~~Mia~~
Counter-clockwise, that was their direction. No North or South. She asked about a map, but Adron just laughed and shook his head. Maps were the tools of spire rulers and few else.
The more she listened to them, the more it became obvious the demons weren’t… smart. In tune with their environment and perfectly comfortable with it, sure. Capable of navigating kilometers upon kilometers of harsh mountain terrain through skill and memory, sure. Capable of hunting with their bare hands, sure. Capable of defending themselves against creatures even bigger and stronger than them, sure.
Capable of thinking about the future? Apparently not. Demons, the ones she’d seen anyway, lived in the moment and didn’t care about much else. Caera cared about other stuff, but even then, book smart, demons were not.
Maybe Zel would be different?
Diogo took lead. Strong, massive, tough, and probably just as dumb as the rest of the demons, he marched ahead. The type of prideful man — demon — who’d have taken point even if he was smaller and weaker, and would have promptly died first for his stupidity. But sometimes, dumb people — demons — were really big and strong and got away with stupid shit because of it. Natural selection was a bitch. But at least Diogo wasn’t a coward. There was a strange power in that, and why the other demons followed him without hesitation. Fear, and respect.
The other two brutes, naked, followed beside him, left and right, like henchmen. Behind them, the two tiger ladies, walking on all fours with their huge tails swaying behind them. Between the two tiger ladies, walked the succubus and incubus, and Mia and Hannah, and the two men she didn’t know the names of yet. Behind them, Adron, the other vrat, and the gargoyle walked, rear scouts.
Surrounded. Protecting her from the dangers of Hell, according to Diogo, but it also meant there was no way she’d get to run away while everyone was awake. And naked as she was, it wasn’t like she could pick up a sharp object and not have them notice. There were sharp objects around though, big stone chunks that’d broken off the tall rocks and mountains. Bones too, most ground into powder but plenty more broken, with sharp tips. A femur bone would be perfect, if she was lucky enough to stab one of the demons in the eye. The rock would be the safer bet for penetrating skin at the soft spots like the throat. But she couldn’t risk grabbing any of them.
She glanced over at the two men with 666 on their foreheads. Big and strong, handsome too, with muscles and abs. One blond, the other a black man with short hair. But as attractive as they were, they were nothing compared to the incubus walking ahead of them. The dark red skin, two small horns, and long skinny devil tail didn’t detract from how hot he was; if anything they added into the exoticness. Unlike the humans, the succubus and incubus wore some simple loin cloths of the dark red leathery material that apparently all demons harvested somehow. The succubus also used some of the material to create an X strap across her chest to hold her ridiculous breasts in check.
Every moment near the two sex demons, Mia could feel their aura, invisible but there and something her ghost brain understood innately. Just another thing on the list of strange shit Hell had. She felt auras from the other demons too, quiet ones that didn’t have any particular, specific sensation to them. A little lust, a bit more violence, but it was all background noise in her mind. The two sex demons’ auras were stronger, and aligned on one very specific, obvious thing.
And they both kept glancing Mia’s way. Not Hannah’s, or the two men’s. They were looking at her. They looked hungry, licking their lips and small fangs as they looked her up and down. Fuck, they were so pretty.
She needed a distraction. Hell was a good one. The burning sky. The distant, colossal mountains. The spire tower in the distance. In particular, the occasional metal pillar with its brazier skull top were strangely beautiful, and the burning bushes left her pondering. She’d never read the bible, but who the fuck didn’t know the story of Moses?
But, after a few hours of brisk walking, she could only admire the crazy landscape so much. She needed a better distraction.
“So, Hannah,” she said. “How long have you known Adron?”
Hannah rolled her eyes. “You mean how long have I been a betrayer?”
“I… guess. Just trying to make conversation.” She gestured to Diogo, the two other brutes, and the two tiger ladies. They were chatting, quietly and infrequently, but still chatting, using a lot of words she didn’t know: Gazra Crag, Tacitus, Thorn Mountain, Geeraz Tombs, stuff like that. Far as she could tell, they were people and places, and the more she heard, the more complicated Hell sounded. And big.
Hannah sighed, but shrugged eventually. “Fine. Just, quietly. Last thing we want is for a pack of hellhounds to find us.”
“Hellhounds?”
“Think wolves. Big, hungry wolves. Breathe fire.”
“Jesus.”
Hannah laughed, quietly. “No Jesus is going to help us. So be careful.”
Nodding, Mia stepped in closer to her fellow naked woman. “So, how long?”
“I became Adron’s betrayer… must have been five years ago. Maybe more.”
“Five years. That a long life?”
“For a betrayer, decently long. For a normal soul, it’s unheard of.” Hannah glanced back at Adron, who grinned at her from twenty feet away. A spark of amusement, annoyance, attraction, and even fondness crossed her face, but she was quick to squash it.
“You two seem to be pretty sexually compatible,” Mia said.
That earned a squint from the betrayer.
“What’re you getting at, unmarked?”
“Nothing! Nothing. Just, this morning, you looked… It looked…”
“Demons know how to fuck. That what you’re getting at?”
Mia gulped. “I mean, yes, but I didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect Hell at all, but I didn’t picture the demons being, uh, talented lovers.”
“With giant cocks.”
Gulp turned into cough.
“That, too.”
“Much as I can’t stand that bastard,” Hannah lied, “Adron knows how to fuck. So does every demon, really. Not every demon is nice enough to give a shit about the person they’re fucking, though.”
“Do demons… need to do that kind of stuff?”
“Rape and torture?”
Wincing, Mia took a deep breath.
“Yeah, that.”
“No, they don’t need to do it. Plenty of them don’t. Plenty of them do. Can’t say I blame them. Growing up in a place like this, where your prey falls from the sky, runs and hides, and begs for their lives but you have to kill them anyway? And then you’re surrounded by fucking remnants every day and night? I’d grow up fucked up, too.”
But she was fucked up, a bad person in some way. She was in Hell, and she wasn’t here by accident. Mia had to be careful.
That wasn’t exactly fair, was it? Just because Hannah was in Hell didn’t mean she was doomed to forever be a horrible person. Right? That’d really suck, if souls were sent to Hell to suffer, but were incapable of repentance, or changing and becoming better people. Too late, but still.
“I’ll try and remember that, then. Caera seemed nice.”
“She is, usually.”
“And, um, Adron, he seems… charming?”
Hannah coughed on a chuckle. “Just ask.”
“Just ask?”
“Just ask. You saw it up close. How did I fit that fucker inside me?”