Read Online Letters From Hades by Jeffrey Thomas - Free Book Online

her…but I was afraid to ask her that.
    She reached above her head to dig her fingers into the deeply fissured bark so as not to fall forward while I knelt before her like a worshipper, loosening the spikes that transfixed her feet. I freed one. Then, with a final effort of strained muscles, drenched in sweat, I dug out the last of them. And the Demon allowed herself to drop forward onto the ground, resting her forehead to the forest floor, her elbows and knees bunched under her, her rump pointed in the air and the wings tremulous over her like a collapsed tent of living skin.
    "I’m sorry," I said.
    She rose up before me then, so suddenly and so tall—at my own eye level—that I flinched violently.
    "Thank you, little one," she purred. She was trying to sound cocky, in control again. A proud warrior, an Amazon with bat wings. But I could see that puffiness around her eyes, the droop of the lids, the tightness around her mouth. She felt shame at what had been done to her. Humiliation, that I had witnessed it. That she had needed my help. That she might even have died had I not come.
    I let the pike drop heavily to the grass by my feet. She glanced down at it. Then she stooped to retrieve it. She winced and clamped a hand flat against her abdomen as she rose. I gulped saliva. I pictured her plunging the tip of that pike through my eye now…her way of getting back at the former mortals who had bested her.
    "I’d better hurry if I’m going to catch up with your friend."
    "What? Wait…please…"
    "She wanted to kill me."
    "She was afraid!"
    "So were you. But you helped me."
    "But I’m a newcomer here. I’m not jaded yet. I’m…"
    "Stop making excuses. Just be grateful that I’m not shoving this up your ass now like I’m going to do to her."
    "Please!" I practically barked at the creature now. "Don’t! Do it to me, then, if you have to do it to somebody."
    She cocked her head. "You’re an odd one. Yes…you are a newcomer, aren’t you? Not all your lot are like you." She thrust the spear’s tip under my nose. "Those others fucked me with this. Like the smell?"
    I jerked my head away. "Go hunt them down, then. They deserve it. Not Caroline."
    "Do you love her?"
    "I hardly know her."
    "But you’ve fucked her." She leaned in close to my neck and drew in a deep breath, lifting her face so that it was practically nose to nose with mine. "I can smell sex on you."
    "Please," I repeated. This close, I smelled the tang of sweat and the metallic sting of blood on her. "If you want to repay me for helping you, you won’t…"
    "Repay you?" she snarled. Her eyes grew wild, startling me. Bulging insanely. "I don’t need to repay you, understand? I didn’t strike a deal with you! I didn’t buy my freedom! You’re the punished here, I’m the punisher!"
    "I’m sorry!"
    "Did you think I’d pay you back with sex? Is that it? Do you think you could even survive mating with me? I’d bite your fucking head off like a praying mantis, you sorry little brown-noser!"
    She flung the pike down and its length vibrated, its point gouged into the earth between my feet.
    "I don’t need this to punish your girlfriend," she rumbled, and with that she plummeted off into the forest…tearing through the same vegetation that Caroline had vanished into. Even after her white figure with its flag-like wings was gone from sight, I heard the distant underbrush crackling.
    I yanked the pike out of the soil. I supposed I should carry it with me as a weapon. If it had nearly killed one devil, it might protect me from others. And for now, I used it as a walking stick as I slowly trudged after the two who had disappeared before me in the direction of Oblivion.

    Day 39.

    I t must have been an Angel who shot this arrow into me. A devil would come right up to you and grin and lop the top of your skull off. It’s the Angels who like to steal and skulk, to track and hunt. It’s their sport. They can come here anytime they like, and do anything they