I woke up in Hell, on a hot floor made of black marble, shot through with glowing purple veins. Half my body was dead, from burns or frostbite, I couldn’t tell. My breath came in ragged gasps. I’d broken my nose when I hit the pavement, and my left eye wouldn’t open at all. Cracked bones creaked and failed me when I tried to stand, dumping me back on the floor in front of Baalphezar’s throne.
“You were supposed to kill me, asshole. Do I have to do everything myself?”
Baalphezar was a shifting shape made of shadows, sitting on his throne. I was expecting him to roar and shout and smack me around, but his voice, when it came, was soft, and strangely gentle.
“You have carried a man’s burden today,” Baalphezar said, “and you have my respect. As a token of that respect, I am prepared to offer you a new contract. I see how much you care for Lydia, so I am willing to set her free. No tricks, no loopholes - completely free, keeper of her own heart. Imagine it, Lydia as the eternal guardian of your bloodline, not out of fear of some Master, but out of pure love for her memory of you.”
Baalphezar’s form was changing as he talked, losing definition and detail, fading into shadow, until he was just a flat, black image with purple eyes and white teeth.
“But as much as you care for Lydia, we both know she is not the great love in your heart. Your true love is sitting in her mother’s shop right now, crying for your soul. Your sweet warrior witch, who stands by your side, and makes you fight like a god.
“That’s your real fantasy. Husband and wife, hand in hand against the darkness. So, return to your witch and make it real. Use my power, use my book, start a new age of heroes, and give hope to the sad, broken people of Earth. Break the chains of this corporate tyranny and raise the old flags again.
“You can have everything you ever wanted, and you’ll never hear my voice, you’ll never see me again. No one alive will know the bargain we’ve made today. All you have to do is merge the Kovach and Hardy bloodlines and give all the children to me. Or you can refuse this generous offer, and I’ll make you do it anyway.”
I coughed and spat out a red blob of my own insides. “Judy was right about one thing,” I said. “Captain Cobalt is never coming back. I’ll never be the guy on the poster. I’ll never be as strong as he was, or as brave as he was, or as pure as he was. But as you were talking, I just realized, I don’t have to be as strong as he was. I just have to be stronger than you.”
The door to Baalphezar’s portal room slammed open, as the sweet, righteous magic of Earth answered my call, cutting through the smoke and flame like a strong wind.
The wounds on my body started to close and heal. My joints squeaked and popped as the bones came back together. My burns healed, replaced with shiny new hair and skin. I came to my feet and stretched to pop the stiff new bones in my spine.
Baalphezar panicked as he saw me stand up, launching himself off his throne, hurling himself at me. His illusion vanished, and I saw his real physical form again, still smoking and battered from what I had done to him.
But I was so focused on healing, he had caught me unprepared. No strength, no wards. With no time to think, muscle memory kicked in; hours in the shoes of Daniel Carter, dodging that werewolf; the most basic dodge in the world, but it saved my life.
Pivot, trip, push. I hooked his foot and slammed both palms into his lower back, just like the angels taught Danny. There was no magic in it, but my execution was perfect. I put all my weight into it, and by god, I made him stumble. I tripped a giant and made him stumble, with no magic at all.
Family is a funny thing. Sometimes you’re born with people who love you, sometimes you lose the people who love you, sometimes the people who are supposed to love you just don’t, and sometimes, sometimes you just gotta make that shit from scratch. We weren’t bound by blood or marriage, but Denise Hardy was family to me, and nobody fucks with my family.
Baalphezar was trying to stop himself without losing his balance, but his body was just too big. He staggered forward across his throne room, leaving me just enough room to get a running start. I had been casting levitation so much, it wasn’t even a spell anymore; it was just part of me. I launched myself in the air, coiled my body like a spring, and planted both feet in his back, putting every ounce of power I could into multiplying my weight.
I can’t imagine what multiplier I was at when I hit him, but I hit him just right, and the big motherfucker went down. I hit him so hard, his head cracked the marble floor. I glanced down at his prone body, and something in my HUD went ping. His ankles lit up in green, with simple block letters labeling ACHILLES TENDON.
I never called for Cecilia’s knife, it was just there, in my hand, like it knew what I needed before I did. I sliced his tendons with two quick cuts.
* * *
At this exact moment, back on Earth, Denise Hardy was sobbing in her mother’s arms. The last thing on her phone was a text from Evan Coleridge saying, “Timothy’s gone. Please stay in the shop.”
James Veazey was slumped in an antique wooden chair at Cecilia’s tiny service table, staring at the same message. Veazey looked like he was about to start crying himself, when Denise suddenly stopped and cocked her head like she was listening to something.
“He’s not dead,” Denise said, wiping her eyes. “Mama, he’s not dead!” She reached for her phone and made a voice call to Evan, shouting as soon as he picked up, “Evan! Don’t give up! He’s not dead!”
Evan’s voice turned very sad. “Oh, Denise, I’m so sorry. He gave it everything he had, but it wasn’t enough. We have to look out for ourselves now.”
“Evan, dammit! He’s not dead!”
“Denise, I saw it. He tried to absorb the entire Wampanoag Rift, but it was too much power. The eruption ended and he collapsed. Last time I saw him, he was frozen and burned, unconscious or dead. A nine-foot demon grabbed him by the leg and dragged him to Hell.”
Denise wiped her eyes again. “He may be in Hell, but he just stabbed the shit out of something!”
* * *
I think Baalphezar was trying to heal himself, but it wasn’t working. The Lords of Hell smelled weakness, and they were ready to let him die. The power that wouldn’t come for him was surging into me. Not the clean, sacred magic of Earth, but the angry purple fire of Hell.
Fire from the torches arced across the throne room and hit me with both barrels. I screamed at Baalphezar like a madman, an animal sound of pure hate. I don’t remember casting it. The fortitude spell just happened.
Raw killing strength poured into me as I jumped on his back, got a handful of delicate purple membrane in each hand, and ripped Baalphezar’s wings off, tossing them casually to either side. Then I braced myself with my left arm and grabbed a horn with my right. I got leverage on him and slammed his face in the floor, over and over again. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Faster and stronger with every wet thunk of impact. Then I blacked out.
When I came to my senses again, the magic was fading, and there was a soggy lump of flesh where Baalphezar’s head used to be, with white shards of skull sticking out. His wings vanished as soon as they were severed, but the rest of his body was still there, just as real and physical as any dead body on Earth.
I’m not proud of this next part, especially now that I have to sit and watch myself do it again in front of Azael, but the first thing I did after catching my breath was lift his loincloth and check out my erstwhile Master’s dick, conclusively proving that he had been allowed to design his own form.
A moment later, I heard a soft, wet sound and saw new shards of bone growing back from his neck hole. “You gonna grow a new head?” I asked, as if he still had ears. “You think you’re gonna grow a new head? I don’t fucking think so. Jacob had a spell for this, but I never bothered to learn it, so we’re gonna do this the old-fashioned way.”
I flipped him over and plunged Cecilia’s knife into Baalphezar’s chest. Even with a faerie blade, his skin was incredibly tough, and his ribs felt like petrified wood. The ribs took forever - minutes that felt like hours. I sawed until my arms wore out, then I lost patience and split his chest with brute force. A fresh gout of Baalphezar’s blood went everywhere, coating my skin like hot tar.
His organs were weird, unfinished blobs. Jacob would have given anything to see this, but the anatomy looked like jumbled nonsense to me.
“Who designed you, asshole?” I shouted at his neck hole. “No kidneys, no liver, no spleen, and this…” I yanked a loose flapping organ out of his abdominal cavity and wagged it in front of him as if he still had eyes, shouting “This isn’t even hooked up to anything!”
I flung the unidentified organ over my shoulder and heard it land with a wet plop behind me, in front of five terrified succubi I couldn’t see, cowering in their harem door.
Baalphezar’s lungs had stopped, but his heart was still beating, churning out a slow, steady rhythm, even though the flesh around it was dead.
I brandished the knife and started sawing through veins. They sprayed blood everywhere, and the smell - I will never forget that smell. Copper and ozone, blood and magic, mixed with the scent of honey and rotten meat.
Demon blood is sweet, do you get that? Angels taste like milk and honey. Demons taste like honey and milk gone bad. Demons and angels - polar opposites, made from the same basic stuff. Remember that, next time an angel tries to recruit you for something.
I cut the heart free and lifted it out of Baalphezar’s chest. I weighed it in my hands and tried to reconcile reality with Jacob’s drawing. The picture in the book was much smaller, and this heart was still beating. I thought it would stop, but it just kept going. If I left it here, it would grow a whole new body for him.
I cut a piece off and stuffed it in my mouth. I swallowed it and the damn thing wriggled, all the way down. It wasn’t enough to eat this thing; I had to keep it down, and it was gonna fight me. The pieces were tough and covered in blood, like tires dipped in motor oil. There were no shortcuts here.
I cut off a bigger piece and chewed until it stopped fighting. Three more bites and I started shoving pieces in my mouth like an angry child, chewing and smacking like I was at war with the heart - like every piece was a new enemy.
Demon blood splashed on my face and dripped down my chin. I lost time, I lost everything. No throne room. No Hell. Just me and Baalphezar’s heart, bite after nauseating bite. I retched once or twice, but I just clenched my teeth and forced it back down.
And finally, it was over. It took me a second to realize I was done. I was so crazed at that point, I actually bit my own finger, thinking it was part of the heart. Baalphezar’s chest was a dead black hole, slowly filling with purple fluid.
His regeneration stopped when I took the heart out, and his body was already starting to rot. I pulled myself up and retched again, dizzy and sick like I would never walk again.
I fell backwards and landed on the throne. Groaning with effort, I clamped my teeth shut and pulled my knees up to my chest. My stomach felt like a nest of rats. The pieces were still wiggling, and some of them were trying to climb.
* * *
My favorite part of this fight is the part I didn’t see. Five succubi cowering in the harem doorway, slowly realizing their Master was dead. Sylvia stepped out first, a minute after Baalphezar’s mystery organ plopped on the marble in front of her.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
She stepped out naked from the doorway, slowly surveyed the carnage in the throne room, and flashed into an elegant full-length black dress, until she looked like a goth girl on the Titanic. Three of the others emerged one by one and followed Sylvia’s lead, flashing into period costumes - magnificent gowns and dresses, like they were about to hold a dinner party to consume their old Master.
They were behind my back and too far away for me to notice at the time, but seeing them in the mirror now, you can see how the designs of their bodies got more human, as Baalphezar got better at making them, or perhaps he was buying more realistic females as he got older.
Gloria, the Second Girl, looked like Sylvia, a crazy exaggerated hourglass with gigantic breasts. The Third was a little smaller, the Fourth was almost human, and the last, the one I would eventually call Mickey, dramatically smaller and thinner, was a straight conversion of a human soul, made to be a perfect copy of a girl who lived on Earth.
Baalphezar made her go by Michelle because he knew she hated it. She changed it to Mickey the moment he died, but at the time I only knew her as “the redhead,” and I didn’t notice her until she threw herself down in front of me.
I had been oblivious to the moment that happened just before, the silent argument she had with Sylvia; Sylvia grabbing her arm, Mickey shaking it off before she marched to the throne and dropped to her knees, bowing in front of me until her hair touched the floor.
I had another coughing fit and leaned over the side of the throne, trying not to vomit. I was waiting for the succubus to do something, but she just froze there, like her forehead was nailed to the ground. This one hadn’t bothered to put on clothes.
I looked down at her and gave a bitter laugh. “I have been so desensitized by this succubus bullshit, whenever I see a naked woman now, I just get angry. I should probably talk to somebody about that, before it gets weird. Anyway, what do you want?”
“Please, sir. What have you done with Lydia?”
Her question angered me, for reasons that I can’t quite explain. I leaned down and stared at her, trying to read something in dark green eyes that gave nothing away. “Do you care? Do you honestly care what happens to her? Do you love her? Are you even capable of…”
The demon didn’t answer, so I gave another laugh. “I’ll never know, will I? I could look in your eyes for a million years, and I would never know what’s real. But she’s fine. Let’s see if she can still hear me.” I threw my head back and yelled at the ceiling. “He’s dead, Lydia! You can come home now.”
* * *
Lydia was curled up in one of Nergal’s footprints, grieving for me, expecting me to return hollow and beaten, spirit broken after weeks of torture. Her eyes snapped open when she heard my call.
Lydia appeared in the throne room with her face still puffy and wet with tears. She dried them on her sleeve as she made a slow circle around Baalphezar’s corpse. Then she snapped her head up and said, “Where’s the heart?”
I opened my mouth and showed her a tongue that was still black with Baalphezar’s blood.
“You ate it?” Lydia said, astonished.
I coughed and forced myself to swallow the blood that came up. “I forgot to practice the acid spell, so I had to improvise.”
The rest of the succubi had come out from the harem door, growing bolder when they saw their sister was still alive.
Lydia had some kind of staring contest with Sylvia, then broke down and yelled at her, gesturing like she was about to poke her in the chest, “I told you he could do it! I told you!”
Sylvia took a theatrical breath, lifting breasts now covered in an acre of black lace. “It appears you were correct.”
Lydia smirked. “Was that an apology? Because it didn’t sound like an apology.”
I almost laughed out loud when she said it. Lydia was doing a perfect impression of me.
Sylvia looked away and came back with her own brittle smile. “I’m sorry I doubted you. Clearly, I underestimated both of you.”
“And don’t you forget it,” Lydia sniffed.
Something important was happening, but damned if I knew what it was. “Lydia, what’s going on here?”
Lydia stepped back and looked down on Baalphezar’s corpse. “I brought him down. It took six hundred years to find the right man for the job, but I finally brought him down.”
“Lydia, all those missions you sent my ancestors on - how many of those actually came from Baalphezar?”
Lydia winked without winking again. “At least half, darling. At least half.”
“All this time, you weren’t tempting me to serve your Master, you were tempting me to kill him. You used me. You used all of us.”
“You were already being used, Timothy. I just redirected your efforts to a worthy cause.”
“His first day on the throne, Satan gathered the fallen and set down rules for making demons,” Sylvia explained. “Baalphezar broke the first rule.”
Sylvia trailed off, and Lydia finished, “Never create anything smarter than you.”
“It was never supposed to get this far,” Lydia said. “None of the others were willing to do it, but Stefan promised to kill my Master after Germany won the war.”
I said, “Oops.” And then, seriously, “Stefan couldn’t break the contract. He loved you too much. They all loved you too much. That’s the tricky part, right? You need them to love you, but before they can break the contract, they have to be willing to let you go.”
I stared at Baalphezar’s body and cleared my throat. “Well, if you planned all this, what happens next?”
“Now?” Lydia said. “Now you go home. Take a wife, raise children, build a castle, and live happily ever after. You’ve won, Timothy. You’re free.”
“And what happens to you?”
“That depends.” She glared at Sylvia. “If the eldest has done her job, Psongor’s troops are already on their way.”
Sylvia bristled. “The towers are empty. Baalphezar’s army is so weak now, most of his soldiers will defect. Psongor’s troops will handle the rest. We will stay here and prepare for our new Master.”
Lydia saw me frown and tried to reassure me. “I think you’d like Psongor. I won’t call him kind, but he’s not a brute like Baalphezar. He’s patient. Smart. More of a trickster. He’s even got a sense of humor.”
“A demon prince with a sense of humor? That’s the scariest thing I’ve heard all day.”
I rose to my feet and paced around Baalphezar’s corpse. “You spent six hundred years trying to get away from this guy, and now you’re just gonna give yourself away again? I can’t let you do that.”
Lydia seemed genuinely touched. “Oh, Timothy. I know you care for me, but this thing you love—” She pinched herself. “This is just a form. My heart, my soul stays in Hell.”
“So go get it. Bring it with you.”
Lydia froze, and her face went dead, like the idea was so ludicrous, she couldn’t even argue. She stammered, “I’m not allowed to touch it.”
I kicked Baalphezar’s corpse with my toe. “Allowed by whom?”
Lydia suddenly looked small and scared. “You don’t know what you’re saying. An unbound succubus walking around free on Earth? We would be a target for everyone. Even if you could hide me from other wizards, you’d spend the rest of your life fighting lords of Hell.”
“Yeah, but there’s only nine of ‘em,” I said. “The others will give up after I kill the first two.”
Dead silence as the succubi stared at me, until the redhead threw her hands up and cursed at her sister, “Damn you, Lydia! How do you do this?”
When Lydia still didn’t speak, Sylvia hissed, “Don’t be a fool! This man is offering you freedom, child. Take it”
I locked eyes with Sylvia, and for a second, I liked her. Just for a second.
Lydia shook her head. “Psongor is expecting a full harem, I can’t just...”
“It’s fine,” the redhead said. “We’ll just tell him number eight took you by force. Spoils of war. Psongor won’t like it, but he’ll understand, and he’s gonna be in a great mood. Your Kovak just took out a bully he’s been trying to kill for a thousand years.”
Lydia was breaking down. “You don’t understand. The things I’ve done... I belong down here.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “You don’t work for Hell, you work for the Kovach family, and the Kovach family’s not gonna leave you down here. Go get your heart, you’re coming with me.”
Lydia kissed me, seemingly not bothered by the taste of her Master’s blood and left through the harem doors. She looked back at her sisters and hissed something in Latin on her way out. I didn’t know the word, but it sounded like a threat.
Lydia left, and I was suddenly very tired. There was nowhere else to sit, so I leaned on the arm of Baalphezar’s throne.
“We have a few hours until the troops get here,” Sylvia said. “Would you like us to draw you a bath?”
I looked up, and saw four demons shifting position, forming a rough half-circle around the throne.
I should have been terrified of Sylvia, but I gave another little laugh and cocked my head at her. “She told you I was a nice guy, right? That’s why you guys feel safe, circling up on me? Lydia told you I wouldn’t hurt something that looks like a woman. But after what you’ve seen today, are you absolutely sure about that?” I brought some power in and stared Sylvia down, letting a bit of infernal magic flare up in my eyes.
The harem scattered, leaving me alone on Baalphezar’s throne.
* * *
Lydia was standing in Baalphezar’s vault, looking up at an endless expanse of shelves, still filled with the hearts of a thousand demons. The next day, Psongor would take possession of them, and Lydia’s would not be the only one missing.
The redhead formerly known as Michelle came up behind her and Lydia said, “Are you here to congratulate me?”
Mickey had flashed into her own period costume, bell bottom jeans and a green blouse with a flower print, like she’d just hitched a ride back from Woodstock.
“I’m here to ask why he’s twenty years early,” Mickey said. “You spent centuries breeding a weapon for this job, but can you control him?”
“I think so,” Lydia said. “He loves me. Maybe not as much as I love him, but… enough.”
“Lydia, this was not a formal challenge. This was not a wizard duel. Your Kovach took our Master by the horns and beat him to death. I felt every hit like I was killing him with my own hands. but we can’t hide this. It’s gonna get out. When management learns what he did, and how he did it, a mortal killing a prince in his place of power and desecrating the corpse? You’re gonna need a new plan.”
“You have to go back with him,” Mickey said. “If you leave him unguarded, the angels are gonna get him, and they won’t give him to some third string idiot like Hell did. Gabriel’s gonna train him for real. Can you imagine this guy with real training and twenty years to study our book? Angels could take the Earth back.
“You said you knocked him over with the housewife bit, so they’ve already got hooks in him. What’s gonna happen after he’s been alone a few weeks and a professional virgin with red hair and a C-cup takes him to church? I could flip him in a weekend, and whoever they send, she’s gonna be the real deal. Do you really wanna see him down here again, quoting Bible verses while he’s twisting our heads off?”
Lydia nodded sadly. “I know.”
“But if this is just the beginning, and he’s all in for this hero shit,” Mickey whispered, “Come back for me.”
* * *
Lydia came back holding an ornate wooden box, with the redhead right behind her. Lydia hugged the girl tightly and bowed to the others. The rest of the harem solemnly returned the gesture. Even Sylvia.
Then Lydia pointed me to Baalphezar’s portal room, a small side chamber that now had its brass doors blown off. The surging red portal was still there, reflecting crazy patterns of bloody light from a dozen mismatched mirrors, most of them full length, clearly collected and enchanted over centuries.
Had Baalphezar really left this portal running the whole time I had been down here, standing open in the Zone for anyone to walk through? That portal was proof that he hadn’t planned to kill me, and that it apparently cost more to make a new one than it cost to keep it going.
I had this horrible sense that I was forgetting something, and finally remembered. “Jacob! The Inquisitor said Jacob was in the courtyard! Can we rescue him somehow?”
“He’s gone,” the redhead said. “Baalphezar sold him to the Overlord a few days after you sent Lydia back.”
Well, that explained how he was able to afford the mercenary army that went after Denise. He sold one of my ancestors to the Lord of Hell. Standing there, I resolved to come back for him, to come back and rescue all the Kovachs if I could.
I tried to squint at the redhead standing in the doorway and wondered why everything looked so dark and fuzzy now. I glanced down to turn Vision Plus on and realized I wasn’t wearing my contacts anymore.
“Fuck!” I yelled, making Lydia and her sister jump. “I hit him so hard, I knocked my contacts out! And I just smeared demon guts all over this floor!” I ran back to the throne room and yelled, “Everybody freeze!”
And let me tell you, when you tell demons to freeze, they fucking freeze. Five succubi in period costumes froze like statues in a wax museum, looking at me with absolute terror, assuming I had changed my mind and decided to kill them after all.
In Azael’s replay, I can hear a weird jingling, tink tink noise that I didn’t notice at the time, the sound of gold coins falling from the ceiling and bouncing on the floor, tumbling from a bag of gold being carried by a flying Imp, caught in the act of robbing Baalphezar’s treasure room. I’m pretty sure it was Philo, but I can’t get him to admit it.
“Sorry guys,” I shouted, fishing in my pocket for my Datacore cylinder. I spun it around and showed them the blinking blue lights. “I need to find two tiny pieces of glass somewhere on this floor. They should be blinking blue just like this. I haven’t seen that color anywhere else in Hell, so hopefully we can spot them, although we may all have to get a bit dirty here.”
And then we were all digging through Baalphezar’s innards trying to find my contacts. Lydia’s sisters were used to doing dirtier jobs on a regular basis, so they didn’t complain, even when their fancy dresses got smeared with black blood.
The redhead seemed to be really into it, carefully making eye contact while she licked a dollop of Baalphezar’s blood off her finger.
Gloria yelled “Got one!” and ran up to me, kneeling like she was presenting a sword to a king instead of delivering a round bit of glass.
I said, “Thank you so much!” and resisted an urge to pat her on the head. “Now that I have this one, I should be able to see the other one. One sec.” I shoved the filthy shard of glass into my case and shook it in cleaning fluid for a second, before using the applicator to get it back on my eye.
“Got it!” I shouted, as I ran over to the throne again. I knelt down in the gore and tried to peer under the tiny space between the throne seat and the floor. “Of course, it has to roll under the only piece of furniture in the goddamn…”
I brought in a fresh surge of infernal magic and kicked the throne as hard as I could, cracking the marble until it tipped over backwards in two pieces. The sound must have been terrifying, because every demon in the room flinched. I grabbed my second contact and found them all staring at me like I was about to execute them.
I held up the lens and waved it at them. “Got it! I got it! Thanks, everybody!”
I dunked the second lens in cleaning solution and used the applicator again, delighted to see Vision Plus kick in, banishing the shadows and drawing wireframes around chunks of Baalphezar that had been too dark to see.
The succubi were a mess, with their dresses soiled by bloodstains and bits of their old Master, but none of them seemed to mind.
Lydia said her goodbyes again and ushered me to walk back through the portal ahead of her. I walked back through to Earth, struck by how easy it was. No disorientation, no magic tunnel, just a few steps and I was home.
I didn’t see this next part, cooling my heels alone on the concrete slab, but Mickey gave Lydia one last hug before she stepped through after me, saying “Enjoy some ice cream for me, you lucky bitch.”
Lydia looked back and stuck her tongue out. Mickey flipped her off as she vanished through the portal back to Earth.