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The Devil May Care

Part 44

for DuskCypher

by Draconicon

Dusk had plans to leave Greed relatively quickly after setting up the routine for the portals and the soul tax to use them, but with the fight that came after putting in an order for the harnesses, he realized that the realm of Greed needed some more fine tuning before he could leave them to their own devices. If they were willing to turn down business because it wasn't traditional, then he needed to teach them what it meant to compete again. They needed to know that the flow of Soulari wasn't bound to tradition, but rather, to innovation and good bonds with one's customers.

So, when Seraph and Ornar came to him, asking whether he was ready to leave the next morning after he had enjoyed all that fun with the bull, he shook his head.

"We're not going. Not until this is sorted out."

"How will you do that, my Lord?" Ornar asked.

"Greed demons might have standards when it comes to their traditions, but they're still Greed incarnate," the black cat said, leaning back on his bed, his head against the headboard and his toes idly kneading against the sheets. "I'm going to appeal to their Greed and see how long it takes for them to figure out that the ones that do what I say get the souls, and those that don't get left out in the cold."

"You think that you can create that much business for them, my Lord?" Ornar asked. "From where?"

"From Lust, for now," Dusk said, smiling.

"My Lord?"

"You and yours have been growing stronger, Ornar. You said it yourself. Now that you're no longer starving, you're not held back any longer. Do you think that those that went feeding in the upper world were just having fun? Or do you think that some of them were padding their funds with a bit of soul stuff?"

"...I haven't actually asked, my Lord. I have been stuck with you for some time, so I haven't had the chance to -"

"They've gained quite a bit of wealth, Master," Seraph interrupted.

The black cat cocked his head to the side as the dark-skinned orc whipped his head around. The bull shrugged, smiling in his harness, something that hadn't come off since he'd put it on. The fallen angel rubbed the back of his head, not nervously, but almost like he was shyly proud of himself.

"I checked around. The demons of House Ornar have probably gained about 30% more net worth as a whole in the last few days alone, and with more than that from the previous trips through the Hellspire, they are probably among the wealthier clients in the realms of Hell at this moment."

"...Who would have thought?" Ornar whispered.

Well, at least he wasn't trying to keep that from me, Dusk thought, putting down a paranoid thought that he hadn't even realized that he'd been harboring. The idea that Ornar would have kept secrets from him like that wasn't particularly surprising, but the idea that he would suspect the orc and then be ready to take steps? He knew that he was getting a little more paranoid with the conspiracies all around him, but he hadn't realized that they had reached that step already.

Shaking his head, the black cat sat up in bed. His morning wood had faded, flopped over one leg as he looked into the distance. He used the power of the devil's aura, tapping into all seven sins, and delicately sent it out through the city, touching on the people around him and feeling for what the common demon of Greed actually wanted.

The answer was simple. They wanted things. They wanted status. They wanted power. The upper echelons of the Greed demons, the Guilds and their leaders, had unsurprisingly been hoarders of the first order. They had seized power through the old rule, and they had done everything that they could to keep Lucifer from looking at alternative sources of revenue. Likely because Lucifer would have made their contracts even worse if they had shown any sign of breaking from the old traditions, and that meant that the behaviors had become ever more embedded among the demon people.

If he was going to get anything out of them, he needed to break that behavior, and the first thing that he had to do was start getting orders in. If the big Guilds wouldn't accept them, then he would go for the independents, those without a voice in the Vault of the Oligarchs. Once that started changing, he imagined that there would be many among the Oligarchs that would start seeing the value of a different source of revenue streams, and from there, greater cooperation would be born. Greed was something to channel like any other, and it was a little more pragmatic, provided that it didn't get completely out of hand. There would be those out there that would stand against him, but as long as he could gain a majority among the others, and as long as he held the only profitable way for them to do business, then they would be forced to go along with him to one degree or another.

It was a simple plan of economics, something that he hoped would start shaping Hell into a better place without him having to be here for all of it. Dusk shook his head, holding out his hand.

"Get me paper. And pen."

"Lord?" Ornar asked, even as Seraph was already on the task.

"I'm going to put in some orders, and you can tell me which of the Brothelic Houses needs them most."

"You're buying on behalf of Lust?"

"No. I'm filling out the orders that will kickstart the different industries. Lust is still going to pay for it, they just don't know it yet."

"..."

"Ornar, trust me. You're going to love where this goes."

What followed was a mess of messenger imps being sent hither and yon through the realm of Greed. For the first hour, it was a mass of refusals. Dusk had put the orders for clothing, sex toys, even furniture in among the greater Guilds, giving them the chance to start showing that they were better than he thought they were. He wanted to see that he was wrong, that they could learn without him breathing down their neck. However, with each refusal, it became clearer and clearer that most of them were more obsessed with getting things back to the way that they had been rather than trying to get it better.

True to his word, Dusk spent the next hour sending the imps off to the more independent merchants among Hell. Some of them responded positively, but others said that they did not have the resources to create the orders that he was asking for. Those that were actually regretting it rather than just being polite received an offer of greater Soulari investment to get them started, while the rest were ignored.

Ornar winced when Dusk presented him the final bill. The orc chewed his lip in hesitation, looking up as if begging for mercy. Dusk gave him none.

"Sign the order."

"We just started getting back on our feet, and you want us to spend everything already?" the orc asked. "We only just -"

"It's part of the way things work."

"And how is that, Lord Dusk?"

"You spend money to make money."

"This isn't going to give us anything in return."

"Try it."

"...I'll try it, Lord, but only for you."

The black cat watched as the orc signed the papers, and as soon as it was done, he sent the contracts off with the messenger imps. They trailed with the lights of Soulari as they went off, the investment and the payment disappearing in short order. Ornar gave him a side-eye stare for a moment, then sighed. The orc disappeared, heading down to the plane, more than likely. Dusk imagined that the orc would be a rather hated figure in his own realm for a little while after spending that much of their resources, but it would pay off.

The power of trade is a real one, he thought, staring out from his balcony at Guild City. _And trade, for all that it is focused on coin, brings bonds. The more that you see of other people, the more that you begin to understand them, and the more that you understand them, the more profit one could make.

He wondered why Hell hadn't bothered to go after that so far. Were they that bound? Or had Lucifer been that much of a monster that he had forbidden all trade on the grounds that he needed to keep total control? It wouldn't have surprised him to learn that such was the case with that horrible man.

What a waste of potential...

Day two was taken up with waiting, with seeing what would happen next. The various industries that Dusk had tapped were quickly forming their own network of cooperation with each other, attempting to share resources and building up into something of a pseudo-Guild between them. The various real Guilds were paying attention, but most of them were only idly curious so far. One day might have been enough to get the whole operation disrupted if the Greed demons had been paying attention, if they knew what was happening right under their noses, but they were more focused on getting ready for customers that didn't exist yet. They didn't want to spend their still-scarce resources on shattering a new industry that they didn't really believe in just yet._

More the pity for them, because when the third day rolled around, not only were all the new businesses rolling in fresh Soulari, but they were begging for more orders, eager to get the business that had come pouring through their doors like a gift from the dark throne itself. Dusk grinned, telling them that they would need to wait a day. In the meantime, he took stock of the Soulari that he had been pulling in from taxing the larger Guilds.

They were so hungry for souls from Purgatory that they had been more than willing to pay the additional 10% emergency tax that Selene had insisted on, and for the first time, he felt grateful for that. The sheer difference that made in giving him the extra funds that he needed to take care of things was insane. With that extra 10%, he not only had the 'royal' funds to start putting in more orders throughout Greed, but he could start building the infrastructure between the different realms, as well, something that was horribly lacking.

Dusk spent the third day in the hotel room, looking over the maps of Greed and of the different realms that he was theoretically going to be responsible for if he ever took the dark throne. He wouldn't, of course - that was something that he still didn't want - but he had the power to use the tax funds to do what he needed to keep the realms from ripping themselves apart and making themselves his responsibility again.

Roads here, airports here, a few train lines...

It wasn't so much improving infrastructure in the realms of Hell, he realized, but installing infrastructure in the first place. He felt as he imagined some of the old colonists had felt when they had come knocking on the kingdoms of the old world, finding a place that was rich with resources, but with no way to get the resources to and from where they needed to go. Greed had so much to offer the other realms, so much that they could sell, but they were so focused on weaponry, and more than that, delivering it in the slowest possible fashion, that they were never going to get better without a forced uplift.

Dusk winced as he poured open the treasury, creating official airfields, and more than that, jobs for the demons that wanted them. He hired those in Wrath that needed labor jobs, offered little bits and pieces here and there to the Pride demons that were peering in - he was probably poaching them as supervisors, when it came down to it, but he relied on Selene to tell him if they were off-limits - and he made sure that Greed was as much of a hub as it possibly could be. Goods needed to go out, but more important than that, goods needed to come in.

"Spend money to make money," he muttered, shaking his head. "It'll pay off...eventually."

Hopefully sooner than later, though. While this was giving many demons something to spend, something to pour back into the economy of Hell, he needed to be sure that the buyers and sellers had things to work with. With the money that remained from the taxes, he poured that into pushing new businesses among the independents and the lower Guilds that were starting to see the viability of new sources of income, new customers. He started a line of wine, of cigarettes, and other sales of vices, things that might be enjoyable for more of the different realms than just the one. More than that, he made sure that it had the royal approval, something from the potential Second Satan, just to amp up the quality appearance for the different goods that he was having them put together.

However, his plans could not progress until he saw some results from Lust. If the initial purchase didn't do what he hoped it would, then this experiment was all but doomed to failure right from the start. All he could do was hope that it went as well as he had planned for.

#

The dawn of the fourth day came, and with it came customer after customer from the realm of Lust. Incubi and succubi alike came to the realm of Greed, each one with their pockets full of Soulari, and with Ornar returning with a smile on his face and a dazed look in his eyes. Dusk chuckled as the orc joined him, standing beside him as the Lust demons poured into Guild City from the new train station.

"Told you, didn't I?" he asked.

"How did you..."

"The more tools and options you have, the more prices you can charge. Some of these guys couldn't afford to start business with anyone not paying more than a certain amount, but if they have the tools to make it happen faster, or do it better, then they can charge a little less and make it up on volume," Dusk said as the well-dressed, scantily-clad demons walked past them. "That, and, well, you know. Confidence."

"That they have in spades, my Lord. You...goodness..."

Ornar looked all but shattered, but in a good way. The orc looked like he had just seen the salvation of his people rather than the destruction of them, and that was something that Dusk was happy to take credit for.

As the Lust demons poured down the street, though, he kept his attention to the windows of the various offices of the Guild. They had their headquarters not that far from the train station, and he could see more than a few well-dressed Greed demons looking out through the windows. They would see the customers, and they would realize that a great deal of purchasing power had just been seized by the lower-class demons, demons that were going to be rising in short order if they didn't do something about it.

Let the bidding wars begin, Dusk thought. Let the best company win.

Day five rolled in, and the lower-ranking demons had risen so far and so fast that they were willing to start paying the costs for souls from him, as well. They had formed a new Guild, fully processed and registered with the Vault of the Oligarchs, and they were slowly incorporating more of the independents among their ranks. The other independents that were still out there, those that had missed the chance to get a royal investment, had already started sliding into their own businesses, taking it slower, but starting to diversify. Dusk could not be happier. It not only soothed his boredom as he walked through Guild City to see the various niches starting to take off in business, but more than that, he felt like he was slowly creating a place that would be able to stand on its own once he left.

No more stupidity, no more stubbornness.

Well, that might be stating it a little more hopefully than reality would allow, considering that there were still some Guilds that were trying to convince the Wrath demons to buy all the weapons and armor that they had been constructing. Even Hellsmith was putting out feelers towards Wrath, trying to get something out of them, but so far, none of them were getting bites. The construction offers that Dusk kept putting out were getting the attention of the hard-working, stronger-than-usual Wrath demons, since it allowed them to demolish and construct things, and he paid well, too. Better to have the money, they seemed to think, than to spend the Soulari that they took in on things that they weren't using anymore.

The Greed demons at the top were in trouble, and they knew it. Everyone knew it, at that point, particularly as the Soulari started flowing in from other regions. The more that the Lust demons showed off in their brothels - a place that more and more of the realms were visiting these days, due to their rise in prominence - the more that the rest of the different realms wanted to try out that sort of life, that sort of lavishness for themselves. Those that could found jobs, and those that were paid quickly made their way to Greed to start finding ways to get more of the stuff that they saw in the opulent realms.

And those that could not find jobs? Well, Dusk heard rumors throughout Hell of different businesses popping up in the various realms. He heard of Wrath demons that were hiring themselves out as security for those that wanted to keep their new goods safe, or for the Brothelic Houses to act as bouncers. He heard of Pride demons coming around as influencers, using their abilities to judge and show off as a way of getting ahead of the competition. Rumors of Envy demons, even, doing commercials of sorts to show how much a certain type of good was worth to them, reached him.

The urge for money, the urge for goods, had settled on the realms of Hell, and the demons were afflicted with a consumerism that rivaled the worst and best of what mortals had felt over the years. All due to the little push that he had given them, he knew.

Dusk smiled from his penthouse, knowing that he had made enemies for life among the heads of the formerly top Guilds, and he knew that they would be gunning for him.

Just like he knew that Darith was watching his every move. The cat smiled as he leaned over the balcony, looking down at Guild City as it evolved beneath him. His cock throbbed from the boner he got from cucking the asshole in the realm of Pride.

"Your move, Lord Sertus," he muttered under his breath.

Lord Darith heard the words from where he sat in his throne room, and he narrowed his eyes at the portal. He had every reason to doubt that Dusk actually knew that he was being watched, but the teasing nudge from the feline was not something that he took kindly to. The smugness of the mortal outstripped everything that he had felt from Pride before, and the lion was not keen on seeing someone else attempting to usurp the throne.

Particularly when he was too cowardly to sit on it. The lion crossed one leg over the other as he looked at the smirking black-furred feline in the viewing portal. If the mortal had the courage to at least try and sit on the throne, rather than play this game of avoiding it and manipulating all of Hell as if he was already the ruler, then perhaps there might have been some admiration for the feline from him. Instead, Dusk was, well and truly, a coward. He did not wish to take responsibility. Like all mortals, all he cared about were his own comforts, and everything else could burn in the refuse pits of Hell as far as he was concerned.

He will never rule us, not well. Darith was convinced of that. The deals that had been made were forcing Hell to break down, to come together and leave behind the different places that they had come from. Wrath demons, working rather than fighting? Lust demons being seduced rather than doing the seducing?

Order, pride, everything had gone out the window, and he did not like it.

The lion got up from his throne. He knew that his wife and daughter were at least partial supporters of Dusk Von Doom, and there was a hint of reluctance as he took the path from the throne to one of his private rooms. Not for his wife so much - Lilith had always been a free spirit, and he was used to her doing things that he didn't agree with and having to clean up after her when she was done - but more for what his daughter was doing. Darith knew that she hated him, and he wondered, and sometimes hoped, that the support that she gave Dusk was more from a hatred of him rather than a support for the mortal. He half-hoped, half-wished that it was the case, because if it was, then there was something in her that still...

He sighed as he walked along. There was no point in hoping for something when there was no evidence that it was the case. For now, it was better to keep pushing forward, looking for something, anything, that might give him a leg-up on the feline that was running rampant through Hell.

He's already gained footholds in Wrath and Envy, and even here, in Pride...that leaves little for me to manipulate.

However, those footholds were still tentative. Dusk's only solid support came from Lust, and while that realm was on the rise and nobody could deny it, it was a realm that had been seen as a bottom-feeder for so long that it did not come with the prestige that other realms did. He had allowed Pride to stand off to the side, implied to be supporting Dusk, but that did not mean that he would allow full support.

It was nearly time to start withdrawing the official support of the realm. His daughter and his wife could support Dusk as individuals, but the explicit support of Pride should be withdrawn before much longer. The mortal had the support he needed not to die.

Quite honestly, he was feeling that it was nearly time to bring Dusk down, as well. While his movement of demon supremacy and pride had not yet reached the peak that he wanted, he doubted that Dusk would be so useful in removing further opponents for the throne. Brutus Diel had been one of the greater ones, and he was gone, yes. But the way that he had been removed, the way that he had been turned, meant that anyone else captured that way would be utterly destroyed in the eyes of Hell. One could only let a useful monster run around for so long before you had to do something about it, and they were rapidly reaching that point.

But for that, he needed allies. Wrath was useless, too devoted to making up for what had happened before, and too wrapped around the finger of the very man that had plunged them into poverty. Lust would never shift unless the wealth they had gained was stripped from them, and while Darith had ideas of how to do that, it would take time, too much time for him to devote to it right then and there.

No, he needed to remove Dusk's other foothold, the one in Envy, and then shift Pride to be a more active opponent. And Envy? Envy was always looking for somewhere to shift its spite.

Darith had left the shimmering stone of the throne room and the public part of the House of Sertus behind, surrounding himself in a room of black obsidian with sharp stones and blank facets. The lion reached out, dragging his hand along one of the points of the dark rock, and he allowed it to cut his palm.

The shimmering red covered the rock, then was drawn in, soaked through. It fed on his Pride, his power, his judgment, and he growled as the room quivered around him. It grew and shrank by intervals, the spikes coming closer and closer to him as if to impale him, only to finally withdraw as he growled it away.

"Envy..."

The room quaked, and then shifted, the various rocks cracking and grinding against one another before it formed a mirror of black stone before him. He stared at it, his eyes narrowed until it opened, revealing a slender, almost too-thin demon, one that looked black and shimmering as the stone that it was reflected in. The black mirror did not show the bodies, did not share secrets. It held back the things that would shame the other, and that meant that he would never see the ugliness of Envy when he called them.

He imagined that they thanked him for that in their private moments. No other had that privilege, and that meant that he treated them better than the average demon did.

"Lord Sertus..."

The figure hissed, lowering its head, looking down and away from him. Darith nodded, crossing his arms around his chest.

"It is time to take steps."

"Steps? Dusk had offered us good money, good jobs."

"Yes, but has he done anything else?"

"...He gives..."

"Not enough, does he? Not nearly enough. You are given Soulari, but a pittance compared to those that work for him in other capacities."

"Hssssss. We gain more than you do. We -"

"Do not try and stoke envy in me, little one. You might be Envy, serving as the Spite of Hell, but I am Pride. I know what I am."

"Hssssss."

"And be honest with yourself. You are nothing in his eyes."

"..."

"Nothing compared to your neighbor, Greed. Nothing compared to the realm of Wrath, barely open to anyone. He sees nothing in you. He sees nothing but the least of the demons."

"We are more! We...he comes to..."

This was the doubt that he had meant to sow, and more. Darith hid the smile that was trying to come out, shaking his head instead. The demons of Envy had always been easily led, and the more that one pushed them, the more that one sunk them into the power of their realm, the easier they were to persuade. They were naturally eager to have what others had, but more than that, they were eager to believe that they were less, that they were looked down on. The envious were always eager to be victims, and he knew how to play that. Pride knew shame, and Envy was shame as much as it was spite.

"He gives you less than a street performer would get, and yet, he uses you for his own purposes. He sees you as nothing but a tool, an advertisement for what he wants everyone else to have. He takes your pain and suffering, and offers Greed as the cure, does he not?"

"...He...he does..."

"But what cure does that give you? What benefit do you get at the end of that? Does he offer you anything, enough to lift you out of pain and suffering? Does he give you what you need to be the same as the others? Or does he merely leave you in the ditch, waiting for another chance to show how much the realms need from Greed, leaving you to suffer because it makes it easier to persuade the rest of the realms to buy something from him?"

The Envy demon said nothing, hissing and wringing its hands instead. Such was the state of Envy when it started getting all riled up, all worried about the future. Darith had already laid claim to its fears and its shames without even trying, and now, he merely needed to claim what he wanted from it.

The lion leaned in, resting his hand on the mirror, looking in.

"There is a way forward. A way to claim your pride and place. A way for you to feel equal among the other demons. All you need to do is listen to me, and I will guide you to Pride."

"Hssss. Pride gives nothing. Pride cares nothing."

"Pride does not care, this is true."

"..."

"But Pride can hate. It can hate with the best of them, with a rage as cold as Wrath is hot. We can hate, and we can hate for a very, very long time for the right reasons."

"You hate him. Why should I believe you?"

"Because I am Pride...and I have no reason to lie."

That was the thing. He had not lied, not even once. The wealth that Dusk was accumulating was based entirely off the idea of getting it from those that had money in the first place. Those that could afford to get into the Purgatorial realms, those that could afford to pay the tax, those that had the ability to fight and hunt and claim the souls that would make their goods worthwhile. There were those that were building up from the ground up, but while they were getting some success, they weren't getting all that those above them did.

Raising those from the bottom was reducing the power of those at the top, and he would use that as a means of snaring those that were already at the top. He had four Guild leaders that would need attending after this meeting, four Greed demons that were angry beyond belief at having to learn a new business game with new rules. They would be fodder for him, easy to convert, easy to play off of.

Envy, and Pride. Usually, they were on opposite sides of the spectrum, but with the threat that Dusk presented, Darith was willing to use any tool that he could put his hands on. The narrow, spindly figure on the other end of the mirror looked back at him, hissing again softly.

"You...will keep your word?"

"I will. So long as you do what you are told, you have my word."

"As a Pride demon?"

"As the head of Pride, of House Sertus, and as a Pride demon, you have it."

And it was given in honesty. He would see this done, no matter how much it stung him. His daughter might have picked the wrong horse to back, and it would hurt him to take the mortal down for that reason, but it was for the best. Hell could not run without a proper demon in charge. The fallen angel Lucifer had all but ripped their world to the ground. Whoever took the throne would have to build it back up, and while Dusk was imitating that, Darith could see right through him. He was nothing but a coward, a leech that was taking what he could from Hell while he could, and then would get out when the getting was good without giving back anything that he had taken.

Hell needed a demon, not a mortal. And it would have that.

"...What do you need, Pride?" the Envy demon asked.

"Just this..."

The sixth day arrived, and Dusk was in the middle of a rare bit of rest between Ornar's demands and Seraph's hungers when something tweaked at him. It was so minor, so small, that he almost didn't notice it, and when he did, he felt the urge to dismiss it. He started to roll over, to put it out of his mind, but then he felt it again. A twinge of hunger, almost, but not the same as he might have felt from Gluttony. No, it was a hunger for something different, and a different shade. A very, very green shade, as a matter of fact.

The black cat sat up from his bed, making his way to the edge of it and to the balcony, looking out and down on Guild City. He had established a series of billboards that were meant to entice others to buy things from the Greed demons, showing various commercials that were piped in from Envy. So far, they had shown the 'suffering' Envy demons getting one type of good or another from Guild City, getting high on the smokes or drunk from the liquor, showing them going from squalor to going to the rich penthouses that were being sold in modular form by the furniture companies. There were dozens of little things that they were getting, random demon families in Envy chosen by chance to be uplifted and given something better than their old life.

That had been the contract between him and them, something to build up the Greed sales. Dusk had every intention of building that up to the point where he could send some of the Envy demons for acting classes so that they didn't need the actual suffering any longer, but now...

He stared at the billboard right across from his hotel room, watching as an Envy demon was displayed getting all its goods taken away. It wasn't a commercial about a sale, but rather, a repossession, as if the demon had been given something and now couldn't keep it anymore.

"You wouldn't trust a mortal with your possessions. Why would you trust a mortal with your realm?" was the end tag-line, and Dusk went wide-eyed.

"...That...is a problem..."

Dusk extended his aura through Guild City, touching on every billboard that he could find and setting Gluttony spells to eat the energy keeping them running, shutting them down with what would look like the equivalent of a power outage. Until he was sure that none of the Envy commercials would turn political like that again, he needed to make sure that they didn't broadcast anything like that again.

Hopefully, he had acted quickly enough to get the various terminals and billboards down before anyone else had had a chance to see it more than once, and before the message could start sinking in for the other demons. He had no doubt where the message had come from, but how in the hell was he going to prove that? Darith would not have left a trail, even if he was the one that would have pulled something like this.

If he's working with Envy, that means that he doesn't like what I'm doing there. And knowing him, he's got a few different plots going. Pride is nothing if not confident in its abilities...

Which meant that if there was anything to be gained from the destruction in Gluttony, that meant that Darith would have started something there, too. Dusk gritted his teeth. He should have done something, anything to stabilize that particular realm before leaving, but he'd been high on success.

Stop. Stop. Stop. He held a hand to his forehead. For now, nothing is lost. You have time to figure out what to do next. All you have to do is make sure that you don't make another mistake like that. The economy is booming, and we can afford a little slip here and there. Just no more major slips.

Still, he would need to make sure that he didn't get overconfident again. That could have been far, far worse.

The End

Summary: Dusk starts pushing the economy of Greed in an entirely different direction, and starts to affect all of Hell with it. Darith finds himself rather irked by that and starts taking countermeasures.

Tags: No sex, nudity, M/solo, cat, demon, orc, fallen angel, bull, lion, various species, politicking, series, modern fantasy, hell, hotel, erection, back and forth, manipulation,