Eternal Ch 03 1

This chapter's even squickier than the last one, so consider yourself warned. (I swear this is going somewhere artsy, but it might take a while to get there.)

*

Picture, if you will, two men standing at the foot of a sand dune, facing each other as they argued. The one wearing a sport coat and tie had the appearance of middle age, complete with a balding head, a slight paunch, and--at the moment--a look of displeasure. "Why aren't we killing something?"

His compatriot was taller and leaner, somewhat handsome in a muscular way. He didn't seem to mind or notice that he was naked to the cold. "Don't blame me for this, Belial. Judith's finding a replacement for the tempter who died in the last raid. You know how long she takes to decide on these things."

"So she leaves us behind here, with nothing to drink and nothing to fight? I hate the cold, I hate the sand, and I hate the boredom! You both owe me for this, Marlowe!"

"We've been over this before." As always, Marlowe's voice was neutral. "All three of us are pretty low on the totem pole, as far as greater demons are concerned. There are two reasons we've been assigned to cause havoc in America. The one we were given was that if we wreck enough shit, and cause a big enough distraction, we'll keep the U.S. army from going overseas and wrecking

our

shit in the African offensive. The one we weren't given was that they want the army to catch us, and they want us to find out the hard way whether your sword spiders can survive getting hit with tank shells. I'm not leaving this dimension without Judith on backup, and you're not leaving without me."

"So why'd you let Judith go on her own, huh? Huh?"

"Judith's fucking nuts, that's why. I couldn't stop her if I tried."

Their respective squadrons stood silent and unoccupied, sword spiders and devourers alike pacing and fidgeting. At that moment, the sword spider who will be most important to this story could have been thinking about how Belial and Marlowe's names perfectly symbolized the sort of people they were. Belial was the eighth demon to be known by his name, having killed the seventh to claim it. Marlowe had possessed a vaguely infernal name when human, and had decided to keep it in demonhood out of sheer practicality. The sword spider could have thought that their names implied everything from their emotional affinities to their battle strategies.

He could have. But instead, he was thinking of a sword spider named Grace, and of how much he wanted to get laid.

Not that Randall

could

get laid, in the traditional sense of the word--he had no genitals left to him, not even in the form of the blades at the ends of his tongue and his eight limbs. But his passions remained, even without their normal vent, and he'd buttered Grace up until she'd let him play with her body. Together, they'd done things with their blades that once would have appalled him, reveling in the pain that was the closest they could come to pleasure . . .

"Randall!" Belial bellowed.

Randall's memories were few and precious, but among them was a name that never failed to make Belial flush red.

What is it, Bobby?

he called out along the link that connected them.

As always, Belial said nothing about the name. "Didn't you hear that popping sound?" he asked. "Judith's back! She's on the other side of the dune--go over and ask her what took her so long!"

Randall knew the terms of his Contract as well as any lesser demon, and he could only dream of violating it. He obeyed his orders.

-- -- -- --

Judith stood alone, her entourage presumably elsewhere. "Ah, one of Belial's men. Good to see you."

Randall tilted his head quizzically at that. He was unused to anyone wanting to see anything related to Belial.

The gleam in Judith's eyes was unusually bright, and she seemed to be in high spirits. "Perhaps that surprises you, but if God couldn't act through sinners, He wouldn't be able to act through anyone. All of us have committed crimes against Him, and all of us deserve to be punished. I can't resent someone who's paying for his sins, just like me."

With no Contract connecting him directly or indirectly to Judith, Randall wasn't quite certain how to communicate with her. For lack of a better idea, he began the slow and tedious process of writing letters in the sand.

BELIAL

--how did "wants" begin? It had been so long since he'd last been allowed to read anything.

"Let me guess. He's complaining about how long I took."

Randall nodded.

"Watch and learn, my friend, and you'll see why I take my time. My quarry this time was a common prostitute, but she had impressive strength of will. She may even pass my test--and if she fails, she'll be a powerful warrior."

Randall was under no obligation to obey. It was as much out of morbid curiosity as duty that he watched Judith close her eyes and concentrate. A human form began to take shape beside her, a soul reconstituted based on its own image of what it should look like.

This one was beautiful--almost as beautiful as Judith. The strong ones often were, shaped by their memories of their younger days. She opened her eyes to see Randall in front of her, but though she stared in horror, she did not recoil.

"Welcome to Hell, my dear," Judith told her. "Know that you are loved."

"YOU!" the girl shouted. "What the hell are you? What did you do to me?"

"I strangled you, of course. Nothing more than what you've earned from your sins--don't argue with me; I've heard it too many times already." The girl's legs spread as her mouth snapped shut. "Greater demons all have a power, and mine is to make people stand still and stop talking. It's not as impressive as killing with a thought, but it's useful for handling people like you. "

The girl snapped free almost long enough to slap Judith, her hand halting an inch from Judith's face before she returned to her position.

"If you hate demons like me, there may still be good in you after all. I'll give you one last test. Pass it, and I'll let you die in truth, to pass on to the Heaven my own sins have denied me. I trust that you are ready?"

Randall stared wide-eyed as Judith dropped to her knees and licked between the girl's legs. The girl was silent, still struggling to open her mouth, but there was pleasure in her eyes as well as fear.

"I took the liberty of strengthening your sensations down there," Judith told her. "Better than anything you've felt before, isn't it? It's the ultimate temptation." From the sand beside her, she lifted a long metal bar, spiked at one end. "Actually, this is the ultimate temptation. I found it long ago, and it's served me well in my tests."

Perhaps Randall could have closed his eyes, as Judith began to fit the bar up the girl's pussy, but the thought never occurred to him--and in any event, he had no way to cover his ears. "The more you enjoy the thickness inside you, the more of a demon you'll become. Transform slowly enough, and the new passage won't form in time--the spike will puncture your intestines or your stomach, and you'll die a true death. Transform too quickly, and you'll be bound to my Contract."

The girl's pelvis stretched like it was made of rubber, distorting itself around the bar till Randall doubted she could remain upright without it. Judith fed the bar deeper and deeper inside her, past anything a human could bear, and she bucked and rocked atop it, deaf to the world. She shivered, no longer fully bound, even as her body began to melt and flow like wax. She put one hand to her cunt--

Her claws scraped her flesh, and she screamed.

"Fight it!" Judith shouted. "There must be a Heaven, though I have never seen it. Reject the pleasure, and prove you're better than me!"

Judith continued to push the bar in, and for a moment, Randall thought the girl would actually die. But in a few moments, she screamed in a different tone as her tail caressed where the bar entered her body. She went silent as the spike passed through what had been her esophagus, and her neck arched back as it pushed her mouth open, filling her from one end to the other.

"Well that was disappointing," Judith sighed, as the new tempter writhed on the spike, grotesquely distorted by its shape. "It seems I misjudged you, for I seldom see anyone put up so weak a fight. Allow me to teach you the first of your lessons in my care."

The demoness suddenly stiffened, then began to run, trying to escape from sight. With the pole still inside her, she didn't quite make it over the next sand dune.

"I could have dissolved her unnecessary organs," Judith told Randall, "but it's more instructive if I let her lose them out the unoccupied orifice. She'll always remember this as the wages of sin. Oh, and

do

tell Belial about this--especially if you can draw me a picture of the look on his face."

By all rights, Randall should not have been shocked by this display. Belial had made many tempters of both genders, and he'd dispatched them as soon as they'd finished pleasuring him. True, his methods were less brutal, but only from a lack of imagination. As for the mingling of pain and pleasure, that was something a sword spider was intimately familiar with.

Nonetheless, Randall could not help but reflect that for the moment, he'd lost interest in getting laid.