"Lemme put it this way:what are you?"
An amused pout. d.a.m.n, but it was cute. "Honey, what you have here is a Grade-A, ultra-terrific, low-down, get-down, let"s-make-hay-in-the-howdee-do-me-now-baby-in-the-moonshine"-she took a breath-"succubus!" Uh-oh.Not that I hadn"t had a suspicion or three, but it was hard to think with her breathing all over like that. What an amazing set. Of lungs.
"I"m one of the red hot mamas who first taught men the necessity of washing their underwear." She sashayed-I"d never seen it done right before-in a slow circle. I got a heart-stopping view of everything, including her long blue tail. It had a little arrow-shaped point at the end, and she ran the tip up the inside of one of my legs.
Ohhh, man, that tickled. "I"ve-ah-ha-ha-heard of you. But don"t you, like, have incubuses, too?" Or was that incubi?
She sniffed and whipped her tail back, lashing it restlessly around. "Losers, every one of them."
"Losers?"
"Only timethey can get a date is when the woman"s unconscious. You ever see one of those un-joy boys, you"ll know why. Uhh-gaa-lee. But we succubae like a man up and ready and rarin" to go-go-go till the dawn-done-done-doesus." She raised her hands high overhead and stretched.
Gawd have mercy.Now I was happy to see her. I coughed again, shifted in place, and casually held the sword a little lower. Okay, alot lower.
She winked. "And honey, this is your lucky night. I haven"t had any inaaages !"
"Any what?" I knew, but wanted confirmation. h.e.l.l isnot a place where you wanna take chances on the wording.
She broke into a wide grin. Real white teeth. Lots of them, but I could get used to that. "Oh, my, sweetie-tweetie-piddie-pie, are you avirgin ?"
Like when I had that lunch with Filima, it seemed best not to commit myself to any specific direction until I had all the facts. "What if I was?"
"Ooohhh!" She screamed, throwing her head back.
Holy moley, if she made a noise like that just from antic.i.p.ation, what else could she come up with if things got serious?
She slipped a very warm arm around my arm and snuggled close. "You are going with me, honey, as of now, now, now, and how."
Under any other circ.u.mstances and in any other place I"d have been more than happy to oblige. Terrin never had told me where he"d gotten that T-shirt, but I had my suspicions. "I"d like to, but I"m just pa.s.sing through . . ."
"Aw, they all say that, but you can put your feet up for a little bit, can"t you? Why else would you come here?"
"Actually, I"m looking for someone-"
"And you"ve found her! You just come along and I"ll show you what.i.t is allll about." She looked like she could write encyclopedias about.i.t , but that crystal was weighing way too much for me to shove aside. And no way was I gonna spend time with any cartoon-based lesbian demon babe while Terrin and who knows how many others were inside my head. Not that I had anything against a good healthy orgy, but those work better when everyone partic.i.p.ates using their own body.
I tried to loose her grip. "It"s real generous of you, but I just came here to get away from those big guys on the other side of the Gate, find someone, then get out."
"You came through theGate ?" She had night-black eyes, and they got real wide.
"More like dived under it. Those guys can"t follow me, can they?"
"But youcan"t come here by that way. It"s not allowed."
The p.i.s.sed-off demon had said something similar. "Why not?"
"It just isn"t. They have their side, we have ours. You goin by the Gate. Younever go out. It"s The Way Things Are." She stepped away from me, looking alarmed.
Hmm. Maybe Dante had a clue about different levels, but I couldn"t recall if he had mentioned one-way streets. I wondered if he"d ever seen this world"s h.e.l.l. Probably not or hisInferno would be a lot more popular with literature students; that, or he kept the high points aboutthis section to himself.
"Okay," I said. "Probably better if I leave, so if you don"t mind I"ll take a rain check on you showing me the ropes and-"
Myhr!Terrin had been quiet for so long I figured he"d been laughing his a.s.s off the whole time. His interruption was faint, though, his voice fading in and out like a bad radio.Myhr . . . Botello"s . . .
"What? I can"t hear you!"
Link . . . anchor . . . breaking the circle . . . back . . . pull you . . .
The succubus looked at me quizzically. "I never struck anyone deaf before. Blind, maybe, but not deaf.
Are you all right?"
Opening . . . disrupt . . .
I checked behind me. That thin silver thread connecting my astral self with my body still extended long and strong so far as I could tell within my area, but it was whipping up and down like a phone line in a storm. That couldn"t be good.
Let go . . . reel you in.
Let go of what? The sword? The crystal? Let go how?
I felt a powerful tug on my back. What was he doing? It lifted me from my feet, pulling me, gliding, over the spongy blue ground as though I was weightless. The succubus ran after, easily catching up despite her heels. "Honey, you can"t go now, we haven"t even started!"
"Can"t help it. Don"t worry, I"ll call you. Terrin, what"s going on? Terrin?"
No reply. Maybe he was focused on bringing me out.
I hit stairs with my b.u.t.t, a very unpleasant shock. "Ow! Watch what you"re doing! Terrin?"
The astral thread hauled me up a couple more painful steps. I did my best to stand, to speed things along, unsure whether I was helping or hindering. He hadn"t exactly briefed me about how to make an exit.
Then sharp, hot agony flared in my back, and I suddenly pitched forward as though shot. A blast of heat and light exploded behind me. I caught myself at the last instant so the fall wasn"t too bad, but that didn"t register in my brain for all the other stuff crowding in. Wind, the hurricane-force kind, knocked me flat on my face and tore both sword and crystal from my grasp. They went spinning off, vanishing into pale blue depths like feathers in a storm.
Oh, s.h.i.t.
It roared and rolled over me like a mile-long freight train. I ducked and covered and hoped not to get crushed.
Another hot flare, then . . . nothing. Total silence. Total nothing and then some, with more piled on top.
Ominous nothing.
I cautiously pushed up. No pain. Twisted to look behind me. The cord was gone.
Maybe it was just slack. I got to my feet and turned all around. It was still gone. Once that fact sank in, I sat down again, feeling sick, shaken, and more scared than I"d ever been before in my short but very full life.
"Terrin?" I called. My voice was flat, no echoes. "You there? Terrin? Filima? Cadmus? Velma?
Anyone??? Knock three times if you can hear me!"
No dice. Not one little whisper in my head.
The succubus came close, put a warm hand on my shoulder. "What"s the matter, honey?"
Jeez, I felt like crying.
"Hey, you can talk to me." She did look sympathetic.
My hands twitched. "I-uh-I don"t wanna jump to any conclusions, but I think . . . I think I"m dead."
She gave me a rea.s.suring smile and squeeze. "Oh, honey, don"t take on so! There"s lotsworse things!"
"I can"t think of any."
"Well, let"s get your mind off it for a while. You need a break." Short attention span. We had that in common. I couldn"t lose hope just yet, though. "But if my friends should try to contact me-"
"They"ll get hold of you. That"s the problem with this place, if anyone tries even a little bit to get in they can do it. Most don"t bother. Keeps out the riff-raff."
"I thought h.e.l.l was full of riff-raff."
"Someparts. You"ll like my place, though."
I thought I would, too. "Okay, but I gotta find that sword and the crystal I brought in with me."
"If they"re still here. That was quite a big blast."
"Do you know what it was?"
She shrugged, not too concerned. "Probably another spat between the Inner Overlords and the Outer Guardians. They"re always at it. Why can"t beings just getalong ?"
That was a spat? I didn"t want to know what a real war was like. "Outer Guardians? What are those?"
"No one you"ll be seeing anytime soon. They see you, not the other way around. You come along and wait with me. Things have been soslow around here lately. For the longest time no one"s been by, waking or sleeping. I shouldn"t be out, but when I heard you I just couldn"t resist taking a peek."
Well, I didn"t have anything else to do. Something had gone badly wrong in the Blue Room, but Terrin would find a way to fix it. I hoped. If not, then there wasn"t anything Icould do, being dead. And in h.e.l.l.
Though looking at the succubus, the situation wasn"t as horrible as it might be. Keeping company with a h.o.r.n.y-nice blue ones-babe was better than being on the menu of those big ugly guys on the other side of the Gate.
She urged me along, b.u.mping a hip playfully against mine. We sort of halfheartedly looked for the things I"d lost, but the longer it took, the less important they seemed. I was dead. Didn"t need stuff like that anymore.
We didn"t go very far, that, or she was manipulating my perception. The bra.s.sy blue clouds retreated and changed color until we were in a kind of fluffy red chamber, all pillows and smooth curves. The place looked like one big bed. Even the floor was soft and squashy.
"This has possibilities," I said, my mood brightening considerably.
She was pleased. "Ooo, honey, I"mso glad you feel that way!"
"Ah, one thing: this isn"t one of those bait-and-switch kind of things, is it? Me thinking one thing and getting another that"s really bad for me?" I was still very much aware of my location.
"Sweetie-tweetie-piddie-pie . . . when I"m bad, it"s better!"
"I just want to ask. Succubae have a reputation, you know. Not all the press has been favorable."
"And where did it come from? A bunch of pinch-faced prudes who couldn"t get a date if they picked itoff a tree. I"ll let you know right off that their guilt trips bore me. You start talking a downer like them, and I"ll justhave to leave."
"Where would you go?"
"Who knows. Any lonely guy with a need for fun. It"s What I Do."
ThatI could believe. "Here, there or where?"
"Any place, any position, big boy." Her whiplike tail came up and tickled me under the chin. "Oooo!
You"re so soo-oooft!"
"Not all of me." Being dead was looking better and better every minute. Maybe this was it for eternity, hanging with this babe. I could deal with it. And her. Several times.
"Mmmm, you"re not kidding," she murmured.
Somehow my pants were down around my boots. I didn"t mind the warm draft. Neither did she. We ended up on the squashy floor. Woo boy, this was the life. Or death.
Then we rolled into something that gave a bit more than usual and voiced a protest.
"Hey! What"s going on?"
One of the curvy, pillowy features of the place moved on its own, changing from red to fluorescent orange. It stretched itself out into another succubus. She was identical to the babe who had me pinned down.
"We got us a virgin!" she said to the newcomer.
"No! Really?" A huge grin blossomed on her face.
"Well . . ." I began, thinking it only gentlemanly to inform them of the misunderstanding. But they were not interested. My blessings had just doubled and gotten a lot noisier. I"d be busy here for hours on end, justwhose end we had yet to work out. It could take years.
Then another orange succubus emerged from a soft wall, and another surfaced from the floor. "Heey!!
We got companyyy!"
Oh, my goodness.
The rest of my clothes went away real quick after they lent a hand, or hands. Tails too. Those things got everywhere. I was at the bottom of a wonderfully, wiggly, squirming pile of happy, hot, eager flesh and feeling pretty d.a.m.n good about it. No way to keep count of them all. I couldn"t tell if the first one was still with me or not; we were all over each other.
"Save some for us!" more gleeful female voices chorused as they dove in.
I thanked gawd for my cat DNA. Lot of endurance in cats. These gals were having a Myhr-fest for sure.
I never saw-or felt-so many tails, tongues, and hands at once, all of them on me. Delirious things were happening everywhere on my body. Complete and total turn-on. It was great. As I looked to see how things were going for one of them, I recalled Terrin"s warning that I might get eaten by demons. He never said it would bethis kind of a chow-down.
Ohhh, mama!