Tears fell. The sky darkened. And Cary screamed.

Fallen Angels. Life had seldom been fair to Cary. The first and only friend she had ever made in her life betrayed her to an ancient demon sorcerer who spent most of a hundred years torturing her for the fun of it. When he finished, he set her to the universe’s worst and most boring possible task for millennia. Longer than any nation was old, longer than any faith extent on Earth had been continuously followed, Cary had been a statue and spy, who’s only purpose in life could be replaced with a camera the size of her thumb in the modern age.

Then, once she had escaped her master and discovered a measure of freedom, Cary had been re-captured by one of the most fearsome and nightmarish beings in existence. Fallen Angels were more powerful than all but Infernal royalty, True Fae, and Gods. And unlike any of those, they could not be reasoned with. As implacable as a force of nature, Fallen Angels acted for ends no mortal could comprehend and would not relent. No amount of damage could stop them, no amount of pleading would stay their hands, and the darkness from their very presence corrupted the weak willed instantly.

Cary was a demoness and she felt the cold darkness beginning to encroach upon her soul, start to infect her with its hideous immorality.

Then Emilia arrived.

Sure the mortal would succumb to the Fallen Angel’s powers in a moment, Cary had tried to warn her off the first time Emilia had appeared astrally projected. But Cary failed. Then Emilia returned in the flesh, rescued Cary and Dorcas, but then fell prey to the Fallen Angel’s gambit. How could Cary know she’d been the bait for a plan? If she had known, how could she had warned anyone? If not for the constant pain and torture at the Fallen’s hand, she might have had a moment of clarity with which to examine her situation.

Now she drifted in an unknown void, lost to reality forever. Something clutched her hand in this void, but Cary was too afraid to check it. She was sure she would find a severed limb belonging to Dorcas, or worse, to Emilia. Despite everything that had happened, Cary clung to a sliver of her soul, to a fraction of her sanity. Finding a hand without the attached body would deprive Cary of what little she had left.

“Do not despair, my love.” Fingers traced her cheek as light as air. This place held no wind.

Cary wept. “Why do you mock me!?”

“No one is mocking you, my love. Open your eyes.” The voice was terrible, worse than finding a severed hand by far. It was not fair that fate toyed with her so. “Please, my love. We need you.”

No one needed Cary. Everyone she had ever known either betrayed her or had been betrayed by her in turn. There was nothing left for her now, nothing left but to die and end the cycle of betrayals.

“Tis not so. There are those who care for you with you now. You have but to open your eyes.” The new voice belonged to one Cary regretted involving in her life almost as much as Emilia. Unlike her evil twin, Dorcas was innocent, as innocent as any mortal. Ironic for a Temptress.

“Please! Just leave me in peace! Stop torturing me!” Cary shouted into the void, knowing that none of those who had tormented her would have stopped because she begged them.

“Okay, but one last kiss? For me?” Emilia spoke to Cary and Cary could not deny her.

“Okay. That’s fine. I’m sorry, Emilia.”

Lips touched Cary’s own. They tasted salty, like tears mixed with sweat. Just so, they tasted of Emilia and the joy Cary had known in the mortal’s arms. “I love you.”

“I love you too. Please open your eyes.”

Cary could deny many things, but such a request from the woman she loved, Cary could not refuse her.

Opening her eyes hurt, light stabbed into her retinas with the vengeance of a decade’s darkness. It was a pain Cary had known personally, after her shipping crate was lost during a passage over the Mediterranean.

The first thing she saw were a pair of dark green eyes staring into her own. “Oh sweet Gods and Goddesses. I thought I’d lost you.” Emilia wrapped her hands around Cary’s head and pulled her in for a second kiss. This was deep and passionate, Cary returned Emilia’s ardor touch for touch. She hated to close her eyes again lest she become as lost as before.

Emilia finally pulled away, reluctance clear in her every movement. “It’s good to see you too, Emilia. Where are we?”

Cary focused past her lover’s eyes and found a cavern of red magma flowing from the ceiling. The heat waves shimmered in the air and the stench of sulphur filled Cary’s nostrils. Black twisted trees grew among magma formations without concern for up or down. At that final revelation, Cary scrambled to her feet. Dorcas lay on her knees, head in her hands weeping. Mirabel wore a suit of gem-studded armor with pieces melted against her body. And Emilia crouched next to Cary, wearing a shock-black robe that made Cary inch away from the mortal. Cary recognized their location at once. “Fuck. These are the Caverns of Sorrow.”

Emilia nodded as if she had already discovered this fact. But Dorcas wept more desperately while Mirabel let out a fabulously vitriolic string of curses.

“Well, out of the frying pan…” Emilia reached down and offered her hand to Cary. At the sight of which, Cary looked down and checked her own hand. A skeletal figure had grabbed her left hand, trying to pull her down into the soil of the Caverns of Sorrow. Cary scrambled to her feet, sweat trickling from her head as the details of this place returned to her.

“Shit, tell me Dorcas is conscious!” Emilia nodded in response to Cary’s demand.

“I don’t think she’s okay though. Can you help her?”

Cary’s chest ached at the way Emilia asked, as if she could tell that something had deepened and flourished between Cary and Dorcas. It was all Cary could do not beg Emilia’s forgiveness. At the same time, there was a clear link between Emilia and the fairy, Mirabel. Cary had never met her in her life, but she knew the fairy’s name, and the way her naked ass looked as she flew ahead. That information had come from Emilia and made a tiny green-eyed monster stir in Cary’s chest.

The blackened soil at their feet churned as the skeletal hand receded from Cary’s hand. Though she was out of immediate danger, the residents of this part of the Infernim would not leave them alone for long. They preferred unconscious food, but the bold, more powerful denizens would hunt as needed.

“Dorcas, honey, I need you to get up.” Cary put her hand on Dorcas’s shoulder. “Please, weeping and sorrow draw the stronger beasts of this place to you. You don’t want that.”

Dorcas sniffled and took Cary’s free hand. With her other hand she wiped her eyes. “I… didn’t know that.”

“How would you?” Cary found herself between Emilia and Dorcas now, one hand held by each woman. How did her life end up like this? At least Emilia wasn’t plotting Dorcas’s death. In fact, based on the link, Emilia was imagining the Temptress nude and beneath her. “Everyone, stop what you are thinking!” Cary’s voice echoed through the cavern and the others jumped at her words. “These are the Caverns of Sorrow, but that doesn’t mean that only sadness is dangerous here. Any powerful emotions, even lust, can draw wild demons or worse to us!”

Emilia nodded and Cary felt her pounce on her own thoughts and settle them. Dorcas sniffled again and Mirabel floated over to Cary. “You’re prettier than I thought. I think you are acceptable! I just wanted you to know!”

Cary tilted her head at the fairy’s proclamation. “I said no emotions and specifically no lust!”

“This isn’t lust, this is honest appraisal.” Mirabel spiraled between Emilia and Cary. “And you’re a hot piece of ass. I approve.”

Squinting at Mirabel, Emilia jutted her chin toward the fairy. Because Cary still held Emilia’s hand, she could sense the dis-ease from Emilia. Cary diverted her attention back to Mirabel and noticed a shadow flicker through the fairy’s eyes. It looked like a feminine figure wearing a funeral shroud. “Grab Mirabel’s hand now. We have to run!” Cary sent the telepathic orders to Emilia and shouted. “Shades of Suicide, run!”

Dorcas had grown distracted by the figures behind them in the time it took Cary to assess their situation and shout her warning. As a result, Dorcas was slow to join them. That did not stop Cary from dragging the Temptress after her. She wasn’t leaving anyone behind in the Caverns of Sorrow.

Emilia grabbed Mirabel, who sluggishly turned and followed in the air, waving to Cary ocassionally as they ran. Cary ignored it and kept her eyes directed forward. With any luck the shades would give up the chase, assuming Emilia and Cary managed to distract the others.

Neither Dorcas nor Mirabel complied though. They dragged their feet and kept their gazes lingering on the pursuing shades. At their present pace, either the shades would catch them or their panic would draw another resident of the caverns to them.

Cary knew far more than she wanted to about this place, having studied secondhand in depth under one of Elelele’s spying victims. To be caught here was to inexorably join the other residents, for eternity.

Only natives could resist the shades, or stronger emotions than those they evoked in their chosen victims. Like most of the Infernim, this place was filled with bad choices. In order to escape the shades, they had to risk drawing a more powerful set of demons to them on purpose.

“Pretty.” Dorcas halted, dragging Cary back as she pointed at something and leaned away from Cary. “She’s almost as pretty as you are, Cary. I want to touch her.”

Naturally, the Temptress’s innocence worked against her in this place. Cary was not powerless to help her here, but the only options that sprang to mind seemed as risky as surrendering to the shades.

Once Dorcas planted her feet, the decision was out of Cary’s hands.

“Why are you stopping, you said…” Cary tugged Emilia to her and pulled her to Dorcas. The movement silenced Emilia, who probably turned and looked at the shades and thereby placed herself under their power. “Pretty…” That confirmed it.

All three of the other women had fallen under the thrall of the shades, so Cary grew desperate. She grabbed the back of Emilia’s head, wrapped her fingers in her hair and kissed her. It broke eye contact with the shades and drew her mind away from whatever they’d shown her that was so “pretty.”

Mirabel flung about, dragged through the air by Emilia’s grip. As Cary pressed her tongue into Emilia’s mouth, the other woman responded and clung to Cary’s body. Taking a breath, Cary pointed to Mirabel with her free hand. “You have to do the same thing with her. Now.”

Emilia understood and they traded partners.

Cary did not concern herself with how Emilia planned to overcome the size difference, because she had to deal with Dorcas. In an ideal world, she would have wooed the Temptress over time, with Emilia’s eager assistance, or at least blessing. But this was an emergency.

Cary grabbed Dorcas’s cheek with one hand and her ass with the other. Squeezing gently with both hands, Cary turned Dorcas to face her. Right up until their lips met, Dorcas’s eyes slid to the side, trying to catch sight of what the Shades offered. As Cary lapped the vanilla flavor from Dorcas’s lips, the Temptress sighed and surrendered herself to Cary’s amorous distraction. Based on the moans behind her, Emilia had done the same with Mirabel.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

‘Eager’ failed to encompass Dorcas’s response. In moments, she wrapped herself around Cary and dug her nails into Cary’s back. The shapes of her ample bosoms pressed themselves into Cary’s chest and drew moans up out of Cary’s throat as thick and yearning as those between Emilia and Mirabel.

Despite the tension between the four of them, Cary felt none of the jealousy that had been trying to raise its ugly head before. That might have had more to do with Dorcas and her affections than Cary’s actual feelings. But as the Shades did not take the opportunity to fall on them and turn the four, Cary considered her ploy successful.

It was then she noticed that she had no desire to separate herself from Dorcas. Despite the danger threatening them, Cary would have stayed connected to the Temptress for the better part of eternity. She was soft, and ready to accept Cary and all of her demonic baggage. With a little time and convincing, Dorcas would even accept Emilia, which was better than perfect.

Fully engaged in making out with the Temptress, it was Dorcas who pushed Cary away rather than the other way around. For a moment, Cary started to weep, the only thing she wanted in that moment was as much flesh as possible wrapped around her and assuring her that she was needed. But Dorcas spun back the way they came and hissed.

Fear caught in Cary’s throat as Dorcas’s mortal transformations faded. At once she stood a head taller than normal. Her hair flared about as if she floated in water and her horns rose to a height that even Elelele might have respected. Holding her hands out as if to make herself wider and more threatening, Dorcas hissed again. “These are mine, sisters! You cannot have them!”

Three Temptresses, shorter and paler than Dorcas had replaced the Shades behind them. Based on the way little grey wisps of air floated away from the Temptresses, Cary was pretty certain they had eaten the Shades. She wished she knew how to do that. Not that it would help her now.

“You have three yourself. At least one to spare…” One of the new Temptresses had longer talons than the others, and stood a few strides ahead. “Let us share two? We can even leave one of them… intact.”

Dorcas did not pause or so much as coil back as he leapt for the three Temptresses. The only way Cary knew for certain she had jumped in the first place — without looking — was the scream of primal rage Dorcas emitted mid-leap.

The front Temptress sprang at Dorcas with considerably less verve while the other two circled around Dorcas, trying to outflank her. In the course of her jump, Dorcas had put on several inches and her talons had grown to the length of stilettos. One swipe of her claws opened the front Temptress’s throat. Before that demoness fell, Dorcas spun on the other two and hissed at them, crouched and ready to pounce. “They are mine!”

Behind her, the third Temptress sprang at Dorcas’s exposed back. Cary opened her mouth to scream a warning at Dorcas, but there was no need. With speed that made Cary’s muscles twitch in envy, Dorcas took a half step toward the fleeing Temptress, turned and swiped down at her rear-attacker. The remaining Temptress screamed as her second sister fell beneath Dorcas’s claws. Blood sprayed from two corpses once Dorcas partially decapitated her second attacker.

The last Temptress turned to flee too late. To Cary’s shock, Dorcas screamed and leapt almost thirty feet onto the back of the final Temptress. She used the force of her momentum to drive her claws deep into that demoness’s back, pinning her into the red soil at their feet. With her lungs pierced by Dorcas’s claws, the final Temptress could not even scream.

Lapping her hands of the blood of her kind, Dorcas squirmed on that final corpse, eyeing her dead “sister” lovingly. “Do you think we could linger here a while, Cary?”

Covered in steaming red blood, Dorcas took the image of an Amazonian warrior and owned ever inch. But the wild eyed look about her warned Cary that Dorcas balanced on a sharp edge between losing herself to her bloodlust and fucking the dead corpse of the other temptress. Neither of those outcomes worked for Cary.

Keeping her eyes level and focused on Dorcas, Cary lowered her stance and approached, ignoring the slurping sounds from Emilia and Mirabel as best she could as she closed with Dorcas. The wild Temptress growled at Cary and darted her gaze toward the corpse under her hips. “Mine.”

Cary locked her gaze with Dorcas and nodded. “Yes, yours.”

Dorcas ran her finger through the blood and brought it to her lips. As if the thought had only occurred to her, she reached her finger out to Cary and said, “share?”

Cary sucked in a breath and shook her head, still making sure she kept her eyes focused on Dorcas. “Dorcas, please? We need you back…” a howl cut through Cary’s words as surely as a foghorn. Two more howls answered the first virtually instantly. “Shit!”

Dorcas spun in the direction of the howl and Cary made a choice in the moment, praying she made the right one. Shifting as she jumped, Cary took on the form of a Temptress herself, one of the few shapeshifts she could manage.

Rather than try to drive her claws into Dorcas’s body or cut her open, Cary used the moment of distraction to catch both of Dorcas’s arms. She was stronger than Cary in this form, bigger too. But Cary had the minor advantage of surprise. Pressing her weight onto Dorcas, she rolled atop the Temptress, who squirmed beneath her and flashed a broad smile up at Cary.

“You want to mount me?” Dorcas licked her bloody lips. “You only had to say.” Pulling Cary down with powerful arms, Dorcas brought Cary close enough to taste the honey, vanilla, and copper flavor of dead Temptress. If Cary had said she was not interested in the moment, she would have been lying. But she had more important things to do then.

“Honey. Those are hellhounds. And we need to get moving. Please?” Cary licked her lips and held her breath.

At this point, Dorcas could have torn her throat out with her teeth. Based on the way she reacted, the please reached through the layers of instinct and bloodlust and drew Dorcas back to the present. “Cary? What happened?”

“Let’s not worry about that right now. We need to get moving before the hellhounds get here.” Dorcas looked down at her body, showered as she was in blood and gasped. But Cary caught her chin and pulled Dorcas’s eyes up to meet her own. “You saved us. But now we need to get moving. Please?”

It was a repeat of the first trick, but the word broke through the last remnants of Dorcas’s resistance. She shifted under Cary’s hips and shrank back to her normal, demure aspect. Blood still covered her where she’d been sprayed by the dying Temptresses, but without the wild darting eyes, she looked almost normal. “Did you say hellhounds?”

The Infernim lived and breathed. And as a living thing, it could hear words given breath close by. It answered Dorcas’s question with a trio of howls, each staggered and picking up in order one after another. They were much closer now.

“Yes. We need to run unless you plan on fighting those.” Dorcas shook her head and Cary finally turned to find Mirabel wrapped around another fairy with dragonfly wings and a dark black robe made of shadows.

The two fairies intertwined and had all but started to fuck each other. Rather than let them continue and lure further monsters to them, Cary grabbed one of them by the wing — the dragonfly winged fairy — and pulled her away from Mirabel with her other hand. “Okay you two, give it a rest.”

Emilia-fairy blinked at Cary and looked around. “What the hell?”

Mirabel pouted and pointed at Dorcas and Cary. “Exactly the hell. And it looks like the two of them had a good time while we were… entranced.” She shook her finger at Cary. “No fair interrupting!”

Again, the Infernim answered. Six different infernal throats howled in concert at their group. They were dangerously close now.

“Argue later, both of you need to fly, now!” Cary grabbed Dorcas’s hand and Emilia’s tiny fairy hand. With wings, the fairies should have outpaced both demons. Fortunately, Emilia stayed in her fairy form, so Cary didn’t have to suggest otherwise.

“What are we running from?” Mirabel shot forward, leading Emilia and Cary like a kite on a string of hands. “Something sexy again?”

Cary refrained from asking Mirabel what the Shades had shown her, such meaningless questions could wait. “No, from hellhounds.”

Emilia snorted. “They sound puny. We could take them.”

Dorcas spoke up on Cary’s behalf. “No. We could not. Hellhounds are vicious and gain strength from battle. The nature of the Cave of Sorrows makes them impossible to defeat if we encounter them here.”

“What do we do then?” Emilia looked curious rather than frightened. Not that Cary wanted her scared, but she might have preferred it to foolhardy.

“We run.” Cary pointed forward. “With you two fairies and us two demons we should escape this place no problem.”

“What does it matter if we’re fairies or demons?” Emilia still spoke as if their group was on an easy stroll through a park.

“Because mortals cannot escape this place alone. And the Sorrows call to them.” Dorcas nodded to Emilia. “To you.”

Emilia shrugged and was about to open her mouth when the six-throated howl sounded from behind them. It came from close enough that all four felt the hot wind explode from the hellhound’s mouths.

Dorcas and Cary moved slower than the fairies. Though they were both demons, the hellhounds would not care one bit about the kind of meat they feasted on, not if they caught any of them.

As they huffed and strained their legs, Mirabel chirped and giggled. Hitting her head as she flew up, she said, “I can help!” Spraying a glittering field over their group, Mirabel did not even need to chant to cast her magic.

The field sank into Cary’s bones and made her feet seem to grow heavier, though it did not slow her down. “What was that?”

“Illusion magic! Now the hounds will think we’re something scary!” Mirabel pointed behind them and Cary risked a glance in the same direction.

The hounds had not slowed one step.

“Hellhounds are not afraid of anything. And unless you illusion includes scent, they won’t be fooled.” Dorcas panted as she struggled to keep up with Cary and the fae. A single idea occurred to Cary, but it was one she would rather avoid. As she weighed the thought against the possibility of the hellhounds catching them, Dorcas pointed to a growing dot of grey light in the distance. “An exit! We’re almost free!”

Cary peered into the distance and grimaced. Based on that oily light, the next region of the Infernim would be almost as bad as the Sorrows. But “almost as bad” left a pretty large margin of safety, all things considered.

She lifted Dorcas up as the Temptress’s strength flagged and urged the others on with a shout. The hellhounds nipped at her heels, flinging acidic drool about as they neared. By the time the relentless demon dogs started to catch Cary’s ankles with their teeth, the hole in the cavern walls had grown large enough to accommodate Dorcas.

Cary shifted to her stone form and tossed Dorcas as far as she could. The Temptress sailed head over feet toward the hole as Cary spun and kicked one of the hellhounds in the lower jaw. Its bone shattered under the force of her blow and its companion turned on it. Four other hellhounds dove at Cary, but she flung them from herself with as much force as she had used to throw Dorcas. Three of them skidding away, kicking up red dirt as they scrabbled onto their feet, but one of them had locked its jaws onto Cary’s stone arm.

Acid bit into her skin, but found something hard enough to resist the pathetic damage the hellhound mustered. She battered it into the two hellhounds fighting each other on the ground nearby and they latched themselves onto a new victim. With all six hellhounds occupied, Cary spun and took off again. Behind her a massive howl shook the stalactites from the ceiling and kicked up a cloud of loose red dust. This was why fighting in the Sorrows was best avoided. Larger and larger hounds would join in until those who dared the region died or escaped. Based on what little lore Cary knew about the Sorrows, the size of the hounds never ended.

Pounding feet pursued Cary through the end of the cavern. Her stone feet sank into the sands and hounds yelped behind her as the massive alpha dog chewed through them. Its own violence would call down larger and larger hounds even if Cary managed to avoid it. The only option was to pass through the opening into the grey.

Ahead of her, Emilia and the others had managed to get through the opening. All that remained was for Cary to escape. Her stone body did not suffer fatigue the way her flesh body did. And it moved quicker than the stone suggested, but not fast enough to avoid a hound the size of a school bus.

If it had ravaged her, taken her into its jaws at the first chance, she would not have escaped. Instead, it acted out its pseudo-canine instincts, flinging Cary ahead with a massive ram of its nose. She curled her head into her chest and pulled her knees up as she rolled forward like a plaything. Cary landed feet from the exit to the Cavern of Sorrows, righted herself and scrambled through the stone opening.

The massive hound hit the cave wall hard enough to shatter bones. Despite the injuries it dealt to itself, it pressed on, hammering the wall separating it from Cary and the others as hard as it could. For several destructive beats, the massive hellhound slammed itself into the wall, shaking rocks and debris onto the exterior floor and slowly expanding the tiny opening with every strike.

Cary grabbed Emilia and the others, who lay stunned among the mushrooms and creepers that lined the floor. “Let’s get the fuck out of here!”

The others bolted, following Cary’s urging. Behind them, the giant hellhound’s voice grew plaintive as they escaped its jaws.

“Where are we now?” Emilia looked around and flitted to the side of a large grew and white mushroom, prepared to poke it.

Dorcas stuck her hand between the fairy and the fungus and said, “don’t touch anything here. This is the Forest of Rot. Most of the flora here will eat us, given the chance.”

Cary sighed at the name. She didn’t recognize the parts of the Infernim on sight, but she knew the names. Technically, this region was more dangerous than the Cave of Sorrows, but for different reasons. And most importantly, lacked the ever-present magical field of the Sorrows. “But we don’t have to stay here. We can escape this whole place now.”

Dorcas turned and opened her mouth in surprise, but nodded at Cary. “Right. We can cast a circle out now.”

“Oh! Duh!” Mirabel twirled about and pointed to herself with her thumb. “I got this folks! Unless one of you two want to try it?”

Cary shook her head and Dorcas shrugged. “It’s harder for demons to break out of here than you might think. Go ahead.”

Mirabel practically strutted as Dorcas’s invitation. “Then I think I will! Does anyone have any chalk?”

They had to forage among the man-eating plants to find something that would pass for chalk, and in a quantity that would meet their needs. Technically the material didn’t matter, but it had to be of one substance, which meant they had to visit several pitcher-like lilies before they found enough pollen to do the job.

“Okay, everyone in the circle!” Mirabel pointed to Emilia. “And you! Draw in your robes and take your natural form. You don’t want the spell reverting you on its own. Trust me.”

That particular problem had never plagued Cary, but she could imagine the trouble a mortal might have from it. Emilia complied with Mirabel’s directions at once and the fairy finished casting her portal spell.

Vines around them twitched as the circle severed their connection to their roots and with a sinking sensation in their nellies, all four women appeared in the middle of a yellow-hued tent. The people around them blurred at first and then slowly resolved into clarity. They were the assembled masters of the Sanctorum, with the addition of a regal-looking woman with two ghostly figures hovering over her back, one white and one black. Boris and Joshua wore expressions that suggested they had eaten something unpleasant.

The woman upon her throne leaned forward, her two ghostly twins pointing at the group. “Now tell me, where have you ladies gotten off to?”