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The Devil May Care

Part 40

For DuskCypher

by Draconicon

Once more, Dusk Von Doom was on the move, and once more, the jet was proving itself a very pleasurable means of getting from place to place. He smiled as he watched Ornar shove his ass back again and again, the black orc slamming his muscular rump against the feline's shaft and swallowing the thick thing down his hole with ease. The sensation was certainly something that he was growing accustomed to, particularly as the orc seemed to be as addicted to him as any other member of his entourage these days. He groaned under his breath, his cock twitching slightly past that pucker, feeling a little bit like orgasm was in the offing.

"Mmmph..." Ornar looked over his shoulder, the demon smiling. "I don't suppose that my Lord is close to climax?"

"Mmm...I could be."

"But not yet."

"Not yet," he agreed, chuckling. "You'll have to do a little better than that if you want me to lose control."

"And if I just wish to savor your wonderful shaft in my ass for a little while longer?"

"Then keep doing exactly as you are doing, Ornar. Exactly as you are doing."

The orc nodded, going back to sliding himself forward and back on all fours. The feeling of that tight pucker working along his shaft, the way that the muscular cheeks continued to draw him between them, the view of that hole completely spread before him and left open and loosening from the battering presence of his cock was just what his ego needed. After dealing with the stuffed shirt that was Lord Darith Sertus, he needed someone that was eager for him again, someone that was more than willing to take it hard and show him how much he meant in the grand scheme of things.

And it means that Balthus can keep an eye on Selene...

He knew for a fact that the lioness was using the rabbit demon in one of the other chambers of the private jet. He had no illusions that she had been corrupted by his servant, but rather that she was just enjoying herself the way that anyone would with a servant that was willing to do anything for them. The direct services of a Lust demon was intoxicating, to say the least, and even those that were prepared for what they would get had to guard against addiction.

She wouldn't fall for that, but she would keep him around. For his purposes, that would be enough.

"You're starting to go soft, my Lord. I know that it isn't my fault this time, so what's on your mind, my Lord?"

"Nothing that you need to be concerned about."

"Ah, but the pleasure of my Lord is something that I should be very concerned about, particularly if he is worried about something that I can take care of."

"Trust me, this is not something that you need to worry about. Just keep riding."

"As my Lord commands."

He leaned back a little more on the edge of the bed, looking down at that black ass, looking at the pink pucker that distended slightly every time that Ornar pulled forward, and then sunk in again every time that the orc pushed back. The feeling of taking that ass, of marking it with his cock, was as good as ever, but Ornar was right. His shaft was going vaguely flaccid, and that was something that he didn't want.

He focused on the pleasure, putting his concerns about his traveling companion out of his mind. Despite everything that Selene had done for and with him, he didn't quite believe that she was working for the same ends as he was. She wanted something from him, and while she proclaimed that she wanted him on the dark throne, that didn't mean that she wasn't doing it for her own reasons for an easily manipulated puppet. Or at least, that she wasn't hoping for an easily manipulated puppet. Either way, she was someone that he needed to watch. A good tool, though not one that he wanted to leave too free and too unattended.

The black cat forced himself to drift back to the pleasurable feeling of that pucker sliding down his cock. He closed his eyes and focused on that, on pleasure, on distraction, and let himself forget about the race for the throne, about the various politics of Hell, and even about the way that he would need to shore up the way that Greed was running when they arrived.

He didn't, however, let himself forget about throwing the cum-soaked mess of a thing through a portal into Darith's chamber. That was all too funny, and he needed the amusing things like that these days.

They arrived in Guild City, the capital of the realm of Greed, and as they landed, one demon was there to greet them. For a moment, Dusk felt almost offended that there was only one there to greet them when an entire crowd had been there in Pride, but when he saw who it was, he felt mollified. Not satisfied, but mollified. After all, Hellsmith was one of those that genuinely would have had a reason to stay away at that moment.

The plane rolled to a stop mere feet away from the badger demon, and he had to struggle into his pants due to the fact that he hadn't actually finished with Ornar. He dragged himself into the pair of pants, making sure that his bulge went down a pant leg rather than pushing straight ahead, slid his sword over his shoulder, and then pulled his coat over the whole thing. The weight of the sword was a little uncomfortable, but it was something that he was starting to get used to. Traveling armed in Hell was only smart, after all.

Selene joined him at his right, Ornar at his left, and Seraph at his back. Balthus and Arnis stood at the very back as the ramp started coming down. While this was the perfect opportunity for an assassination, he didn't believe that was what Hellsmith was here for.

The badger stood with his hands crossed over his chest, as un-formal as one could imagine in a situation like this. He shook his head.

"Took you long enough to get here."

"Is that any way to greet me?" Dusk asked.

"It is when you're fucking me around."

"I haven't even started with that."

"Then fucking don't. We have some important stuff to talk about. Real important stuff, if you want to get this realm to work with you. Then again, with the way that you kept putting that off, I'm half-expecting you to say that you're cutting your losses and leaving us for the wolves."

Dusk's eyebrows went up at that. The last thing that he had expected was belligerence on this scale, particularly from the one that had gifted him some of the best that Greed had to offer. He slowly cocked his head to the side, not quite reaching for the power of his aura, but not quite leaving it alone, either.

"You're acting as if I have caused this."

"You put an unofficial embargo on all sales to Wrath with this whole pacifist problem, do you know that?"

"Surely, Greed has more customers than just one realm."

"And you think that we can just shrug off 60% of our sales?"

"...Oh."

"Yeah, oh."

"Pardon me," Selene said. "But perhaps some of this would be better discussed either in the plane or somewhere else private. There is no need to air this sort of laundry where prying eyes might be watching."

"...That's a fair point, missy. Alright. I already got you guys somewhere to stay while you're here."

"I'm sure that you didn't break the bank for it either, Lord Hellsmith."

"I'm part of Greed, cock-sucker. I'm going to do what the best deal is, and that's all I can say."

Dusk stored that little tidbit away, too. Not that he imagined that it was a hard and fast rule, but it was something that was worth remembering in the grand scheme of things. He gestured for Hellsmith to lead on, and the badger did just that, taking them off the tarmac and towards the path that led towards the center of Guild City. They reached a Runner, a size-enhanced elephant demon that had been given something to carry passengers in. It might have been something akin to the mortal world in the past, when royalty rode on the back of the great gray beasts, but this one still walked on two legs, even though it stood over them by several times their heights.

"Get in," Hellsmith said, climbing up the ladder to the backpack of a transit pouch that the elephant wore.

"...This is going to be a very bumpy ride, isn't it?" Dusk asked.

"It's cheap. That's all that matters."

So much for the land of opulence...

The ride on the elephant's back was just as bad as he had feared, though with a few small compensations that made it so that it wasn't entirely unworth it. There were views that they got on the heights that would have been impossible from ground level, and despite the badger's cheap behavior by dragging them through this sort of thing, it was clear that Guild City was definitely a wealthy sort of capital for a realm. It had great spires and powerful-looking homes, the sort of buildings that implied that the owners were well-off and cared for their property, even if they did skimp here and there on the cleaning. He could see that there were factories aplenty through the city, big places that were filled with smokestacks and had flight markers through the city, probably for imps and other minor demons to carry the goods from the factories to those that had bought them.

But where are all of the deliveries? Where's the smoke? Where's the activity?

That was the question, and there was no clear answer, despite looking everywhere that he could. There was no sudden emergence of the workers, no sudden mass flurry of deliveries, nothing to show that the city was even still alive. Everyone that lived there must have been staying inside, hiding from the elephant passing through, or worse, hiding from the work that they needed to do.

Hellsmith didn't talk for the duration of the trip, and without that invitation to start something, neither did Dusk. He trusted the judgment of the others about whether it was safe to talk yet or not, and he didn't want to say something that might be picked up by someone that was against them.

Eventually, they reached the hotel. It was a small place, out of the way of the main traffic and seemingly rather quiet and unbothered by the world around it. The elephant Runner stopped just outside the building, large, flat feet stomping into the earth and stone ground, and the ladder was lowered. Every single one of them climbed down with faces green from being bounced around the whole time, and even Hellsmith didn't look particularly happy as he followed them to the ground.

The elephant disappeared as soon as they left it, and Dusk groaned.

"You rented that?"

"It seemed like a practical idea at the time. Inside. Come on. Before we all throw up."

They wobbled towards the front door of the hotel. The inside, admittedly, was rather well-maintained, if a little on the small side. The walls were black, dotted with specks of diamond and other gemstones to create a sort of den effect, like one had been living below the ground for far too long. The speckling, glittering light added to the beauty of the place, however, and Dusk could see the odd artistry as being worth a fair bit of money. In Greed, the value of the art was just as important as the beauty, and he could see why the owner would have placed this sort of assortment of otherwise gaudy gems on the wall. At least this way, they were good for something.

"I'll get us checked in, my Lord," Ornar said, the orc hurrying off, pulling at his jockstrap as he did. It was clear that he wanted to be able to lie down as soon as possible, and while Arnis was doing his best to stay stoically silent, it was just as clear that he wasn't happy about their way of getting here, either. The bear looked like he was fighting his stomach harder than he had fought any enemy of late, and his stomach looked like it was winning.

Balthus and Selene went to join Ornar, the lively red in Balthus's cheeks saying what he was looking forward to, and there was just enough of a hint of sex-scent in the air to tell him that Selene was interested in it, too. He shook his head, leaning back on the wall and letting himself catch his breath.

Hellsmith, on the other hand, seemed to have decided they were safe. The badger almost seemed to expand for a second, growing larger for a moment or two, and the air filled with the sensation of grasping Greed. Dusk didn't quite stiffen - he was better at hiding his reactions than that - but he did tense up slightly when he felt the air suddenly prickle around him. There was this odd feeling of everything starting to pull in towards Hellsmith, as if there was a black hole in miniature in the badger's core. Then the feeling faded, and he realized that it had just been the power of Greed, dragging at sound, air, everything, keeping it from being pulled away.

"That should do," Hellsmith said.

"Consuming the words?" Dusk asked, only to feel his voice dragging away from him, the sound being syphoned off in Hellsmith's direction. The sound and feeling was so strange that it left him slightly dizzy. "Oh, that's different."

"Yes, isn't it? Perfect for keeping busybodies from noticing us."

"It's not doing anything to you, though..."

"Not that you can hear. If you were using your aura, you'd know. Best you don't for now, though. Best to keep anyone from thinking that this is anything more than a vanity project so far, hmm?"

That was sensible enough, though he was rather surprised that they were going this far. He had expected there to be some discontent among Greed, though not to this level. He had, after all, opened up a number of new markets with making Lust strong enough to have purchasing power, and while he knew that they had lost some business with Wrath -

60%.

That number was huge. He had to admit that much, that number was huge, and there was not a country on the face of the earth that could have weathered having that much money ripped out of their GDP, even on a short-term basis. The fact that they had been suffering through that for the last few weeks or however long it had been since their customers had gone dark was rather astounding, and it spoke wonders to the amount of resources that the Greed demons must have had stockpiled in their various estates. They were probably better equipped than the worst of the survivalists among the mortals, now that he thought about it.

"Anyway. Cards on the table, lordly one," the badger said, leaning back to press his back against the wall, too. "We're suffering badly."

"So you said. Sixty-percent."

"Yes, and that's just the start of it."

"Hmm? What else is so bad?"

"The fact that we can't make what we need to sell."

"...I had wondered why everything had gone dark, but is it really that bad?"

"Dusk, the entire economy of the realm has all but ground to a halt. Do you know why?"

"I assumed that it's because you can't stockpile your goods, but...there's another reason, I assume?"

"Correct. We're out of materials."

"...Materials? Why - that's impossible."

"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?" The badger rolled his eyes. "I swear, all you mortals...What, do you think that Hell has endless power?"

"No, but I thought that you could just do this."

He waved his hand, drawing on the power of Greed and Wrath at the same time. As he did, a dagger appeared between his fingers. in the mortal world, that would have cost him some energy, but down here, it had been as easy as thinking of it. There had barely been any energy taken from him to create something small like that. The black cat twiddled it between his fingers, making it dance, and then throwing it to his other hand.

"I would have thought that you could have made your weapons, or whatever it is you're selling these days."

Hellsmith stared at him for a moment, then slapped a hand over his forehead. Dusk sighed. Another thing that he didn't know, apparently. He was finding more and more of those the longer that he stayed in Hell, and he wasn't particularly liking the feeling of being treated like an idiot.

"I am from the mortal world, you know. Just because I don't know it now doesn't mean I'm a moron for not knowing it."

"No, no, that's correct, but...Oof. I did not expect you to be this bad."

"Then get fixing it, oh Hellsmith."

"You think I can just fix that level of -"

"Pick your words carefully, Hellsmith. You don't want to piss me off, I promise you that."

"..."

"Now, if you don't just manifest your goods like that, what do you use the power of Greed for?"

"...Okay, then, let's back up and try and explain this all proper."

The badger opened his mouth, then closed it as if having second thoughts of where to start. Dusk waited, his hands at his sides, his eyes flicking from Hellsmith to the other demons in his entourage. Seraph had stayed close to him, the bull rather eager to be at his side, even in his silence, but there was little that the fallen angel could offer at that point. The rest of the group were getting their keys, getting ready to go to their rooms further in the hotel, and he imagined that they were going to be busy for a while.

Hellsmith finally nodded. The badger pulled out one of the gems from the wall, drawing a hiss from the demon behind the desk.

"Hold on, hold on, I'll put it back when I'm done," the badger said. "Now, you see this, Dusk?"

"It's a diamond."

"Right. Now, why do you think this matters if we can just manifest it?"

"...I guess you can't manifest everything."

"Right in one, kid, right in one. See, only the most powerful demons in Greed can actually just summon something up the way that you just did, and the bigger the thing, the harder it is to keep it there. It's a goddamn racket when someone gets strong enough to do it, and thank FUCK that there's never been a Greed demon that could do it constantly, or there'd never be any competition down here. There'd be one monolith, one big monopoly, and that ain't good for business.

"See, there's mines down here, and forges, and foundries, and there's all kinds of goods that gotta come in and out to make sure that we get our stuff made, get our goods produced, and put them out there on the market. We can handle that part, true enough. We still got the mines, still have the fire and the gems and all that."

"But you’re still missing something?"

"Nope. You wanna guess what that is, hmm?"

Dusk looked down at the dagger in his hand, then at the gem. They had everything that they needed in terms of magic for creation, in terms of fuel for the fires, and the raw material to make the things that they sold. All that was there, and accounted for. So what -

The sword on his back told him what it was as it made contact with the back of his head. He could still feel the hint of a soul in it, and he hissed softly.

"Souls."

"And we have a winner, give the cat a prize." The badger nodded. "Souls are it, alright. There's plenty of stuff that can be gained from a good weapon, but toss a soul in it - even a crappy little soul - and it becomes a hundred times more useful and more valuable. It gives even the weakest demon a chance to stand up to someone from Wrath, and it makes a Wrath demon completely unstoppable by the average demon in Hell. You put something like that in a crown, and you get someone that has charisma out the ass.

"Souls are the thing that make our stuff special. We're the only ones that can fold the soul into it properly, give the soul the greed to cling to the weapon rather than try and leave it. We make it special, you see? Something that nobody wants to let go of."

"And you don't have souls anymore?"

"We've used up pretty much every last one of them. The damned? We tapped that well long ago. But there's other places, other souls to get."

"Not Heaven?"

"Oh, fuck no, not that." Hellsmith winced. "Not something that pure and that stupid. Fucking - if you think that a soul from Heaven would work for that, you're dead wrong."

"Alright, so if not Heaven?"

"Purgatory. All those suckers aren't going anywhere, and they're not going to miss it. Least they'd get to leave the place if they were bound to something other than the mist for the rest of their afterlives."

"And this is a favor that you're asking me?"

"...I..."

He had caught Hellsmith off-guard, and he knew that was just as good as he was going to get. He smiled slowly, realizing just what he had learned, and how much the badger had probably said that hadn't been intended to come out. The fact that the realm was in trouble, that was obvious. The fact that they needed souls, that was something that could be offered without really giving up anything big. The fact that there was a massive storehouse of those souls somewhere, that they couldn't get to but wanted to? That was something that he could work with.

The fact that the realm was doing so badly was something that he needed to fix, anyway. Technically, he had the option to let Greed fall, to allow the great power of Hell to falter and die off to clear the way for other powers. That was an option that he had considered on the flight here, but that would have led to greater support of the demon supremacists in the realm. They would have spread the word that the mortal 'Second Satan' was willing to let an entire realm die rather than do something about it, and that would lend power to Darith Sertus and caused further problems.

He didn't want the throne. He really didn't. But if he was going to keep demons from coming after him and trying to put themselves on the throne with the power that he had, then he needed stability down here. He had Lust. He was going to have Pride as long as Lilith and Selene were still on his side. Gluttony was all but out of the picture. That left Greed, Envy, Sloth, and Wrath, and he had a pretty good feeling about Wrath. If he had Greed, then he had a full majority, even if Gluttony came back.

And if I can open a portal to Purgatory...

That was something of an if, unfortunately. He had never gone there, and he knew that there were restrictions on some of the powers that the devil had. Or at least, the powers that Lucifer had had. With him not being the fallen angel, though, did that mean that he had different restrictions to what Lucifer had? Could that mean that he had the power to go places that the old archangel had been banned from going?

That was an interesting theory, and one worth pursuing.

"Give me a moment, if you would," he said, stepping away from Hellsmith.

The badger didn't follow, and he imagined that he had surprised the Greed demon. He tapped Selene on the shoulder, and as she turned around, he whispered in her ear.

"Greed needs souls."

"Yes, I'm aware."

"Do you know if it's possible for me to pull them from Purgatory?"

"Unlikely. Not from this end of the portal, at least. There are binding things that keep them there."

"Yes, but what if Greed was able to visit?"

The lioness tapped her chin, thinking about it. Dusk had already imagined that it would be like unleashing a flood of door to door salesmen if he did something like that, all of them rushing into Purgatory to claim their particular territory and their swarm of souls that they would like to tap. They would be like the worst of the scam companies in the world above, always running from one property to another, selling knives, tupperware, life insurance, and worse, except that the offers of Greed wouldn't be a scam. They would be gathering, harvesting, buying up souls with promises of freedom, dragging them to Hell, and binding them to the tools that would make them rich again. Hellsmith in particular would likely have many different assistants to send up there for profit.

Slowly, Selene started to smile. That might have been from the way that Balthus had knelt behind her and was putting his tongue to use under her tail, but even if it was, it was a good thing.

"I think that you have a key to getting power here already, Dusk. Did Hellsmith tell you all this?"

"He might have mentioned that there was a need for souls, and where to find them."

"Then he's given you leverage. Odd, for a Greed demon."

"I think he's more desperate than he realizes."

"More than likely. Has he mentioned payment, yet?"

"Not yet."

"Don't agree to anything long-term, then. If you want to demonstrate your power, feel free, but don't agree to any terms just yet."

Dusk agreed with that. The black-furred feline had no illusions about future payment from the Greed demons if it wasn't nailed down right from the start. More than most demons, he imagined that Greed both required and honored a contract. They would follow it to the letter, he was sure, particularly with more generous terms in their direction, but that in and of itself meant that they needed the contract to do anything.

Obligation, it seemed, was part and parcel to demon culture.

Still, at least he had something in mind. He turned away -

"One more thing."

He turned back to Selene, and looked down as the lioness offered her hand. There, on her palm, rested two shimmering things. They looked almost like coins, but as he stared at them, he realized that they shifted back and forth slightly, almost like they were not quite solid.

"What is that?"

"They are souls."

"Literal souls?"

"Fragments, more precisely. There are some that are ripped apart for the currency of Hell, and they are the grease that gets the wheels spinning for most of the realms. Sloth is strange about it, with their own system, but for all the others, this is what you will need to buy someone off if a favor will not suffice."

"You literally trade souls?"

"You sell them and buy them in weapons; does it surprise you that we use it as currency, as well?"

It shouldn't have, but in a way, it almost did. There was something that was oddly disturbing about ripping someone's immortal soul into pieces and then using it the same way that others did money. It was one thing to seal them into a weapon, he realized, but entirely something else to break them apart and leave them shattered like that. Selene shook her head, pocketing her money again.

"The Greed demons all have a stockpile of this, and it will be what they were using to enchant weapons when their supply of whole souls went dry. They will be angry about the lack of any fresh souls for a while, and they'll be desperate. This will be your chance to get something good out of them."

"...Currency. A treasury."

"Indeed," Selene said.

"And certainly worth having for any projects that you have in mind for all of Hell, my Lord," Ornar pointed out as he got his key. "I believe that you will have much to work with, provided that you make a good deal."

It was a little overwhelming, and a small part of him felt a little sick from the mental image of having hundreds of soul fragments, all of them screaming for the sweet release of real death in a vault somewhere. Then again, that sickness could have easily been the residual feeling that came from riding the elephant here. He still didn't know if that was going to fade anytime soon.

"Anything else I should know?" he asked.

"Just make sure that you don't try and keep the portal open for long," Selene said. "Lucifer was not keen on opening portals to Purgatory, but it was the better option than feasting on the mortal world for too long. More to the point, it didn't anger God nearly as much. Still, best not to linger."

"Don't want to risk another war, or a breached treaty?"

"You do have a restraining order on Mercy, but nothing to stop God from taking steps in Hell if you push any of the Armageddon buttons."

"Good point..."

He would have to talk to Cthulhu again at some point, see what his options were in establishing more firm boundaries between himself and God. That tiger was starting to get more and more annoying just by being there, what with the fact that he had been the one to set down so many of the rules that Dusk was still playing catch-up on. He was pretty sure that the feline up on the clouds was keeping most of the rules to himself, too, just to make sure that he was the only one that could call others out on breaking them.

Freedom of information act, anyone?

But that was another task for another time. For now, he had a badger that he needed to treat with, and he had a hole in reality that he needed to make. Provided that he could do this properly - and better than Lucifer could, from what Selene had said - he would have the loyalty of the Greed demons in seconds.

Loyalty, and hopefully, profit. Much as the idea of trading in souls as literal currency irked him, he knew that he'd need something to spend. It was the perpetual rule. You had to spend money to make money, and right at that moment, he had nothing to spend. He had been lucky enough to provide a strong feeding ground to Lust with his own power rather than through investment, and he had managed to pound the rebellion in Gluttony to the ground without having to buy things because he was so strong, but that wasn't something that he could count on going forward. Coinage would hopefully smooth out some of the problems going forward.

Returning to the badger, he smiled.

"I think that we can come to an arrangement, Hellsmith."

"...I'm sorry, what?"

"I think that I can give you what you need. And in return, you give me what I need."

"You mean, you -"

The black cat smiled as he lifted his hand. The badger's jaw all but dropped as he gathered the power of the seven sins, and then, never breaking his smile or his gaze, he snapped his fingers.

The black wall went white, mist flowed through, and with no warning whatsoever, a portal to Purgatory and the wealth of souls on the other side opened. Every demon in the room, from his party to Hellsmith to the demon behind the counter suddenly perked up, and even Dusk could tell the difference. It was like allowing fresh air into a long-dead room, or letting the smell of food into a room of starving men and women.

And it had all been done with a single snap.

The End

Summary: Dusk arrives in Greed, and has a meeting with Hellsmith about what the realm needs. It turns out that the biggest difficulty is something that Dusk had never seen coming.

Tags: M/M, cat, orc, M/F, lioness, rabbit, badger, series, modern fantasy, anal, oral, Hell, portal, magic, teasing, edging,