Made in Hell 4 Chapter 1

All this week I wasn't sure what I was going to put out. I'm ahead on writing books that I don't have covers for. Looks like It will be MiH this upcoming week and then Scholo 11 next week.

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The dark, dirty, brick walls and the early morning sunlight guided my way as I swept through the narrow streets of the Shadow Quarters. My body felt as light as a feather, and the air was murky from my distorted view of the world around me. I felt the wind as it blew through my smoky form, and there was a slight chill to the air, but the change in temperature never appeared to be an issue when I was like this.

Ever since I’d inherited the Smoke Flight, it had become my preferred way to travel, especially when I needed to get somewhere quick and undetected. It had taken a few hours to get used to the new addition, and at first, I thought it was going to be somewhat like the sensation I felt whenever I used the blue orb for travel, but now that my body was used to the feeling, it felt like second nature to conjure up the Smoke Flight and lift off into the air.

I could twist around any and all residents who got in my way, I could disguise myself high in the sky as a low-hanging cloud, or I could slip through the shadows without anyone realizing what or who I was. I could, essentially, hide anywhere, but I had to be smart about my movements. I had the ability to transform into a puff of smoke, but if I stood in the center of the marketplace, in the middle of broad daylight, then a few of the passersby would notice a strange cloud of smoke, especially without any flames or a source nearby. I doubted any of them would instantly think that I, a demon from the Hellscape, would be the cause of the smoke, but I still didn’t want to give anyone a reason to think twice about it.

Especially now that the Shadow Quarters had been targeted and were in the middle of a thorough sweep.

Ever since Ashe, Sveila, and I murdered the priest who had held Sveila prisoner, the Church had been trying to work out where the priest had gone, or what had happened to him. At first, they only searched the local areas, but now that they’d concluded the priest must have been murdered by someone, the Church had taken severe action to work out who was responsible, and to stop the killer from leaving the Port of Rengfri.

It had been our plan to leave Rengfri the second we could, and we had involved the help of a pack of werewolves who had some spare vessels for myself and my women to board, but the Church had brought in the help of the Blessed now, which really screwed with our plans. These men had been empowered by angel magic to make them faster, stronger, and tougher in battle, and they were one of my biggest enemies. These fuckers had always been an issue for Ashe and I ever since we first arrived in Rengfri, and now the Blessed had fucked us over again.

The Blessed had blocked off the port, which in turn stopped our quick escape. But now, it was up to me to scope out the situation at the port, and to work out what the Blessed were up to. I had to gather as much information as possible, and I wouldn’t have been doing my duty to my women, or the other groups I’d brought into the team, if I allowed the Blessed to continue on with their fucking plans.

And that was where my Smoke Flight came into play.

The Blessed would have instantly known if I was in the vicinity of the port, so the only way for me to really see what they were up to was to go in undetected. Ashe and Sveila stayed back at the manor mainly for this reason, but it wasn’t only for the issue with the Blessed.

It had been a couple of days since our fight with the incubi, and because those bastards used to rule the Shadow Quarters, I wanted us to all lay low until we knew if there would be any consequences. I knew some of the residents would be relieved the incubi were no longer in power, but I also knew some of them would be furious to find out, and it was those sorts of beings we needed to keep an eye on.

I didn’t only have myself to worry about.

I arrived at a cliff that overlooked the port, and a curtain of towering trees sat behind me while the sound of crashing waves lifted up from the ocean down below. Then I lowered myself to the ground and instantly transformed back into my human self in order to get a better view of the scene down below. I didn’t have the time to spare to allow my distorted vision and hearing to misinterpret whatever the Blessed were up to.

The forests weren’t a safe place for a demon to enter, especially a demon who was on the run, because that’s where the leaders of the Hellscape would send their minions to come and retrieve me. Fortunately, with the addition of my Smoke Flight, I could vanish before a demon could even make the first move.

I sniffed the air, just in case a demon was lurking in the trees, and when I realized the coast was clear, I continued to search the port with my eyes.

There had to have been at least forty-five men all dotted around the harbor, but it was easy to work out who were the Blessed, and which men had been ordered to help out with their ridiculous plans. I had seen a couple of the king’s guards roam the area yesterday, but so far, there appeared to be none of them present today.

The Blessed were tall, broad, and muscular in build. They wore rugged, dirty clothing, and their glowing, golden eyes shone even in the brightest of lights. The Blessed stood a full head and shoulders above the other men, and their arms were wrapped in thick, brown leather vambraces that appeared wrinkled and aged from constant use. They also appeared to be the only ones not doing any work, and they commanded the others with booming voices.

“You!” one of the Blessed demanded with a pointed finger. “Wrap that chain around the dock before I use your body to do the job! You’re all fucking useless!”

The terrified man nodded a shaky head and ran over to complete the task at hand. I had to hold back my laughter as I watched the Blessed walk around as if they owned the fucking place, but little did they know who was watching them, and who had been watching them for the last two days.

At first, it confused me that the Blessed were treating the holy followers of Rengfri in such a way, but then it dawned on me that if they’d brought in followers and treated them this way, the residents wouldn’t trust the Church’s judgment in relying on the Blessed. So, perhaps they’d enlisted the help of some other men, maybe some non-believers, and now the Blessed had a bunch of slaves who they could boss around and kill as they pleased.

I was so tempted to kill all of those men there and then, and to unleash my full potential on them. It would have given me so much satisfaction to watch the light leave their golden eyes as their blood painted the ground… But I had been smart up until now, and I couldn’t allow that to change any time soon.

The Church would be sure to find out if half of their men magically died at the port, and it wouldn’t have taken them long to work out who was the one to do it.

I ignored my urges, and instead, I focused on what the beings on the dock were doing, and whether there was any way we could have slipped past them.

The Blessed had ordered the weaker, terrified men to attach chains across every docking station, and giant pillars had been erected to block off the paths of any vessels who tried to enter or leave. It was clear to see that, in order for us to board a vessel, we would have had to make it across a large body of water, onto the vessel, and then leave. That was easy enough for Ashe and I to complete, due to our new powers, but for Sveila, it was physically impossible to do it without anyone catching her. Not only did we have to get us onto the vessels, but we also had all of our belongings to transport, and there was no way I was going to leave Rengfri without every last gold coin in hand.

The stone pillars hadn’t been there yesterday, so they must have been erected at some point during the night, but I also noticed that there appeared to be more of the Blessed than the day before, too. I briefly thought back to the number I had counted when we first spotted them, and I was certain there were at least twenty of them then, but now that number had risen to thirty.

If it continued on in this manner, then the situation was only going to get trickier as each day ticked by. I wasn’t sure of the reason behind the increase in numbers, whether they needed the extra pairs of hands, or the Church had felt threatened by something, but either way, I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

Something had to be done, and I needed to decide what that plan was going to be, and how I was going to act on it.

In order for the port to be free, the Blessed had to leave, either by force, or because I slaughtered every last one of them. Unfortunately, if I followed either of those paths, then the Church was sure to act upon it, and then I’d have another battle on my hands.

Most likely with the angels somewhere down the line.

But if I didn’t have the Church to deal with at all here, then not only would we be free to leave and return to Rengfri at any given moment, but it also gave me the window of opportunity to take over the island and potentially increase the power I already held. I could have the entire island in the palm of my hand, and I could decide who stays, who goes, and who suffers slow, painful deaths for their unforgivable sins.

An evil grin ran across my face from one ear to the other as I pictured the scenes in my mind.

My team, as it stood, consisted of Ashe, Sveila, the werewolves, the mermaids, and potentially a set of black fairy twins, but I could just imagine who else I could command and own if I became the ruler of this city. Everyone would bow down at my feet, regardless of whether they wanted to or not, and those who refused would meet their deaths, in any way I decided.

I’d have the ultimate power, and this was exactly how I wanted it to be.

A choked wail reached my ears while I was busy picturing my potential empire, and I stared down to see one of the Blessed had his hand around another man’s throat. The Blessed bastard lifted the man into the air as if he weighed nothing, and from where I sat, I could make out the redness of the man’s face as he slowly lost the ability to breathe.

“You think you can get away with shit like that?” the Blessed demanded. “You think you can fuck up our business?”

“N-no, sir,” the terrified man stuttered.

They continued to share a few more words, but they lowered their voices, which made it harder for me to understand them from way up on the cliff’s edge. The man continued to cry out in pain, and the Blessed let out a haunted laugh as he continued to allow the man to dangle in the air, with just one hand wrapped tight around the man’s throat.

The next thing I knew, the holy fucker let go, and the man crumbled to the ground. The color had left his cheeks, and the man never moved a single muscle, which made me think he’d died, or at least fallen unconscious.

The Blessed asshole continued to laugh, kicked the man in the stomach, and then stormed away.

“Let that be a lesson to all you lousy fuckers!” another member of the Blessed shouted. “Your bodies will be fed to the sea dragons if you continue to disobey our rules!”

I bit back the laugh that threatened to slip from my lips as I overheard their demands and commandments. It wasn’t much of a threat to me, and I would have loved to see these men’s reactions if I had been the one in charge. A simple strangulation was nothing compared to the force I held in my hands.

I stayed on that cliff for the next hour and watched as another pillar was added, more chains were tied, and a couple more of the men died. I briefly wondered how many men they had gone through in the span of two days, but then I quickly shrugged off the question. I would have done the same thing, and I would have received the same amount of satisfaction as I did it. The men clearly deserved their deaths, I just would have preferred for the entire action to be more thrilling and interesting to watch.

A sudden noise then broke into my surroundings, but this time, the noise came from somewhere nearby, instead of from the port below. It sounded like the rustling of leaves and the occasional broken branch, but that wasn’t uncommon in a fucking forest.

I sniffed the air in order to get a better read on who was nearby, and even though I picked up the faint notes of evil, it was nothing that truly concerned me. Even the most innocent of men had a scent of evil in them somewhere, usually from a sin they’d committed years ago.

The noises then came to an end, so I ignored them and went back to watching the Blessed. I had gathered enough information for one day and planned to return at some point soon. Perhaps I would send Ashe next time, and she could use her Infernal Darkness to slip through the darkness of the Shadow Quarters for a bit of fun.

But then the noise returned again, and this time, it came with a snarl and the sharp snap of a jaw. The snarling beast had drawn closer and closer, and it was clear that they weren’t innocently wandering through the forest.

As the beast came nearer, their scent intensified, and I instantly knew who owned that scent. It was a mouthwatering aroma of the swamp, mixed with the sweet scent of soil, and the evil that lived inside the creature’s blood was ripe with greed.

This beast was a troll, but not the sort I’d slaughtered in the streets of Rengfri before. This guy smelled feral, like he’d been lurking in the bowels of the forest for years, and I knew he’d caught onto my presence.

I stayed exactly where I was and watched with annoyance as the troll plodded through the trees.

His enormous stomach could barely fit through the trees, and the scraps of material that he wore strained from the force. His skin was a nauseating, putrid green, and his bulbous head came equipped with two large tusks that curled out from his bottom jaw and onto his top lip. The troll’s piercing gray eyes stared straight at me, but I still refused to move.

I had encountered wild trolls so many times throughout my existence, it was only another one to add to the list, but I briefly wondered if that was why the troll had chosen me as its target.

I had slaughtered an entire pack on one of my first days in Rengfri, and in turn, robbed them of the money they held in a shack. I still grinned every time I imagined those gold pieces, shining delicately in the light, but I knew the trolls would be missed by some who were most likely pissed, and now all the trolls in Rengfri probably knew of my potential, so it was no surprise that they held a constant hatred against me.

“Don’t even try your shit with me,” I snorted at the ugly beast.

The troll continued to grunt with every step, and he swung a battle axe that he held in his large hand. The blade of the axe caught in the sunlight, and it sent bright beams in my direction, but I refused to look away. The second I turned my back or looked away from my enemy, the bastard would swing for my head instead.

“I told you not to try your shit with me,” I sighed as I stood from the ground. “Now, unless your want your lifeless body to hang from one of these trees, I suggest you fuck off.”

My violet irises shone brightly as smoke trickled from my mouth, and a small ball of flames began to grow in my palm. It was a fair warning for the troll, and if he had a single brain cell, then he would have known how this whole thing would end for him. But from the way the troll acted, I had a feeling there wasn’t a single cell in his enormous fucking head.

The troll continued to snarl and snapped his jaw. Then he aimed the battle axe high in the air and angled the weapon so the sharpest, thinnest part of the blade was aimed directly at me.

At first, it amused me that the troll thought he could take me on, but that amusement quickly turned to anger. Someone had found me spying on the Blessed, and although the troll couldn’t say a single word to them without getting murdered by them, the holy fuckers were sure to hear the shouts and snarls from up here on the cliff, and the second the Blessed found out about our hiding spot, the entire operation would be exposed.

It’d be pretty fucking obvious that the Hellscape demon spying from a cliff was probably the guy who had made their precious priest disappear.

The flames in my hands grew wider, and I forced them to slip up my arms and across my shoulders. It wasn’t going to take much to slay this paunchy motherfucker, but I still wanted to terrify him as much as I could. I also could have transformed back into my smoking form, but there was no fun in that. The troll had messed with my plans, and now he deserved to die.

I just had to make it satisfying in a not-too-loud way.

In order to complete my task without the Blessed overhearing the fight, I sprinted through the trees and further away from the cliff. The troll followed me with heavy, deafening footsteps that shook the trees around us, and he continued to swing his battle axe in front of him. Trolls were known for brawling in the forest, so even if the Blessed did overhear this fucker’s snarls, they shouldn’t have felt too inclined to check it out.

“Right,” I chuckled once the troll was a foot in front of me. “Let’s do this, then.”

I threw the first fireball straight at the troll’s stomach, and then threw a second against his chest. His painful roar startled a family of birds, and the small animals flew from the branches as the troll continued to scream. The bastard became distracted as he attempted to bat out the flames, and this gave me the perfect opportunity to add in another hit.

Fire simmered in my hands, and as soon as I had the chance, I slipped my onyx blade from my belt, held it above my head, and brought the blade down against the troll’s shoulder.

A river of deep-blue blood billowed from the opening of the wound and then ran down his broad arm. The troll continued to cry out and scream, but despite the fact that his arm was almost fully detached from his shoulder, the fucker continued to fight. He swiped his battle axe through the air, and the wind whistled around me from the force of the swing.

I wasn’t sure if the troll had been trying to hit me, or if he just wanted to threaten me, but it didn’t work either way. I laughed once more, aimed for his second arm, and before the troll could raise his battle axe, my onyx blade sliced through his sinews and bones without an issue.

Droplets of blue blood splattered onto my face, and my originally white shirt became painted with the troll’s insides. Then the heavy battle axe crashed to the ground with the dismembered arm, and the troll’s roars grew weaker as his energy lessened.

Again, I could have easily left it at that, but there was no need to stop until the beast was truly dead, and the nearby trees ended up painted blue.

As the troll dropped to his knees and let out guttural groans of torment, I positioned the tip of my blade against the nape of his neck, and then I sliced through the tough, green skin, almost like how Ashe carved a loaf of bread. My hands nearly lost the grip around the handle of the weapon on account of all the blood, but I kept a hold of it and proceeded to carve.

Eventually, the troll’s bulbous head flopped against his chest, and I tore through the last few strands that kept the head attached.

His head rolled by my feet, and the rest of the carcass dropped a fraction of a second later. The body made a deafening thud as it hit the forest floor with such a weight that the fallen leaves blew into the air and then peacefully fluttered back into place again.

My feet stood in a pool of blood, and the trees and branches had been colored blue. The deceased troll laid in a heap made up of three separate pieces I’d dismembered, and I let out a pleasant sigh.

I would have stood there for ages as I admired my work, but I knew it wouldn’t have been long before the Blessed caught onto the brawl, and given their attitude, they probably would have wanted to make sure all participants were put to death. Not only the losing troll. There was no doubt they’d heard the cries, and it was possible they could have smelled the troll’s blood, which meant it wouldn’t have been long before they came to check out the action.

Before I allowed my Smoke Flight to take over, I hauled the troll’s body into the air, forced his back through a branch, and left the bloody carcass to dangle from a tree, just as I had promised.

I was many things, but a liar I was not.

I smirked as I let my body become insubstantial, and my vision began to blur as I transformed into smoke and lifted off into the sky.