She leaned down toward him, rubbed her closer big ram horn against the side of his head, and reached out with her further arm. She ran the blunt side of a claw along the half of his chest not covered by armor, and again clicked a few times. As much as David knew he really sucked at reading people, and could never tell if a girl was flirting or not, Daoka was literally pressing up against him, rubbing on him, and tracing lines on his skin with her claws.
“I uh… oh… shit, I… said… t-two sexy demons, didn’t I?” Ah shit he was stuttering. “I… I um… Sorry? I mean, I didn’t mean–”
Daoka pulled away with a hiss and a couple hard clicks.
“Wait, wait. I mean, yes, you’re very… sexy. Very, very…” The memory of Dao on her back, Jeskura eating her out, and the satyr playing with her huge breasts while looking at David came back like an ocean wave. Existential dread and terror about his horrible future, gone. The only thing in existence right now, was the deadly satyr woman and her eyeless gaze, looking at him, demanding he explain himself for taking back what he’d said. Something she’d apparently liked him saying. “You’re extremely sexy.”
Daoka smiled, leaned back in, and licked her lips with a sharp-tipped tongue as her claw again traced lines around his chest, and his one exposed nipple.
“B-But, uh, aren’t you… um… Jeskura?” The combination of shock and terror about a demon hitting on him, and fear of Jeskura ripping his legs off like she’d done to that Cainian woman, if she found him doing things with Daoka, was the only reason he didn’t have a hard-on.
Daoka nodded, pointed at him with one hand, and somehow managed to make a shape with both hands that vaguely looked like two things squishing another thing between them. Or, two people, squishing a person between them.
He pulled his head back.
“I uh, I mean… um… uhh–”
“Bad news, fresh meat!”
Oh fuck oh fuck. He jumped up and held up his hands.
“I wasn’t… I mean, we w-weren’t–”
“Diogo’s gone,” Jeskura said, snarling as she stomped down into their little ravine, wings partly spread. Her forward leaning posture made her look extremely intimidating, like a giant bird ready to pounce and eat him.
“What?”
“Diogo’s gone. Zreeg says he up and left to take some unmarked girl to Zel.”
“Oh… Oh! Mia! She’s alive!”
“Yeah, probably. But if she’s on her way to Zel now, that means my plan’s fucked.”
Jeskura went on, hands up in the air as she stomped about, complaining about how they couldn’t ambush Diogo anymore. All white noise to David. Mia was alive. Alive! Oh thank fucking god.
“Diogo,” Jes continued, “did what I knew he’d fucking do, but someone else took your sis to see him. So of course he’s dragging her and his fat ass to see Zel and–David. David!” She hit him with her wing, and his eyes snapped up and open. “Pay attention!” So much for being quiet.
“Sorry, sorry. Just… I’m so happy.”
“Yeah yeah. How nice for you. The fuck do I do!? We can’t get ahead of Diogo now. I can’t set up traps and–”
Daoka clicked, neutral and constant, interweaving with Jeskura’s words. A conversation, with no way for David to infer what the satyr was saying. Tail cracks and fluttering wings, Jeskura was very animated when angry, and David made sure to stay out of the way. And made sure she couldn’t see his smile.
“Fine. Fine! Ugh, pain in my ass.” Jeskura marched on, tail cracking left and right against rocks. “Keep the clothes, David. You’re gonna need them. Tomorrow we start the trek to the spire.”
“Really? Thought maybe you’d want to go with the original plan, maybe set up an ambush for Diogo when he comes back.”
“Maybe. Dangerous to be out in that area for that many days. And I don’t know when he’ll come back.”
“Oh. So… to the spire, then. Um, how–”
“Four day trek from here, and Diogo’s ahead of us by one day.”
“He really went himself?” he asked.
“Welcome to Hell. People in charge do things themselves.” She shrugged as she motioned back toward the path they’d taken, and started walking. “Politics.”
“Politics? Like… seriously?”
“Yeap. You have to do shit face to face, or lose face, or more problematically, someone else comes along and ruins your shit. If Diogo didn’t go, someone would take credit, or eat your sister, or who fucking knows what.”
He frowned. “Mean.”
Jes’s frown disappeared as laughter bubbled through her. Somehow, for some reason, everything he said made her laugh. And considering how she reacted to learning her plan wouldn’t work, it was clear she was normally an angry person. If making her laugh meant she kept him alive, he was perfectly happy to keep doing it.
“Let’s head back, fresh meat. Rest up, and we can start tomorrow. It’s a long walk.”
Jeskura did things on the fly. If something went badly, she didn’t plan ahead to fix it, she just responded and compensated and tried again with the closest option available. His exact opposite.
But, she was keeping him alive. And Daoka was more than interested in doing the same. And she’d flirted with him. Part of him screamed in his head to not think that, because the fuck did he know? She didn’t even have eyes! Reading her facial expressions wasn’t exactly easy.
Then again, she’d literally played with his chest, been offended when he’d tried to apologize for calling her sexy, and then made some person-on-person-on-person finger gestures. Hard to misinterpret that. And, that gesture included the third person, Jeskura, the sexy gargoyle who looked ready to pop and tear someone’s head off.
They all froze when another shadow clipped across them.
No battle cry followed, or sudden leap, anything that’d make them move in response. Somehow he’d managed to summon the part of him that’d stabbed that imp, and he was ready to try something again, or at least dodge, but the shadow remained unmoving, until they all slowly turned and looked up at the rock.
A big demon woman perched on the rock, a small frown on her mostly human, slightly cat-like face. A couple of big black horns topped her head, with black hair tendrils dangling around her skull like Jeskura’s. No wings, and she perched on raptor feet while she sat just like a cat or dog would, arms straight down in front of her and knees out to the sides, while her thick spiky tail stuck out to the side slightly, unmoving.
One of the tiger demons Jeskura had told him about. A tregeera. One with a scar on her face that left a dent in one of her horns.
“Caera,” Jes said, growling quietly as she walked past David and put herself between him and the demon. “How’d you find us?”
“Zreeg’s an idiot. He didn’t betray you, if that’s what you were wondering. Not on purpose.”
“Yeah well, I’ll happily take an idiot over a traitor.”
“Plus, you’re loud.”
“Fuck you.”
There was some venom in Jes’s words. David took a step back. Whoever this tiger woman Caera was, she looked big and strong enough to take them all on at the same time, and David didn’t have so much as a sharp knife.
“What’re you doing here?” Caera asked.
“Like I’m telling you.”
The tiger snarled quietly as she pulled her tail around in front of her, and idly plucked away bits of rock stuck in the spikes that ran along its spine.
“You’re never going to be able to kill Diogo, Jes. And Dao, Tacitus isn’t going to forgive you until he’s got your head on a spike. Why are you two sticking your noses out?”
“I’m going to get Diogo, Caera,” Jes said. “It’ll happen, sooner or later. Besides, the fuck do you care? You want him dead, too.”
“I need him.”
“No you don’t. There are others ways to get those Cainites, and Diogo isn’t going to risk his neck for you.”
The tiger snarled, and slowly crawled down the huge rock and down into the small ravine with them, on all fours. Holy shit she was huge, bigger than a Siberian tiger, bigger than Jes. And of course his dumb brain immediately told him she was hot, too, despite the wider mouth filled with sharp teeth. Maybe because of, considering how twisted he evidently was.
“Is this a–”
“No, David’s not a Cainite.” Jeskura blocked him off with one of her wings. “Just a fresh meat I’m keeping for myself.”
“I don’t believe that for a second. He–” Caera frowned as she looked past the top of Jes’s wing, straight at David. Slowly, her expression softened, and she titled her head to the side as she watched him. “… oh. You too.”
“Too?” David asked. “You… You saw…”
“You look just like her. Unmarked and everything.” Body visibly relaxing, muscles unclenching, the big tiger woman stood up on her hind legs. Yeap, she was huge, eight feet tall and wearing the same armor Jes and Dao were.
“You talked to Mia?”
“Guarded her for the night. Stupidly nice girl, really doesn’t belong in Hell.”
Jes sighed as she lowered her wing. “Yeah, this one, too. Mia’s his sister.”
Caera grinned as she came in closer, and Jes and Dao both took small steps back, Jes’s wing still out so it pushed David back too. They were afraid of her.
“And you were bringing him to Diogo, because…”
“Guess.”
The tiger chuckled. “Because you were hoping Diogo would let his guard down so you could kill him.”
“Good guess.”
Nodding, the tiger looked at David, watching him with a strange curiosity, as if she’d seen him before.
“Two unmarked in two days. And… the same… feeling, around them.”
“Feeling?” David and Jes asked.
“Feeling. Can’t quite say what it is, but it stopped when Mia left, and now I’m feeling it again.” She pointed at claw at him. “It’s coming from you.”
“Me?” Uh oh. He took another step back, and almost jumped when Daoka put a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know anything–”
“Yes yes, I know. Mia didn’t know anything either. She also didn’t mention you.”
“She… didn’t?”
“Afraid an asshole like Diogo would go out looking for you, no doubt.”
That, was smart. David had reason to trust Jes and Dao, but even then, it was kinda stupid for him to bring up Mia so readily.
“I get the tinglies, yeah,” Jes said. “You’re sure it’s these unmarked pipsqueaks?”
“I am,” Caera said. “It won’t be long before Diogo figures it out. And I’m sure Zel will figure it out quick.”
“Yeah, she probably will. She’s a smart bitch.”
Daoka pushed David back, and unleashed a fury of clicks as she hopped up to Caera, and jammed a finger up at the much larger demon’s chest armor.
Laughing, Caera put up her hands like she was surrendering. “I’m not gonna hurt your pet, riiva, calm down.”
Daoka didn’t sound convinced from the way her clicks continued. But after a few seconds she backed off and rejoined David, standing in front of him.
“So, you gonna tell Diogo?” Jes asked.
“Nah. You were right. I want the devorjin dead, too.”
“Funny way of working toward that goal, becoming his right hand bitch.”
Sighing, Caera shook her head as she lowered herself onto all fours again, and prowled toward them before sitting again. Big, giant, tiger lady.
“I didn’t come out here to start a fight, Jes. I came out here because I wanted to check up on you and Daoka, and maybe warn you things are happening. I’m sure you’ve seen the angels.”
“I have.”
“And now we’ve both seen an unmarked. When Mia gets to Zel, it won’t be long before word spreads. Things will get… problematic.”
The gargoyle grumbled, hooked her wings to her back again, and paced, eyes pointed at the ground. Not in defense mode anymore, then. David took a breath, but kept his eyes on the treegera, and the massive claws she had. He did a double take on her hands, too. Five fingers and one thumb, interesting.
“I didn’t think it’d be a problem,” Jes said, “if it was just this fresh meat. Dao is convinced he’ll make a good pet for her, so I figured we’d just keep him. No need for all of Hell to know about him. But you’re right, if Zel finds out, she’ll make sure everyone knows, if she thinks it’ll give her bargaining power or what-the-fuck ever. Diogo definitely does.”
“Caera,” David said, voice trembling a little more than he wanted it too.
The tiger lady smiled at him. Sitting like she was, they were basically eye level.
“Yeah?”
“Can you… help us, rescue my sister?”
Caera stared at him, blinking.
“She isn’t going to help you,” Jes said, rolling her eyes. “David, come on, the fuck have I been saying all this time? This is Hell. Everyone’s an asshole. No one’s just going to help you–”
The tiger lady chuckled, and unless he was going insane — possible — she gave him a wink.
“I’ll help.”