Amateur Night 1 - Upstairs - 1. Upstairs

It was a pub. Not a trendy wine bar or a club boasting too loud music and too few clothes. Not an inn with hearty meals served on thick wooden boards. But a pub. The boy took a table toward the back, away from the bar where a few middle aged men sat nursing the dregs of their beer or post-office whiskey. He’d raised a few eyebrows as he’d come in, with his yard-long hair and golden bronze cloak wrapped around his shoulders, looking too young to be in a drinking establishment at all. And it was early – too early to be out drinking. Other young people wouldn’t emerge in their costumes until far later, ready to over imbibe and over indulge their baser instincts on a night when really, they should have been quivering at home in fear.

The boy sat, rapped his knuckles on the table, and the barman walked over, eyes glazed and unseeing of what was in front of him, and left a dark bottle of amber liquid on the table along with a stack of heavy crystal shot glasses – far too fine to reside in such an establishment – in exchange for a stack of slightly tarnished gold coins. They weren’t valid currency, not on that world, but all Earth’s liked gold. The boy poured himself a drink, drank it, and leant back to await the arrival of the rest of his party.

They came in a jumble, with swearing, shouting, two hastily cast glamours and a waft of wood ash and burnt leaves. Kiorl thumped down into the seat next to him, and Nassau turned and smiled at his friend as he poured a row of shots.

“Took you long enough.”

“Yeah well, Tua and I had to pretty much haul Inai away from some kid dressed in next to nothing and leaning on a lamppost.” The panther – who to any mortal observer was wearing skin the same colour as his fur and a perfectly human scowl – rolled his eyes and ran his claws through his newly shorn hair before taking up the glass from the end of the row. “I’ve not seen this look on you in a long time.” He gestured to the cloak Nassau had made of his wings. “You waited long?”

“Can’t have been that long.” The figure who sat himself on Nassau’s other side was hard to look at, even for Kiorl, because he was mostly shrouded in smoke, the bits that weren’t were wound in an assortment of black fabric wrappings, and the fingers which took the glass shed little flakes of ash on the wooden table surface. The eyes which crinkled in mirth were a lot like the campfires of the sky back home. “Bottle’s hardly started yet. Not like you to be on the hard stuff Nas. They run out of ale?”

Tua Asina bristled, his glossy white scales covered by his pale human glamour.

“And who are you exactly to be greeting the Prince of Hell so glibly.”

“He’s a fucking fire sprite with delusions of grandeur,” Kiorl sniped before Nassau could answer his courtier’s question.

“Are you picking a fight with someone already?” Shindae collapsed into a chair whilst Inai arranged his coils in the empty space beside him, completing their little gathering. The lava demon’s natural fire patterns glowed very dimly, subdued by the cold outside. “We’ve not met, right?” He offered a hand over the table to the smoke wreathed stranger.

“Boys,” Nassau smiled as the pair shook hands. “This is the Demon Del Deorion.”

“He’s not a demon.” Kiorl glared at the way Shindae’s hand glowed where the pair touched. “And I still think that’s a fucking stupid title.”

“It’s nice to see you too, Kiorl.” Deorion retorted dryly before turning to Nassau. “Honestly I was surprised to get your crow. I didn’t think we’d see you tonight of all nights.”

“But tonight’s when we should be abroad.” Inai interjected. “Isn’t it?” The big naga looked to his friend, and Shindae smiled gently. Nassau knew the portal guard did not often get the chance to come Upstairs, and the excursion was a treat for him even though Kiorl treated it like a chore.

“Halloween just ain’t what it used to be.”

“You can say that again.” Tua Asina knocked back his drink and sighed. “I miss the good old days.”

“What, sneaking into people’s houses and tearing their guts out?” Shindae grinned. “I kind of like some of these modern worlds… so many proclivities to exploit.”

“You’ve always been a weird one Shindae.” Kiorl retorted.

“Coming from you...” The lava demon frowned. “At least Inai and I don’t pretend to be anything other than what we are.”

“Twisted bastards?” Inai grinned his trademark, long fanged smile. “I liked the middle ages personally. It was always good to shock people at circus freak shows when I turned out not be stuffed.”

There was a moment of silence whilst several glasses were emptied and refilled.

Nassau sighed.

“I always liked priests...”

The assembled demons turned to their Prince with a variety of querying gazes.

“Something you’re not telling us Sire?” Tua Asina managed eventually.

Kiorl flicked him with the end of his tail.

“No titles. He’s allowed to be off duty too.”

“Nassau?” Deorion prompted. “What secrets have you been keeping?

“Well, it was a long time ago. Before the Second Rebellion. While Nathaneal was still around….”

*

The early years of the Inquisition had been good for the Hunters of the Inner Circle. Every Earth which was made to suffer through the religious fervour of misguided holy men with hearts full of rage and damnation made for easy and delicious pickings. Souls like that, fuelled by righteous anger, were terribly easy to steal. Twisting minds already bent on revenge was Nathaneal’s favourite pastime, and Nassau – youngest Prince of Hell – had learnt well from his older brother.

“That one.” Nathaneal growled from his perch on the rooftop, looking like the biggest and most terrifying stone gargoyle in the ‘verse. “I want that one.”

“With the awful beard and the paunch?” Nassau frowned, peering out over the cloisters below. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I want the young acolyte. He’s cute.”

Without looking at him, Nathaneal reached out and backhanded his littlest brother across the face. Nassau sprawled against the slates of the roof, feathered wings crumpling. His blood was very red against the dark stone.

“Fucker.” Nassua re-set his nose with a quick shake of his head and arranged his wings tightly against his spine as he got up once more. The inside of his mouth tasted coppery, and he shot his brother a hateful glare. Nathaneal wasn’t paying attention to him though, practically salivating at the thought of what they could do to the morally spiritual rabble below. “What is your obsession with the fat, ugly ones anyway?”

They look so good fucking you.

Nassau shivered at the thought, so loud and clear in his mind. Nathaneal’s twisted imagination was very detailed if not very accurate, and Nassau folded in the patterns of his empathic talent to avoid any more visions from his brother, but his actions were too slow to spare him from the lurid image of himself – smaller and frailer than he truly was – pinned beneath the sweaty bulk of the priest Nathaneal had chosen. The Crown Prince of Hell framed the picture himself, a black shadow looming behind them, claws dripping blood.

“Now get down there, kid.”

Nassau set aside his anger and his desire to slink off and sulk, because truthfully, though he detested Nathaneal’s choice of target, he was a fan of his older brother’s methods. Of the three of them Nassau was the beautiful one, and if Nathaneal wanted to tempt a priest into sin and damnation with his little brother’s body, then Nassau knew he was going to play along. Every single mortal who had fucked the Third Prince of Hell had died a gruesome and bloody death, and tonight it would be no different.

When Nassau cast his glamour and approached the big priest, he smiled in the manner he knew worked just so on men of that type. The priest didn’t question him, didn’t wonder why it was that this perfectly pretty boy needed almost no coaxing to return with him to private quarters. His mind raced with how lucky he was, how blessed to have found an innocent of such beauty and grace. Nassau hid his derision well, demured and fluttered his dark eyelashes, and allowed himself to be ushered with a big hand pressed into the small of his back, eager fingers skimming the top of his arse.

The big man was lost on the illicit thrill of touching Nassau long before he crowded the boy up against the bed in his rather lavish cell. It made Nassau’s stomach turn, but he let the priest fondle him through his clothes, reading the cues to know when he was expected to blush, pull away, and half-protest, feigning delicacy. It took all his self control not to snap the man’s fingers when he was divested of his breeches, lust making the mortal clumsy.

When the door slammed back against it’s hinges, smashing the plaster mouldings and the stone of the wall, Nassau growled in annoyance at having had to endure the priest’s attentions for so long. It had taken his brother too long to get there, despite the fact he’d obviously been watching from somewhere. The priest’s soul had been ripe for picking since the first moment he’d lain a bare hand on his arse, and Nassau had forced himself to tolerate the man invading him with two spit-slicked fingers. He would not have waited for a third.

“Fucking flames, Nate!”

He pulled himself away from the lust-drunk priest and hauled his clothes back up in the same motion, then watched as the man was brought back to his senses by the wet crunching sound of Nate’s grin. Nathaneal’s powers were not like his own quiet and oft underestimated inner strength, and his oldest brother had kept his gargoyle appearance, complete with stone claws, spinal spikes, and the sticky, bloody secretions oozing from the joints of his enormous leathery wings. The priest screamed.

Nassau did not stay to observe. Watching Nathaneal dismember somebody was nether thrilling nor sexy for he had no artistry at all. He just hoped his brother remembered to actually collect the soul in a reliquary after Father had spent so long instructing them on their proper use and function.

Messy intestines are not a style…

Nassau knew that if left to his own devices, Nathaneal would lay waste to every soul in the building then raze the place to the ground, which was why their Father had instructed Nassau to accompany him. The reputation of the Inner Circle was far better served by letting other mortals discover the eviscerated body of one of their own, murdered within their midst. Their other brother Nadavun would be off somewhere indulging in his habitual vivisection, which was, in Nassau’s opinion, both neater and far more skilful than Nathaneal’s careless mutilations.

The Prince squirmed uncomfortably in his breeches, half aroused despite himself, and walked around a corner only to stop himself just before he would have collided with the cute young acolyte he had spied earlier. The acolyte was not gifted with empathis skills which could double as premonition under the right circumstances, and so sent them both tumbling to the stone floor.

“Oh my! I’m so sorry sir...” the young man started, stilling as he focused on Nassau sprawled beneath him.

Nassau set his teeth in his lower lip and glanced up from beneath his thick lashes.

“Hello. Don’t worry about it.” He took the hand he was offered and allowed his meagre weight to be pulled up against the robed chest. “It was my fault.”

The acolyte blushed hard.

Nassau ran his tongue over his teeth, a hot coil of predatory satisfaction creeping into his pattern. There was more than one way to turn a holy soul, and teaching the young man of god the delights of a warm cock between his buttocks was not a bad way to do it.

*

“Fucking… gods and mountains Nas…” Kiorl stared at his old friend in happy shock. “I never figured you one for seducing the hearts and minds of the clergy.”

Nassau downed his drink and poured another line of shots without actually lifting his hand to the neck of the bottle. Inai hissed in appreciation. The clinked their glasses to absent friends with quiet smiles.

“Where is Zai anyway?” Nassau asked, curious as to the whereabouts of the other empath.

“Only one place he’d be on Samhain,” Shindae replied with a smirk. “You know he’ll have Tobias in pieces by now.”

“Speaking of pieces,” Deorion turned to Tua Asina, “You gonna share your love for the ‘good old days’ snake-y boy?”

Tua’s yellow eyes flashed happily.

“Oh if I must…”

*

On those worlds where men lived in caves and hollows, carving life and shelter out of whatever the earth offered to them, the dark was a thing to be truly feared. The fires of the settlement only increased the deep blackness of the surrounding night, an inky shadow in which any number of predators could hide. In the hot climes of the region, the people were as dark skinned as their black skies and red earth, and Tua Asina had always enjoyed the stark contrast of his scales to the meat of his prey.

The air held the tang of smoke, not just of the greasy cooking fires, but of delicately smouldering wood and spices, and Tua drew close to the low roofed shelter from which it emanated. It was not a house, but some kind of communal hall, and Tua watched, cloaked in the dark, as a pipe was passed, burning gently, from one person to the next. The human took a deep drag, the heavily scented smoke filling their lungs, and Tua watched as the psychotropic plants took effect. The pipe produced a dizzying high, and once all present had drunk it’s scent, Tua slunk into the wan and flickering firelight, looking for the perfect soul.

They shuddered as he passed – a ghostly vision, pale where all living things which walked on two legs were dark, fitted with gleaming scales and a tail which dragged in the dusty earth, carving a path behind him. Tua used his inner vision, a new skill still and one which required focus, to choose his victim. The soul was rich, thick, viscous like the lava of the rivers of home, but very firmly tethered to the skinny body which housed it.

That would not do.

Tua sat himself neatly, cross-legged, echoing the posture of his victim, before the mortal, and reached out his incredibly long tail to wrap the fine length around the human’s throat. Nothing happened at first, then a moment passed, their eyes went wide, and Tua poured his power out through the connection even as the person before him struggled to breathe, their mind recalled from the haze of wormwood and kava by the reminder of their physical body. As soon as his victim returned to full consciousness, Tua smiled, showing every single one of his needle teeth, and trapped the mind before him in the cage of his power.

The body slumped, listless, unable to support itself without instruction from the mind which was now locked in. Tua sat, shrouded in the glamour the Devil had gifted him before he had left for his Hunt, invisible to all bar his victim as they roused, many hours later, from their drug induced cloud. He kept his chosen soul company, petting and stroking the helpless body, smiling all the while as the rest of their clan woke in waves of confusion, then panic. Fear gave way to anger and sadness, and then as a thin shroud was laid over them, to miserable acceptance and loss.

Tua lay under the shroud with his victim, watching as his presence stoked yet more horror within the soul which now glowed in his inner vision. Tua was sure the Devil would be very pleased with him, and he hoped idly that Kiorl wouldn’t be around when he presented it to the King, because he was most desirous to earn Sathriel’s favour for himself. As he lay with the mind he’d trapped he wondered what method the people of the settlement used to dispose of their dead. Perhaps it would be a cold shallow grave in the earth; perhaps a communal grave, thrown in with other dead and the trash of butchery; maybe they’d be burnt on a pyre, and screams in flame were always so good; or they could be eaten, it was rare, but the torture of it – conscious, helpless, and taken apart by one’s friends and family – was so deeply exquisite. Tua remembered the last soul he’d taken who had been forced to watched themselves being devoured with fondness as he waited.

It did not take long, two days at most, and Tua went with his victim as the lifeless body was carried to a shallow pit lined with dry peeling bark and old straw clearly taken from the beds of animals. Tua sat with the body, close enough to hold the reliquary but safe from the fire, and sang along with the peeling screams of the trapped mind as their flesh began to singe. He held the reliquary aloft and collected the thick slosh of the soul as the person he’d trapped finally died.

It was only upon rising that Tua glance down and noticed how thin he’d become. The demon wondered when the last time he’d actually eaten was, and found the memory hazy and distant.

He waited until the fire had burnt down, the people of the little settlement returned to their hovels in the dark, before he began to stalk between the wooden shacks, searching for a different type of victim.

Peering into the first house, he found a mother and child, emaciated and sleeping soundly. His nose wrinkled: they would not provide sustenance. Tua Asina moved on, his tail etching a trail in the dust. Near the border of the settlement, two people slept in the half open around the embers of a failing fire. There was slightly pudgy man of middling years, and an emaciated child. Tua smiled toothily as he eyed the man’s naked stomach, plump and delicious.

He shed his glamour as he stepped out of the dark, and the under nourished child startled awake, eyes huge with fear and wonder. Tua laid a finger against his lips, and smirked when his order was obeyed. The child stared, unable to look away as Tua smacked the fat man with his tail, jolting him awake. Tua bent, punching him neatly in the throat as he tried to scream. He nodded to the child who got up on legs thinner than twigs and ran from the circle of firelight. Beaming now, Tua focused of his prey.

The chubby man’s eyes were huge, liquid with terror, and he was coughing and trying to catch his breath. Tua kicked him nonchalantly, scattering burning bits of twig and charcoal in the wake of the man as he rolled. Tua walked, calm as a man at prayer, and lay over the top of his victim. The man twisted, pushing the scaled demon back into the dusty earth, and Tua simply wrapped arms, legs, and tail around him and squeezed. The trapped prey tried to breathe, to gasp, but his lungs were not strong enough to battle the great pressure the demon exerted on him. Tua constricted ever harder, gently suffocating the human who tried to breathe under him. He struggled so much so that bones which didn’t break under the strain popped from their joints with delicious slurps. Tua felt the muscles of the man flexing and straining automatically against him, felt the heartbeat, so fast through his skin, and tightened himself around his prey. There was a last long look of total desperation in the fat man’s eyes, and then Tua unhinged his jaw and tore out his throat.

It was easy to drag away the bag of flesh and bones, supple and floppy, easier still to rip away the shreds of cloth and beads from the body before he ate it. Afterwards he would need to vomit a collection of bones and bits of indigestible cartilage, but for now Tua Asina could feast.

*

“That’s disgusting.” It was perhaps, an indelicate thing for a minor demon to say to a member of the Royal Court, but they’d been told not the stand on ceremony and Shindae was nothing if not frank. It was one of Nassau’s favourite things about him. “Even Inai’s not that bad.”

“Ha!” Kiorl barked. “Why do you think it is that I’ve never invited the Asina brothers to dinner?” Can you imagine Nas? Tobias would hate them.

It didn’t take him long to train Inai to use cutlery, Nassau returned silently.

Yeah well, Inai turns out to be very suggestible when it comes to food and the potential lethality of Zai’s claws. The panther turned to look across at the only member of their party who did not reside in the Inner Circle.

“And what exactly brings you out with us tonight, sprite? Shouldn’t you be with your master?”

“And how does a fire sprite end up with a corporeal form anyway-” Tua began, then interrupted himself. “Wait, what ‘master’?”

“I’ve not been a sprite for a long time Kiorl, and you know it.” Deorion countered, rolling the rim of his glass in a puddle of condensation, fine ash falling from his fingertips staining the damp wood of the table top.

“The Demon Del Deorion is the consort of The Wind.” Nassau explained carefully. “We go way back, he and I.”

The demons gaped, and it was Shindae who scraped his jaw off the floor with an impressed smile.

“You’re the lover of a god?”

“Yeah.” Deorion’s eyes glowed warmly as he smiled.

“Wow… what’s that like?”

“A gentlemen never tells, my lava hearted friend.”

“Well, that excludes you then,” Kiorl purred. “Go on Deorion, share.”

Deorion abandoned his glass, steepled his fingers, and looked over the table at Shindae as the demon edged forward, Inai only fractionally less visibly eager for his words.

“So you kids want to know what it’s like in the Palace of The Gods?”

*

Getting summoned into a physically manifested body hurt far more than he’d been expecting it to, but since his shape had finished resolving, nothing much had actually happened. He was alone in a big, barely furnished white room, and the only door hadn’t opened when he tried it. The evidence of where he’d roamed was obvious in the little streaks of ash and soot which he trailed. Mostly he was bored, waiting for Ifrit to come.

He knew of the God of Destruction and Fire because without Ifrit, he wouldn’t exist. Fire sprites were coalesced energy leftover from the God’s larger creations and various fits of rage, but little more. What he’d done to get called up into a corporeal form by the great master, he wasn’t sure, but he doubted it would end well. Other sprites said all the gods were cruel, but that Ifrit was one of the worst, and he wasn’t really looking forward to the meeting.

It was a surprise then, sometime later, when the door opened, and there was a sudden texture to the air that he not only recognised, but adored. The sprite smiled – he could smile now, which was a revelation in itself – and turned to face the door in a cloud of soft smoke. A hand of power – air shaped by desire and annoyance – smacked him in the face, and he staggered back as the god entered. It was not Ifrit, because though he had never seen a god before and hadn’t had eyes with which to do so, he knew from other sprites that his master of destruction was a creature of fur and horns, long fangs and sharp claws. This god was beautiful, powerful, pale and cool with golden eyes and a spill of rich purple hair which swirled around his ankles. His feet did not touch the floor.

The sprite could not look away from the god who approached, the layers of his robes and his long sleeves billowing in the wind which he held in a ceaseless roaming swirl around himself. The fire sprite would have known the texture of that breeze anywhere, he’d been following it for… time was a hard thing to measure without a body, but it had been a long while. He dropped to his knees, head bowed, as the God of the Wind approached him.

“Who are you? Why has Ifrit set you to spy on me?” Yosui demanded. At his words the air around him moved, spiralling tighter with his anger. “What is your name?”

The god was close enough to touch, and he couldn’t think of any reason not to. The fire sprite laid a smoke wreathed hand on the pale foot and ankle before him, and watched as the wind the god stood within whisked away his outer coating of smouldering ash to reveal a large hand with blackened skin, the shape familiar from the way many of the gods styled themselves after mortals. Yosui’s skin under his palm was cool against his warmth, and smooth. Without thinking, he ran his fingers up the god’s leg, humming enjoyment at the soft curves of his calf and thigh.

The wind slapped him back without warning, and he yelped. It was the first sound he’d ever made, because he hadn’t realised his summoned body had been equipped with a voice box.

“Oh...”

“‘Oh’ indeed! Who are you?” The God of the Wind’s golden eyes narrowed. “I’d know your flavour anywhere.” He flicked a speck of ash from his personal breeze with delicate fingers. “I can taste you on the wind. Again: who are you?”

“Yours.”

He had the distinct pleasure of watching the god splutter in shock.

“What?”

“I don’t have a name.” He explained. Each new word felt like a strange miracle on his tongue. His mouth was on fire with the number of things he could say. “But I am yours.” He climbed back onto his knees, hands curled in his lap, expecting the rage of The Wind to fall on him. “If nothing else, destroy me yourself. I couldn’t bear for anyone else to do it.”

The silence lasted long enough that he looked up again, wondering if Yosui had simply left him. But the air still moved, textured waves roaming back and forth across the room, playing with the god’s overly long hair and the draping fabrics of his robe. For a moment he’d been able to touch that wind, that body, and a little trail of ash and whisper of smoke still flowed within the breeze. He smiled.

“I thought you were one of Ifrit’s pets. When I called you here…” The golden eyes widened in shock. “You have no name. You have never been summoned before?”

“No.” He really wanted to use the god’s given name, but he didn’t dare. Knowledge awakened in the back of his mind like an ember sparking finally into flame. “You called me?”

“Er… yes.”

He laughed. It was such a new and wonderful sensation that he threw back his head and did it again, drinking down the textured air he knew so well in order to refill his lungs and produce the sound a further time. Wetness gathered at the corner of his eyes and smeared with his ash before falling to the floor of the white room. He’d been happy before, but it had never felt like this.

“Then I really am yours, master Yosui.” It felt so good, so right, to say the name of the God of the Wind.

“I summoned you...” the deity murmured, stunned.

“Yes. Can I have a name?”

“Sorry? You want me to keep you?” Yosui frowned at him, then made a complicated gesture with one hand, and drew his wind about him like a cloak. “And what makes you think you are worthy of such an honour?”

The man who had been a fire sprite stood. He could feel the heat which burnt within him, but where before that heat had been amorphous, now it was solidified into this body, this form that he wore and which the God of the Wind had unknowingly gifted to him. The fire inside him was different now, it’s intentions more specific, and he could feel his heart hammering in his chest with desire. He would be worthy, because his god needed him to be.

“Because I love you.”

Yosui arched a perfect purple eyebrow. One look in the golden eyes, and he knew the god didn’t believe him. He stood up straighter.

“I’ve been following the shape of you because you’re so… strong, and beautiful. Not just this-” he gestured to Yosui’s slender build, his narrow ankles, slender neck “-though this is indeed beautiful. Your textures are captivating. Of course I would never want to be anywhere else.”

It was Yosui’s turn to sound surprised.

“Oh.”

He looked at the God of the Wind, and realised with his newly summoned body he was taller than the deity, despite the fact that Yosui’s bare feet hung a few inches from the floor. He was bigger and broader than the god who stood before him, and suddenly he wanted to prove to Yosui how much he cared. Yosui stood in the centre of his powerful vortex, untouched. He wondered how many ever dared to try.

He reached out, ash and smoke whipped away from him by the stiff breeze, and wrapped his thick fingers around Yosui’s delicate wrist.

“What are you-”

He used the contact to pull himself into the bubble of textured space the wind made, hardly caring as the smouldering shroud which covered him was pulled away, revealing his solid form beneath. He didn’t care much what he looked like, only that Yosui would like it, but the experience of being able to feel textures with his skin was totally worth the pain of getting made corporeal. The breeze around them was streaked and tainted with his ash now, but he didn’t care, and Yosui was still looking at him with an intense expression of shock as he came closer still. He pushed his other hand against the god’s jaw, thumb catching the corner of his mouth – there was wetness there, and it was fascinating – smoothing across his smooth pale skin. He combed his fingers into the incredibly fine strands of hair at the back of Yosui’s scalp and followed the motion to close the distance between them.

The Wind tasted sweet, fragrant, complex, fresh. The sensation against his lips was so good, plush and soft and tender, that he groaned and tried to get closer. Yosui opened for him, and his tongue – which was a weirdly strong thing really – was in his mouth and everything was wet and warm and perfect. Yosui tasted like a shrub he’d burnt once, some kind of herb mortals used in food, and he couldn’t get enough of the flavour as he licked into his mouth. He felt vibrant and whole and dizzy… He pulled back, chest heaving, and some instinct forced him to inhale air instead of the god he adored, and he realised that with a body, breathing was a thing he was supposed to do. But Yosui was still only inches away, his lips shiny, his perfect skin marred by a tiny freckle of ash on his jaw.

“I love you.” He said again, fervently. “I’ll make you believe me.”

Yosui picked the charred fragment from his skin, then discarded it into the wind which still swirled around them. He still felt dizzy, and pulled the god down with him as he sank to his knees. To his delighted surprise, Yosui settled in his lap, his dancing mane calming slightly as the breeze eased. The god flicked another dead ember from his robes.

“You’re going to shed all over the carpet...”

“You can redecorate.” He said, grinning broadly. “I’m staying?”

“Yes. You’re staying. You made a very convincing argument.”

He shifted his hips without knowing why, but was pleased with the sudden widening of Yosui’s eyes. Grinning, he repeated the action.

“I can make it again, if you’d like?”

“I am not making out with some nameless fire sprite in an antechamber.” Yosui frowned.

He laughed, falling backward, yanking the God of the Wind down on top of him. Yosui sprawled along his front, a delicious line of cool weight.

“Well then, you’d better give me a name and summon us up a bed. ‘Cause I’m not letting you get away….”

*

“You seduced him?” Kiorl sounded more impressed than he had been the first time Jahke had joined them for the High Fire Festival. “Flames...”

“I’m very persuasive.” The Demon del Deorion grinned proudly.

“But they are the Gods,” Tua Asina said in a stunned tone, “You can’t just talk to them like normal people.”

“And yet you sit here with the Heir to the Throne of Hell, Commander of the Seven Armies, Last Scion of Ifrit, Master of Storms, His Highness Lord Nassau Del Rae himself? Talking like he’s normal people.” Deorion shot a spark filled grin to his old friend, and Nassau smiled softly and sipped his drink without replying. “Anyway, the Gods aren’t all that. Not really. I mean, Kage is a grumpy bastard but he’s a pushover.”

“Please,” Kiorl pressed claw-tipped fingers to his forehead, “Do not tell me that you’ve gotten into actual arguments with the Ender of Worlds...”

“OK, I won’t tell you-” Deorion laughed.

Whatever Kiorl had been about to retort with was lost in the commotion from the front of the pub, where the double doors opened to admit a rowdy collection of mortal teenagers in various states of dress and inebriation. The assembled demons watched them with a range of supercilious expressions.

“Flames… what are they wearing?” Kiorl hissed, ears flicking back against his hair.

Nassau arched a perfect eyebrow at his closest advisor and oldest friend. Kiorl was much regarded for his incredibly varied and opulent wardrobe, and Nassau had seen him parade across Court in things which any mortal would have blushed to wear, but he wasn’t wrong. The humans were done up in a selection of what Nassau was certain was referred to as ‘fancy dress’, though he couldn’t imagine why. He nodded towards one with fake paper horns and fairly realistic plastic fangs.

“I think that one is trying to be Sitka.”

Shindae made an unapologetic snort into his hand at Nassau’s comment.

“Oh… gods and mountains….” Kiorl made a pained noise, and Nassau followed the flick of his friend’s tail to the human standing at the bar with it’s friends. Kiorl sounded genuinely anguished when he spoke again. “Thank fuck your Father isn’t here to see that.”

“What?” Shindae twisted around in his seat and practically swallowed his tongue. “Oh shit!”

It was Inai who found the will to speak, his low hiss full of hunger.

“Dressed as the Devil...”

“That little clothing does not count as dressed.”

“Strangely, you never have any complaints when Jahke wears them.”

“The body paint is a good touch.” Tua managed diplomatically, “Though the tail is the wrong sort.”

Fuck but I’m glad your Father doesn’t have an arrow tip on the end of his tail, Kiorl projected silently.

Nassau smiled and reached over for the bottle once more, pouring another line of shots. Inai pushed his away with a many fanged grin.

“I think I might be in the mood for something different.”

“You fetch it yourself.” Kiorl answered without looking up. “I’m not wading through the mess at the bar.”

The Demon Del Deorion crooked his head to one side, following the naga’s progress as he slithered across the bar. The glamour he wore stopped people from tripping on his extensive body and leant him a human air which did nothing to hide the predator within.

“What is he-”

“Shhh,” Shindae was grinning broadly. “You wanna watch this.”

At the bar, Inai had turned the full force of his attention to the young man who was dressed in a scrap of red fabric and smeared with crimson body paint. The fake horns, tail, and pitchfork in had gave him a passable approximation of Sathriel’s most classical form, though with none of the bone chilling grandeur of the Majesty himself. Inai crossed his broad forearms on the bar, the boy said something to him, and then the mortal made the mistake of meeting the naga’s eyes and they all watched as he slipped under the minor demon’s hypnotic talent. But the time Inai had a loop of his tail wound around the boy’s waist, his glamour had slipped, but it didn’t matter, because the red-painted mortal was trapped.

“Fuck...” Deorion stared, wide-eyed, as Inai hooked his thumb into the boy’s mouth, tugging him forwards and meeting no resistance. “He’s so fucking smooth. Nas, where have to been hiding this guy?”

“Don’t look at me, he’s one of Kiorl’s minors.”

Kiorl curled a lip in a silent snarl, showing his teeth.

“And you aren’t having him for a Champion either. He’s a damn good portal guard. I’m not letting one of your gods slice him up for entertainment.”

Back at the bar, Inai had the hypnotised human practically climbing him. His forked tongue stroked the mortal’s jaw hungrily.

Kiorl coughed pointedly into his fist, tail cracking like a whip.

“Not here. Use the bathrooms.”

“Yesssss….”

They all watched as Inai wrapped the boy’s legs in a coil of his thick body, dragging them both out of sight. Only Shindae stared after them fondly.

“Something you wanted to tell us, Shindae?” Nassau asked, smirking as the lava demon flushed brightly, his inner fires showing on his face. Of their party, only Deorion and Tua Asina were not fully aware of Nassau’s empathic gifts, though the general consensus among the demons of the Inner circle that their Prince could see the future held no sway with the consort of The Wind. “Do share.”

Shindae, usually know for his ease and jovial sense of humour, looked suddenly shy. Kiorl took the bottle and poured him another drink.

“There’re no secrets in Zinkara Rumah. Come on, spill.”

The lesser demon knocked his drink back with feeling.

“You’re too hard on Inai. He can be sweet.”

“Sweet?” Tua looked shocked. “You’re kidding?”

“I feel like I’m missing something here.” Deorion commented.

“Inai swallows his prey whole, and still conscious.” Kiorl explained offhandedly before returning his attention to Shindae. “It took both Zai and myself to haul him off Jahke the first time they fucked or Inai would have snapped him in half…. OK Shindae, now you have to tell us.”

Shindae sighed, and rolled his empty glass in the droplets of condensation on the table.

“So you know I have the best nose in the Circle, and Inai can taste the air with his tongue. Makes for good hunting.”

*

Shindae hadn’t had anything urgent on his list from Requisitions, but he had a portal stone of his own and the freedom to come and go from the Inner Circle more or less as he chose. Sitka and Jahke were busy, and though he could have asked to join them – and probably been welcomed with open arms – Shindae itched under his fire cracked skin to go and expend some energy. It was a happy accident which saw him arrive at the West Gate just as Inai was handing over his duty to another guard.

“Hey Shindae. You going Upstairs?”

Shindae shrugged, flipping the portal token with his thumb, catching it after each rotation without looking.

“Thought I might. Just for fun. You off home?”

“Yeah.” The naga rolled his spine – a long movement with so many vertebrae – and yawned hugely. “Long shift. Zai and a couple of the Enforcement team went Up on business and he came back covered in blood and looking pissed.”

“Poor Tobias.” Shindae smirked, not feeling the slightest bit sorry for the mate of the ash-furred demon. He was the only one equipped to handle Zai in a mood anyway. “Well… see you Inai.”

“Sure.” The naga didn’t turn away immediately, lingering just a moment too long, and Shindae found himself drawn back towards him once more.

“Unless you wanna come with me? We could hunt down some dire-croc eggs? I’ll cook them for you.” He held out his hands, super-heated palms towards the cold blooded snake. “Inai?”

“Yes please.” Inai’s hiss was transparently happy. “Thank you.”

Shindae gave over his portal token to the new guard, grinned at the thick-set ice elemental as he dialled for their intended destination, and yelped in slight surprise as Inai wrapped the very end of his tail around his waist. He took the naga’s hand in his own.

“Stay close, OK?”

The Way brought them out under stars just starting to show in a lilac sky over a red-sanded desert, and Shindae cursed himself for not examining the portal token he’d swiped from Kiorl’s stack more closely. Beside him, the cold-blooded snake shivered, and Shindae wasted no time to laying a hot hand over his broad chest. The naga hissed in relief.

Shindae sniffed deeply at the still air, and smirked as the faint traces of sweet blood and living souls came to him. There were people here, and though Shindae wasn’t usually one for mindless violence, he could already tell that Inai was hungry.

“That way.”

The entrance to the mine was narrow, barely wide enough to admit Inai, but the board-lined passage opened up slightly as they went deeper and the naga slithered with an arm draped over Shindae’s warm shoulders, long forked tongue flicking constantly and tasting the air.

“They’re hiding from us.”

“They’re smart.” Shindae replied. “Maybe just kill one?”

Inai’s tongue stroked the side of his jaw momentarily.

“And will you make that worth my while, oh pretty, fiery one?”

Shindae ran a bold hand down the naga’s sculpted torso and patted his flat stomach.

“Not until you’ve eaten something.”

It was pitch black in the shafts of the mine, darker than the Inner Circle ever was. The humans in hiding extinguished their lamps, assuming the dark would protect them, but they were wrong. Shindae couldn’t see in the dark, not well like Zai or Kiorl could, and Inai’s eyes were only slightly better, but they had other gifts at their disposal. Shindae scented the air, drinking down the flavours of each human and their personality until he found one that he rather liked the aroma of: big, greasy, hard working, tough but tender. Inai ducked down so Shindae could whisper into his cochlear, lips tracing the vibrations along his jawbone as he indicated their target to his serpentine friend.

Inai’s forked tongue tasted as the hot, fetid air of the underground passageways, and Shindae was happy to let him go ahead, following the groove the thick scaly body had made in the loose chippings of the floor. There were footsteps up ahead, the panicked half whispers of people becoming desperate, and Shindae smiled to himself. He pressed a hand against the bare rock wall for a moment, watching the stone glow with heat, then leapt back with a soft curse as a hot rivulet of molten metal dribbled out between his fingers.

“Shindae?”

“It’s fine. Huh, it’s gold. Wonder if there’s much more of it?”

There was, as it turned out, a lot more of it, and Shindae enjoyed the way it glowed warmly under the heat of his cracked skin, bathing everything in a soft glow so unlike the flickering alcoves of the house. Sitka and Jahke had a naphtha lamp in their room which shone with the same radiant warmth. Shindae allowed himself to linger in a larger chamber, where the natural shape of the underground rocks had clearly made for easier cutting, entranced by the amount of rough gold which he was able to coax from the stone with the heat of his hands. By the time Inai returned, the little cavern shone.

“I never pegged you for such a romantic Shindae.” Inai settled his jaw back into its proper location with a click, swallowing rhythmically as his internal muscles pushed down his meal.

“So I can’t like pretty things now, is it?”

“Did I say that?” Inai hissed long and low. “You know I’ve never actually been in your room.”

“You wouldn’t fit. I wish I could have the room with the hearth – don’t look at me like that, I have seniority over you anyway – but I don’t dare mention it to Kiorl. He’d kill me.”

“Who lived there anyway?” Inai belched, frowning unhappily. “Fuck, I never should have eaten the shoes….”

“Some kid- oh Inai!” Shindae wrinkled his nose as the naga coughed, and brought up the partially digested remnants of a brown leather and rubber boot. “I will not be kissing you now.”

“But Shindae-!”

The lava demon rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically.

“Oh, get over here.”

Inai obeyed happily, slithering across the floor of the cavern, draping the coils of his lower body in an accommodating fashion before lying his torso back against a wall made smooth with the gold Shindae had heated, now solid and shiny once more. Shindae hooked his leg over the ridge of the naga’s hip and stroked an appreciative hand down his belly.

“I like you like this.”

“Fat?”

“Contented, full. And yeah,” Shindae licked his lips. “Fat too.” He pressed his hands over and around Inai’s girthy bulk. “I always liked a man who could lift me up with one hand.”

The naga grinned, slitted pupils going wide in the low light. His belly twitched and throbbed with the last suffocating throes of his prey.

“You want me to hold you up against the wall and fuck you?” His tongue flickered against Shindae’s throat, and the hot line of magma which burned there. “Bet I could do it so hard you cry...”

Shindae glowed brighter, scenting the answer of desire from his friend as his blood became hot, and he groaned softly as the big naga wrapped a hand around his thigh to tug him close. The gold shimmered, a fantastic backdrop to the serpent’s moss-green scales. Shindae reached low and touched at the slit opening where both of Inai’s magnificent, tapered cocks were pushing to be freed first. Shindae smoothed his palm down the length of one, encouraging it from the sheath, making a happy noise as it slid up into his grasp. Inai groaned as the other followed without assistance.

Shindae grinned brightly in the reflected light.

“And you’re going to make me cry?” he asked smugly as the naga hissed in his hot hands.

His cockiness was short lived however, as Inai hauled him into his lap, dragging his twin erections against all of Shindae’s available skin.

“Yeah I am. Reckon you can take ‘em both at once?”

Shindae moaned.

*

“Tease.” Deorion emptied his glass and pushed the object across the table.

“You’re gonna leave us hanging Shindae? Spoil sport.” Nassau smiled good-naturedly at the minor demon. “Though it’s nice to know even Inai has friends on his side.” He picked up the bottle and poured drinks for the rest of the assembly: by the time he reached Deorion, the bottle was empty.

“Ah, fuck.” The smoke wreathed figure muttered.

“You want another one-” Nassau leant back in his chair, looking every inch the self-important bastard, “-you go get it yourself.”

Deorion surveyed the bar, which was now thronged with young mortals in states of general dishevelment masquerading as costumes.

“You know what, I’m good. What time is it?”

“Is The Wind expecting you back?” Kiorl crossed his arms behind his head, his tail looping on the wooden tale top. “Such a thing to have a curfew.”

“Fuck you.” Deorion said genially.

He surveyed the bar again with a critical eye. There was now second badly dressed red painted boy, this one far less pretty than the first, though with better horns; a pair of witches with fake warts and hats too pointy to stay upright of their own volition; and several curvy people inexplicably dressed for bed – ‘it’s called lingerie’ Nassau insisted – with cat ears which made Kiorl snort derisively. Joining them from the door was a man in dungarees with wolf feet and make up, a kid of indeterminate gender dressed entirely in rather clunky cardboard armour, and a voluptuous woman who was pretending to be a gorgon. The snake headdress was quite good.

“I feel grateful Father never comes up for the Samhain feast any more,” Nassau sighed. “He’d be so disappointed.”

“Why do we even come out on Halloween?” Deorion muttered.

“Amateurs...” Kiorl shook his head sadly. “Who even knows any more? Hey Inai.”

A slithering noise preceded the arrival of the big naga at the other end of the table. He was sucking on a bone which might or might not have once been a rib, looking smug and decidedly well fed.

“Don’t look at me like that.” He elbowed Shindae with an easy grin. “I cleaned up. No one’ll ever know.”

“You remember when Halloween used to be genuinely terrifying for all these fuckers?” Tua Asina sighed. “I miss those days.”

“Fuck Halloween. Night time used to be terrifying enough. The dark was a demon’s best friend.”

“The dark suits you Kiorl.” Nassau smiled knowingly, the story was familiar and old, but it only got better with the telling. “It was one of the Russia’s, wasn’t it?”

Kiorl flashed a trademark smirk.

“It was the winter of eighteen twenty one, and it was snowing hard…”

*

The dense pine forests of the Russian steppe were a good place to hide in the pitch blackness of the night if you were a small collective of rebels, hoping to avoid the patrols of the red army. But it was an excellent place to go hunting if you were a demon.

Kiorl lay along the length of a branch twenty feet above the thick carpet of dead pine needles, sheltered from the heavy blanket of snow in the upper reaches of the tree, and curled and looped his tail as it swayed below him. On the matching branch in the next tree, the figure of Nadavun, Second Prince of Hell, reclined against the trunk, carving thin slices off the warm heart in his hand with a small black-bladed knife.

“He won’t manage it, you know,” the Second Prince said nonchalantly. “He has such a soft spot for humans.”

“You underestimate him Davu.” Kiorl replied carefully. He watched his companion raise another piece of heart to his lips and his stomach rumbled. He licked his teeth, jealous and hungry, but said nothing further.

“He’s not like the new demons Father is making: they’re more like you. Have you seen them yet?”

“A few.” The new demons were indeed different from the three Princes, but Kiorl didn’t think they were much like himself either. One had already been moved into the house he shared with Kiaza, and Kiorl was still distrustful of the lava patterned figure who flinched whenever anyone spoke too loudly, and bowed to Nassau with his forehead touching the floor. “He’s coming.”

“Damn you and that sense of smell.” Nadavun sighed.

He still doesn’t know, does he? Nassau trilled happily in his head.

No. But I can smell you though. And you got it! Kiorl beamed as his best friend swooped into sight on silent wings. “Hey Nas.”

The Third Prince of Hell sat with his ankles crossed and folded his great bronze feathered wings neatly at his back. His right hand was bloodied up the elbow, the rest of his pale ochre tunic conspicuously spotless. He held out the heart for his older brother’s satisfaction.

“Sorry for the wait, I had to fly a while out to find one.” He grinned at Kiorl. “Share with me, my friend?”

Nadavun scowled.

“That wasn’t the challenge. The cat has to get his own.”

Kiorl hissed, showing fangs.

“Be fair, brother. Kiorl can’t fly.”

“Won’t matter,” Kiorl snapped. “There are mortals to the North. I can hear them.” He glared at the Second Prince. “I’ll bring you back hearts enough for a feast.”

“Here,” he handed the panther the little black bladed knife he’d been using. “Remember what Father likes us to do...” The Second Prince replied in a sing-song tone. “We’ll watch from here.”

“Oh, not another of your bloody charms...” The panther complained, but there was no heat in it. He took the shining disc the Prince offered to him on a lazy finger and hung it around it throat. “You and your scrying Davu. You’re such a voyeur.”

“You’re one to talk!” Nassau sniggered, it was the most undignified noise he ever made. “Or do you not recall what we did last Comalis…?”

“We all heard what you three did last Comalis.” Nadavun rolled his eyes. “Wish you’d never taught that snake of yours to talk – he never fucking shuts up! And you know Father doesn’t like you missing dinner after Fastus. We didn’t see you for three days.” The Second Prince made a glyph and formed the scrying pool in his palm from a handful of molten snow. The charm at Kiorl’s chest resonated in sympathy.

“You gonna put on a show Ki?”

“Are you gonna make it worth it for me?”

Nassau raised the heart he still held in one hand, bit into the tender muscle, and pressed a blood-red kiss to Kiorl’s muzzle.

Love you Ki. Go do bad things for me.

“You two make me sick.” Nadavun snapped.

Kiorl flipped him off, dropped from the branch, and set off through the forest.

He’d known where the little band of grubby humans had been moving through the forest since before Nassau had returned, and he also knew the Third Prince would have avoided them and done his hunting further afield so that Kiorl could have the thrill of stalking them. Kiorl went on two feet until he could see the shapes of the mortals in the deep shadows up ahead, then sprang silently up a tree and hoped the sudden change in perspective didn’t give the Princes motion sickness. He moved from branch to branch on all fours, tail held out for balance, conical ears trained on the targets below him.

There were seven of them, but soon, there were only two. Kiorl worked his way down the line, dropping from the trees and silencing screams before they even made it to the lips of his victims. He made time to slash up under the ribcages of the fallen men and use Nadavun’s knife to slice out the hearts as he went, marvelling at the keen edge of the unassuming little blade. By the time he reached the leading pair they had noticed the absence of their comrades. Kiorl didn’t speak whatever their language was, but it didn’t matter, all mortals first words upon seeing the carnage Kiorl left in his wake were very much on a theme. He hung from a low branch, and purred as the two humans looked up in slow motion to meet his gaze.

“Such fragile little muscles.” He could feel the echo of Nassau’s laugh in his head. “So easily snuffed out.”

He pinned the lead man to the trunk of a tree with a blade taken from his own belt, and let him scream long and loud as he made a mess of ripping the heart from his last surviving companion. Kiorl licked his fingers, the heart in his hand still beating with the wild adrenaline of dying, and smiled.

“There’s more in the dark than men with guns, boy.”

Hey Nas… you wanted a show, right?

Kiorl mirrored the youngest Prince’s gesture, and bit into the heart in his hand before leaning close to the trapped human. It showed something of the strength of the mortal’s will that he didn’t close his eyes or look away until Kiorl was too close to maintain eye contact – intimate killing distance. But it wasn’t his fangs which touched the man, and Kiorl licked a stripe up his neck before planting a bloody kiss on his mouth.

“See ya, kid.”

The survivor stared into his face for a long, terrified moment as Kiorl leant back, then fainted. Kiorl dropped him to the ground with some care – concussed survivors didn’t remember well enough, and that wouldn’t do – then collected the rest of his prizes and cleaned his borrowed knife on the dead man’s clothes before sheathing it in his belt. He tugged on the charm at his throat, and shouted back through the otherwise silent forest.

“DINNER!”

*

Kiorl broke off reminiscing to stare openly at the human was was approaching their table. A combination of glamour and the slippery fuck-off attitude exerted by the assembled demons had kept them blissfully free of interruptions all evening, but apparently this mortal had imbibed enough alcohol to brush off his higher thought processes and follow the interests of his dick, regardless of how unwise such a thing was.

“What the fuck is he doing?” Tua Asina asked, apparently to himself.

“Oh gods...” Kiorl hid his face in his hands, knowing without any special skills what was about to occur, and certain that it wasn’t going to be pleasant. “Please no.”

“Well if you will go out with so little to disguise you Nassau...” Deorion began, letting the sentence trail off as the human finished his approach, stopping at Nassau’s side, awkwardly close with Kiorl’s bulk at his back. It was not a smart place to stand.

Nassau kept his storm-grey eyes very firmly pinned to the table.

Get rid of it Kiorl.

I think it’s a him…

I don’t care! Nassau’s snapped unhappily. He schooled his expression carefully, giving nothing away other than a distinct interest in his drink.

Deorion is right y’know. The panther reminded him. You did nothing but hide your wings, and you look like that. What did you expect? Kiorl rolled his shoulders. “Can we help you?”

“H-hey there beautiful.” The alcohol-boosted confidence which had allowed the human to swagger over was already wearing thin, and the group of demons watched as it crumpled further, Nassau’s overwhelming supremacy doing a number on the human’s ability to think as the Prince of Hell turned to look at him. “C-c-can I b-buy you a drink?”

Nassau’s eyes flashed, and outside, there was the distinct crackle of lightning across the sky.

“Go back to your people.” Nassau intoned heavily. “Dream only of my Father’s name.”

The sky cleared, the man blinked, and Kiorl pushed him with his tail and sent the mortal stumbling back towards the bar.

Will that curse work? His oldest friend asked silently, almost dreading the answer.

Nassau nodded.

“I think that might be it for the night, boys.”

Nassau stood, and just like that, the demons abandoned their drinks and conversations, Inai left the rib bone in his empty shot glass, and they flowed like oil through the pub and out into the street. Throngs of humans, too comfortable and safe in their illuminated night time, clinging to their technology and science, delighting in their revelry, moved around them, oblivious to the danger in their midst.

“Do you think The Wind can spare you, Deorion?” Shindae grinned, eyes hot. “Maybe we should show the fire sprite some of the fun a real demon can get up to at night?”

“Oh, that sounds like a challenge.” Deorion countered, beaming.

“What do you say Nas?” Kiorl asked, intent and delight already spreading across his features. “Shall we put the fear of, well, you, back into the night?”

“Go without me.” Nassau replied. Enjoy yourselves, I’ll be fine. He reassured his friend. “It seems like a good night to be out, I think I might fly home.”

“Suit yourself Nas.” Be well, my friend. I’ll see you later. “Come on boys. Inai… no eating in public.”

“Like I could manage a second one already...”

Nassau turned his attention away from their conversation as Kiorl half-lead, half-shepherded the other demons and the consort of the God of the Wind away down the street. They would have their pick of mortals, and Kiorl would have a great night’s Hunting to show by the end of it, he was sure. Most of the people about would be fine, but Nassau knew there would be a dozen or so come morning, who would not quite remember where their friends had gone, and would discover in stages, the horrors of what had befallen them. They would wish for the simplicity of normal nightmares, and never be granted them.

Nassau smiled.

It was a nice night for flying, and there were people he could visit and reminisce of happier times with before he returned to the Inner Circle. The Prince of Hell opened his gilt wings and took flight.