Page 3

Chapter 2

Bubble Bath … Interrupted

SJ

“P hew! That was close, Boss! Good thinking, using the miasma on her!”

“Yeah, if she’d come any closer, she would’ve run smack into you!”

“What happens when humans touch the Devil, anyway? Do they just burst into flames?”

“I am not the Devil,” I sighed, still staring in the direction the girl had gone long after she’d disappeared. “My father is.”

“Pffft!” Beezle snorted. “A mere technicality! He’s set for retirement any century now, and you’ll be the one and only Satan!”

My chest did that odd, stumbling thing it had been doing more frequently of late. I rubbed at the spot, finally tearing my eyes away from where I’d last seen the girl.

Well … woman. She was a young woman. I had to remind myself that age worked differently in this realm. And the young woman had a name. Jemma Bliss.

A shiver ran down my spine, and my fingers slid into my pocket, caressing the precious Soul Token inside.

“Why is she always here?” I wondered aloud to my companions. “She does not wear the strange pyjama uniform of the healers.” I rounded on Beezle and Bub. “Does she smell of sickness to you? Her appearance does not indicate she is unwell.” Quite the opposite, in fact. Her cheeks had a healthy glow, her eyes were bright and twinkled even through those enormous glasses of hers. Her body … well, the curves of her suggested that she ate well and frequently.

These thoughts made me feel like my skin couldn’t quite contain my innards.

“Well?” I demanded gruffly, glowering down at the two Hell Hounds. That weird feeling crawling along my skin made me grumpy. Well, grumpier.

Their wide, glowing eyes flicked between me and each other. I folded my arms over my chest, waiting. The urge to twitch my tail was an itch I couldn’t scratch—I didn’t have one in the human form I donned to walk in this realm.

“She smells like the poison they use on many of the sick here …” Beezle began tentatively. My brows drew together.

“But she does not smell like the sickness itself!” Bub yipped, sidling up and rubbing himself against my shins.

“I do not understand why she comes here so often, then. If she is not ill, and she is not a healer, why does she frequent a place that reeks of sickness and misery?”

“Maybe she’s drawn to the place, the same way you are?” Bub suggested.

I shook my head. “That is not why she comes.”

“Does it really matter why?” Beezle asked. “As long as we know where to find her, when the time comes …”

“Hmm,” I mumbled, leaning against the building. “I am not sure we are quite ready to put my plan?—”

“ Our plan, Boss!” Bub snapped, baring his yellow teeth. “You wouldn’t even know of the strange custom of ‘buy now, pay later’ if we hadn’t been watching the picture box through the window in that waiting area last week!”

I barely refrained from rolling my eyes. My two hounds had fallen about, guffawing about odd mortal rituals afterwards. That was the extent of their involvement in this plan.

I was the one who had come up with the rest of it. My plan, the one that I had developed specifically to work in tandem with the Soul Token. My plan, that I hoped would be the thing to turn our Hellish bad luck around. Not to mention impress my father and get my sister off my back.

But two sulky Hell Hounds were the last thing I needed, on top of everything else I was dealing with back at home.

“As I was saying, our plan needs refining. I believe I have worked out the Soul Token side of things, but I do not believe we have seen enough of this human to truly know what she is prepared to barter for …”

“Wait …” Bub interrupted. “Didn’t she just say to the sausage dog man that she would sell her soul for … I want to say some sort of nut?”

I blew out a long-suffering breath. “This is why we need more! We do not know if that is simply a human turn of phrase! My family has wangled their way into the mortal vernacular over the centuries. Perhaps we need to observe her in another environment? Somewhere she is more … accessible. I cannot easily follow her inside the healing building. Somewhere outdoors would be ideal.”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Beezle panted. “Like, you want us to … stalk her?” His tongue lolled, and a string of drool stretched towards the ground.

Bub’s tail set to a frantic wag. “Oh, please Boss! Pretty please can we stalk her?”

“Yeah, I wanna know what Luci is!”

“I wanna know what ‘The Little Mer-ferret’ is!”

“I wanna know what a sausage dog is!”

“I wanna know what’s so funny about a crotch-aye penis!”

“Aren’t all penises located in the crotch?”

I stifled a smirk, crouching down and scratching them behind the ears. It was the only way to calm them when they got this over-excited.

“We will do a little more research before we take my plan to my father,” I assured them. My chest did that fluttering thing again. Maybe I needed to see a healer.

I shook my head. The next in line to the Throne of Hell did not require mortal healers!

“Can we go home now? I’m starving!” Beezle whined. I stood, my eyes drawn again to where I had last seen her. She was long gone by now in her little, rusty, motorised carriage.

I thought, as we headed away from the lights of the healing centre, and I drew on my magic to open us a portal home, about the way her hair had looked almost fluorescent in the lights of the eatery. I thought about the way she’d been touching the hand of that male with the ridiculous rose-gold hair in the stupid pyjama suit.

A pang shot through my stomach. Was I hungry, too? It had been a long time since I last ate.

I thought about the human coffee that the young woman—Jemma Bliss—had been cradling at that table. The way her lips had parted around the rim to tip the steaming liquid into her mouth.

I swallowed, surreptitiously adjusting my human denims as Beezle and Bub leapt headfirst into the portal with howls of delight. The human world was fun to visit, according to them. But there was no place like the Hellfire of home.

I wondered briefly what Jemma Bliss’s home looked like. Which made me laugh, because it would be absolutely nothing like mine.

I stepped through the portal.

* * *

Pink hair. Big, curious eyes framed by dark lashes and comically large glasses.

Buttocks that one could bounce a Soul Token off.

I gripped myself and stroked, the violent bubbles of the Hell Spring tickling my backside as I let my head fall back against the edge, pumping my cock into my fist.

This is so very, very wrong, SJ.

Oh, but that rear end is worthy of many a fantasy.

Jemma Bliss, bent over, looking coyly back at me. Wriggling that round, biteable backside.

‘Come and get it, big boy,’ she cooed.

“Yes, please,” I growled, stroking my cock faster, relishing the growing ache in my balls.

I stalked towards her, peeled her out of her human denims. My finger slid between those cheeks, lower, towards her …

‘Soaked for me, naughty girl.’ I panted, my finger slipping inside her perfect heat. ‘You want the Devil’s cock inside you, don’t you?”

She ground those beautiful cheeks against my hard cock, reaching up and back to stroke one of my horns. ‘All the way inside me, please!’ she begged.

“You went up there again, didn’t you?”

I thrashed, swallowing a lungful of water, sloshing more out of the hot spring in my efforts to hide the current state of my downstairs region from my big sister. Thankfully I’d selected the spring with the most violent bubbles … for reasons I was not prepared to disclose to her or anyone else. The movement of the water would have masked what I had been doing to my downstairs region when she snuck up on me.

Hopefully.

“Why does this matter to you?” I demanded, propping my arms on the edge and glaring up at her. She scowled back, her gaze falling on my horns. Her eyes flashed envious emerald as she ran a hand through her cropped, maroon hair. Feeling for horns that would never be there.

“What about the Human Realm has your tail in such a knot?” she demanded. “The only good thing about the place is the stream of delightfully miserable, terrified souls it affords us.”

I did not wish to answer her question—for two reasons. The first being the purpose for which I had gone there to begin with. And the second being the thing that kept me going back.

So, I pretended I hadn’t heard her. My mortifying nether region crisis now averted (being walked in on by one’s sister has that side-effect), I climbed out of the water. Her gaze tracked me as I made my way over to a crack in the stone wall, a Hellfire vent. Hot air blasted the droplets of water from my crimson skin.

Hellen sneered as I sauntered casually past her, reaching for my leather breeches. I could very much play the annoying little brother when it suited me.

“Does Father know you’ve been going up there so frequently?” she asked slyly.

I froze, one leg stuffed in my breeches. She was not going to let this slide, and my answer was only going to annoy her further.

“He does,” I hedged. It was not the whole truth.

Hellen scoffed. “I don’t believe you!”

I took a long, calming breath. Why did she have to be so insufferable?

Although I supposed I would be the same way if I were the one with the right family traits, and the wrong genitalia, to rule Hell once Father handed over the reins.

Instead, those reins would come to me … Satan Junior. A role that everyone had assumed I would excel at since my birth. After all, I was the son of the Devil. I had all the necessary attributes: the bloodline, the horns, and the penis.

I didn’t think Hellen would ever manage to get over her resentment of her lack of horns—the ones on the head and the one between the legs.

“For Lucifer’s sake, SJ! Do you ever pay attention when someone is talking to you?” Hellen screeched. The sound set my teeth on edge.

“I do,” I agreed, my voice amiable, even if my insides were roiling. “Except when that someone is you, prying your nose into things that are not your business.”

Hellen’s dusky rose skin went a violent shade of puce, her mouth pursing and twisting into something that resembled the rear end of a cat. I stepped towards her, reaching out a hand. The heat rolling off her was enough to singe my eyelashes.

“You’re going to explode your head again, sis?—”

“FATHER!” she screamed, and I staggered backwards, powerless against the winds of her fury. I shook my head, my sight blurry. When it cleared, she was gone, echoes of her screeches reaching me from somewhere above.

“For shit’s sake,” I muttered, hurrying along the stone tunnel, up the narrow, curving stairs. “She wants to rule Hell, but she acts like a bloody baby!”

Father was, as usual, lounging on his throne. I swallowed back a sneer of distaste. It was made from human skulls. Not exactly my décor of choice, but I was not in charge.

A number of impish sycophants scuttled around him, chewing on the ragged ends of his toenails, massaging oil into his horns. I grimaced at that. Having one’s horns rubbed was akin to having one’s nethers attended to. The fact that he allowed those scaly little critters to touch him so personally—and in front of his progeny, no less—made me shudder.

He looked like a carbon copy of me—huge, heavily muscled, his skin somewhere between scarlet and ruby. His hair was shockingly white, where mine was pale blond. He did not look a decade over eight hundred, although he was multiple millennia old. But when I looked him in the eyes (something I mostly avoided like humans would the bubonic plague), the years were all there. His eyes looked … bored. As if there were nothing in all the worlds that he hadn’t already seen, over and over again.

I wondered if that was why he had stopped visiting the Human Realm to reap souls. Had the repetitiveness of the task become so tedious to him that he no longer had the stomach for it?

Even when the trickle of souls entering Hell had continued to wane … and the Pit Demons had become restless with a lack of misery to feed on … he had not recommenced his sojourns into the Human Realm.

Which brought us to the reason Hellen was about to tattle on me to him.

“What the home is your sister racketing about this time, Junior?” Father asked dolefully, flicking a hand to where Hellen knelt, panting beside his throne, clutching at her side. Her screeching had turned into a sort of ragged gargling as she struggled to regain her breath.

“He … keeps … going to … the … HUMAN REALM!” she squawked between gulps of air. “Won’t … tell me … why!”

Father’s expression went from jaded to amused within seconds, and he sat up straighter on his throne. He raised a white, bushy eyebrow at me.

“Indeed?” He smacked at an imp who was polishing his horn with excessive enthusiasm. “Leave us! All of you!”

“Yes, King Satan!” they chorused, their claws clacking on the stone floor. When the door to the throne room shut with an echoing boom, Father leaned forwards, resting his elbows on his knees.

“And what have you discovered on these little sojourns, son?” he asked, a devious smile curling his lips. Hellen, somewhat recovered from her race to tattle, smirked at me, her eyes glowing a vindictive yellow.

I almost grinned, knowing how her expression was about to change.

“As you requested , Father,” I began, eyeing my sister smugly, “I have been formulating a plan for what I believe will become a cornerstone of the capture of live souls. These trips to their realm have uncovered many, many new vices, and … I believe I can manipulate them to greater potential than before.”

I began pacing, thoroughly invested in my little speech now. I hadn’t been quite ready to present these ideas to Father, but Hellen had to be her usual, petulant self and force my hand.

“What is he talking about, Father?” Hellen demanded, her voice thin. Father clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Let your brother finish. What conclusions have you drawn, Junior?”

I paused. How much detail did I really want to give? I hadn’t even nutted this scheme out with Beezle and Bub properly yet. And I needed to do more scouting before I was certain that I was ready for the trial run.

I needed more time to observe Jemma Bliss.

“I have the bones of a scheme, and I believe I have a potential subject for the trial run,” I replied. “If it proves a success, not only will we be able to, in the short term, feed the demons on the misery of live humans, but we will also be reaping their souls for Hell upon their deaths. Effectively cutting Her out of the deal.”

Father’s face sparked a modicum of interest at the mention of Her .

If you still went up there to reap souls, She wouldn’t be as big an issue, I thought, a pang of bitterness flooding me. If he had continued to do his job as a ruler, instead of turning into a semi-retired hermit, I wouldn’t be in this position, forced to come up with innovative solutions to ensure the kingdom’s survival.

“This sounds promising, Junior. What are the details?”

I pinched my bottom lip, thinking fast. I didn’t want to give away my idea, not before I had trialled it.

“I … would like to further observe the subject and perform my trial run before I present my findings to you … if you are amenable to me continuing to visit the Human Realm, that is …”

Hellen looked sick. Father looked … contemplative.

“How many more trips do you feel you will need?” he asked eventually, rubbing absently at his right horn. “Before you are ready to present your plan to the kingdom …”

I swallowed. Present it to the kingdom? I had no proof that the Soul Token even worked the way it was intended.

“I do not believe I should be presenting anything to the kingdom until we have had at least one fully successful trial,” I said carefully. My hand went to my pocket, where the ever-present Soul Token lay in wait.

“And how long will that take?”

“At least one, maybe two more trips, before I can action my plan. And then there will likely be a number more, as I … work with the live soul …”

Father nodded, a grin forming on his mouth, showing his white, sharp teeth.

“I look forward to your report once your trial is concluded, Junior.” He lounged back onto his throne, kicking his feet over the armrest.

I chanced a glance at my sister. Hellen’s face was working towards that purplish shade again, her cheeks puffing out.

I winced, knowing exactly what was coming.

“You’ve given him a mission?” she exploded. Her wind whipped around us, sending a tornado of toenail clippings, some still moist with imp spittle, whirling around us.

“Enough, Hellen!” he snapped. The wind dissipated as suddenly as it had blown up. The toenails dropped. Into my hair. I picked them out, glaring daggers at my sister, who, oddly enough, did not appear to have enjoyed sprinkling me with the jagged, mouldering remnants.

“Of course I gave him a mission!” Father hissed. “He will be the next King of Hell. It’s high time he began to build a legacy of his own. And given the uncertainty of the future, he needs to be able to come up with creative schemes, just like this one, that will facilitate growth and a thriving kingdom.”

I pressed my lips tightly together. A thriving kingdom? I wasn’t the ruler of Hell—he was—and yet he had placed the future of the realm solely on my shoulders. While letting it go to ruin over the last two decades.

Meanwhile, Hellen was practically vibrating beside Father, who was either oblivious to her feelings … or he simply didn’t care.

“That … that IDIOT is going to be King, and where does that leave ME?” Hellen demanded, eyes flashing, arms flailing, claws gouging the powdery skulls of Father’s throne. “I’m older, wiser, and eviler than he will EVER be! Give ME a mission, Father! Let ME prove to you that my legacy is one you will be proud of. Let ME fight for the Throne of Hell! It would thrive under my reign! It will fester under his!”

Father pinched the bridge of his nose and let out an exasperated, exhausted sigh. A pang of fear stabbed at my gut. Perhaps his ‘official’ retirement would be sooner rather than later.

I was not ready for that. Not in the slightest.

“The demons will not submit to a female, Hellen. We have been over this time and time again. They will not accept you.”

I cricked my neck to mask my surprise. Had Father actually put serious thought into Hellen for the Throne? Over me?

My chest did that stuttering thing once more, as Hellen, to everyone’s utter mortification, burst into noisy sobs.

“I could change their minds! The minions would feast on the misery of humans under my rule,” she wailed.

Father patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “I have no doubt, Hellen. But your brother will need much … support … when he descends the throne. Does Senior Advisor of Torture tickle your fancy?”

I took a step backwards, and then another. Hellen was distracted with her blubbering. Father was distracted with his stilted comforting of her.

If the demons weren’t so set in their ways, would they accept Hellen as Queen of Hell? Is that what Father would want?

And where would that leave me? Hypothetically speaking.

I shook my head, reaching the door and slipping out as quietly as the large, rumbling stone would allow. I marched stiffly through echoing hallways, their carved arches overlooking the bubbling lava lake on one side and the grim wilds of Hell on the other.

I did not need a scrambled brain right now. I did not need to be pondering the what-ifs and the if-onlys that were ricocheting around in there.

I needed to focus on my mission.

I needed to further observe Jemma Bliss. I needed to determine the whereabouts of these ‘Lakeside Markets’. And I needed a location that would be discreet enough for me to open a portal to them during the sunlight hours on a Saturday.

Showing up at these markets she attended wasn’t stalking, no matter what Beezle and Bub wanted to call it. Jemma Bliss WAS my mission.

I just needed to remind myself that polishing my horn to thoughts of her glittery eyes, or pink curls, or lush buttocks, was not helpful.

No more sexy bubble baths after a trip to the Human Realm , I told myself firmly.