Hell's Geek (10 page)

She doesn’t know its heart and brain are in its belly.

Shit. Not that the knowledge would make the task any easier.

Kraken were notoriously hard to kill—at least they had been in the old days. In today’s modern world, science now had ways of evening the odds, if you had the right connections, which Adexios did. What a proud moment for his mother when she’d realized he was wheeling and dealing for illegal goods on Hell’s underground white market.

He scrambled for his pack.

“I know they’re in here somewhere.” He’d packed them; he was sure he had. Not that he’d expected to use his special buys on kraken. When he’d bought the incredibly potent hand grenades he’d been thinking more along the lines of using them to take out any giant swamp monsters they encountered.

Who cared why he’d bought them? He at least had some. Adexios grabbed all five explosive spheres, hoping they would prove enough.

Because where there was one kraken, there were usually more.

“Always keep your two feet on the ground when fighting unless you’re riding a dragon. Then land first before you kill it.” An Amazon rule inspired by Sophie’s Splat.

A beautiful day for a swim and some fishing
, Valaska thought as she dove with glee into the water.

The water wasn’t as cold as she expected, and yet it still hit her system with a shock. It definitely erased any lingering passionate heat.

On the plus side as well, Valaska didn’t immediately sink. The sword, even though lightweight, however, pulled her arm down. She had to work harder in waves to compensate for it. The salt water provided some buoyancy, along with her scissoring feet. With a bit of effort, she managed to keep moving in a horizontal direction.

While the light somewhat penetrated the medium she swam through, the water itself proved a touch murky, no longer sporting the crystal clarity they’d noted in the puddles.

Despite the reduced visibility, she still managed to note the flailing tentacles of the kraken. A beast she knew very little about.
Although I know more now, thanks to Dex.

Don’t aim for the eye.
Good to know, except with the eye taken out of the equation, she didn’t know what she should aim for.

“Fuck!” The expletive left her in bubbles that floated to the surface. Speaking of which, she kicked up and hauled in a quick breath before popping back down.

The closer she got to the beast, the more careful she had to be. This was its playground. The kraken was quite at home in the water, whereas Valaska hated battles where her feet didn’t touch the ground.

It meant there was a lot less force behind her swings.

Stupid sword was less than useless under the water. But she did love it. It was a gift from a dying viper demon in a battle over a decade ago. She’d taken it from his clutching fingers, even as she delivered the killing blow.

Good times.

However, as much as she loved the sword, it was useless in this situation. Back to the surface she kicked, hard and fast, propelling herself much like a missile until she burst the watery skin and, in a smooth motion, learned in training, fired her sword at the bobbing cabin.

The tip of her blade hit the log exterior with a
thunk
that embedded it and left it quivering.

She had time to yell, “The water’s great!” to a gaping Dex before slipping back down under the waves.

She palmed her knife, razor sharp and much easier to stab and slice with. The only problem was that, each time she scored a hit on a tentacle, the water grew murkier and murkier. Stupid kraken was bleeding like crazy; it just wasn’t dying.

The limbs were in a frenzy, the good news being, the less she could see, the less those sucker-type eyes could too. Hacking at the tentacles, though, wouldn’t get the job done. She needed to find its weak spot.

She aimed herself for the big body, narrowly escaping the grasp of a tentacle, the whip of it so close she felt the slime of its skin. She reached the bulky body of the kraken, its skin mottled with bumps. Also known as handholds for the intrepid.

Clasping her dagger in her mouth, Valaska grasped at the nodules, using them to climb the side of the beast, pulling herself upward, past the water line into the air and the hell light illuminating the churning sea.

She heard Adexios bellow, “Fire in the hole!”

Casting a glance sideways, she caught him winding back and tossing a glass sphere right into the maw of the beast.

She scrambled faster as Dex screamed, “She’s gonna blow. Jump off.”

“I’m going as fast as I can,” she muttered around the blade she clutched with her teeth. It didn’t help that she had to dodge flailing appendages. But she did it.

She leaped onto the head of the sea monster just as a shudder went through it. Taking a run atop the bulbous surface, she tossed her knife and then leaped, just as the beast uttered a high-pitched squeal.

While the aerial push from the explosion was welcome in propelling her a few extra feet so that she landed on the roof of the cabin with a hard thump, the chunks of kraken raining down on her weren’t as welcome, especially since they oozed in some places and steamed in others.

“Valaska!” Dex yelled. “Valaska, are you all right?”

Crawling across the pitching deck of the roof, she leaned over the edge and yelled, “Boo!”

He screamed. Then cursed. “Don’t fucking do that!”

“You killed the monster, Dex. I am so jealous. Wait until I tell my tribe.”

“I blew it up. No big deal.”

He claimed nonchalance, but she could see the pleasure in his expression at her praise.

“I’m glad it’s not a big deal because here come more of them.”

Given he couldn’t see as well as she could from his vantage, she offered him a hand. However, he eschewed her aid and, displaying an agility she suspected he purposely hid, soon joined her on the roof.

“Where are they?” he asked, a useless question, given the water churning around them. Two more spots.

“How many more bombs do you have?”

He dug into his pockets before he held a pair out in each hand. “Four, but I was lucky with the one I just tossed. The kraken was close enough even I couldn’t miss.”

Good point. The other two emerging sea monsters hadn’t surfaced as closely.

“Give me a pair,” she ordered.

“What are you planning to do?” he asked.

“Sushi bomb!”

Her plan was simple. Swim to the kraken and toss the bomb in its mouth.

Easy? At least once she’d battled past the tentacles, managed to bob above the waves in front of it, and tossed it in. It was the disorientation once the kraken blew that troubled her.

With the first one she blew into chunks, she lucked out and ended up fairly close to her second target. Problem was she was getting tired, and a tentacle managed a little scratch.

Poisoned. Not good, but not as bad as it could be given Amazons went through a training period to build a resistance to many toxins.

But a resistance didn’t mean she didn’t feel sluggish, and she couldn’t fight against the next tentacle that gripped her and plucked her from the water, waving her in front of the kraken. The bastard practically grinned, at least she assumed the wide-open mouth and fetid gurgling spelled excitement.

“No one’s chewing on my tough carcass today,” she muttered. She lifted her arm, intending to throw the sphere bomb into the kraken’s gaping mouth.

The missile rolled from fingers gone lifeless.

Oops.

She peeked down at the waves that swallowed it. And counted. Odd how her awareness remained acute. It was her body that refused to move. Paralysis sucked.

As would death by ingestion.

Water bubbled below them. The bomb had exploded and not done a mote of damage to the sea monster.

Gross monster breath rolled over her as the tentacle brought her closer to the kraken’s mouth.

“Unhand her, beast!” Dex yelled. A sphere went flying past her, falling short of the mouth.

If a kraken could gloat, this one did, its one giant eye smirking.

At least its eye taunted until it exploded with a gush. Ew. The poker Dex had flung hung from the remains, but didn’t kill the beast.

The appendage resumed its course to the mouth.

I am about to become a Kraken’s breakfast.

“Oh no you don’t,” hollered her geek, who just wouldn’t give up.

It seemed she wasn’t the only one interested in seeing what he planned. The tentacle holding her turned, and that meant she could see Dex run from the far end of the cabin’s rooftop before leaping.

For a moment, his legs ran on air, and he actually gained more distance. Back came his arm, the sinews in it bunching. His arm whipped forward, and the grenade left his hand. The glass sphere with its swirling colors soared, and the tentacle holding her turned to watch its flight.

The bomb disappeared into the black cavern of the kraken’s mouth but didn’t immediately explode. Damned delayed timer.

Dangling in the air, she wondered if Adexios had made it back to the safety of the cabin. A moment later she had her answer as a tentacle rose alongside her, holding him.

He shot her a smile. “Hi.”

Hi? If she weren’t paralyzed, she might have giggled. As it was, she did manage to expel a breath of air as the bomb finally exploded. She didn’t feel the tentacle around her loosen, but she did notice she was falling. Her eyes remained open as she hit the water and then bobbed back up.

The sea tossed her, the agitation of the kraken’s death churning the water. Waves washed over her face.

So this is how I die.
Drowning. That sucked. Now how would her sisters dress her in her finest warrior garb and send her to the ever after by burning her body to ash, freeing her spirit to choose another host? A girl child born of an Amazon.

Except Valaska didn’t die. Not yet. Oddly enough, her limp body floated on the waves, but for how long?

How long before she sank?

How long before another kraken or other sea monster came along and thought she was an easy snack?

Not long apparently.

A single eye on a long purple stalk rose from the water and blinked at her. Dex’s sea monster pet had returned to finish the job.

She didn’t even have the ability to call it a name when it sent a tentacle to grab her around the waist.

But she did think it.
Fucker
.

“If at first you don’t succeed, cheat.” From Lucifer’s Guide to Ultimate Domination

The
S.S. Sushimaker
sliced through the waves of the new sea that covered the wilds. Everywhere Lucifer looked, he saw water, water, and more water.

And water wasn’t really his element.

Lucifer glared as smoke seeped from his ears. He turned his gaze toward the most likely culprit, and an easy scapegoat. “If I find out you had something to do with this, Neptune…” He let his threat trail into ominous silence.

“Not me. But I do have to wonder who has this type of power,” Neptune added with a pensive mien as he stroked his long, luscious beard, currently braided with seashells. The guy grew great facial hair. It totally woke the green monster within Lucifer named Envy, which totally perked him up. Nothing like a little coveting sin to brighten a miserable day. Jealousy also gave him great ideas on how to shave the sea god’s pride off his chin.

Later. Right now, he had a situation to deal with.

“Where is this water coming from?”

“Not from the Styx or Darkling Sea,” Charon replied from where he stood at the helm, his admiral cap perched atop his cowl. “The water levels on both have risen. The low-lying villages on the edges have flooded. If the water continues to rise, we will have to evacuate more of the towns along the river.”

“And put them where? We already have a housing shortage. These refuges have made it worse. The complaints department has now begun complaining to me that there’s too much work. Totally unacceptable. It’s cutting into my fornicating time. Maybe we should just toss those displaced souls into the abyss for recycling.”

For the uninformed, the abyss was a bottomless pit at the center of the rings. It was a soul recycler of sorts. Once a damned one did their time, they could chose to end their current existence and start anew, in a fresh body back on the mortal plane.

Reincarnation. Sounded great, right? Kind of.

If a soul chose to fling themselves in the abyss, everything they knew, all of what they were, would vanish. Wiped clean.

Oddly enough, many souls preferred to eke out an existence in Hell rather than take that final step.

It drove Lucifer crazy. Who wanted to stay in the pit? He only stayed here because of his job description. Lord of Sins, King of Hell, Eater of Souls. Not that he actually dined on them, unless he was really in the mood for shits and giggles.

Newbies always screamed loudest, not having realized they couldn’t actually die. Eventually any part eaten grew back. What sucked was apparently the souls eventually got used to the pain. A flaw he was working on.

Just like Lucifer would have to lean on the committee responsible for making Hell the worst plane to live on to step up its game. He couldn’t have people enjoying themselves living here. It would ruin his reputation.

“You can’t just toss souls into the recycling pit,” Charon said.

“Why not? It’s cruel. It’s unjust. It’s totally me,” Lucifer exclaimed.

“It’s also highly efficient,” the old ferry master pointed out.

The devil made a face. “Ugh. I will not have it said that I’m efficient.”

Neptune cleared his throat. “Um, instead of worrying about moving the souls, perhaps, instead, we should find the cause for the flooding and take care of it.”

“Much as I hate to agree with surfer dude, Neptune is right. We need to teach a lesson to the person or thing that thought it could brazenly come into your world and take a chunk for themselves.” Charon’s statement struck the right chord with Lucifer.

“Yes, we do need to school the interloper. Crush the miscreant like a bug. Then bring them back to life so we can crush them again,” Lucifer agreed, smashing his fist into his palm.

“You both seem to forget that we have yet to figure out who is behind this travesty,” Neptune pointed out.

“I see a certain bearded merdude is peeved someone’s got a bigger ocean than him,” Charon snickered.

“Am not.”

“Oh ho. Someone’s jealous he’s got a smaller sea.” Lucifer waggled his brows and grinned.

A scowl on Neptune’s face only brought more attention to that damnable beard. “It’s not size that matters,” was his huffy reply.

“The whole-size-doesn’t-matter thing is what men with little dicks keep saying to try and convince the women it’s true,” Lucifer said under his breath.

Charon snickered.

Neptune glared. “Just because not all of us choose to flaunt our junk doesn’t mean I’m not hung like a whale.”

A fresh breeze with a hint of tropical flowers caressed Lucifer’s skin. They had company.

“Woman on deck. Hide the blow-up dolls and porn magazines,” he shouted. Let it not be said that he wasn’t a gentleman.

With a girly mince of steps and a swirl of skirts, Gaia joined them. “Hello, boys. I see I’m not interrupting much.”

“On the contrary, we were discussing important matters, wench.”

“You were talking about your penises. Why am I not surprised?” Gaia said with a roll of her eyes.

“Argh, woman. Do not use that word.

“Penis.”

Lucifer cringed, and he wasn’t alone. Even Charon’s cowl shriveled around the edges.

Mother Nature’s laughter tinkled, silvery bells in a gentle breeze. It set his teeth on edge with its cuteness. To combat it, he scratched his hefty package.

Since she was always checking him out, on account of his awesomeness—and admit it, his superiority was very attractive—she noted his manly gesture.

A gasp escaped her full, perfect-for-sucking lips as she took in his impressive outfit. Handpicked by the devil himself.

“Are you wearing a sailor suit?” she asked.

“With a few modifications,” he added with a large helping of pride. He angled his hips forward. “I wasn’t crazy about all that white, so I got the pants and shirt in a lovely black. The ascot, as you can see, has been hand-stitched with sharks.”

“With horns,” Neptune added, his voice choked. Probably in envy. Not everyone was blessed by Lucifer’s ingrained sense of style.

“I also had them embroider the savage fish on my hat.” Lucifer tapped the brim.

“Is it me or do I hear the theme song from
Jaws
?” she asked.

“It’s all about the attention to detail,” Lucifer confided.

Appearing faint, probably with lust because he rocked the whole suit, Gaia said, “Let’s move on to other details.”

“But I haven’t even shown you the best part. I got a matching set of briefs also embroidered with—”

Gaia placed a finger against his lips. “Show me later, my horny devil. Right now, we should work on the flood situation.”

He nipped and then sucked on the finger pressed against his mouth. “Yes, let us pull the plug on this problem so I can get to showing my underwear to my wench.”

“Okay, gentlemen—”

Lucifer hacked.

“And rakish cads, what do we know?” she asked.

Lucifer summarized their knowledge so far. “We know nothing. Except the water is wet. And gross.”

Closing her eyes, Gaia took a deep breath through her nose. A smile curved her lips as she remarked, “I don’t know. I find the sea air kind of refreshing. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Let Hell flood, then we could do like those Italians did and have canals patrolled by gondolas.”

“And seed the waterways with mutant crocodiles, sea serpents, and giant piranhas.” Lucifer rubbed his chin as he envisioned the possibilities.

“You’d have to say goodbye to golf. As well as females suntanning on beaches,” Neptune interjected.

“What? No more beach bunnies getting sand in their unmentionably delicious places?”

Gaia glared his way.

“Not that I would know or care about the taste, given you’re the only pie I want to eat.” Lucifer smiled. She didn’t thaw. “Want me to prove it? There’s a bed in the cabin.”

“Focus,” Charon reminded. “We are here looking for my useless son. You know, the one that’s missing on account you sent him on a dangerous mission.”

“An important one,” Lucifer replied.

“You can come over and explain the importance of it to his mother anytime.”

Lucifer couldn’t hide a shiver. “Uh, no need to do that. We’ll just find him.”

“We’d better. We don’t want a repeat of kindergarten when his mother lost it on that teacher.”

What a wonderful nightmare that was. No one insulted Charon’s son by calling him a brilliant student and future shining star. That teacher served as an example to all of Adexios’ future educators.

“Incoming!” Charon said with a shout. Okay, not a real shout, but given it was at least a decibel louder than usual, Lucifer knew something cool was happening.

“Where’s the danger? What is it? Someone fetch me my mace.”

A blue imp, its fingers webbed and its eyes big and black, immediately slapped a can in his hand.

Lucifer regarded the nozzled canister and sighed. He hated training new demonic cabin boys. “Not that kind of mace. The big and heavy kind with the spikes on the end.”

While he waited for his weapon of choice, Charon explained the nature of the threat.

“Radar shows a torpedo off the starboard side.”

“A bomb? Are you sure it’s not a giant black shark? Maybe a mutant mermaid?” the devil asked, unable to hide his hope.

“How many times do I have to tell you that mutant mermaids don’t exist,” Gaia muttered.

“Then where did that story I heard in that tavern down by the waterfront about the three-breasted vixen who rose from the sea come from? Explain that.”

She sighed. He heard that sound often as she bowed before the greatness that was him and his impeccable logic.

Envy him, for he was perfect.

And now, high five for indulging in the vice of envy.

“Impact in five seconds.”

“Meaning big hole in the boat, followed by an epic sink. Hope you brought swimsuits. Given I am a gifted swimmer, I can carry someone to safety if need be,” Neptune said with a sly look at Gaia, followed by boasting flex of his arm pipes.

As if Lucifer’s woman noticed. She only had eyes for one horny devil.

But just in case, it never hurt to save the day—and earn her gratitude. “I am not in the mood to get my hair wet.” Not when it took an hour daily to straighten and threaten his curly locks into compliance.

Lucifer stared into the water and visually located the incoming missile.
Gotcha.
He snapped his fingers. The torpedo disappeared from sight, and in the distance, a geyser of water shot into the air. “Oh yeah. Who’s the star, baby!” He fist pumped, and Gaia clapped.

“You’re the star, but next time, could you add a little more pizazz?” she asked. “I expect flashier from you.”

Charon grumbled. “Fuck flashy. Get those fingers snapping or brace yourself because we have four more inbound. Different directions. Impact in less than forty-five seconds.”

“My wench wants a little more flash?” Lucifer tugged on his ascot and tipped his sailor hat rakishly. He held out his hand to Gaia. “Shall we dance?”

“I would love to.” She took his fingers with a smile, managing, even after all this time, to send a jolt of electrical awareness into him.

How splendid she was. And light on her feet.

He spun her away from him, his hand gripping hers so that she snapped at the end of the spin. She smiled coyly then looked away.

She clicked her fingers in the air.

A waterspout erupted on the side of the ship, bursting high into the air and showering the deck in fragrant water lilies.

Show off. Just another sinful thing about her to admire.

He tugged her back into him, his hand anchoring itself at her waist as they did a four step, followed by a little skip, and then an intense body-to-body hug as they stared into each other’s eyes.

Fire licked between them. He clicked his fingers.

The missile exploded in the air with a whistle and a bang.

Gaia laughed. “It’s always fireworks with you.”

“And volcanoes exploding,” he replied with a leer before doing a rapid cha-cha-cha to the stern.

He dipped his woman, and she arched back, her breasts threatening to spill from her gown.

Don’t threaten. Spill! Spill!

Alas, Gaia had a firm grip on gravity, and her luscious boobs remained hidden. But she was his woman for a reason.

She snapped her fingers, and a geyser of water shot into the air, the delicate sprinkle of its drops strategically landing in on her upper half, soaking the fabric and delineating her very fat nipples.

Only centuries of dance kept him from stumbling as he whirled her around in a spinning-fast samba to the aft. He drew her to his chest, staring into her eyes, aware of the danger yet unable to resist the foreplay.

He let the torpedo grow closer and closer.

“What are you waiting for?” she panted against his lips.