Victor

  Blood-red clouds roiled beneath a deep orange sky, and damn, was it hot. Sweat beaded down Victor’s ridged skin, soaking his already-drenched shirt and breeches. He hardly noticed the oppressive heat—he’d been in Hell long enough for it to become a mild nuisance.

  The tall, red-skinned tiefling cut a striking figure against the hellscape, his tattered clothes stained with ash, blood, and sweat hanging loose on his sinewy frame. A strangely bejeweled warhammer was holstered at his hip, and a thin satchel was slung across his torso.

  Victor hiked through Hell’s jagged canyons, each booted step crunching against obsidian and brimstone. Rivers of lava trickled through the valleys, their sulfurous fumes mingling with the acrid stench of charred flesh and scorched earth.

  He picked his way along a narrow path carved into the mountainside. His destination lay in the distance, a white marble mansion built upon a precipitous cliff. Its shiny white domes and pillars mocked the surrounding desolation with their pristine appearance. The journey would take hours; slinking through demon-infested canyons wasn’t quick work. Victor descended the hillcrest with practiced caution, every movement calculated as he followed the winding trail. Every shadow or crevice threatened to conceal opportunistic hellspawn.

  The path grew dangerously steep and filled with large, jagged boulders. Victor lightly hopped from perch to perch, his boots finding purchase on the treacherous decline.

  A strange sound reached his pointed ears as he landed on an outcropping. He froze, listening: a distant, wet, rhythmic spattering punctuated by labored wheezing that echoed from below. Victor gripped his warhammer as he crept forward, pressing against a warm boulder to peer around it.

  Below, in a small ravine awash with blood, stood a massive demon, its back turned to Victor. His deep red torso, covered in bloody claw marks, heaved with exhaustion. His gore-spattered horns curved from the side of his head and bobbed with each ragged breath. The beast stood amongst a smattering of broken and scattered…somethings. They were too mangled for Victor to recognize.

  The tiefling scanned the area, seeking a safer, alternative route. Victor cursed as he considered his terrible options. He turned to peer behind him. Maybe if he could—

  Victor’s foot slipped on a loose stone. His throat hitched, and he tumbled, rocks piercing and bruising his skin as others clattered around him. He crashed into the ravine, landing awkwardly, but quickly heaved himself to his feet, alert.

  The demon turned. Its barrel chest was shredded, chunks of flesh missing, its throat torn and mangled.

  Despite its grievous injuries, bloodlust blazed in the demon’s eyes. It haphazardly lunged at Victor, sluggish from fatigue. Battle-hardened instinct engulfed the tiefling as he planted his feet, twisted his hips, and ripped his hammer upward.

  CRACK!

  He connected with the demon’s chin. Bone shattered, and throat tore as Victor’s strike snapped the demon’s head backward. Blood spattered across the tiefling, and his blow echoed off the canyon walls.

  The demon stopped in its tracks, briefly suspended, then collapsed on its knees before toppling sideways, dead.

  Victor breathed a shaky sigh of relief and tried to calm his thundering heart. He stared at the loathsome creature. If it hadn’t been injured…

  The corpse made a wet, gurgling sound. Victor brought his hammer down upon the beast’s skull, splattering his legs with gore. Better safe than sorry in Hell.

  Wiping the blood from his face with a grimace, Victor surveyed the area, spying a faint trail winding up the ravine. He started for it, then froze. A pitiful whimper stopped him cold. He whipped around, hammer ready, eyes darting back to the demon, but it remained still. The squeaky whimper grew louder—loud enough to attract unwanted attention. His eyes caught movement. A small lump formed beneath a pile of gore bobbed with every whine. Victor approached cautiously, weapon poised. A tiny pink nose emerged from the muck, followed by a small black head.

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  Victor’s breath caught. A hellhound! Or at least a hell pup! The mangled bodies must’ve been its pack. His brief excitement turned into a dull ache in his gut. The pup was doomed without protection.

  Looking at the tiny creature, he saw an echo of his people’s history. His heart ached for the pup and their shared heritage. Like tieflings, hellhounds weren’t native to this realm of torment; they had plunged into hell with Luthmyr, the ancient elven city. Hell had twisted their species through countless generations of adaptations.

  Victor gently lifted the pup from the bloody mess, cradling it in his calloused palms. The pup was barely more than a newborn, its striking blue eyes barely open to the harsh world it had been born into. It was—she was jet black, with tiny nodules on her head, the buds of future horns.

  “What am I going to do with you?” Victor murmured—she nestled into his clawed hands.

  Something tight in his chest loosened, and he was engulfed with protective determination. She would survive to grow horns as long as Victor. He would make sure of it.

  “Well, I guess it’s you and me now. I’ll have to come up with a name for you later.” He wiped the grime from the pup with the cleanest part of his shirt before gently slipping her into his satchel. He broke a few fingers off the demon and slipped them into the satchel for the pup to nibble on before continuing his trek.

  Hours later, Victor stood before the mansion’s massive iron doors, their surfaces etched with scenes of torment. He pounded on them until a beleaguered servant—a burly orc in ludicrously pompous servant attire stretched across his warrior’s body—opened one of the doors just enough to usher him inside.

  The entry hall bustled with more servants, all bearing the same vacant, hopeless stare as they performed their duties in raggedy, knee-length sackcloth tunics.

  Victor was led deeper into the bright marble mansion, past gilded corridors lined with fine art and antique furniture. The occasional sufferer hung from the arched ceiling or slumped in chains against the walls, macabre ornaments among the candelabras, paintings, and statues. Victor remained indifferent and focused. There was nothing he could do for them; their fates were sealed.

  Victor was ushered into a circular room dripping with obscene luxury. Plush cushions and velvet rugs surrounded lavish couches arranged to showcase the hellscape through an open balcony. The walls displayed paintings of unspeakable acts rendered in masterful brushstrokes. More victims hung from the ceiling in iron cages or by their shackled wrists, while ornate tables throughout held gleaming devices for the consumption of exotic drugs.

  A figure stirred on one of the couches. The deep, purple-skinned devil turned, her sheer blue silk robe barely concealing her form. Velvet eyes gleamed beneath gently curving ash-gray horns. Alessandra. Victor noted her wings were absent, though her forked tail flicked at him playfully.

  “Victor,” she purred, her predatory smile extending to her pointed ears. “How lovely to see you. I trust the job is complete?”

  He extracted a severed head from his satchel, careful not to disturb his sleeping passenger, and held it aloft. Slight drops of blood dashed the carpet.

  “Wonderful!” She sat up and clapped in delight. “Barrington! Add this to the collection, and have Stella clean the blood.”

  “Yes, mistress,” the orc-servant replied. He took the grisly trophy from Victor and left, leaving the tiefling alone with Alesandra and her collection of hanging victims. Chains creaked as a nearby tortured soul—a human man—slowly twisted toward him with his arms held aloft, his naked body mottled with burns and lacerations.

  “Help me,” he rasped through cracked lips, his voice barely a whisper.

  Alessandra’s serene expression shattered. Her thin brow furrowed, her face contorted with sudden, violent hate, her velvet eyes blazing with infernal fire.

  “Quiet!” The word tore from her throat as she flung her arm forward. A whip of hellfire erupted from her grasp and lashed against the man’s body.

  SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

  Each strike drew blood, steam, writhing contortions, and screams. Victor flinched back, his hand pressed against his stirring satchel.

  “You dare speak to my guest?”

  SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

  “You dare disobey my orders?”

  The victim’s pleas for mercy and the rattling chains grew weaker.

  SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

  She continued berating him as she whipped.

  Eventually, the man fell silent, hanging limp and motionless from his restraints.

  SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

  Moments later, a dwarven maiden crawled into the parlor and aggressively lapped at the few drops of blood on the carpet, distracting Victor as he shuffled away in disgust. The whipping stopped, and Victor glanced at Alessandra. Her rage had vanished as quickly as it appeared. A pleasant smile returned to her lips as she relaxed on her couch, her eyes retaining a dangerous gleam.

  “I’ve held up my part of the deal,” Victor said gruffly, eager to leave.

  “Indeed you have!” The devil mused. With a flourish of her fingers and a puff of sulfurous smoke, a scroll materialized in her hand. She extended it toward him.

  “Don’t be shy,” she teased, fangs escaping her lips. “I won’t bite!”

  Victor crossed the room in long strides, took the scroll—and a step back— and unraveled it to reveal a map of the Norwich River region marked with red circles.

  “This is all of them?” He demanded.

  “All that I know of,” she replied with silken smoothness.

  The careful wording wasn’t lost on him, but arguing with a devil was a fool’s game. Victor slipped the map into his satchel and left without another word, one hand resting protectively over the bag. He had what he came for and something unexpected besides.