Light of Hellfire: Chapter 2
Introduction:
Baltoh’s origins are revealed.
Chapter 2
Selene bolted up as the feather on her coffee table began to spin wildly, with a glowing vapor wafting up from the silky strands. Breathing heavily, she crouched down beside the table and stared at the feather as it came to a sudden stop and the crystalline aurora became more focused and pressured, instantly being pushed away from the tip of the feather as if it were in a wind tunnel. It actually looked like passing comet, wrapped up in its tail. The feather began to twitch, with the tip changing direction by only a millimeter of so with each shift.
Bringing her face down low to the table, she looked in the direction that the feather was pointing. Even without having ever seen something like this, Selene knew that there was a definite purpose for what was going on. In her gut, she knew that feather was actually pointing to something, and whatever it was, she knew it would have the answers she was looking for.
Quickly getting dressed, she grabbed the feather and ran out the door, determined to follow it, wherever it led her.
Baltoh and Abaddon crashed through a wall of stone, entering an ancient cave system deep below the city of New York. Moving so fast that they were reduced to blurs, they locked blades over an over in an endless dance that had been going on for hours. With each collision, a vast cascade of sparks would fill the air, as well dust and shrapnel from every rock and piece of stone shattering from the created shockwaves. Only thanks to Baltoh’s barrier was all the damage instantly repaired and the affects of the battle kept from being noticed by the outside world.
‘Damn it, why is this battle still going on? It is true that he is far stronger than any normal Demon, but I would normally end a battle like this in less than a minute, but I feel so… dull. I can’t focus my mind or my energy. I feel like I’m bleeding to death,’ Baltoh thought to himself, trying to force all distractions out of his mind.
Disengaging from Baltoh’s sword, Abaddon flew backwards and pointed his clawed finger at his mortal enemy, as if he were pretending to fire a gun.
“Demon Art: Dark Pulse!” he thundered.
Instantly a colossal beam of dark energy erupted from the tip of his claw like a comic book villain’s giant death ray.
“Angel Art: Gates of Heaven!” Baltoh countered, planting his sword in the ground.
Shaking the whole tunnel, an ornate gateway of solid gold burst from the tunnel in front of Baltoh. Glowing like a huge neon sign, the gate shielded Baltoh from the blast, with the shadow energy unable to even pass between the bars.
“Demon Art: Debt Retrieval!” Baltoh then cast.
Beneath Abaddon, a trampoline-sized portal to Hell opened and a massive skeleton hand reached up, grabbing the Demon with its crushing embrace like a man grabbing an action figure and ending the Dark Pulse blast. With the beam halted, Baltoh released the Gates of Heaven spell and pounced on Abaddon with his sword held low for an uppercut slash.
With a monstrous roar, Abaddon swung his tail and struck the hand, shattering all of the bones and freeing himself. Abaddon retrieved his sword, having just enough time to block Baltoh’s upward slash. The two blades met and the Demon was instantly thrown straight up by the sheer power behind the slash, crashing through level upon level of cave systems.
Eventually gaining control of his momentum, Abaddon became intangible and slowed himself down, passing up into an empty subway platform. The chamber had two subway tracks with a twin lines of pillars on the platform between them, a long staircase leading up to the street on one side of the chamber but was blocked off due to repairs needing to be made to the platform, and a wall with a dozen payphones stood on the opposite wall. The platform was on the very fringes of Baltoh’s original barrier, meaning that if they moved any higher, they would no longer be undetectable.
After solidifying and stepping down onto the floor, Abaddon quickly stepped back as Baltoh shot up from below with his sword straight up. Having missed Abaddon, Baltoh became the victim of his own inertia and plunged his sword into ceiling, sending a spider web of cracks through the concrete and causing rubble to rain down. Before Baltoh could readjust his sense of direction and find Abaddon, the Demon appeared behind him, spun around for momentum, and delivered an earth-shaking kick. Baltoh was sent careening like a skipping stone and crashed straight through one of the rows of pillars like a wrecking ball through Styrofoam.
Coming to a stop, Baltoh quickly raised his sword to block an execution-style slash from Abaddon. The two enemies stared each other down, each pushing against the sword of the other. As the screeching sound of the straight-razor-sized blades on Abaddon’s sword grinding against the glassy serrations of Baltoh’s, the latter gave a smile. With more than twice as much strength as Abaddon, Baltoh released one hand from his sword, while the Demon was left still desperately pushing with all the strength in both of his arms.
Helpless to defend himself, Abaddon howled in pain as Baltoh slashed him across the chest with his talons, tearing open his chest cavity and nearly snapping the ribs. He then delivered an organ-rupturing punch, sending the Demon skidding back fifty feet. Abaddon struggled to stay on his feet with inky blood dribbling from his wound, giving Baltoh the opportunity of a lifetime.
Baltoh reached out with his long tail and wrapped the tendril around Abaddon’s throat, strangling the Demon. He then turned around, swinging Abaddon like the head of a sledgehammer, and planted him in the floor with enough force to create a thirty-foot crater. He released the Demon’s throat, and as the beaten wretch slowly tried to get to his feet, Baltoh delivered a devastating kick to the face, sending Abaddon flying through the air and crashing into the wall with so much force that even the pay phones he didn’t crush were destroyed by the shockwave and the whole terminal nearly caved in.
Baltoh pointed his sword at the Demon, about to deliver the final move. Dredging up his power levels for the attack that would obliterate his foe, he was suddenly interrupted by the sound of someone coming down the stairs.
‘What the Hell? This subway platform is closed, who is coming down here?’ he thought to himself, turning around.
His eyes widened and he released a deep gasp as Selene came into view. The beautiful woman instantly stared at Baltoh, completely mesmerized by the sight of him and the undisputable proof that the events of the night before had really happened. She slowly walked towards him, clutching his feather and focusing on every detail of his body, from his tail to his burning halo.
“It’s you, it really is you,” she gasped with a shaky breath.
Baltoh turned to her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Selene, what are you doing here? How did you find me?”
“The feather you left me, it began to glow and pointed in your direction. I knew I would find you if I followed it. Who… who are you?! What are you?!”
“I’ll explain all of those later, I have to finish this battle now. Just please stand back and—”
“Look out!” she interrupted, drawing his attention back to Abaddon. The Demon was heavily wounded, but he was on his feet and had his finger pointed at them.
“Die traitor! Demon Art: Dark Pulse!” He roared.
All the rubble on the floor was thrown aside like scraps of paper by an activated fan as a jet-black blast of shadow energy surged from his finger like an erupting volcano, focused into a dense beam with a ten-foot diameter and carrying enough power to cut down half of the city with ease.
Shielding Selene with his wings, Baltoh turned around and acted on instinct. Roaring at the top of his lungs, he swung his sword and deflected it with the edge, defying all laws of physics and accidently launching it upwards. Going straight up, the blast burned a hole through the street and shot into the sky. Everyone in the street screamed in terror as it continued to rise like a geyser of oil, flying high above the tallest buildings in less than a second.
With the blast saturating the atmosphere with shadow energy, dark storm clouds began swirling around the black pillar. Down on the subway platform, Baltoh was pushing against the blast with his sword, desperately trying to stop it from firing upwards. If he tried shifting the angle of his sword and direct it in a different direction, the blast would slam down onto the city like a cleaver. In the blink of an eye it would take to change the direction of the blast, a huge scar could be carved straight through several miles of the city, possibly killing hundreds of people. This beam was far more powerful than a normal Demon’s!
After rising so high that no one could see it, the blast finally faded, growing thinner and thinner until it split off into just a few wispy beads of power. Baltoh blinked several times to readjust his sight and cursed when he saw that Abaddon had disappeared. He looked up at the hole burned in the street and the disappearing clouds.
“This won’t end well…”
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am for costing you the fight. If I hadn’t shown up, you could have beaten him,” Selene said, placing a cup of coffee on the island table for Baltoh.
He was leaning against the table with his wings retracted back into his body, in order to keep from accidently knocking things over. However, they were the only aspects of his appearance that he could change. His claws, tail, and burning halo could not be removed or hidden. Upon Selene’s commitment to finding answers, Baltoh had finally agreed to talk to her in her apartment, though he had to make himself invisible in order to get there without being noticed. Outside, the city of New York was like an overturned anthill as everyone who had seen or heard of the blast tried to figure out what it was. There were already dozens of news vans around the area of the eruption, held back by a line of police officers while anti-terrorism agents and forensic investigators studied the scene. Outside of the ring of crowds, Christian fundamentalists were already preaching that it was the end of the world and the blast was a signal that Judgment Day was at hand. However, after what had happened, no one could quite blame them.
“It’s alright, it was my fault. I should have killed him without any difficulty, but for some reason, I just couldn’t put my full effort into it. I gave him the opportunity to escape when I didn’t just skip the fight and finish him off. But it will take time for him to recover, and hopefully by the time he is strong enough to actually do anything, I’ll be able to track him down and finish the job,” he said coldly, ignoring the mug before him.
Selene leaned against the table, staring at Baltoh intently, trying to glean information from just his appearance. “Who are you?”
“My name is Baltoh, which is the Enochian word for ‘righteousness’.”
“But what are you? Are you an Angel…?” she began, looking at his white-feathered wings.
“Or a monster?” she asked, moving her eyes down to the black scaly wings.
“I’m both; half Demon, half Archangel, more powerful than the two of them combined.”
Selene’s eyes widened at the very concept of such a reality. “How… how does that even…”
“How does something like me even come to exist? That takes some explaining. In the entirety of existence, there are three realms; Heaven, this universe, and Hell. In Heaven there are the Angels and Archangels, on Earth there are humans, and in Hell there Gargoyles and Demons. Angels are deceased spirits that have sworn their allegiance to Jehovah to fight on his behalf against the forces of darkness, and Archangels are created by Jehovah himself or are the sum of multiple Angels bonded by their unquestionable desire to do good and fusing together into a superior being devoted to slaying evil.
In Hell, Gargoyles are malicious dark spirits that are born in the Lake of Fire through the anger and hatred of people on Earth. While they are completely devoid of actual souls, they are the shadow equivalence to Angels, but when an Angel falls from the grace of Heaven, it can become a Gargoyle with a soul. During events like wars or genocides, there is always a massive upsurge in the number of Gargoyles spawned from those negative feelings. However, in places on Earth with an unnaturally high level of pain and hatred in its history, very weak Gargoyles can form, while still being far more powerful than even the cruelest human spirit. Most often, when you think of demonic possession and demonic haunting, it is really just mere Gargoyles that are to blame.
Demons are on a whole other level of power from Gargoyles, with the difference being equal to the difference between Angels and Archangels. When souls are in Hell for a long enough period of time, they begin to… decompose, as you might say. Their bodies and minds crumble into ash and they basically cease to exist as sentient beings. There are entire plains in Hell of black sand from the ashen remains of the bones of broken souls.
However, there is a special form of ash in that mixture, a part of the human soul that is… heavier. It is the traces of evil that lie within every soul, the darkness that drives people to sin and commit crimes. Some have more evil in them than others and you know the results they bring. But like hydrogen gas coming together to form a star, the crushing weight of all the evil deeds and their weight will draw the heaviest particles of ash together and form a Demon, spawned completely from the malice of evil souls and lacking even a single human characteristic other than the desire to torment and destroy.” Baltoh explained with a haunting tone. Selene shuddered as she tried to fathom such an unholy creature and the darkness it would set loose.
“The other kind of Demon is a fallen Archangel, which means that its powers of light are converted into the powers of darkness and they become servants of the Devil. You can tell which Demons were originally Archangels created by Jehovah because they are much more calm and tempered, being of a single mind instead of a toxic mixture of hundreds of spirits.”
“So how do you fit into the picture?” Selene asked, resting her chin on her tented fingers.
“Demons are basically fallen Archangels, right? Well instead of being an Archangel that has fallen, I am a Demon that has risen,” Baltoh answered with more weight to his words than the declaration of a new world order.
“You mean you were originally a Demon?”
Even after all of the things she had seen Baltoh do, after hearing what a Demon truly was, she felt a great amount of fear towards the hybrid and took a step back.
“Originally, yes. I was born through a very different and unique mixtures of souls, specifically the souls of people who committed murder in the name of justice; police officers, Templar Knights, executioners, patriots, or even simple men killing the bastards that raped their wives or daughters. Jehovah doesn’t condone killing between humans, even if it is to slay evil.”
He was leaning against the table with his eyes downcast and hands balled so tightly into fists that blood oozed from his claws digging into his palms. Selene felt a deep chill in her heart as she heard the pain in Baltoh’s voice.
“I was once a legion of millions of people, tortured for eons by the minions of the Devil for bringing justice to the world through violence. We were heroes, yet we were cast aside and punished for our acts. Finally, when the amount of ash from crumbled heroes was so great that it dwarfed any other Demon’s genesis, I began to form from their hatred. But unlike Demons that form from the hatred of life and light, my hatred was directed towards evil itself. That desire to slay and kill the forces of darkness was so powerful that I was able to come alive from the pain and hatred of the discarded heroes. As far as I know, no Demon has ever been born from nearly as many souls as I have, meaning that my power was already unnaturally high.
I remember my birth clearly: opening my eyes for the first time deep below the ground of the ashen fields, coughing on the dark soil that filled my mouth and lungs, groaning against the crushing pressure on all sides. I remember climbing up through layer upon layer of decaying skeletons, becoming accustomed to my humanoid body and the Demon characteristics. I continued to tunnel through the ground, and just when I thought I would never escape my earthen tomb, my clawed hand broke through the surface and I managed to pull myself out.
Coughing and gagging, I climbed out onto the black fields of ash, breathing heavily for the first time. I looked up, seeing the flaming sky of Hell and the shifting dunes of the ash desert. I then looked at my hands and finally realized that I was a Demon. The second after the realization came, so did the passion and desires of all the human souls that made up my consciousness. The desire to destroy evil was so powerful, I felt like I was growing to throw up if I didn’t behead a beast of Hell right then and there, but there I was, a living Demon; the very symbol of darkness and evil. I was what I despised most.”
“So what happened next?”
Baltoh finally cracked a small smile and turned away from her. “I took my own life. Sitting in that black sand, filled with so much self-loathing that I could barely breath, I decided to end my existence right then and there. At least in my death, I could destroy evil and remove one threat from existence. Raising my hand, I straightened my fingers and plunged my claws into my own heart, ending my life.
Selene, never in the history of existence has a Demon ever committed suicide. By nature, they are too vain and too desperate to make others suffer to ever end their own life. Even while being tortured or cursed with ceaseless agony, they refuse to die in the hope that they can cause misery. But here I was, trying to eliminate my own existence to that I could at least destroy one piece of evil, even if it was myself. The fact that I was going against nature to such extremes is what allowed me to become what I am.
It was that act that did it; I remember it so clearly that it was as if it happened this morning. As my punctured heart came to a stop and the last flickers of undeath went out in my brain, there was a flash in my soul, brighter than a million suns. Through sin, I had achieved virtue, the same level of virtue that Angels needed to achieve to become Archangels.
Just as Christ was resurrected three days after his death, I was resurrected after mine. Holy energy flooded my body with the desire to destroy evil acting as the bridge between darkness and light, allowing for a synergistic balance that kept me from being destroyed by the transformation. With the power of both Heaven and Hell pulsing through my veins, I slowly got to my feet, transforming every second. I shed my scaly Demon skin for a humanoid body and flesh, grew the wings of an Angel above my Demon wings, and gained a halo of Hellfire, all while keeping my claws, tail, Demon wings, and the power of shadow energy.
I stood up with my new body, completely enlightened and worlds apart from Demons and Archangels in terms of strength and raw power. As I flexed my fingers, a Demon landed behind me, having come to investigate the bright light caused by my resurrection. Upon seeing me, the creature attacked… poor beast. Completely driven by instinct and using less energy than to snap my fingers, I beheaded the Demon with the edge of my hand, moving so fast that he never even saw me.
From that point on, my war against the spawn of Hell began, and I spent the last several decades solely in the Demon and Gargoyle nurseries, slaughtering the unholy beasts the second they were spawned and fighting for every second of my life, appeasing my desire to slay evil and decimating the Devil’s armies.”
Selene was completely at awe at what she had just heard and struggled to think of something to ask or say. He she was, talking to the ultimate proof of faith.
“So if you’re half Demon and half Archangel, can you combine your powers?”
“No, I can only use them at the same time. I can mix them so that the two energies are blended to the point that they look almost like the hide of a zebra, but they forever remain separate forces, just like oil and water. It is impossible for Demon energy and Angel energy to bond, they are too opposite of each other.”
“So why are you here now?”
Baltoh turned back to her. “On the morning of the day I saved you, a Demon and several Gargoyles crossed over into this realm without being summoned. This is supposed to be impossible, as only the forces of Heaven have the ability to enter and exit all three plains of existence at will. I’m here to find out how they were able to do it, what they are doing here, and to slaughter them.”
“What do you mean ‘summoned’?” She asked.
“Gargoyles and Demons can only cross into this world from Hell if they are summoned through some act of human necromancy, like a bunch of goth kids performing a Satanic ritual. The process is actually very painful for any apparition that gets caught in it; it’s like bungee jumping from a satellite through the shaft of a volcano. I should know, I was actually caught in them a few times and pulled here against my will. The result is an apparition with significantly lowered power levels, so low that the only actions they can take are paranormal events like haunting the places where they were summoned. Given time, they become more and more powerful, eventually becoming strong enough to hurt humans and even leave the place they were summed to.
Every decade or so, the ones who perform such a ritual are skilled enough to actually summon a real Demon, and that’s when things get bad. A Gargoyle can possess and even kill people in an area, but Demons are able to create natural disasters and even plagues, like erupting volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis.”
“So then does that mean exorcisms really work?” Selene asked, tilting her head to one side as she walked around the table towards the den. Baltoh followed her and they both sat on the couch.
“Yes, but not in the way you believe. The ritual of exorcism does not call the power of Jehovah to banish a Demon back to Hell, it is more like a summoning ritual for Angels, except that it only has to draw their attention, as Angels have the ability to pass through dimensional barriers. Consider yourself lucky that demonic entities are incapable of having that ability. When an exorcism is performed, it is a SOS to the forces in Heaven that you need help destroying a demonic entity or evil soul. Making their bodies invisible so that they can’t be seen, the Angels and even Archangels will arrive and battle the entity that is being exorcized, eventually destroying it once and for all.
Often times these battles can get extremely violent and destructive, so Angels answering the call of exorcisms always arrive in groups. One or more fights the entity or evil spirit, others cast a barrier that instantly repairs anything destroyed in the fight and hiding the events from outside viewers, and another to protect the ones performing the exorcism and anyone else in the area, always having to heal their wounds and alter their memories. Entire city blocks can be annihilated in one of these battles and people can be so badly wounded that they are brought to the brink of death. When that happens, the Angels will do everything in their power to avoid acknowledgement by the general public. They will wipe memories, rebuild anything destroyed, and even manipulate the media and Internet to destroy all reports or pictures of the incident.
When it comes to Demons vs. Archangels, the battles are waged using ancient spells and incantations that focus the respective energies of the two fighters. Being a hybrid, I can use both Heaven and Hell spells.”
“But why do the Angels make themselves invisible? Why not show themselves? And why do they have to alter people’s memories?”
“After the death of Christ, Jehovah decreed that Angels and Archangels were to halt all visible actions in the World of the Living. Any actions taken had to be while disguised as humans and without exposing themselves or done while completely invisible. The forces of Heaven barely ever come to Earth anymore for anything other than answering the calls of exorcism.
Demons and Gargoyles also stay invisible almost constantly, but for a different reason. Whenever a demonic entity visually reveals itself, it becomes exposed to the light of this world. They can handle revealing themselves indoors and outside at night without too much pain or trouble, but becoming visible in broad daylight is like being set on fire.”
“Do you know why God made that law?”
“To be honest, Jehovah wanted to promote the lack of faith which was born at the turn of the century. After almost two thousand years of war and suffering caused by Christianity alone, he decided that the world would be better off in the hands of atheists, as there is no extremism when there is no faith. A world without religion is a far more peaceful world than one where people fight over the deity they believe in.”
Selene was silent for several moments as she tried to think of another question. “If hunting these Demons and Gargoyles is giving you so much trouble, why don’t you just ask the Angels for help?”
Baltoh sighed. “The Angels hate me just as much as the Demons do. I may be half Archangel, but I was also born a Demon and am still half of one, not to mention the fact that I am an abomination. Even though I have slain entire armies of Demons in my life, they see me as a huge threat that must be destroyed. I have come to Earth thousands of times before (as I previously mentioned, a few of them were due to being caught in summoning rituals), and every time I arrive, they try to destroy me because I am that much of a danger to the balance of the three universes.
The fact that I am talking to you right now and didn’t bother to cover that blast better will certainly come back to bite me when they show up, but frankly, I don’t give a damn what Jehovah decreed. I am the sum of millions of people who have been sent to Hell for killing in the name of justice. If anything, I blame him for my very existence and consider him my enemy.”
More than a minute passed by, in which neither Selene nor Baltoh spoke or even made eye contact. Looking at Selene in the corner of his eye, Baltoh was trying to understand what it was about this human that had piqued his curiosity, while Selene was trying to process everything she had seen, heard, and experienced in the last twenty-four hours.
“Thank you,” Selene finally said.
Baltoh looked up.
“Thank you for saving me last night. If hadn’t come, I would have been raped and probably killed.”
“I was born out of the desire to slay evil, how could I have allowed such a crime to happen?”
“What you said back there, ‘your hatred is nothing compared to mine’, is that really how you measure your power? Is there anything other than hatred within you?” she asked with the slightest hint of sadness.
“It is what I was born from, it is what I am made of. Hatred is who I am, it is everything that I am,” he responded, with a similar touch of sadness to his voice.
“So you can really do nothing more than hate?”
“I can’t imagine being anything else.”
Selene then gained the smallest of smiles, so light that it was barely visible, but not so subtle that Baltoh didn’t immediately see it. “You care. You didn’t just kill those rapists in the alley, you healed my wounds and brought me back to my home. Today in the subway, you spoke kindly to me when I interrupted your battle instead of just knocking me aside, and you even shielded me with your wings.”
Baltoh maintained his melancholic face.
“Listen, the fact that you haven’t caught these monsters yet means that it will probably take time. During that time, if you ever want to take a break or talk to someone, just come find me.”
Baltoh gave a small nod and stood up. “You still have that feather, right?”
“Of course,” Selene answered, almost excitedly.
“Keep it with you, and if you are ever in danger, I will sense it and be able to find you,” he said before becoming intangible and walking through the wall, leaving Selene resting her chin on her hand with a dreamy expression on her face.
“So did you see that black line in the sky yesterday?” Molly asked, causing Selene to perk up like a cat at the sound of a passing mouse.
She was in the break room of her office building, looking in low cabinets for any coffee cans so that she could make a fresh pot. The break room was like any other in the world, with a line of high cabinets and low cabinets against the wall, a small fridge, dingy lighting, a table and a few chairs, a “stainless” steel sink, and a bullshit motivational poster that served only to add some color to the beige wall.
Molly was sitting up on the counter like a little kid, curling her long blond hair around her finger. She was both the equal and opposite to Selene, with golden hair, bright blue eyes, and pale skin, but she had a fit build with voluptuous curves, the perfect combination of good genes and countless hours at the gym. She and Selene had been best friends since they were first interns and were closer than sisters.
“Uh… no… I spent the day in bed. I got that bad 24 hour flu that has been going around.” she replied, avoiding eye contact while she set up the coffee maker.
“Jeez, that’s a real shame. Everyone’s talking about it but there isn’t a single picture of it anywhere, not on the news, in the papers, or even online. Normally if someone falls off their motorcycle, people have their phones ready to upload it to Youtube before he even hits the ground. And it was almost right in the middle of the city where everyone saw it,” her friend muttered while trying to break a jumbled knot of a few strands of her hair.
The words of her friend gave Selene a flashback of what Baltoh had said about Angels removing all traces of incidents and even manipulating the media.
“I’m sure it will be online by the end of the day, someone had to have recorded it,” she shrugged as the coffee pot was slowly filled with the hot black brew.
“I hope so, I really want you to see it,” Molly said as he held out her empty mug.
While the coffee was poured, a balding man with glasses and a large handlebar mustache stepped into the break room. “Ladies, less talking, more typing.” He nagged.
“Just a minute Mr. Reed,” Molly said with a smile that was as fake as a politician’s promises.
The manager left and Molly turned back to Selene with a look of disgust. “I cannot stand that bastard. I just want to grab that mustache of his and swing him around before throwing him out a window.”
“Just be careful, because if he hears you, you’ll be the one on your knees “begging” for your job.”
Coffee cup in hand, Selene returned to her cubicle and sat behind her desk. Typing away on her computer, she tried to keep her mind focused on her work, but her thoughts kept drifting back to Baltoh and her purse, which had his feather stitched into the side, something which Molly had joked about being so out of style that she might as well just call her purse a satchel.
After everything she had seen and heard, it was natural for her to question her current life. After learning that Heaven, Hell, Angels, Demons, and even the God and Devil existed, was it really unusual to think she had seen too much to just go back to her boring job? Now she wanted to get involved, she wanted to know more, she wanted to take part in Baltoh’s battle against the Demons and just do something that would let her know that she had a place in the bigger world.
Putting her purse on her desk so that she could at least keep her eyes on the feather, she eventually managed to get some actual work done.
Baltoh stood on the roof of a skyscraper, completely invisible as he gazed out at the city and tried to sense the energy signatures of Abaddon or any of the Gargoyles. Unlike in Hell, the dark spirits were keeping their powers hidden to avoid detection, making it next to impossible for Baltoh to pick them up. As he scanned the concrete jungle below, a bright pillar of light shown down from the sky like a beam of sunlight piercing a layer of thick clouds.
Floating down from the sky, a man appeared with pearly eagle-like wings stretching from his back and landed behind Baltoh, invisible to all but the hybrid.
“Salvis Michael, egonst eratum admiratchas cumorsque votbac utinsames postendaccre usquortdes,” Baltoh dryly said as he stood up and turned around.
The words of the statement carried a weight and ominous tone that no other language held, as it was the language of the Underworld; Hellscript, a dialect of Latin and a form of speaking that was very dangerous to humans. If spoken in the general public, every mortal within earshot would be brought to their knees by crippling sickness. Speaking entire phrases like Baltoh had just done would cause them to throw up and begin bleeding from their mouth, nose, and even ears and eyes.
In English, it translated to, ‘Hello Michael, I was wondering when you would show up.’
The Archangel’s clothes greatly resembled Baltoh’s, as he wore boots, baggy pants, a sash, and a vest over their long-sleeve shirts. The only differences were that his clothes were as white as his feathers, he didn’t have a hood, and he didn’t have a pair of shackles on his wrists, though his did have the rosary bead chains. His complexion was much tanner than Baltoh’s grey skin tone, and he lacked claws, a tail, and of course, a pair of Demon wings. His ears were pointed and he had a single line of red wavy hair going across his head like a Mohawk.
“Nanpaeel itpamis gotho ols oliog noshtoah oxvecvfa oasdriax gie coailg, babalons hamil! Osd nanpaeel gotho fabotan toiad exharsp lits maed mashorela Hellscript,” Michael scolded in Enochian, the language of Heaven.
Translated, it meant, ‘Do not speak to me as if we are friends, evil creature! And do not poison the air with your dark Hellscript.’
“English then,” Baltoh sighed. Michael scowled but nodded.
“You should consider yourself lucky that I decided to be charitable and not attack the second I entered this realm.”
“Even if you attacked me Michael, it would do you no good. You know as well as I do that my power is worlds apart from yours. Unlike you, I walk between both worlds of light and darkness, making me far stronger than you could ever hope to be. Know your place, Archangel.”
“Your arrogance is truly that of a Demon, proof that you are and will always be a Hell-spawned abomination. Not to mention the fact that you have the same habit of getting involved with people as the dark beasts that feed on misery. You have caused catastrophic damage to the city without even eliminating all traces of your existence and have even socialized and murdered humans. This is a crime of the highest order!” Michael thundered, swinging his arm.
“The laws of Jehovah mean nothing to me. Your king is a apathetic fool, at least I do good in this world. He doesn’t even try to punish me for these “crimes” of mine, so either he truly doesn’t care about Earth or he is afraid of my power.”
“Blasphemy!” Michael hissed as he held out his hand.
There was a bright flash of light from his palm and a broadsword materialized in his grip. The handle was of twisted gold wire with a ruby pommel, the bronze guard was shaped and engraved to look like a pair of Angel wings, and the blade was sterling silver but stronger than steel.
“Say one more word, and I will cut you down here and now! The Demon and Gargoyles can wait, but your death is long overdue!”
At the mention of Abaddon and his minions, Baltoh condescendingly clicked his tongue and turned around. “Go back to your cloud kingdom, Michael. The situation is the business of Hell inhabitants only. If you want to get involved, do it on your own time when I don’t have to be called up.”
“The situation is truly serious, you know that better than anyone. This time, Heaven cannot afford to stay out of the mess,” Michael argued, lowering his sword and softening his tone.
“I grow tired of this conversation Archangel. Leave me in peace and don’t come back.”
“And if I don’t?” Michael growled, bringing his sword back up.
Baltoh turned Michael and pointed down at the city, with a marble-sized sphere of dark energy crackling at the tip of the claw of his index finger. “Then I’ll fire a Dark Pulse straight into the city and obliterate the next three miles of buildings.”
Michael paled at the threat. “You wouldn’t dare!”
“I’m half Demon, remember? You never know what I’ll do,” Baltoh said with a small smile.
Michael glared at Baltoh for several seconds before turning around. “The next time I see you, I will not hesitate to cut you down,” he warned before spreading his wings and flying away.
Abaddon was sitting on a boulder in a cavern deep below the city with his remaining Gargoyles around him like loyal hounds. Whimpering in fear and pain was a girl at his feet, eighteen years old with auburn hair and pale skin. She had her hands wrapped around her ankles, trying to stop the bleeding from her severed Achilles tendons. Abaddon had cut them to cripple her and keep her from running, and he had threatened to cut off her hands if she tried to crawl away.
The sadistic beast had recovered from his battle with Baltoh but was still severely weakened, even after raping and devouring some homeless people. In front of him, a small flash of red light popped about two meters above the ground and held its form as a burning sphere.
The sphere trembled as a claw-like point protruded from the side. The sphere slowly expanded, allowing for another bony point to reveal itself. The two claws pushed against the sides of the sphere in opposite directions, slowly stretching it into a two-dimensional curtain, less than a foot long, and slowly showing more of their actual size. As the blob-like curtain was expanded, more hook-like claws were reaching out of the fiery depths of the small manifestation, latching themselves onto the edges of reality and pushing it, basically clamping onto the torn border between Earth and Hell itself.
At a meter in diameter, the interior of the fiery curtain seemingly fell away, revealing a burning tunnel with black fog pouring out. The claws that were hooked around the edges of the portal were the size of tree logs, and with each open space that formed by stretching the portal, another claw would reach out and latch onto the edge, helping to widen the doorway.
Finally, when the portal was about seven feet in diameter, a Demon leapt out, landing the floor and gasping for breath. The Demon looked remarkably similar to Abaddon, with the same humanoid-Gargoyle body and characteristics, only he didn’t have hair and his twisted horns were more like the horns of a bull than a goat like Abaddon. Like the Demon, he wore a medieval-style skirt of armor plates and had a metal shackle on each wrist.
“Damn you, you could have at least helped me. That was barely better than being summoned,” the Demon snarled at Abaddon as he tried to get on his feet.
“I received no help, Rimmon. I don’t see why I should help you.”
“Or was it that you were just too weak to actually do anything? I heard that you got into a fight with Baltoh, I’m surprised he actually let you live.”
Abaddon stood up with a growl. “Now you listen to me, your job is to keep that traitor off my back. I have a job to do and I can’t do it if he’ll swoop in out of nowhere and slice off my head.”
Rimmon clicked his forked tongue at Abaddon’s tone. “So helpless. I know what my orders are; you don’t have to remind me. But in order to do that, I need to know that you are following your orders as well. Why in the Dark Lord’s name have you and the Gargoyles not taken a human host yet?!”
“I’ve been waiting for us to all get our strength back after crossing over. The Gargoyles and I need to be in pique condition before we take action, just in case an Angel or Baltoh shows up. I’m still recovering from my battle, so it will still take time to regain my full strength,” Abaddon defended before sitting back down on the boulder.
“Well have you at least picked your targets?”
“I’ve only seen a few humans that would serve as proficient hosts for our plans, but we don’t need too many important people. Once we move forward, we’ll just pick whoever will be appealing and then move forward with our plans.”
“Tch, I have to go feed,” Rimmon smirked as he walked off.
“Hold on, I don’t want us to start this mission on the wrong foot,” Abaddon said with a smile as he picked up the girl on the ground by the back of her shirt and threw her like a discarded coat. Rimmon caught her by the wrist and grinned, taking great pleasure in the way she cried as he dug his claws into her soft flesh.
“These living humans are so much more pure and intolerant to pain than the prisoners in Hell, their screams of agony and humiliation are like music. Torturing this one girl will give you as much energy as eating five. She’s a little gift to help you regain some strength.”
Rimmon laughed as well, dropping the girl to the ground and then kicking her.
“I’m going to go look for some more food, you have fun with your new toy,” Abaddon lazily waved as he got up and left.
Chuckling sadistically, Rimmon kicked the girl again, knocking her across the cavern floor. The scared sobbing victim desperately tried to crawl away with her tears practically pouring onto the floor, but was stopped and gave a agonizing screech as Rimmon slashed her across the back with his claws, licking the blood off the bladed talons as her shredded shirt and bra fell away.
“Please don’t kill me, please!” she begged of the Demon.
Rimmon gave a cruel laugh and crouched down over her, grabbing her hair and pulling her head back. “You will die, but when I’m through with you, you’ll be begging for death,” he hissed in her ear before licking the tears off her face with his long forked tongue.
The girl gave another painful scream as he slashed her across the ass, literally carving off her skirt and panties. Her lily-white rear was now wet with blood from five deep gashes. Wrapping his tail around her waist, Rimmon lifted the girl up onto her hands and knees as he removed his cock, which was inhumanly large and ridged like a cactus without quills.
“Please no, please no no no!” the girl begged, pulling on the ground to try and get away.
“I hope you’re a virgin, because that’s like the cherry on top!”
Rimmon positioned himself behind her with the barbed head of his spiny cock pressed against the untouched lips of her pussy. Grabbing her by the hips and digging into her flesh with his claws, Rimmon forced his member all the way into her in a single cruel shove.
As the serrated phallus tore through the girl’s virgin cunt and completely shredded her hymen, she screamed so loud in pain and humiliation that the Gargoyles in the cave growled in annoyance instead of pleasure. Rimmon groaned in evil bliss as he let his cock become accustomed to the softness of the woman’s cunt. Blood was trickling in a steady stream, but it wasn’t just from her hymen. Hung like a horse, barbed like a harpoon, and ridged like a human spine, Rimmon’s dick had ripped apart her insides, opening up multiple lacerations. Add in the fact that an object of that size moving through such a small and tight opening is like using a jackhammer for a surgical incision, and she had basically just experienced giving birth to a near full-grown lobster, but reversed. Also, add in just the mental strain of what was passing through the girl’s mind as that happened and of the situation, and it’s hard to decide whether the mental pain was the greatest or physical pain.
Licking his lips, the Demon pulled out of his victim, forcing her to cry out just as loud and tearfully as when he deflowered her, due to the barb at the head and ridges scraping against the bleeding cuts. The trickle of blood turned into a full-on pour as Rimmon pulled out, to which he caught a palm-full of it with his cupped hand and drank it like it was elixir of eternal youth. With his grip on his torture slave tightened, Rimmon forced his cock back into her brutalized pussy. This time, the girl did not shriek in agony or humiliation, as she was too busy vomiting from them. The pain and mental scarring was so intense that her stomach actually purged itself of its contents.
Now that the girl’s snatch was nice and loose (or ripped open like an old shoe), Rimmon began moving back and forth, pumping her with his bulging phallus. The girl was facedown in the puddle of her vomit, sobbing uncontrollably at the unfathomable anguish that was burning inside her from the waist. The only way she could describe the feeling was that it was like getting probed by a chainsaw, and in her mind, the tormenting thoughts of her slain family, her stolen virginity, her defiled purity, her tainted self-esteem, and her subjugated naked bleeding body played like a horror movie that she could not look away from.
The torture victim’s only relief came from the fact that she would soon be dead, that the incredible blood loss was making her delirious, and that her entire lower body had been so heavily damaged that her nerves were only half functioning.
After twenty minutes of the savage torture, Rimmon finally pulled out of his young victim, who was nearly catatonic. The woman’s pussy was far beyond gaping, as the rape had been so brutal and hard that it had broken her pelvis, ripped her open, and shredded the flesh inside like grass under a weed whacker. Her pussy looked like a grenade had just detonated inside of it. Not to mention the fact that she would never walk again even if she lived. She lied there like a limp ragdoll, her mouth open, her eyes glazed over, and her mind almost completely shut down.
Sensing life still in her, Rimmon pulled her by her hair over to him and forced his cock into her soft mouth. As if woken up from a bad dream, the girl suddenly became wild and tried to push the Demon away, but could not free herself or remove the phallus that was completely filling her throat. She gagged and screamed as the pain from her injuries came back, prompting her to throw up with Rimmon’s dick still in her mouth and throat.
Rimmon gripped her head and looked up, snarling like an angry lion as he finally came, launching almost half a pint of semen into the girl’s esophagus. The brutalized girl gave one final scream as the acidic slime began to burn through her vocal cords, but quickly became silent as her arteries and spinal cord were the next to go. With her head being severed from her body, Rimmon dismounted her face and wiped the vomit off his cock, chuckling to himself as he tried to think back to the last time he had such a great fuck. Redressing in the Roman soldier-like skirt of armor plates that all Demons wore, he turned around as Abaddon returned, dragging some dead people and a few living ones.
“I take it you enjoyed yourself,” he said a grin. Instead of speaking, Rimmon just mirrored the facial expression.
“Good, then let’s eat up, because we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”