a flick of her forked tongue to lead him into their master’s ritual chamber. Wanting to snarl at her back, Roth’taun held it in and instead watched the long loin cloth pulled tight to her ass and falling in-between her stride, the outer edges of her cheeks out there for his furthered fantasies of taking the bitch by force before slicing her black throat. Or maybe relieving her of her two perfect eyeballs for her many snubs towards his race. Only to let her wander the halls blind among the crawlers, wishing she was born of the drude race and not a human soul turned demon with only one set of eyes.
Behind her sauntering stride, Roth’taun strode in. Like other places within the mill, the ritual chamber was larger inside than what it would have appeared from the hall, but it wasn’t the only thing that made the place stand out. Walking through the door, Roth’taun entered a natural looking cave system reminiscent of the cave systems he and his exiled brethren used when they lived in Hell.
Such were the powers his master possessed. He was capable of creating extradimensional pockets from within any realm he lived upon. But within the most current one they’ve called home since the 1940’s of the Earth calendar, it was the most spectacular place he’d lived alongside his fellow demons, which escaped Hell by passing into Purgatory almost a thousand years past.
Down a couple slow rounding corners as the walls expounded outward, the cave opened up, giving way to stalagmites that hugged the walls around the circular chamber with an altar of stone centered in the room. There, braziers with intermittent foot tall flames flicked up from each of its four corners. Shadows produced by the orange light hitting the stalagmites produced black shadows rising up toward the incredibly tall ceiling, like irregular shaped fangs of a long dead titan engulfing the room.
Stopping once more, ’til bidden, Roth’taun watched as Ikeshia continued her walk down the two step carved out stone stairs, to the altar floor, where she rounded the ancient solid rectangular stone altar, stained red from the blood of numerous species and countless victims sacrificed upon its surface. Roth’taun took notice of the altar, looking busier with unlit candles of every shape and design, vials of various mixtures, a large mortar and pestle, and a stack of grimoires larger than he’d seen in many decades. With so many of his master’s tools of spell crafting out, he wondered what was truly afoot.
Over the top of the alter Roth’taun caught sight of his master as he partially exited the shadows from around a stalagmite and took to his throne set back out of the direct light of the braziers. In the low light his charcoal black skin barely showed his full silhouette of corded muscle highlighted by the two bone horns erupting from atop his temples, which appeared more like a stag’s stunted antlers than horns, or the spiked bones erupting from his knees and elbows. Such were just some of the natural weapons affiliated with the modernly named zabaniyaa demon species his master personified in the most typical fashion.
Regardless his zabaniyaa lord’s hidden stature, his eyes burning red from his inner power, intense hatred, and cunning intellect, shone clearly in the shadow, like two spotlights of focused turmoil.
“Roth’taun!”
His own name simply spoken, but seeming not to originate from his master across the room, but instead echoing towards him from all directions, was his queue to enter the room more fully. How or why his master chose to speak to his subordinates in such a fashion whenever he sat in his throne was beyond him, considering he’d loyally been at his side for over a millennium. He did similar things to those he accosted in their dreams, but why his master still did so, especially with him, eluded him.
Three steps removed from the altar, Roth’taun stopped and un-hooded his head with his free hand, revealing himself fully to his master. He was starkly different in appearance to his master or Ikeshia, but so were most demon species to one another.
Evolutionary lines between the distantly related demon species was great and accentuated many times through the centuries as certain species changed their appearances and physical features with the onset of innate magical powers. Even adding the likes of spiked horns, extra eyes, skin tone and texture, or whatever fancies a demon capable of such body manipulation could think up. In fact, some individuals of the same species living right alongside one another look so different; one would never believe they originated from a common ancestor. It was just another chaotic truth to the unpredictable world of Hell.
Bowing his completely bald head while again keeping his now revealed four eyes on the recipient as Ikeshia kneeled to the side of their master’s throne and wrapped her left hand up to the backside of his armored calf in a gentle caress with her clawed fingers, Roth’taun blinked his two sets of eyes. The middle pair were spaced as most humanoid looking species were, but further out and angled slightly up was another set of fully functional smaller orbs. The pair to each side of his face moved in unison with one another.
Besides having an extra set of eyes, drude demons’ mouths were starkly different from the usual hinged jaws that most species of any animal possess. While hinged like them, they also had the added feature of a well-hidden split that ran down from the center of the bottom lip, past the chin, all the way down to the start of the chest. When opened fully, revealing the many hidden rows of teeth, a drude could take half the face off of human or similarly sized creature with a well-placed bite of his many irregular rows of serrated teeth.
After courtesies, Roth’taun named his summoner in greeting, “Master Darrannauch.”
The mighty zabaniyaa demon lord known in Hell as Darrannauch the Exiled did not mince words. Recent divinations into the troubling sensations he’d been feeling occurring on Earth demanded action. And the acquisition of the child was only the start. Convinced after the day’s divinations into the happenings going on within Earth, he meant to have his greatest asset amp up his plan. “It is time, my young friend.”
Not unused to being called ‘young’ despite being over a thousand years old, Roth’taun knew not in that moment what ‘time’ his ancient and much older master was referring to.
Sensing hesitation in his most efficient assassin and possessor of humans for their gatherings of offerings for simple sustenance and the desire for souls to torment, Darrannauch explained with a motion of his left towards the altar and his voice not thrown about the room, “Troubled undertakings, young friend. I’ve sensed Hell’s intrusions.”
All four of Roth’taun’s eyes went wide at the proclamation. While the memories of their enemies in Hell were long, it had been over a thousand years since their escape from the fiery red grip of Hell’s leaders and unforgiving landscape for the soothing darkness and ripe virgin grounds Purgatory offered the handful of escapee demons.
Seeing his tension with a hint of eagerness to fight behind his eyes, Darrannauch knew right away that Roth’taun was still the endless loyal servant; principled in the ways he’d taught him.
“Their pursuit will be their undoing.” Roth’taun started. “Our forces are…”
“Hold.” Darrannauch interrupted his well-intended speech. “It is not us that Hell has found, but perhaps something else I’ve long anticipated.”
Quizzically, Roth’taun waited for his master to expound what he knew rather than interrupt.
Remaining in the shadows, feeling the fingers of his perfectly evil Ikeshia, but horribly naïve in any sense of measureable experience for what he spoke, Darrannauch continued, “One faction or another has found a way to pass unto Earth. And not far from us. This cannot stand.”
“Surely not.” Roth’taun finally muttered but did not stop his master’s speech.
“The rest of my travelers,” Darrannauch referenced his demon minions capable of possession in some fashion or another, Roth’taun being his only drude, “Must foray into the Earth world, while you further prepare us for the inevitable battles to come.”
“You mean…”
“Yes, my friend. It is time to forgo our lives of luxury and torment to pursue ruling, as we’ve long foreseen. Start with bringing me another sweet. ”
The mention of procuring another ‘sweet’, as his master called the children he procured for him, and the declaration of venturing into Earth beyond simple raids into humans’ minds for the purpose of luring them to their webs and the far too removed ventures of physically entering the human realm, was too much for Roth’taun to contain his joy. Arching his back as he let poor little Kristi Adams slip to the stone floor, and tilting his head to the darkness above, his jaw split down the center of his chin as his mouth opened wide, revealing the full extent of his awesomely powerful vertical maw as he howled in glee.
