A Hand in Hell

Her eyelids fluttered prettily open, her ocean-blue irises swimming with the disorientation she must surely have been feeling. It took her a moment, her gaze jerking from the painfully bright light overhead to the array of shiny surgical tools spread out on the table beside her, to remember everything that had happened that night. Her ear-piercing shriek was what finally roused me from my chair nearby, and I danced my way to the table as it devolved into ragged sobs, the rhythm to which my hips now swayed.

"Good morning, sunshine," I chirped cheerily, leaning over her so that my face eclipsed the light overhead – a move I'd practiced, making sure to get the position just dramatically right. I wanted to hold my face closer to hers – nay, craved it – but I hadn't secured her head, and I didn't want any unfortunate boo-boos cropping up so early in the process. "How did you sleep? Well, I hope?"

She struggled against her bonds, pulling at her hands and feet to no avail, and gazed pleadingly up at me. "Why are you doing this?" she whimpered. "You have to let me go. You can't do this. I'm a person. You can't do this to people!"

"And what defines a person?" I asked, smiling broadly as I slid my sunglasses down my nose to reveal the red of my eyes, the glow of them dancing like a candle's flickering flame across the girl's fair skin. "For example, you know how your kind treats pigs and cows and chickens in the slaughterhouse? Well, what says that my kind can't do that to yours? What says that I have to consider you a person?"

"Because I am a person!" she cried, fighting harder to pull free of her bonds as she stared into my eyes. "I am! It doesn't matter what you are!"

"But my kind is obviously far superior to yours," I remarked as I straightened, and she squinted against the sudden onslaught of light. I pushed my sunglasses back up to their rightful place upon my nose and started slowly toward the foot of the table, my fingers trailing along the smooth skin of her leg as I passed. "Stronger, smarter, ultimately more powerful." I faced her at the end of the table, and she craned her neck to watch me as I gripped her feet, grinning. "And that's what you humans consider yourselves to be in comparison to your animal brethren, am I right?" My fingernails elongated and curved into claws, the tips digging just slightly into the tops of her feet.

"What are you?" she screamed, struggling against the shackles. Her feet wriggled in my grasp, trying to pull from my fingers, but I held my place patiently.

"My, for a species with such a soaring superiority complex, you sure are clueless," I remarked airily, then sank my claws into her feet to stop her struggling. She let loose a shrill cry of pain, her body jerking and slamming violently against the table, and I slid my claws in further and further, one agonizing millimeter at a time. She bucked and screeched some more, blood spurting to create glistening pools on the gray table, and I giggled in delight. "Such fun!"

Slowly, I withdrew my claws, and her screams finally subsided to more sobbing and ragged gasps for breath. "I'm a demon, love," I purred as I returned to the head of the table, trailing my bloody claws along her leg as they shrank into normal fingernails. "Just one big, giant nightmare that the world would much rather forget about."

"A nightmare," she murmured with a sniffle, "that's what this is. Things like you just don't exist. This has to be a nightmare."

"Except pain doesn't exist in nightmares, genius," I pointed out, flicking her nose and smearing her own blood across the tip. She flinched as if I'd just socked her in the gut. "Believe whatever makes you happy, though," I said, smirking, as I rested my elbow on the table and lay my chin on my open palm. "You'll be dead by noon at the latest."

"What time is it?" she asked in a whisper, swallowing hard.

I grinned, focusing every bit of attention I had on those ocean-blue irises as I waited for the fear, the utter terror, that I knew would come. "Eight o'clock." And there it was, sweeping across her whole face in a heartbeat, twisting it into something too beautiful to put into words – raw terror, the kind that would only come with the realization that you had less than four hours left to live. I drank it up, savored it; I burned her wide-eyed, slack-jawed face into my mind to recall later, to recall forever, to remember when I was alone in the shower at night.

Something like lust roared to life within me, a three-headed beast with eyes blacker than sin and tits bigger than mine, and I bent over her, my face inches from hers in spite of the danger. My platinum-blonde hair framed her face for the moment, a curtain around us, and I whispered, "Terrifying, isn't it?" My eyes drifted shut as I let the feeling overcome me, rolling through me in waves of fire, and I placed my lips gently against hers in a kiss I knew she would never willingly return. I briefly savored the warmth, the softness, the scent of the human, then lifted my head, though I didn't go far. "Such a shame I caught you," I whispered, my breath shifting the hair that surrounded us, and I reached for the scalpel that lay waiting on the cart nearby. "You're quite a lovely woman. The human world won't be the same without you." And then, I cut into her bare stomach, and another shriek tore from her throat as her body bucked once more.

I drew back to avoid her ineffectual flailing, taking the knife with me. A thin line of blood curled along the curved edge, a droplet forming at the tip, and I leaned my head back and held it over my tongue. Drop by drop, I tasted her – like light white wine with a healthy dose of iron. Only five sips of that lustrous drink found my tongue, and I dropped my head to eye the blood that oozed from her stomach wound, a thick line of red above her belly button. It pooled on her stomach and rolled like a waterfall down her sides as she writhed – a waste of such a delectable liquor, if you asked me.

I dropped the scalpel onto the tray with the other supplies, placed my hands firmly to either side of the girl's belly button to hold her body down, then bent my face close to the wound and began to lap the blood up gently. My eyes drifted shut as the flavor filled my mouth once more, and I paused as a sigh slipped through my lips, creating slight ripples in the bloody pool before me.

"You humans are so silly," I murmured, my words just barely audible over the sound of her whimpering. "Settling with animals when you could have each other." My tongue delved deep into the layer of crimson, prodding at the incision that hid below. It wasn't deep enough to let me inside, though I could likely have forced the rest of the way through with my tongue, but I fought the urge to go on. I had to savor this, just as I'd savored everything else. I had to make this last for four glorious hours.

"Stop," she whined when I lifted my head and peered at her through half-lidded eyes. Tears were running down her face, snot bubbling from her nose, and my libido died instantly. I fully opened my eyes and pushed myself away from her, nose wrinkled in disgust. "You don't need to do this," she went on, her voice hitching as the occasional sob broke through. "You've had your fun. You can let me go now. I won't...I won't tell anybody!"

I chuckled, rounding the table to pluck a tissue from the box that sat on the steel desk against the wall. "If I had a nickel for every time I heard that one," I said as I returned to her, wiping at her nose with the tissue. It was disgusting work, but I had to do it to keep the process so enticing. I didn't know anyone who could get it up when their plaything was covered in snot, and I could get it up through just about anything.

"Please," she pleaded, her voice taking on a nasal quality as I pinched her nostrils shut with the tissue. "I promise no one will know. There's no reason for you to kill me."

"You're really bad at this, did you know that?" I asked wryly as I balled the used tissue up and tossed it into the industrial-sized trashcan behind me. "I like your screams and the way your body writhes and the way you taste, but your begging could really use some work." I went back to the side of the table, plucking the scalpel from where it lay on the tray.

She eyed the blade, fear alive in her eyes once more. "Please, don't," she begged in a whisper, then screamed, "Please!"

"No can do," I said, grinning as I rested the knife's blade against her stomach again, right where the first, shallow cut began. "I don't kidnap pretty girls like you just to let them go. Wouldn't that be a bit of a waste?" She squeezed her eyes shut, crying again, and I started to apply pressure to the blade.

A heavy presence appeared behind me – three bodies, maybe more – and a large hand caught my wrist, jerking my knife from the incision. "In the name of the Demon Council, I hereby command you to stop wasting human lives for your own sick personal amusement," a deep voice said dryly, and I spun to find myself face to face with a tall man, his skin dark brown and his eyes glowing red – a demon hiding in human form just as I was. Just fucking great. Two others stood behind him, one male and one female, and neither looked particularly pleased to be here.

"There is no Demon Council," I sneered, jerking my wrist from the man's grasp, spattering blood across my face in the process.

"There was no Demon Council," the man replied with a mocking smile, "but one has recently been created, just to deal with little fuck-ups like you."

"Thank God," the human whispered behind me, relief in her voice. "Thank God. Thank God. Thank God."

"Don't bother thanking Him, honey," I told her, reaching back to give her thigh a light pat. "He's not the one who saved you." I grinned in the man's face and added, "You have Satan to thank for that."

He smiled tightly. "Cute."

I dropped the scalpel onto the tray and leaned against the table, crossing my arms over my chest, and the man took a step backward to give me some space. "Now, why have you assholes interrupted my playtime, exactly?"

"Because you're through," the man answered simply. "You won't be kidnapping any more humans, you won't be torturing any more humans, and you certainly won't be killing any more humans. Do you understand that?"

I chuckled. "Why, no, I don't, because I reserve the right to do whatever I want, whenever I want, to whoever the fuck I want. Do you understand that?"

He grinned cruelly. "If you continue to take and torture humans, you will be captured and likely killed. Your actions have already made several humans aware of our presence in this world, and we will gladly end you before you can alert even more."

My lip curled. "No humans are aware of our presence. None beyond the occasional nutjob who no one would believe, anyway."

He laughed lowly, a mischievous glint to his eyes. "So you really don't know, then?"

"Know what?" I asked, keeping my tone casual though my stomach tightened at that expression. I began to twirl a strand of hair around my finger, vaguely disappointed to find the tip of it sticky with the girl's blood.

"A small group of humans has formed here in this very city, a group of humans whose sole purpose is to hunt you."

My eyebrows raised in cool surprise. "None of the humans here have even seen me, not beyond the ones I've murdered. If they're after a demon, it most certainly isn't me."

He laughed again, more heartily now, thoroughly mocking me. "You've been discovered, Verapaini," he said, and I loved the way my name rolled off of his tongue even as I hated that he'd said it. "You need to leave this town and never repeat this mistake again."

"Or else you'll kill me, right?" I asked, rolling my eyes.

"Precisely," the man said with a decisive nod.

"And what am I to do with this one?" I asked, stabbing my thumb over my shoulder to indicate the human. "If I'm not allowed to kill her, and I'm not allowed to let her escape for fear that she'll tell the humans what she's seen, what can I do?"

He shrugged, his smile fading into a more serious expression. "That, my dear Vera, is your problem, not mine."

My nose wrinkled again in disgust. "'My dear Vera'? I don't even know who you are. Don't address me in such a way."

He shrugged again, but now, his taunting smile returned. "As you wish, Verapaini." He took a step back, coming to stand between his two stoically silent accomplices. "Heed our warning, or we will be back for you – and I promise you, that is the last thing you want." With that, the trio disappeared in a collective cloud of black smoke, leaving only lightly singed tile in their wake.

"They're...They're leaving me with you?" the girl whimpered, and I whipped around to face her, teeth grinding together as I fought to tone down my rage. I could feel it threatening to overwhelm me – blood boiling in my veins, heartbeat a painfully hard throbbing in my chest, a red haze coming to cloud my vision.

"I told you you didn't have God to thank for this, didn't I?" I hissed, clutching the edge of the table tightly, my pale knuckles turning ghost-white. I fought the urge to flip the table; I fought the urge to tear her from it and throw her across the room; I fought the urge to destroy my own carefully created laboratory just to blow off some steam; and I fought the urge to follow those demon bastards and show them just what I was made of, just who they were messing with.

"This is just fucking ridiculous," I snarled, turning to put my back to the table once more, no longer wanting to look at her blubbering face. "No one has seen me! I'm sure of it! And even if someone has, I can take care of them, just as I always take care of the humans who irritate me. Why is my own kind standing against me? We're supposed to bring chaos to the world! We're supposed to maim and kill humans for the sheer fun of it! What the fuck are they thinking, stopping me like this? Who the fuck do they think they're dealing with?"

I tore the sunglasses from my face and cast them across the room, where they bounced off of the wall and fell to the floor with a plasticy thud. "Fuck this," I said, looking down at the girl. She was much prettier without a tinted-plastic filter in the way. "We're going balls out on this one."

"What are you talking about?" she whispered, tears still flowing from her eyes.

"We're getting you cleaned up, we're getting you dressed, then we're going to go see a man about some evil plans," I said, and the words wiped the anger from my mind, allowing a twisted grin to take its rightful place upon my face once more. "We're going to take down this city and this Goddamned Demon Council. You don't mess with the Demoness Verapaini, and that's a lesson they all need to learn."