A Hand in Hell

I passed through the doorway with a luxurious stretch, arching my back as I came to a stop in the kitchen. I watched as Lauren shut the door to the garage behind herself, just grinning away. She dropped her armful of shopping bags on the floor with a chorus of rustling plastic and made her way to the refrigerator.

"So," she began casually, pulling the door open and reaching inside, "are we married yet?"

I chuckled. "I don't see a ring on my finger."

She turned to me with a bottle of water in her hand and let the door swing shut. "Well, if I got you a ring, would you accept it?"

"I have a feeling I would be the one buying the ring," I said as I slid onto a bar stool, and she stuck her tongue out at me but said nothing else, taking a swig of her water.

I glanced toward the window above the sink and sighed. It was getting dark outside, and the setting sun cast a swath of pink and purple across the sky. I felt like I could hear the crickets chirping, feel the cool breeze on my bare skin, smell the crisp air, and I wondered — could the demons feel it, too? The ones I would soon hunt? Or were they already gettin' it on in that dirty motel room?

Why was I even contemplating this?

"You're not really going to go after them, are you?" Lauren asked softly, and I turned to find her on the stool beside me, her brow furrowed in worry. "We had such a nice day together. And you can't let that dinner go to waste, can you? It would be blasphemy to die with a fifty-dollar meal still in your stomach."

I smiled. "I'm glad I have more confidence in me than you do, or I really would end up dead."

She took another slow sip of her water, eyeing me over the plastic bottle until she finally lowered it. "You really think you can take 'em? I mean, I watched you go up against that one demon lady at the house you burnt down, and she nearly fried your brain. What'll happen if you face two at the same time?"

I snatched the bottle from her fingers and defiantly arched an eyebrow as she glared. "You seem to forget that I existed long before you came along." I paused to take a sip of my stolen water, and she crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. "And that I've been through hundreds — yes, literally hundreds — of fights during my decades of life. You have no reason to worry." I handed her water back to her, and she chugged the remaining half of the bottle in defense. I watched, patiently waiting for her to say something.

She emptied the bottle and dropped it on the counter with a hollow thunk. "Maybe if these were two normal demons, like the losers we saw at that bar last night, but they're not. They're members of this stupid Demon Council thing, and in my experience, members of groups like that are members for a reason. Do I need to bring up that demon lady again? She burned your brain. Um, no, thank you! Let's not fight those people!"

I rolled my eyes and slipped off of the stool. "Are you forgetting the part where I fought back and killed her in a matter of seconds?" I started toward the back door. "Now, I really think I need to be going. I'll see you later."

"Oooh, no," she said, hopping off of her stool in a hurry. "You're not going by yourself." She caught my wrist, but I'd already stopped, turning to look down at her with an eyebrow cocked in cool surprise.

"Why? Do you think you'll be able to save me if things get out of hand?" I mocked.

She smirked. "I just want to be there when you die. Even if the demons kill me after, it'll be worth it just to watch."

"But I just bought you all these clothes," I said, mimicking her previous pout. "Why would you want to let them go to waste like that?"

Her smirk only grew more smug. "Worth it."

"Fine, fine," I said, ushering her out the door ahead of me in an effort to hide my growing smile from her. "But if they decide they want to eat you first, I'm not stopping them."

-?-

"Ew. Gross!" Lauren whispered as we crept up to the motel door, her nose wrinkling in cutesy disgust. Even I couldn't stop a grimace, nearly unable to stomach the implications of the wildly creaking bed just beyond that thin slab of wood and ugly green paint. "Are you really just going to burst in there and fight them after all that?"

I opened my mouth to answer in the affirmative, but when a woman's feverish screams began to the rhythm of that incessant creaking, I immediately clamped my lips together. Lauren had been right, after all. I wouldn't want to waste a fifty-dollar meal, especially not all over a motel sidewalk.

"Ew! Ew! Ew!" the girl hissed with a hand over her mouth — a mantra to keep her from ralphing up her own Italian, I guessed.

"It's just sex," I said as I straightened to my full height and squarely faced the door. "It's kind of grosser that we're standing here listening to it, honestly." Her lip curled, but I only shrugged, then lifted a leg left bare by my short skirt and kicked in the door before I could convince myself not to.

The creaking of the bed ceased instantly, and the woman's cries turned to a long-held groan of dismay as the door hit the floor with a bang. The man was still positioned over her, both of them fully bared to the world, sweaty and sticky and gross, but the euphoria left both of their eyes in a hurry as their respective glares settled upon me, standing tall in the doorway with my hands on my hips.

"I don't know who you are or why you're here, but can you come back later?" the woman asked in that same sorrowful groan. "We're kind of busy, and I'm not in the mood to stop."

I cocked an eyebrow, letting my eyes drift over her form unabashedly. The human figure she'd chosen was certainly a nice one, I'd give her that — thin, busty, and nicely tanned all over. A bit of a cliche, though, when I thought about it. "Sorry, slut-fuckers, but I'm kind of here to kill you, and now that I have the door down and all, I really don't want to turn back."

At that, her pale blue eyes lit up, and she pushed herself up onto her elbows beneath her silent partner. The way he was eyeing me, I thought he might be planning to suggest a threesome — and I wasn't quite sure if I'd refuse. He'd opted for a fairer-skinned type, broad-shouldered and nothing but muscle all the way down, and I couldn't say I'd mind being the meat in that sandwich. Or would he be the meat?

Innuendo: I didn't get it.

"Kill us?" the woman scoffed. "Who the hell are you to think that you can just barge in and off two high-ranking demons?"

I grinned to show off my shiny white fangs, slowly extending, sliding through my gums with a little tingle. "The name's Verapaini, main target of the Demon Council? I really thought you'd recognize me."

That was enough to get the man off the bed, it seemed, as he was suddenly standing before me in all his naked, fluid-covered glory. I cringed as I ducked beneath one punch — nearly taking a dong to the face, might I add — then leaped backward to avoid another.

"Jesus! Shouldn't you at least tell me your name before you start shoving your junk at my mouth?" I cried, bobbing and weaving to avoid his mad punches.

"Oh, of course!" the woman said caustically, and I dared to let my eyes flick past the man's rippling muscles for just long enough to see her standing beside the bed, arms crossed over her chest. "How impolite of us not to introduce ourselves! It's not like you burst in here while we were fucking or anything!"

I danced around the man once I'd sidestepped a kick, planting my foot right in the center of his broad back and forcing him face-first into the wall with all my might. Well, maybe not all of it. The beige paint and the plaster beneath only cracked a little bit, and the only crunch I heard was from his nose. Not nearly my best work. "Hey! You're not even supposed to be fucking in the first place! I think you'll live."

"And how do you know that?" she asked, suddenly on my back, an arm around my throat. She started to pull me backward, away from her slowly recovering fuck buddy, but I quickly jumped up, pressed both of my feet into his back, and propelled myself backward. We toppled to the floor together, the ho and I, and I slipped out of her choke hold with ease.

"Your precious leader told me," I said, rubbing at my throat as I jumped to my feet and faced her. I could feel the man shifting behind me, preparing to spring, but I carefully kept my eyes on the slowly standing woman. "He's actually the one who sent me here. Told me that I could probably take you." I grinned nastily. "You won't mind if I kick your asses, right? Boss's orders."

She scowled, but her eyes moved past me to peg the man at my back. "I told you he'd figure it out! You made it too obvious that we weren't actually doing the work. You couldn't even fake your job!"

"Why does it always have to be my fault?" the man spat in a voice much more highly pitched than I'd expected from his physique. "You were responsible for this, too, you selfish—"

"Don't you say it!" she burst in, stabbing a finger at him over my shoulder. "Don't you use that word with me!"

"Bitch!" he yelled. "Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch!" A primal scream tore from her slender throat, and she dove around me to fall on the man, knocking into my shoulder as she passed.

I bit my lip to keep from laughing as I watched them begin to comically roll around on the floor, fighting like characters in one of those old cartoons. Fuck buddies: you're doing it wrong. I then remembered my own little buddy, and I scanned the dimly lit room for any signs of where Lauren had ended up. I found her peeking through the window from the outside, her bright, pretty eyes just barely visible through a small tear in the chocolate-brown curtain. Good girl.

I yelped when my legs were knocked out from under me, and I landed on my back on the man's chest, the woman having rolled out of the way to stand safely over me. "Grab her!" she yelled, and the man forgot their bickering, wrapping his arms around my torso to pin my own limbs to my sides. I began to wriggle, but she didn't pause, and I took a hoofed foot full-force to the face. Pain blinded me, my cheek throbbing, and I barely noticed as I turned my head and spit out a mouthful of blood and a few of my own teeth.

"How do you like them apples, bitch?" the woman cackled. I looked up at her with darkening vision and wondered if I was hallucinating. From the waist down, this beautiful woman had the furry, back-bent legs of a goat, like a fucking Satyr or something.

"Please tell me that's not your natural form," I managed to slur through a fresh mouthful of blood, and I watched her look darken before she goat-kicked me in the other side of the face.

Another burst of pain, and my vision went completely black as I turned and spat out the new blood and freshly freed teeth. You've got to be fucking kidding me, I thought, doing my best to focus on my interior dialog instead of the stabbing pain that threatened to steal away my consciousness. I'm getting my ass handed to me by a Goddamn goat!

"Almost got her," the woman said, smug, and I felt instead of saw her foot rising off of the floor one more time. I bucked my body into the air on instinct and wrapped my legs around hers before she had the chance to strike again, and with a twist of my body, I sent her tumbling to the floor.

The man tightened his hold on me, but it did him no good. I tightened my legs around his woman's, then let my sightless eyes slip shut. "You really shouldn't be touching me," I muttered, then let my energy flood them both where our bodies made contact.

I remembered Mishakkon when they cried out and tried pathetically to fight back, and I almost longed for her mental acuity as I ran rampant through their minds and bodies. Their resistance was no resistance — not until the woman jerked a leg free and rammed it directly into my crotch.

"Fuck me!" I screamed, and the onslaught of power ceased as all attention went to my groin. The man threw me the instant he returned to himself, shoving me with such force that I flew all the way to the bed and bounced off to land with a heavy thud on the other side.

I gripped my lady bits and curled into a ball. "Fuckin' A, man! What kind of bullshit attack is that?!" I could see now, I realized when the edge of the bed came into full focus, but what good did that do me now? My vadge was about to pop out and roll off into the sunset without me!

"A genius one," she grunted as she bent over me and slapped a sweaty palm onto my forehead.

"Oh, you cunt," I hissed, squeezing my eyes shut, as she forced my power back into me and then some, searing the synapses that had only just recovered after the battle with Misha. I tried to block the flow with my own energy, but no sooner had I begun to succeed in that endeavor than the man's massive foot found my gut with impossible strength. A fresh wave of blood flew from my mouth and I grunted, but the impact had knocked me a foot backward on the floor, and without the point of contact, the woman couldn't keep flooding me.

My eyes snapped open, and in spite of the pain, I lurched to my feet, refusing to lie down and take whatever they had to give. They faced me, a bit sweatier than they had been at the start but certainly no worse for the wear, and I glared at them. My gums tingled as I forced a fresh set of shark's sharp teeth through them, baring them proudly.

"You're not going to like me in a second if you decide to keep playing dirty."

"Playing dirty?" the woman scoffed, and she immediately lashed out with a hoofed foot.

I caught her ankle in an easy grip, thick claws curving from my fingertips to pierce the skin hidden beneath her coarse fur. "After that blow to the vadge, I'm not in the mood to play nice anymore — and believe me, sweetcheeks. I've been being very nice." Her eyes dipped to where my fingers gripped her leg, and she cocked an eyebrow as my skin left behind its rich human pallor in favor of an impossible dark gray.

"Well, if that's how you want to play it," she said, her lips curving in a smile to frame her own elongating teeth. She shoved me backward with a thrust of the foot I still held, and the man, still fully human in appearance but for a set of sharp claws, let his nails tear through my chest with a cat-like swipe.

I released the woman's leg and ignored the blood that spurted and flowed from the fresh cuts over top of my new corset, promptly ducking beneath another swipe of the man's claws. The woman's hoofed foot lashed out again, but I caught it just as easily as before, and with a rough tug, I sent her sprawling on her ass on the floor. I quickly resumed my full height, now looming over the man at a height of 6'7, my thick, curved horns nearly touching the ceiling. How my clothes hadn't torn away, I would never know.

A broad grin encompassed the entirety of my face, aggravating my fractured jaw and bruised and scraped cheeks until the throbbing pain was almost deafening. "Your move, shit-dick." He shot up like a flower in bloom, taking on an extra foot and a half and a set of vampire-esque fangs. He grew wider by another solid foot, all bulging, veiny muscle now, and his rough, almost scaly skin took on a white purer and paler than the cleanest of snow. The woman rose to stand at his side, a foot shorter due to her bent legs, and she was coated head to toe in that dark brown fur that had covered her from the waist down before. Her horns were little gray-black nubs at the top of her skull, his dark as pitch and sprouting from the top of his head to curve for a few inches over either side. I chuckled to myself and absently fingered my own horns, twice as thick as theirs, jutting from the front of my skull and arching back over the top to rest in a loose spiral just behind my ears.

I could see why they banged in human form. He outclassed her like a mother fucker, and she was a fucking goat.

My musings were cut short when she lashed out with a hoof, trying to nail me in the kneecap. I caught her ankle again, smirking at her stupidity, but my expression faltered when I failed to catch hold of the man's incoming hand and his claws slid into my stomach with the grotesque ease of a knife slicing into butter. They elongated suddenly, shooting from his fingertips to add nearly a foot to their length, and blood poured from my mouth to spatter across his forearm.

My brain pulsed with pain; my entire face throbbed just the same; but that didn't hold a candle to the explosion of brutal agony that tore through my torso as his claws ripped through my stomach, my back, my insides and slashed cleanly right out the other side.

I staggered back. I couldn't breathe; I couldn't see; I couldn't feel anything beyond the burning of that gaping hole in my body. I was against something suddenly; I was on the floor. I was sticky, cold, hot, cold, dying. Where was I? What was going on?

There was a pressure on my fingertips, and I returned to myself just enough to realize that I was pressing my hands into the hole. It was so hot, all of it. So hot. So why was I so cold?

Cool air washed over me as I was hoisted into the air, and I blinked rapidly as my vision returned, the pressure leaving my fingertips as my arms went numb and fell to my side. I saw the face of the man, his arm holding me up, his fingers tight around my throat, then I let my gaze drop downward. My lower half bounced numbly, and the tear in my stomach from my belly button over bobbed up and down like a toothless mouth spewing blood.

My dear arrogance, I thought, and the crisp clarity of my inner voice startled me, where have you gotten me now?

"Rip her legs off!" the woman yelled, and my eyes flicked to her face, split in a bloodthirsty grin. I felt a heavy hand on my thigh, vaguely, through the haze of numbness that had taken hold of my entire being, and a splitting pain awakened the nerves in my stomach.

He was pulling. He was really doing it. He was going to tear me in half.

"Vera!" I'd never heard another voice so clearly in my life, and my eyes shot wide open. Lauren was in the doorway, tightly gripping the frame, and tears swam in her luminescent blue eyes. She was…crying? For…for me?

"Oh!" the demon woman squealed, eclipsing my view of the human as she started toward her. "Dinner!"

A surge of adrenaline washed away the numbness, the dregs of blindness, the pain, and I clutched the man's forearm in both of my hands, already outputting as much raw energy as I possibly could. He roared in pain and dropped me, but I landed on my feet and only gripped tighter. His skin was growing sticky beneath my hands, melting away, and my eyes narrowed, focused through the tint of my sunglasses on the glowing red depths of his own. They popped free as I willed it so with a surge of thought and power, and his scream grew louder. Desperately, he tried to pull free of my grasp, but it was too late. His head burst like a watermelon loaded with dynamite, and I released his arm as blood and brain matter spattered over my person, my lips curving in a self-satisfied smile with a hint of something more sinister.

"Clerictair!" the woman shrieked, and I turned to her with that same smile, watching as Lauren's trembling form slipped free of the woman's loosened grasp.

"'Rip her legs off,'" I mocked, taking a slow step toward her and savoring the fear that filled her eyes as she looked from her boyfriend's corpse to my malign serenity. I was suddenly before her, a hand resting gently on her upper arm, and I could tell that she wanted to draw back but couldn't. "Do unto others and all that, right?" I laid my other hand gently on her thigh, then suddenly hoisted her body into the air by the two limbs I held in my grasp and used my massive arm span to rip them free. It was just like ripping the limbs from a baby doll — only this baby doll screamed.

I dropped her arm and leg and laughed darkly, then knelt over her writhing, bleeding body, planting a knee in the center of her chest to pin her down. "Oh, stop," I all but moaned, reaching back to let my fingers dance lovingly down her remaining thigh. "You're making me wet!" I dug my knee in harder and dug my clawed fingers into her leg, then ripped the limb free with another impossibly powerful jerk.

She let out a fresh scream, a wail of the purest agony, and I let my eyes drift shut, my head tilting back, as I savored it. "I'm going to eat you now," I sighed dreamily, "and you're going to welcome it."

"Oh, no," she wailed, looking up at me with tear-filled, fiery-red eyes. "Please, stop!" But I bent my face to her throat and ripped unmercifully into her flesh with my sharkish teeth, and not even the pulsing waves of a murderer's orgasm could slow me down. I tore through her trachea to cut her cries off with a gurgle, then she fell still and silent, and only the sounds of my teeth rending flesh broke the lull of the night.

"Oh, God." And there it was, the one voice that could cut through any haze, any fog, even the heavy haze of death itself. I leaned away from the dead demon's throat and met the swimming blue eyes of a red-faced creature — Lauren, covered in the blood of the so recently slain. But her tears weren't for me, not now. There was no concern to those beautiful depths. "Oh, God!" she cried in horror, and after taking one shaky step backward, a hand to her mouth, she turned and fled.

"Lauren?" I whispered in confusion, and blackness suddenly swallowed me whole.