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The Devil May Care

Part 19

For DuskCypher

By Draconicon

Neither Andrew or Peter returned to the penthouse during the night, and by morning, Arnis was more than slightly concerned. His master was going to be coming back in a little while, or at least sometime today, and without his whores waiting, the bear was going to be in trouble. How much trouble depended on where the horse and orca were, and if anything had happened to them while the bear was out and about in the city. He gritted his teeth as he looked down at the blank screen of the penthouse computer.

Nothing...why is there nothing?

Dusk had programmed it to give him something to track the cat's various whores, allowing him to see where they were at any given time. The fact that they weren't at the penthouse was obvious, but they should have shown up somewhere in the city. Failing that, somewhere in the skies around it, if they had taken a plane.

Yet, there was nothing. Not even a blip.

That shouldn't be possible...the boss made the collars, and that means that they're as strong as the devil's power...

Which meant a certain tigress was probably involved, and he really, really hoped that he was wrong about that.

Please, Mercy, don't do this...don't do this...

Arnis stared at the screen, hoping that it would somehow defy logic and show him what he needed to see, but the map was still blank of anything that might be useful to him. Nothing at all, not even the slightest bit of help.

He was just about ready to throw the computer out the window when he heard a soft blip from his phone. He looked down at it, saw that there was a call coming in. A video call, for that matter.

...That's not master...

And that meant that there was only one person that it could be. The bear demon winced, taking a deep breath before picking it up. His finger shook before he dragged it across the appropriate icon, and the black screen faded away to reveal the tigress's face.

"Hello, dear."

"Hey, Mercy. What's going on?"

"Oh, I've just been very naughty."

"...What did you do?"

She smiled at him and slowly turned her camera. It flicked from her face to -

"Oh...shit..."

Bound up on steel crosses were the master's whores, their legs spread, their cocks tied up with hard wires that forced them to be as hard as possible. They were both groaning, their balls pulled down by weights, the marks of whip and flogger across their chest. They whimpered, their heads rolling from side to side. He could see the collars around their necks, see the way that the collars still gleamed, but it was almost in defiance to the damage to the bodies.

The screen shifted again, turned back towards Mercy.

"If you want them back, Arnis, you better hurry and find me. I don't know if my little hostages will last for much longer."

"Mercy? Why?"

"You know why."

"You...you..."

"Try and find me, hon."

The call ended right then and there, and Arnis nearly exploded with raw rage. Not merely from the humiliation of being fooled like this, for being played, but for the fact that he had failed in an important task. He growled, slamming his phone down against the table and shattering it into a thousand pieces. The glass screen went first, and the pieces shattered further, becoming like powder.

The bear demon leaped from his seat, running through the penthouse door. He was already shimmering, shifting, building up his speed and strength as he ran. The elevator at the end of the hall beckoned, but he didn't push the button.

It was faster to fall.

The bear broke the doors in, jumping down the elevator shaft with a roar that only his species was capable of. It shook the metal shaft around him, and he fell faster, faster, faster, as if he was dragging himself down rather than merely falling.

The many floors of the building zipped by, and he flipped himself over to land on his feet when he hit the ground. The entire building shook from the impact, and he grabbed the metal panels between him and the garage, ripping them right out of place.

Despite the display of strength, he was terrified.

She's already got them, already hidden them. I can't track the collars, and I can't track her.

That meant that it was down to blind luck. He had to hope that he could find where they were and then track them back from there. Grabbing a random SUV from the garage at the base of the building, he whirled it around and peeled out, hitting the road and driving as fast as the car would let him.

The grocery store. They'd gone to the grocery store.

Arnis was able to pick up Mercy's aura when he got to the parking lot. It hadn't exactly been hidden, that was for sure, and he could feel that she'd reached out and clubbed out two minds when she'd flexed her power. That meant that she hadn't been working with a lot of time; she wanted to get this done as fast as possible.

More than that, she hadn't teleported out, which meant that there was a slight chance that he might be able to follow her tracks.

Arnis growled as he ran his hands over the tire marks on the pavement, resisting the urge to wrench a piece of the concrete out of the ground. He could have done it, might have done it, just for the fact that it would give him a chunk of her aura to follow, but he knew that it would also disrupt the trail, make it harder for it to hold together. He needed to let it stay as powerful as it could so that he could follow it.

Fuck, fuck, fuck...

And still, time ticked on. If he didn't find her soon, who knew what Dusk was going to do to him. Hell, who knew what Mercy was going to do to Andrew and Peter?

Ring ring.

He looked back at the SUV, hardly believing it. It was an older model with a car phone. Slowly, he reached back inside, picking it up.

"Hello?"

"You're wasting time, my little bear."

"Fuck you, bitch."

"You wish you could. But you're not really my type."

"You - oh, I'm going to rip your fucking head off when I find you."

"Yes, well, you'll have to find me first. Tick tock."

There was a roar of pain from the other end before the call clicked off, and the bear resisted the urge to rip the phone out and throw it through the atmosphere into outer space. Instead, he rammed his ass right back into the seat and sniffed the air, following the smell of her aura.

I can track that...I can track that...

He thought he could, but the answer was, no, he couldn't. Arnis followed the path of the holy aura out of the parking lot and across the city, crisscrossing the city center no less than six times, but every time that he thought that he was getting close, he found the trail circling back on itself. It wasn't until the sixth passing that he realized that he was starting back on another looping path.

And through it all, the phone kept ringing, and it was always Mercy, always the tigress ready with a reminder of how much he was failing, how much he was leaving his whores out to dry, how it was just a matter of time until he ran out of chances.

The bear was losing his anger, slipping from pure rage into purely freaking out. He was about ready to punch a hand through the steering wheel at that point, and he shivered as he stared at the next stoplight, watching as it refused to change.

The phone rang again. He picked it up after the first ring.

"WHAT?!"

"You'll want to speak softer, my little bear. The more you scream, the more they hurt."

"This isn't fair, Mercy. I thought we had something."

"You fooled yourself on that. I did nothing of the sort."

"You lied to me. You broke your own law."

"I did not lie. Did I ever say that I loved you?"

"It was a lie of omission, you asshole."

There was silence, followed by a scream. A loud, pained scream that sent a shiver running down his spine. This was not a woman that was just dominating two other men. This was a woman that was punishing them for something that wasn't their fault, tormenting them in a way that wasn't fair, nor was it sensible.

"Do you want to insult me again, Arnis?"

"..."

"Good boy. Now. You have twenty-four hours."

"To do what?"

"Stop trying to find me. That won't work, and you know it." The tigress chuckled on the other end of the line. "Instead, work on convincing your master that he needs to come to me. It is time that he stops running, that he shows that he understands how a man is supposed to behave with the woman of his dreams."

"...You want me..."

"I want you to convince him to come to me. Willingly. To submit to me and do everything that I tell him to do."

"...You're crazy..."

"I am Christ. I am nothing of the sort."

"He's not going to do it."

"He will. If he wants his whores to live, he will."

"That's murder!"

"They broke the laws of heaven with their sodomy of themselves and others. They will deserve it. My hands are, as ever, clean."

"Mercy, you can't - I can't -"

"You have twenty-four hours."

Click.

Arnis stared at the phone, unable to believe what he'd just heard. She wanted him to convince Dusk, his master, the devil, that it was time to surrender to the angels and to the heavenly hosts? Even for the sake of Peter and Andrew, that wouldn't happen. The devil never submitted to the will of Heaven. The old one never had, and he had little doubt that Dusk would have the same sort of determination on that particular front.

And the fact that he had to be the one to deliver the news, to tell him that Andrew and Peter had been kidnapped, that he hadn't been able to stop it...

...If I live through this, I'm going to be amazed...

Arnis slammed his head through the wheel of the SUV, and the whole thing blew up.

A smoking bear returned to the penthouse an hour later, pushing the door open as several flames continued to burn along the ends of his smoky, burnt fur. He had attracted more than a few eyes as he had walked through the streets, and he knew that there would be a few news reports later of a bear that had managed to get the attention of everyone on main street, who had emerged from a burning SUV apparently unharmed.

He didn't care. He was about doomed, anyway.

Dusk was going to kill him. If Dusk didn't, then Mercy would. If Mercy didn't, then some demon of Hell would come up and do the job for either of them for fucking up the one chance that they'd finally gotten after years of being stuck down there.

We finally get a decent Satan, and I'm going to be throwing him off the deep end.

This might even spark Armageddon, which could have been Mercy's plan. He had been suckered in for the whole ride, and there was nothing that he could say in his own defense. He'd been led around by the balls, and he deserved to have them lopped off.

The bear sat down on the couch in the penthouse, staring into space, unable to take his thoughts off of his own mortality. He could feel the fires burning through his fur, could feel despair slowly overtaking his rage.

Shit...I might just die before he gets here...

It was part of the danger of a Wrath demon ever getting too calm. Sure, they could think more clearly, but that didn't necessarily make them a better demon. If anything, it started cooling their connection to Hell, and more than that, it started loosing some of the bonds of their own aura. His felt like it was starting to crack, to come apart as the rage that held it together was slowly overcome by despair.

I fucked up. I fucked up hard...

He slumped forward slowly, his head resting in his hands. He tried to call up some anger, even at himself. It was there, yes, but it was hard to hold onto when he kept feeling the reminder of just how much he had messed up. Dusk would be back soon, and he would just...

Maybe I should just...

Suicide was not something that demons thought about very often, mostly because they knew that there was nothing on the other side if they went through with it. A full death in the mortal world was something that might be recovered from, if they kept their aura intact and returned to Hell, but a loss of their aura, losing everything in that, would mean that they had given up completely. They were giving up their bodies, their everything, to the whims of fate and the winds of reality.

If he gave up, if he died, then he would be no worse off than if Dusk heard about what happened and punished him.

No...no...

Arnis shook his head, the bear pressing his hands against the side of his head. He had to last at least long enough to let the master know what had happened. If he died after that, then he probably deserved it. If not, then he'd be there to help. And if...

If the worst happened...

Well, at least Dusk would know that he tried. That was all that the demon bear could do.

So, he sat there, waiting.

#

The spell was almost complete. The entirety of Ornar's miniature realm, the onsen in its entirety, had been melded with a metaphysical version of the building that held Dusk's penthouse. The black cat was rather pleased with the results, nodding to himself as he looked from one end of the spell to the other.

The entirety of the onsen had changed, given a different sort of appearance, now that it was no longer outside. Instead, it stretched through the different levels of the building, the different apartments turned into different rooms of entertainment that the demons could use. Not all of them were occupied, as the building was larger than the onsen could fill, but it meant that there was room for expansion as their days went on.

Dusk smiled to himself as he watched over Lord Onsen's demons setting up their spaces. It was like a bunch of college students all looking for their first dorm, finding the right furniture, the right bongs, the right everything that might make their lives more comfortable and confirm that they were really living on their own for the first time.

It was rather charming, in its own way.

Through the move, Lord Onsen had stood there with him. Not out of suspicion, he knew, but out of interest. The orc had watched each spell be laid down, and the big guy had been knowledgeable enough to ask interesting questions during the process. He asked how the onsen was being bound to the building, how they were dragging it through the ether of the boundaries between the realms, how he was shielding this place from being noticed, and more, and Dusk was always able to give him an answer.

Mystery was nice, but not at the expense of loyalty. And now, he had more than Lord Onsen's loyalty. He had the big man's affections, too.

He smiled as he lowered his hands once the whole thing was done, shaking his head.

"That...was exhausting," Dusk said, shaking his head.

"Well, you certainly proved your power. Not using the devil's strength for much of that? I doubt that there is anyone in the world that could have done what you've done, Lord von Doom," the black-skinned orc said.

"Well, I do my best."

"You have done more than that."

The orc gestured at the silhouettes of the demons that they could both see in the metaphysical realm that the cat had set up. There were many of them that were slowly getting settled in, who were looming over the shadows of the mortals just on the other side of the 'veil' between this establishment and the building proper. There were hundreds of them, all waiting to be used as food.

"Have you sent any summons to the other brothel Houses?" Dusk asked.

"Not yet, though the buck you found spying has sent summons to his," Ornar said, shaking his head. '"I'm not sure why you rewarded him."

"Less of a reward, more of a rescue."

"He could have been a spy."

"Oh, he was. But he isn't in that business anymore." Dusk smiled. "I broke that link of his."

That had been the first thing that he'd done upon laying hands on the stag. It hadn't been easy, of course, but it had been the first thing that he'd done, just to make sure that Lord Diel didn't know the extent to which the Lust demons had been fixed. He didn't want the big guy to get a first-hand experience of how it worked.

Though, it would have been rather amusing to work him up from the show, to make him realize that there was every reason to submit to Dusk rather than fight. If Brutus had had any more lust to him than gluttony...

But no. That would wait for a bit longer, a bit further in the future.

He reached down, patting the orc on the rump. He looked forward to having the time to really get to 'know' the demons of the onsen in a proper way, rather than bouncing from one to another to another, slowly bringing them under his control. It would be more fun that way, and he imagined that it would sate them more fully than the one-shots that he had been doing up until that point.

Yet, that would have to wait for a bit longer. Just a bit longer. He had to finish establishing the spells on the other side. It would only be a few runes, then he would have them attached to his penthouse properly.

And then, we can start inviting the other demons in, under Lord Onsen, and through him, under me.

That was going to be the best part of it all. He would have the army of demons, and best of all, they were going to be right there in his apartment, right under the nose of Heaven, right under the nose of Mercy.

I might even be able to drag her through the door right into that realm, and put her through the wringer for a change...

Not that he would fuck her himself. He still had no interest in that. Feminine shapes did not please or entice him, and he wanted nothing to do with the woman after she had fucked with him for this long. But he was sure that there were plenty of demons that would be more than willing to put their hands on her on his behalf.

The cat shook his head. Later. Later. Later. All the fun stuff had to be done later. For now, he had to finish the spell.

He walked up to the portal opening that was synced with the door to his bedroom in the penthouse, then pushed it open. The lights of Hell came through and met with the lights of the mortal world, and he looked down the hallway to the living room. He expected to see Arnis, and did, but he didn't see Peter, or Andrew.

Seraph paused behind him, the bull having been at his side as a silent shadow this whole time, and Dusk paused for a moment as well. Something felt...off.

Something's happened.

Dusk shook his head, putting it down for a moment. He leaned around the portal opening, running his fingers along the doorframe. A few sigils were all that were needed to link the two, and he sighed as he felt the energy that required pouring down his arms. It wasn't the easiest of spells, but it was definitely worth it.

The black cat stepped through the doorway, making his way to the closet. He pulled it open, looking at the two objects inside. The blade from Hellsmith, and the coat, as well. They were both leaning against the far wall, and he clenched his fingers as he imagined taking either of them up. If he did, he knew that it would mean that everything had gone off the rails, and he didn't want that to be the case.

Please, please let this just be a bad feeling. Let it be wrong.

"Arnis?"

"Yes, boss?"

"Something happened?"

"...Yes, boss."

"...How bad?"

"Real bad."

"What?"

"...Mercy happened."

"..." The black cat reached into the closet slowly, running his fingers along the hilt of the blade. He had hoped to hear something different, something minor, something...something less infuriating. His eyes clenched shut, his other hand reaching for the cloak as if he was reaching for armor.

It isn't the case yet...It might not be so bad...

"What did she do?"

"...She has Peter and Andrew."

Seraph gasped, and Dusk's teeth ground against each other in pure fury. The power of the devil was rising in him, the anger, the Wrath threatening to fill him to the brim and drive all other feelings away. He had been holding back, keeping it at bay with all the pleasure of the onsen, but now, it was rushing forward, taking over, pushing to fill his heart and soul and everything else.

"Nnnngh...She...has them?"

"Yes..."

"And how...did she get them..."

"She found them. At the grocery store," the bear said, looking down at his lap. "I wasn't there."

"Why...not..."

He was barely able to speak, his rage rising so high that the air around him started to burn. The wooden doorframe was starting to crack, smoke seeping through the cracks as he struggled to keep hold of the burning Wrath inside of him. He had never, ever, ever been this angry, and he didn't know what to do with it. It had nowhere to go, nowhere to strike.

His fingers wrapped tighter around the blade, desperate for something to focus on. He felt the Wrath demon in the sword, and he felt it stirring in response to the anger in him, pulling at it. It was a place for it to go, a place for it to be -

Arnis.

He looked back at the bear, and as he saw the aura that surrounded the bear demon, he saw the cracks. The places where the rage had faltered. The places where despair had started shifting, shimmering, breaking through.

Mercy did that, too! he thought with an inner scream, the Wrath in his soul billowing out, making his fur flow and ripple, standing on end as he realized that she had pushed his bear, his demon, his bodyguard to want to rip himself apart, to commit suicide for his own failure.

The hate pushing off him was enough to start filling those holes, though it was hardly done by intent. There was just so much that it pushed the despair away, and the bear lunged to his feet.

"I fucked up!" Arnis roared. "That's how! I fucked up!"

"How?" Dusk asked, his voice barely under control.

"I wasn't there! I wasn't fucking there, and she knew that. She fucking tricked me!"

And that was all that the cat needed to hear. He knew that Arnis had been under the influence of Christ, and had known that she was playing games. He had abandoned them to the mercies of her, and had assumed that she would be smart enough to leave them alone, to wait for him to come back, to try her games on him.

After what she had done to Seraph, he should have known better. After what she had done to sneak in, after she had tried to abuse him and molest him in the café, he should have fucking known better.

The air around him crackled as the rage continued to grow, but he didn't care. He didn't care that there were fires burning in the ceiling, that the sprinklers were coming on. The hundreds, thousands of dollars of electronics wasted didn't matter to him. All that mattered was that he was angry.

No, furious.

No, Wrathful.

The sin of Wrath demanded compensation. It demanded that there be vengeance for this trespass, for this horrendous moment. She had broken all bounds, had shattered all expectations of her vileness.

I can't win Armageddon, he thought, growling as he squeezed the hilt of his sword. I can't win...but does it matter? Does it matter if I can get a run at her...if I can break her plans and make her lose everything?

In his state, he honestly didn't care. The way that he felt, hurt, lost, but beyond all that, filled with Wrath, it didn't matter if he died. It didn't matter if everything went to shit, if he went to Hell.

All that mattered was hurting her.

He clenched his hand on the hilt of the sword that he'd received at Brutus's party, feeling the Wrath demon inside it bloating with all the power that he was feeding it. He knew it could not take it all, that his rage was too great to be contained in one demon, or two, or a hundred. This was the rage of the devil, the sin of Wrath itself in his chest, and there was nothing that could contain that.

Not even him.

"Dusk..."

That was Seraph's voice. The fallen angel. He whipped his head around, looked back at the bull. The naked man had his arm reached out, even as the air was cutting, slicing, burning. Marks were forming on his arms as the devil's Wrath poured out of Dusk's body, cutting at his hand, but he still reached out. So did Lord Onsen, both of them trying to pull him back to Hell.

He could have gone with them.

He could go somewhere where the pain was not so strong.

But he didn't want to. He wanted the pain now. He wanted to feel what Mercy had done to him and his. He wanted to be angry, and to be able to lash out.

With a roar of fury, he swung his hand, slamming the doors shut and knocking both of them back to Hell.

"Where is she?" he growled.

"I don't know. I don't fucking know."

Both demon and devil were beyond thought, beyond rational behavior. They had lost themselves to rage, and they could not pull themselves free of it.

She's in the city. She won't be far.

And if he could find their collars, then it wouldn't matter where she was hiding them. If he was near them, he would feel that through her aura. Arnis couldn't, because they weren't bound to him. The programs that he had set up couldn't feel it at a distance. But he could.

And for every building that he had to search, he would burn it down.

He would burn down the entire city to find them. To find her. To kill her.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

The world continued to splinter around him, his fists the source of the black cracks that were shattering reality. Such power was beyond anything that he had ever brought forth, anything that he had ever researched. This was the power that Heaven had Armageddon ready for, the power that they feared, the power that they would end the world for to keep him from bringing it to bear.

And he still didn't know if it was enough.

As Dusk ran through the litany of faults, the mantra of grievances that he had against Mercy, however, he felt something, something different. It pulled at him from a distance, dragging at his core. He had never felt anything like that before, but he knew what it was.

It was a summoning spell.

No...no!

He lashed out against it, trying to sever it, but whoever had cast it knew their business. They had called out for the devil himself, just as he had done with Lucifer. Someone had decided that they wanted to talk to him, and their spell was crafted to the point where it wouldn't let him go until they had the chance.

With a roar of pure anguish, Dusk flickered out of his own penthouse, and took the reality shatters with him, and not a moment too soon. In that space between realms, in the summoning limbo, it was unleashed.

Where it burst apart, a piece of reality ceased to exist. And still, the black cat seethed with Wrath unfulfilled.

The End

Summary: Arnis realizes his mistake, and Dusk finds out what Mercy has done to his people.

Summary: No sex, butt, orc, bear, cat, bull, tigress, depression, torture, series, suicidal, rage, modern fantasy,