The screams petered off. Shait whipped around to discover why. Mazt! The lazy Spaun had stopped. “Did I tell you to cease?” Shait spat at his subordinate.
“Apologies, First.” Mazt genuflected, his forehead scraping the dirt in absolute submission to his master. “I had to switch implements.” He grunted and switched from the dull iron spike in his hand to a freshly heated one pulled from the forge. He set it to the human’s foot.
Ahh!Shait bared his fangs, threw back his head, and screamed with the human as the iron melted cleanly through skin and muscle and bones. She would never walk again. Which was beside the point when her death was imminent.
“Why?” she cried, her tears bloody streaks down her pale cheeks.
Shait could’ve ignored her. Better to let her die not knowing. But she would know because this one was destined for Heaven. She’d die pure, untouched, and ignorant of her unfulfilled destiny. She was meant for greatness. If only at the tender age of seventeen, she hadn’t the misfortune to come into her powers early.
A car accident. She’d swerved to save a deer and took a header into a cement barrier. A regular human would’ve died on impact, seeing as she was thrown through the windshield and landed twenty feet away, her face smashed into a granite outcrop along I-95 in Rockland County, New York.
But the human didn’t die. She walked away from the accident without a scratch because she wasn’t quite human.
She was special. One of eleven. And special girls like her received special attention from a demon like him. A demon who had taken his time after stumbling upon a newly arrived soul who claimed to be a seer and brought prophetic news. Heaven and Hell had united in a hospital in Germany. By the time Shait went to investigate, a decade had passed.
But the energy expended when two immortal beings joined forces left a residue for centuries. The demon, his energy was easy to decipher. Belial, one of five Princes of Hell. The angel, a Seraph. One of the five ruling Heaven. The residual energy had led Shait to a hospital nursery and an unholy union.
“Can I kill her now? Can I? Can I?” Mazt hopped in place. Ah, he was still young. Only ten thousand, a juvenile, and it showed.
“No,” Shait snarled, stroking one of his lower horns as he watched the female writhe on the bondage table. She was a beautiful creature. Long limbs, long dark hair, soft mismatched eyes that pleaded for mercy.
He wanted to defile her. Wanted to bury his cock in all her human holes but couldn’t. Those holes weren’t for him, much to his eternal regret. Violating her in that way wasn’t permitted because of his susceptibility. Human pussy was addictive, especially her pussy. One touch and he’d be lost in it. Normally, that wouldn’t be an issue. Humans could survive a demon fucking. He would’ve fucked her and broken her within a day. That wouldn’t happen to this female though. Every inch of her was dangerous and special. Oh, so very special.
He laughed as Mazt yanked the spike out of her destroyed limb. Special in so many ways outside of what lay between her legs. He could sever the damaged appendage, reattached it, then hack it off again, adding another layer of torture. This torture-kill game bored him. It wasn’t as fun as he thought it would be. She was too new. Didn’t know what she was to put up a proper fight. A Chosen. A gift from Heaven. A curse from Hell. She didn’t know the power hidden with her atoms, how the seraph and Belial changed her DNA to make her a creature of both light and dark. A creature with the power to kill a celestial and a demon.
If only she knew how to wield that power. Neither did he which was frustrating. He should be glad he found her before she discovered her power. She would be formidable. Now, she was just a pathetic human on the cusp of greatest she would never achieve.
Should he keep her? Make her his pet? His weapon? The idea tempted him. But, she was too dangerous to keep around. Humans and their unpredictable nature didn’t make good pets.
She turned her tear-stained face toward him, silently pleading for mercy. Mercy from a First Order demon.
Weak. Pathetic. Female.
Disgusted, he spat on her face. She’d taken one look at him and Mazt and fainted. Then pleaded for her life. Cows led to slaughter had more dignity. This was the feeble creature created to defeat his Lord and Master. One of eleven seeded in a hospital nursery seventeen years ago.
If this was the best the unknown Seraph and Prince Belial could come up with, the coming war between Heaven and Hell would end in seconds, not eons, and in Shait’s favor. He would be Prince of all Hell, not one of many princes ruling over a tiny realm in the Underworld. It would be him heralding their King’s return. Heaven would tremble and all of Hell would bow to him. His plans and Prince Belial’s betrayal, he kept to himself. Information was power, and he hoarded it jealously. Not even Mazt knew all the truth. To complete the tasks assigned, the Spaun didn’t need to know. He was a servant. Nothing more.
Shait looked at the pathetic female and suppressed his flash of lust for her scared, nude body. “Bring me the chalice.”
Mazt opened a micro portal and extracted the cup. It was a beautiful thing, its purpose deliciously malicious. Made of brimstone, locally sourced, and empyreal steel stolen from Heaven, it was forged in the deepest pit in the Ninth Level of Hell by the same forgesmith who’d created the Celestial Seal, locking their Master in his eternal prison.
Shait slipped on a pair of gloves — empyreal steel burned on contact — and grasped the chalice. It fit perfectly in his hand as if made for him. It wasn’t.
It was made to bring back a god.
Mazt knew him well. He cut the female free and shoved her off the stone slab. She tumbled to the dirt beaten and broken yet defiant and beautiful. The need to utterly destroy her burned like the sun.
With a dagger in one hand and the chalice in the other, Shait strode toward his goal. The human whimpered and tried to flee. As if crawling on her elbows and knees, because the holes to her palms and feet hadn’t healed — he was big into symbolism — would get her to safety.
There was nowhere to go. Not on this plane of existence. Not in his realm. Her fate was sealed at the end of his dagger.
A well-placed foot broke her spine. He tsked. These humans. So fragile. Paralyzed from the chest down, her arms flopped around, scrabbling on the hot ground, her voice too hoarse to form a proper scream. Pitiful yet entertaining. Too bad he couldn’t keep her, make her a slave. Alas, she wouldn’t live much longer. Her purpose derailed for a greater use.
Shait propped the chalice in front of her, grabbed one of her flopping hands, and sliced the tip of one of them off. Which one didn’t matter. A weak cry and a feeble struggle was all she had left while he dragged her to the chalice to hold her finger over the rim. He watched the sluggish flow. The blood was thicker than normal, and a rich shimmery crimson rather than a standard red.
Excitement stiffened his cock. Shimmery blood wasn’t a human trait. He watched each drop until — “Poker!”
Mazt applied the poker to the finger. It sizzled, but she didn’t cry out, didn’t budge. Only an hour to break. What a disappointment.