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The Devil May Care

Part 23

For DuskCypher

By Draconicon

With Andrew and Peter in hand, Dusk made his way out of Mercy's dungeons hidden off in the ass-end of nowhere. He found his way to the surface level easily enough, but finding his way from there to one of the locations that he knew better - a skyscraper that he had seen be destroyed in his visions - was a little bit harder. Thankfully, the city was quiet for once, and he was able to walk around with two floating figures behind him without attracting too much attention.

Dusk could still hardly believe that this had come together as well and as relatively easily as it had. He honestly should have retained Cthulhu as a lawyer much earlier on, but he figured that it was probably for the best that he had done it this way. They had overwhelming evidence this time around, and the eldritch court might not have been secured if they hadn't had so much evidence of malicious intent.

And probably not gotten so much out of Heaven if Mercy hadn't been such a bitch for so long, too.

Looking over his shoulders, though, he felt an odd twinge. It was probably his mortal soul, the damn thing feeling a bit guilty for looking at the long-term positives at the cost of the pain that his slaves had gone through. He shook his head, forcing that down for the moment. He needed to focus on the positives, or he'd drown in guilt and anger again. Even with a mortal soul rather than the devil's soul burning through him, that was not something that he needed as a distraction, particularly with the other bits of politics that he'd need to play.

Speaking of which.

Dusk glanced over his shoulder again, looking at the floating stallion and orca. They were going to be out for some time after everything that Mercy had done to them, and they wouldn't be any better off in a bed than they were floating in the grips of his power. He sighed.

Might as well get this done now.

Dusk extended his aura, using the vices to shift his position. The vice of Pride demanded a great height to oversee the city, and the vice of Wrath ensured that it took no time to get there. Everything was afraid of that.

Now, they were on top of a nearby building, out of sight for most anyone that wandered the city at this time of night. Day? Early morning? Hard to tell, if he was honest, but he imagined that it was probably exceedingly early morning, considering the position of the moon.

It was a distraction, of course, a distraction from paying off Cthulhu. He had agreed to take out the various cultists, and he knew that it would be better to have that done sooner than later. God might start complaining if he realized the sort of price that the ruler of Hell had decided to pay the Great One. It was better to have the murdering done with.

Dusk pulled his blade from his back, feeling the power that stretched through it. The whole thing was a wellspring of Wrathful power, and certainly something that amplified his own strength by a great deal. As the wielder of the power of Satan, he had greater strength than any mortal, and nearly more than any black magician. With this sword, that was amplified further still, taking him to a level that he doubted that Hell had ever seen.

He stabbed the blade into the top of the building, and a fiery portal opened before him. Not entirely beneath him, but before him, something that allowed the fires of Hell to rise and warm him. He gripped the hilt of his sword a bit tighter, making sure that he had a firm grip, and extended his reach throughout the world. Stabbed into the boundary between earth and Hell, he could extend his reach, his powers, his aura, throughout the entire mortal world.

It was easy to find the cultists that chanted Cthulhu's name non-stop, and even there, hearing only a fragment of what the Great Old One had been hearing constantly, he was nearly driven mad. He covered his head with one hand, groaning under his breath.

"You so have to die..."

He twisted the blade, and as he did, more portals opened up across the world. Some were barely more than large enough to let a single person fall through, while others opened to the size of small stadiums, gathering entire congregations into their flames. Prayers turned to screams, and those screams, shortly after, turned to silence.

He shook his head, pulling the blade free of the rooftop, and the portals closed again. They had been open for less than three seconds, but he was sure that there were some mortals that had seen and would make a scene about it in the coming days. It didn't matter to him. All that mattered was that it was done, the debt was paid, and he could go home without that hanging over his head.

He looked back at his slaves once more, smiling as he looked at the pair of them. Andrew, the stallion. Peter, the orca. They both wore his collars, still, and they would heal, soon enough.

Shaking his head, Dusk turned his eyes towards his penthouse across the city and began the long journey home. No more portals, no more twisting and turning. Just a nice, steady walk...

Then he got tired, and it became a cab ride.

The great spire loomed just as it had done when he'd left, and he could feel the power of Hell pulsing through it. The structure had become something different to all other buildings in the mortal world, and he smiled as he felt some genuine pride at having been the one to create it that way.

Most eyes would see nothing different with the building, but he didn't have most eyes. He had the eyes of the devil, and he could see the twin images of two different buildings, two different structures that were in the same place and not at the same time. He could feel the energy of the mortal world, and the power of Hell, and he could feel how they were slowly starting to bind themselves together.

It was more than merely being a portal. It was a coexistence, something that had been impossible until this moment. He hadn't even known if it would work, but then again, he had taken a bit of a cheat to the task. Weaving the black magic of his past into the whole process had opened up paths that he had never considered before, so he imagined that it was something that might be easier in the future.

He stepped inside, following the shifting hallways of the lower levels. A lesser man would have been lost. He, however, was able to walk through the chaos with ease, entering an elevator and taking it to the top floor.

Could he have teleported to it? Probably, but it was better to do it this way. He could see what had happened to the building in the meantime...

Since he had lost control, was what he meant, and he could feel the shattered bits of reality waiting for him. That would need fixing when he reached his penthouse, and that would mean taking more power, more energy, to ensure that it was all properly put together and fixed. He'd have to be quick, too, otherwise he could actually...

Dusk yawned.

Okay, apparently I'm more tired than I thought...

Thankfully, the elevator dinged as he reached the top floor. The doors opened, and there were dozens of eyes on him, from Seraph to Arnis to Ornar, and then all the other demons that Ornar had brought through. They looked like they might have been arming up, as a matter of fact, the Lust demons holding different tools like the Wrath demons might have held weapons.

Whether they had been getting ready to chase after him or getting ready to fight Armageddon on his behalf, he didn't know, but he was thankful that they had such loyalty.

He held up a hand to suspend all questions, nodding to the two men that were floating behind him. They seemed to understand, even downtrodden Arnis, and he walked past them to the bed chambers at the far end of the penthouse. He laid his slaves down, making sure that they were comfortable, and then returned to the main room.

It was...well, to put it mildly, it was a mess. The walls were marked with slices of sword and claw, and he could feel the rents and rips in reality that had been left behind when he had been on the verge of losing his mind. He shook his head, running his fingers along the cracks and tears in the living room, feeling that some strings that had bound the realm of Hell and earth together had been cut.

He was able to fix it, using his aura to hold it together, and then merging it together with a snap of his fingers. Yet, as he knew it would, it cost him energy, and he groaned as he slumped down against the couch, sitting with his head in his hands.

"This has been a very long day," Dusk muttered.

"If you can tell us, Lord, what happened?" Ornar Onsen asked, the darkened orc cocking his head to the side.

"Court happened," he muttered.

"Arnis mentioned, but that doesn't tell us how and why. Or what happened before you were taken from us," Seraph said, the bull shaking his head. "Can you tell us, Master?"

Dusk sighed. He knew that this was coming, but he had hoped to avoid some of the more humiliating parts of the whole thing. They would need to know, eventually, and it was better that the narrative came from him than someone else. Even Selene, helpful as she had been, was still a demon with her own goals and her own intentions, and he doubted that it would come from her as well-crafted as it would from him.

And better that they don't know about the mortal soul just yet, he thought. Better that they think that I merely lost control in a rage than I made a mistake to that extent.

"Mercy happened," he muttered. "You remember what happened, what Arnis told you all?"

They nodded, and the bear grunted, lowering his head again.

"Well, I didn't know this, but apparently, having the power of all seven sins, vices, whatever you want to call them, can make your grip on reality a little bit tenuous. Particularly when you get angry."

"Consumed by Wrath," Arnis muttered.

"And I think me and Arnis happened to be feeding on each other. I was trying to keep him from ripping himself apart in depression, and by being angry, he was getting better, and I...well, I was starting to lose my mind."

Saying it like that was almost laughable, but it wasn't wrong. He had been losing more than his mind to his Wrath. He had been losing his body, his everything to it. If it hadn't been for Selene pulling him out, he would have probably died, lost to it to the point where there was not just no mind left to direct his rage, but soon, no body. The vision had showed him causing Armageddon, but that didn't mean that he would have survived it. He likely would have died at the end from everything that had happened, and then...

Well, then Hell would have been without a ruler, again, and the power of the seven different realms would have been scattered. Mercy would have won. And everyone here would have been either dead or wishing they were.

It was not a good mental image, nor something that he would ever wish to see happen.

"I was taken from here by a summons," he said. "A benevolent one, for once."

"And who summoned you, Master?" Seraph asked.

"Selene, the demon of Pride."

"The lioness? I'm...surprised, Master," Ornar said, his voice cautious. "Does she know..."

"She knows we aren't compatible, if that's what you mean," Dusk said, chuckling. "But that wasn't why she summoned me. She felt what was happening, and knew what Mercy's overall goal was."

"Armageddon," Seraph said, the bull nodding.

"Yep."

The room went quiet after that, and understandably so. Nobody wanted to think about what the end of the world would have meant, even if there were those that would have lived through it. The demons here, even the fallen angel Seraph, had about a 50/50 chance of getting through it with their souls intact, even if not their bodies. And from what he had heard from Selene, God was looking to use it as a purge for part of the world which would then be turned more towards the Christian faith again.

Still, any war that could be avoided was best done that way.

He leaned forward, folding his fingers together.

"After Selene slapped some sense into me, we decided that it was best to get some outside help. Or rather, I did, and I picked someone that could do the job."

Arnis nodded, no surprise. He had been part of the process, summoned to the room, but obviously he hadn't said much to the others. Dusk explained the trial that had been won by Cthulhu, and did his best to keep it summarized. He could feel the crash that came from all the work that he'd done and the lack of sleep since he started, and he knew that it was going to get a lot worse before it got better.

Still, he managed to get to the end of it, sharing the results. Everyone in the room slumped in relief, even the strongest of the demons, and he smiled a bit at that. They were happy, but they didn't have outrageous confidence in his abilities. They knew that he could take care of things, but they also knew how dangerous the situation had been.

No fools here...

He shook his head, rubbing his forehead.

"And now, we're back to this," he said. "Mercy's bound to Heaven, unable to leave for at least two thousand years. I'm entitled to a couple of artifacts, and God and Heaven is not allowed to try and steal Seraph away from me."

"That was a risk?" Arnis asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Yes," Seraph said, nodding. "A fallen angel must be punished by the heavenly hosts before they are allowed to be kicked out forever. I would have endured...many horrible things...before they were done with me."

"Not anymore, you won't," Ornar said, shaking his head.

There was almost a note of protection there, something that surprised Dusk until he remembered. Ornar had been the head of his onsen, and the head of a great number of demons that he had needed to protect during this time of shortage. The orc was a naturally protective sort of man, the kind of person that wanted to see his people safe and happy. It seemed that he had stretched his definition of 'his people' to include Seraph after all the time that Dusk and the bull had spent down in the onsen.

Not that that was a bad thing, just surprising.

As the orc pulled the bull into a one-armed hug, Seraph looked back at him.

"There was a cost, wasn't there, Master?" the fallen angel asked.

"...Yes, there was," he admitted.

"What was it?"

"The removal of every Cthulhu-worshiping cultist on the planet."

The room went quiet again, and he could see that most of them were trying to figure out how they were going to deliver on that. He could see Ornar measuring logistics as his eyes flicked back and forth, Seraph questioning himself about whether he could kill, the various Lust demons looking down at their weapons.

Only Arnis, the one real fighter in the room, didn't say anything. The bear still looked straight ahead, down at his hands, almost like he was trying to ignore the proceedings. Dusk shook his head. He'd have to deal with that, sooner or later. Preferably sooner.

"It's already done," he said after a few moments.

Ornar blinked, the orc shaking his head.

"I'm sorry, master?"

"I've already handled it."

"...How?"

"I opened holes throughout the world, and the cultists are gone."

"...That's impossible."

"Quite possible, actually," he said, reaching over his shoulder and touching the blade that stuck out from over the side. "This helped a lot."

"Even Lucifer needed the help of a hoard to accomplish something worldwide like that."

"Well, good thing that I'm not Lucifer, then, right?"

"It appears so, my lord," Ornar said, bowing his head. "I'm thankful that you were able to secure our safety."

"Well, it'll be up to all of us to hold onto it."

"Indeed, my lord. I will ensure that you have the demons to do whatever needs doing...provided that you keep to our deal."

Dusk nodded. The deal to keep all of the Lust demons satisfied was what held their agreement together. Ever since his touch had managed to satisfy those that had never been satisfied before, he knew that he had a way to keep them under his thumb. That said, he'd need to deliver on that, and it was a risk business to keep holding it off. He'd had good reasons, but he knew that Ornar would only give him this time for so long. Bound to him or not, the Lust demon was still a lord of his people, and he knew his responsibilities.

The black cat got to his feet, rubbing his back a few times to get the worst of the stress out of the muscles around his spine. He was still stressed, still tired, but a few more things needed handling before he could settle down for the night.

For now, though, he needed a short break.

"Anyway. Everything's handled. You can relax. Heaven, for now, is off our backs, and we don't have to worry about anything for a while."

Ornar, Seraph, and most of the others nodded, dispersing slowly. The Lust demons went back to their part of the great spire, moving to take their places where there was more of the aura of Hell to sustain them, and Dusk went to the balcony.

Well, balconies, at this point. Ever since the merging of the earthly building and Ornar's onsen, a second, attached one had come into being. He was relatively sure that no mortal would be able to see it, but it was a fairly spectacular bit of work. He stepped out on it, looking out into the skies of Hell.

Black clouds, red skies, silent lightning in the distance. He could feel the power of the realm beneath, and a part of him wondered just how it would be to have that sort of him. The black cat knew that he'd never be entirely happy on the dark throne, and he knew that it would trap him, just like it had done Lucifer before.

Whatever Lucifer had wanted out of Hell, it had not come to pass. The lives of the demons under him had become as tortured as the souls of the mortals that were kicked down to the lower realms. Any demon of significant power had come to hate his ruler, and once that began, Dusk knew that it was an inevitable trip towards rebellion.

And in some ways, he had made that worse. He was a mortal that had stolen the power needed to hold the throne. He had done something that the demons considered impossible. From now on, whoever sat on the throne would sit on a chair that was trapped, no longer impregnable to assault. They would have the reputation of being vulnerable in a way that Lucifer had never suffered from.

It was that, he supposed, that made him worry about ever taking it. He had people that he could enjoy in Hell. He had the power to reach from Hell to earth, and could bring his slaves down with him. He could protect them, have the power to do whatever he wanted...

But it would lose that fullness that came from having his fun on the mortal plane. That feeling of warping the normal people, that sensation of being so utterly in charge that nothing could question him, would be gone. He would be contending with other people of power, and there was a risk, however slight, that they could win.

He didn't want there to be a possibility of loss. That wasn't fun.

Shaking his head, he looked up at the skies again, just taking in the odd, raw, dark beauty that they presented until a visitor came to meet him. He didn't look away, but he did nod.

"Arnis."

"Mmph."

"Let me guess. Still depressed?"

"I fucked up."

"We both did."

"Doesn't excuse it."

"No, but doesn't mean that you can just kill yourself, either," he said, shaking his head as he turned from the lightning show on the horizon. "Do you think that I'm just letting myself off the hook, too?"

The bear's formerly rather smart business attire had been ripped and rent in many places, likely something that Arnis had done to himself when he was grieving about how he had made such a mistake. Dusk could not blame him for that, but while he was grateful that the bear was taking his responsibilities so seriously, he would not see a useful tool shatter under him just because of guilt.

"You have a second chance. Don't waste it," he said.

"...That's it? No punishment?"

"Do you really want me to punish you? Because I know what you hate, and I could make that a reality."

And he could, if he needed to. He didn't want to, not just because he was exhausted, but also because Arnis hadn't done anything that wrong. The pair of them had been played by Mercy. Arnis, yes, had done the worse thing by getting himself seduced by her, but Dusk had allowed himself to be played by considering her harmless, something that she, in hindsight, had encouraged when he started thinking of her that way. He should have been smarter, but instead, he had taken his eyes off of her, underestimated her, and that had left everyone else vulnerable.

He reached out, patting the bear on the shoulder.

"You don't deserve to be pushed around like that. You don't deserve to be beating yourself up forever. Just...don't do it again."

"I never planned to."

"Yeah, because you expected to be fired."

"...Something like that," the bear admitted.

"I don't have time to teach people things. You had a chance to learn a lesson here, Arnis. Did you?"

"Yeah. Women are bitches."

"Well, that, but also?"

"...Yes. I learned a lesson."

"Good. Then you don't need to be punished."

"Are you sure, boss?"

"I'm sure."

"...Thanks."

The bear nodded, taking a deep breath and then letting it out with a shudder that surprised Dusk at just how violent it was. Apparently, he had been holding that in for a good bit longer than he had guessed.

"What's the plan now?"

"The plan?" Dusk chuckled. "The plan is for me to get some sleep."

"I meant after that, boss."

"Do you really need to know?"

"So I can start planning and making sure that we're all safe? Yeah."

He supposed that was fair enough. Arnis was someone that wanted to make sure that he didn't make the same mistake twice. There would be other dangers in the future, too. Mercy might be gone, and that meant that they didn't have to worry about Heaven quite so much as they had, but that didn't mean that they wouldn't have other problems. They would have quite a few dangers from Hell itself, from Brutus and others like him that didn't want someone from the mortal realm sitting on the dark throne.

Not that I want to. The power up here is fine with me, but...

Well, there might not be a way around it, and in the meantime, there would be too many different warriors of Hell trying to prove a point for him to deal with them all on his own. And besides, he realized, there was something that Arnis could prove useful for.

"Tomorrow, I give the Lust demons their chance to feed," he said, folding his arms as he leaned against the balcony. "I'm going to need someone to follow the riskier ones, the hungriest ones, and make sure that they don't do too much damage."

"You want me to crack some heads?"

"If you have to. Don't go overboard, though."

"Heh...Might have to, if they're hungry enough."

"Well, if you must, you must. But only if you must."

"And after that?"

"After that, I have to figure it out, I guess," Dusk said, shaking his head as he looked at the Hell-sky for a bit longer. "I gave them my word, and I'll have to see to it that I keep it...somehow."

"You promised more than you could give, didn't ya?"

"Yes, Arnis, I did. Care to tell me how I'm supposed to deliver on it?"

"Hey, I just hit things."

"Yes, well, make sure that you hit the things I tell you to as hard as you can."

"With pleasure, boss."

"Now, get some sleep. I'm going to do the same thing, in a minute."

The bear demon walked away, leaving him alone again.

Dusk sighed, slowly, leaning his head down against his arms. From stealing the powers of the devil to becoming a contender to the throne of Hell, this was not how he had imagined his life going. Hell, for that matter, this wasn't how he had imagined it going when he had stolen Lucifer's powers. He had just meant to take them, enjoy life, live it up a little bit. He hadn't thought that he'd get tangled up in this level of politics.

Then again, he supposed, he didn't put in nearly the level of research that he could have. He had gone in to see how he could do something, but not what would happen afterward. If he had dug just a little deeper...

He sighed. No point in regretting it now. He was stuck in the storm, and now he had to weather it.

He pushed himself upright. All the struggles with Ornar's people and with the Lust demons in general and with Brutus and Selene and every other demon he knew could wait until the morning when he had the chance to put his head on straight. His body was still adjusting to the new soul, and was beaten down and tired from all the stuff that he had already done since getting it. Stress, exhaustion, everything else could affect him, even though he was far more powerful than he had ever been before. All it took was a sufficient amount, and he had long since passed that point.

Walking back into the building, feeling the shift of Hell-energy to mortal auras, he walked down the hall to the bedchambers. He could have gone all the way to his room, but he decided that he would join Andrew for the night. It would be good to feel the horse pressed up against him, to remind himself that all that he had done today had been for a purpose. Not just for himself, either, for a change.

He flicked his hand to the side, dismissing his clothes from his body as he approached the bed. In the nude, he pressed himself close to Andrew, gently wrapping his arms around the horse's body. The other male was warm, the collar was soft against his face, and he sighed as he nuzzled in.

There was a soft stir from the stallion, and Andrew looked over his shoulder. The stallion cocked his head to the side, and Dusk said nothing.

He had been dreaming. The pain was gone, but the dreams had continued. Not bad ones, surprisingly, but rather the ones that had comforted him between Mercy's constant torture, where she tried to break them and make them into toys that she could use against Master Dusk. She had been harsh, nearly breaking them more than once, and Andrew had screamed for so long and so loudly that he wasn't sure if he still could when he last passed out.

Yet, in the dreams, there was comfort, because in those dreams, he was with his master again.

They lasted for short times before Mercy brought them awake again, and even that was something that was painful. The waking, the parting, the reminder that he wasn't with the black cat anymore but rather with the psychotic crazy bitch that wanted to hurt them for Dusk's neglect -

But no. That was done. The pain was gone, but the dream...

The dream was fading.

He opened his eyes, feeling different things than the last time that he had passed out. He wasn't on a frame any longer, was no longer tied up. He was on a bed, something soft, something comfortable. And there was someone warm behind him.

The stallion turned, looking over his shoulder to see what it was. He saw familiar things, things from the dreams, things that had comforted him. Had he gone further down? Was he...was he still in the dream?

When he saw the black cat behind him, saw the master, he wondered if that was the case. He didn't remember...

But then Dusk gently pulled on the collar he wore, and he shivered. The dream had not done that before, and that meant that this had to be reality.

"Master," he whispered, his voice croaky.

"It's alright. You're safe now."

"She's gone?"

"Gone for thousands of years."

"...You came for us."

"I always will."

There was something to that simple sentence that calmed all the fears that had been buzzing around the stallion's mind, something that made him feel safe for the first time in hours. Days? So long...so long...

He leaned his head back, nuzzling the cat gently, and then pushed himself back against the cat's embrace. Those arms were soft, warm, and most of all, strong. They pulled him close, and he felt like he was completely protected, secure in the hands of his master, and that he would never again be in danger.

He hoped that was the case. He desperately hoped for it, because he didn't know if he could take anything like that again.

As he closed his eyes, the dreams of the pain that he had suffered under Mercy slowly began to fade away, replaced by dreams of pleasure. He could feel the warmth of his master's naked body against his, and he was almost tempted to reach back and see if he could pull his Master into some fun.

Then exhaustion reminded him why that wasn't going to happen, and he fell deep into a state of sleep.

The End

Summary: Dusk returns to his people, and finds them waiting worriedly for him. Thankfully, he has good news...for now.

Tags: no sex, cuddling, nudity, plans, worldbuilding, series, modern fantasy, bear, cat, stallion, temptation,