Chapter 18

18

Kidnapped by demons.It had to be the worst thing ever. Followed by the smell. Jesus fucking Christ, the stench burned the eyes. A mixture of fermented shit and piss along with rot. Most likely from the half-eaten bodies strewn around the chamber. Not the most encouraging sight.

Despite being below ground in what appeared to be a sewer system, I could see. Blame the glowing rats. No joke. At least a half-dozen oversized rodents with blazing red eyes and luminous orange bodies provided a hellish illumination that only served to highlight the horrifying nature of my predicament.

How would I escape? I’d been bound, hands and feet tethered to each other. Hogtied, I believed was the correct term. At least I’d not been gagged with something filthy. Then again, who would hear me scream?

Even if I could somehow manage to untie myself, where would I go? A channel of dirty, sluggish water bisected the space. It entered via one rounded hole in the wall and exited via another. The only two ways in and out.

Despite being sure I’d been brought to a sewer, I saw no signs of an overhead grate. If this were a movie, I’d have been teased with a glimpse of daylight overhead. No such luck.

My gaze roved around, avoiding the scariest thing in the room. Not the bodies or the rats or even the milling demons that scuttled around like multijointed bugs crawling up and down the walls and across the ceiling. They no longer terrified me as much as the bulbous demon with its hugely distended belly, sitting atop a pile of bones.

The demon wizard. A monster so dire it frightened even the witches and reapers. And I was its prisoner. Some might say, look at the positive. I was alive. For how long? And how much would it hurt when the monsters did finally decide to tear me apart?

“She wakes,” the fat demon lisped. “The one we’ve been waiting for.”

I could have kept silent but… “Is it too late to tell you I’m the wrong person?”

“You are the messovenata.”

“Am I, though?” I questioned. “I mean, would a real reaper witch have been captured so easily?”

“You are as yet untrained. Fresh. Ripe.” The flick of its forked tongue across its bulbous lips had me shuddering. “Moloch will be pleased.”

“Who is Moloch?” And why did that name sound familiar?

“He is our king. Upon his return, I shall gain even more power.”

Now I placed the name. I’d heard it in a horror movie that had to do with demons and their demon lord, Moloch, escaping Hell. In it, the humans won by praying to God and using a blessed sword against the evil entity. I doubted that would work here. For one, I’d long been an atheist, so praying to God would most likely result in him laughing at my temerity. And two, I didn’t have a sword. Even if I did, it wouldn’t be blessed. Oh, and three, I’d probably manage to slice off a body part. Mine, I should clarify.

“Why does your king want me?” I asked even as I didn’t want to know the answer.

“Long has he searched for a way to cross. For someone who can remove the curse that keeps him a prisoner of Inferis.”

“Hate to break it to you, but that’s not me. I can’t even use magic to save myself. Pretty sure I can’t help your king.”

“You need do nothing but bleed.” The demon wizard grinned, and my stomach dropped. “Your death at the peak of the ritual will solidify a door for Moloch to pass through. Once he has traversed, then it shall be a simple task for our king to summon his legions.”

“And how many monsters is that?”

The fat demon leaned forward to leer. “Enough to kill every single human on this planet.”

“Um, if you do that, won’t you starve?” I pointed out the flaw in his plan.

The fat bastard waved a clawed hand. “We’ll keep a few for breeding and sport. Especially the females.”

The comment had my tongue moving before my brain caught up. “Why the women? It’s not like you’re equipped to do anything with them.” Their sexless groin areas had me baffled. Male? Female? Neither or both? I’d been referring to them as “it” for a reason.

“Not equipped?” The demon wizard uttered a phlegmy giggle and stood. “Behold the might of my prong.”

I don’t know where it came from, the heavy belly hid that part, but there was no mistaking the head of its cock as it emerged, the tip of it ringed in barbs. What caused me to recoil? The way the slit on the end winked.

Nasty. Terrifying. I didn’t want to imagine what kind of damage it would do.

“A pity you are required for the ritual, or I would have blessed you with my seed.” The demon waggled his hips and sent his dick swinging.

“Fuck your blessing. That thing,” I spat, “would have killed me.”

“It would have.” The demon steepled his fingers over his protruding belly. “But we don’t need the female receptacles to live to produce offspring. We simply require their wombs. Once the seeds are planted, they grow until they can tear free. Then they feed on the body.”

Bile rose up my throat to leave an acrid taste in my mouth and a burning sensation. Guess I should count myself lucky I’d die as a sacrifice rather than as an incubator for monsters.

Then again, I’d rather not die at all.

“When is this ritual happening?” I queried.

“Tonight. With the full moon.”

Damn. That left like no time for anyone to find and rescue me.

“Is it going to hurt?”

“Oh, yes,” declared the demon wizard with a lick of its thick lips. “It requires much blood. Your blood. The question is do I slice your throat for a fountain of it or do I cut you in many places that you might suffer more?”

“Well, that sucks.” I pouted. I know, not the most useful thing I could have done, but fuck me, I had no ideas. I was bloody hogtied. I could rock on my belly and not much else. Maybe I should hump my way into the dirty channel of water and drown. It had to be less painful than what they suggested. The problem being, I didn’t want to die.

Not to mention, killing myself would be giving up without even trying. I had to try. I couldn’t lose hope. Miracles did happen. Look at the Maple Leafs. They’d finally won the Stanley Cup for the first time since the sixties.

The demon wizard spun around at the same time as every other monster in the place. Did they hear something? Because I sure as hell didn’t over the panicked beat of my heart.

The fat fucker uttered a low noise, part growl, part bark, and gray minions scattered, diving into the water to swim through the hole on my left. Only a handful remained behind with the wizard. The rats also dove into the water and disappeared.

Good sign? I mean, why else would so many of his hench-demons scatter unless he was worried? And why would he worry unless someone had come looking? Please let them be looking for me.

The fat demon stood, but he didn’t walk. He floated across to me, the stench of him watering my eyes. At least he’d tucked away his cock.

“I think it’s time we got ready,” he announced. With a wave of his hand, my bound ass floated from the floor and bobbed behind the chunky demon as he glided his way to the hole opposite the one his minions left by.

A hole that had only a few inches of space between its top edge and the water.

Before I could protest, I’d been dunked. I only had enough time to close my mouth and eyes before being dragged like flotsam through the dirty stream. It didn’t take long before my lungs protested, aching to breathe, but I didn’t dare part my lips. In the rare chance I lived, I’d have to douse myself in bleach and take a course of antibiotics to counter whatever microbes had infiltrated my body.

When my head finally surfaced, I gasped and spat and gagged. I dared anyone to not be sick at shit water coating their lips.

I could barely see. Only the faint green glow from the fat demon showed us in yet another tunnel with us skimming above the flowing water.

Getting closer and closer to my demise, but at least I wouldn’t be alive to feel bad about the apocalypse my death would bring about.