The six person team appears in the pristinely clean building with a rush of air and a lurching of stomachs.

  John staggers forward, bringing a hand to a nearby wall to support himself. Kane collapses to his knees, coughing and hacking, Blackbeard vomits nearby, and Bella shakes it off.

  “It wasn’t that bad.” Lilith teases, stalking over to the trap door and flicking it open with a wave of her finger.

  “I agree.” Bella muses—or rather Cat now, as she joins the devil near the entrance, rifle scanning the space below.

  “Speak for yourself.” John gathers his senses, and takes in several breaths to steady his mind against the instant shift in location.

  “Come on now. Let's not be shy.” Lilith urges, taking the lead by letting her body float down from the trap door.

  “Damnit, I was hoping to get a peek up that dress of yours.” Kane cracks a smile as he stands up and follows after her. Bella doesn’t have the strength to give him shit for the comment, in fact Johns surprised Kane—or rather Shellshock now that they are on mission—can crack a joke so easily. John would never admit it, but he is petrified, as are the others.

  They follow Lilith down into the room and hallway below, John coming down last, and grateful for it, as the weight of his modified armor cracks several rungs on the ladder. John has to force himself not to shiver at the sight of the mangled mess of body parts still grabbing at them from their spot on the wall. In just a few days they were already more recessed than when they first arrived.

  It’s only a little comforting, having the grabbing hands and gnashing teeth a few inches further from his body, but that also means all of these people, or things that were once people, are a few inches closer to being totally consumed.

  “Oh Bazel, always the artist... rather ghastly taste if you ask me, but who am I to judge?” Lilith looks on at the walls in disgust.

  “Glad to know you disagree on his decor, now let's move,” Casper grinds the words out, pointing his weapon light down the hall.

  “So testy. Come on, we can't have a little fun before the work begins?”

  “No.”

  “Fine... so boring.” Lilith rolls her eyes and saunters down the hallway, her hips making a show of swaying almost hypnotically. She even takes a spare glance back to see who she has entranced before the last bit of light winks out and they are once more plunged into total darkness.

  Johns wills his mind to calm as the black begins to overwhelm him. In the absence of anything he can’t help but let it wander, and the places it wanders aren’t anywhere good.

  He employs the box breathing technique they taught his special forces unit. Inhale for four breaths, hold it for four, exhale for four, hold it for four.

  He didn’t need to do this the first time around, that was because the worst thing he could think of was dying, and it was a coin flip if there was nothing or something awful on the other end.

  Now, he knows the worst was waiting, and that has him shaking in his brand new armored boots.

  Before he knows it, the black gives way to the pool of blood, now at his knees.

  “Oh fuck...” Casper scans the area, his eyes taking it all in for the first time.

  John feels the man’s pain, the same pain that washes over Spaz.

  “This is fucked man, this is really fucked.” Spaz looks around, his eyes darting from the blood, to the circle, to the man in the middle of it.

  “Oh just you wait!” Kane cackles, shaking out his shoulders as the eyeless man in the circle's center begins to whisper a familiar chant.

  “Get ready!” Bella takes a deep breath and aims both of her handguns towards the man.

  “Just fucking kill him,” Blackbeard puts the carved mans head in his sights.

  “No no, we need Bazel to come to us. Let him summon his little minion. Hurting that summon will hurt Bazel more.”

  “Calm down Blackbeard, we went over all of this in the TOC.” Casper urges

  “Unless you want to actively impede me… Then I'll just take your soul.” Lilith shrugs, frowning at the blood that saturates her legs.

  The blood around them all shifts, as a familiar mass once again rises, forming from the gore and taking on that same, dreadful shape before them.

  John can feel his stomach twist, his grip on his custom rifle tightening. God he wants this to work. He needs this to work.

  The monster rises from the blood, its mass of twisted bones and flesh rippling with power. Its row of human skulls open wide and scream, acrid breath of rot rushing past them.

  “Alright little hunters, have fun.” Lilith claps once, and Blackbeard opens fire.

  Casper, Bella, and Spaz all join in a split second after.

  The room explodes with light, the concussive force of the muzzle flash sending ripples through the blood and spraying it as a mist all around them in staggered snapshots of time.

  The monster screams and roars, barely audibly over the gunfire that bathes them all in noise. Each bullet hole carves chunks from its body. It staggers, slows, and falls to a knee.

  John pulls the trigger on his energy weapon, but nothing happens.

  “God damnit.” John looks down, fumbling for a safety only to find it was already off. He flicks it around and continues to pull the trigger, nothing happening.

  The gunfire starts to die, the ripples easing from the pool of blood as they begin to reload, and the monster slowly begins to heal.

  “Oh my... Bazel must have really been hard at work.” Lilith clicks her tongue, watching as her life saving enchantment only stuns the monster that’s now ready to rip them apart.

  “Fuck fuck fuck.” John slaps at the rifle, reseating the heatsink, the battery, everything he can think of.

  “It’s not going to work hun,” Lilith coos, watching with more focused eyes as the monster's flesh begins to rebuild, taking one large lumbering step towards the others before the wave of gunfire sends it staggering.

  “Why the fuck not!” John looks to her, she was fucking with him, she knew it wouldn’t work... she had to have.

  No, the expression on her face was one that told John she expects her plan to work...

  “Because it’s technology.” She sighs, tapping at her forehead to indicate the helmets they all wore the first time.

  John is a fucking idiot. Of course his custom weapon won’t work here, it needs a god damn computer to operate and this whole zone is dark. He knew that. He fucking knew that and still he brought it here.

  Was he really that blinded by his own ego? He thought his plan to save the day was brilliant, he was some fucking clever engineer who fucked with a few pieces of government tech and thought he could kill a devil with a fucking laser gun.

  John lets the energy weapon fall on its sling as he pulls up his standard issue rifle as a secondary, joining in the volley of automatic fire, trying to help as the others shift around, careful not to catch one another in the crossfire but also make it so the monster can’t defend the chanting man in the center of his circle.

  Lilith appears next to John in a puff of black smoke, her eyes narrowed, her finger tapping her upper lip as she thinks.

  “If you have something to fucking say you better start saying it!” John drops his spent mag into the blood and slots a new one in, re-engaging the monster as two more heavy footfalls bring it far too fucking closer for comfort.

  He can smell the meat, the bone, the copper tang of the blood through the filters of his helmet as it fills the crevices of his armor.

  “I can make it work. But I’ll need a new contract,” Lilith offers coldly.

  “Fuck you!” John takes a step back, as do the others as the monster brings a fist down into the ground, sending with it a wave of blood and shudders through the cave.

  Spaz and Blackbeard have to jump out of the way as it follows up with another wild thrash before they can re-engage it, the force of their enchanted rounds keeping it at bay once again.

  Luckily, Bella and Kane manage to position themselves to focus fire on the chanting man, causing the monster to stagger and falter even more, though the man is not nearly as affected as any of them would have liked. As chunks of flesh are torn from his body, he pauses for only around five seconds before he begins to heal.

  “Stagger your shots. Optimize the downtime!” Casper shouts, his voice only barely breaking through the overwhelming thunder of gunshots.

  They obey, each one taking turns making precision shots, timed perfectly to keep the man's head off of his body.

  “They got this,” John tries to dismiss Lilith, but it’s clear they don't in fact “have this”.

  After the round of full auto fire and the second bout of burst fire, they are down to the mags in their rifles and one more in their carriers. After the next four shots ring out over twenty seconds they are down to a total of 45 rounds each. The sustained damage holds the monster at bay, but if Bazel isn’t coming now he isn’t coming at all.

  “If I make a contract with you John, I can get enough power to remove the wards around you, it should be enough for your weapon to work.”

  “Should isn’t going to fucking cut it, devil.”

  Another minute, another twelve rounds gone, though now the next shot has to come sooner. The chanting man pulls more power from the blood, from the walls, from this hell on earth. His healing gets faster, fast enough for their shots to come every second before the monster starts moving again, powered by each syllable the changing man manages to get out as his tongue clicks the roof of a half formed mouth as Spaz has to call a jam in his rifle.

  “John, I swear to you this is no play for your soul nor attempt to undermine our contract. I need Bazel to leave this realm as much as you do. Make the contract, and we can finish this before anyone gets hurt.” Her voice is low, urgent, enough that the others can't hear as she holds close to his armor.

  John grimaces, firing three rounds into the monster as it manages to bring a fist down towards Blackbeard, who back steps the blow but still nearly staggers as the shockwave and rumble rattles the earth underfoot.

  The monster shifts, spinning around so fast it’s a streak of red in the air, a clawed hand ripping at Cat.

  “Fuck!” John shouts, his rounds hitting the monster in its back, missing its now obscured arm as it makes contact with the French woman, sending her smashing into the pool of blood.

  Shellshock is forced to stop firing on the chanting man to grab Bella out of the pool after she doesn’t move to lift her head from it.

  Losing the position, the man begins chanting quickly, his voice rising higher and higher.

  The monster shifts again, charging Kane and Bella, sending showers of blood towards the others, forcing them to wipe it from their eyes and once again lose essential firepower on the monster.

  The cave vibrates, as Shell's gauntlet makes contact with the claw of the monster, the shockwave shredding the beast almost entirely, though its parts and pieces only make it a couple of feet before the mass coalesces and halts its movement by digging into the ground.

  Casper fires the last of his magazine into the monster's legs, buckling it, Spaz fires the remaining rounds in his weapon into the monster's head while Blackbeard grabs his hammer, slamming it hard into the monster's chest to buy critical seconds as Casper calls for the retreat.

  “Evac, now! Lilith get us the fuck out of here!”

  “Make the contract john!” Lilith counters.

  “What do you want then!” John calls out, sending the last of his 5.56 at the monster's back, stopping it inches from taking Spaz’s head off.

  “In order to gain enough power from the contract it needs to be substantial, John.”

  “You are not getting my fucking soul.”

  “I do not want your tired soul, soldier, pledge your loyalty to me.”

  “Fuck you,” John spits, pulling his handgun and unloading it into the chanting man as Casper helps Kane pull Bella from the blood, her eyes fluttering open, blood pouring from her arm.

  “You won’t make it down the hall John! You know you won’t!”

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  “Why the fuck do you want my loyalty?” John sprints towards the hallway, legs pounding through the near syrupy thick red.

  “Because you are the only one I trust.”

  “For a devil you make a shit liar,” John grunts, holding position near the hall exit as he quickly changes mags to buy them a few more seconds.

  “Stubborn fucking...” Lilith loses her cool for a moment, her eyes flickering wild with some mix of anger and anxiety. “You either take a gamble on me with your loyalty or you take a gamble on escaping with your friend’s lives John. Take the damn contract and save them!”

  “No.” John forces Kane through the hall into the dark, picking up the rear with the same trick he did last time, tossing two grenades into the room and then hauling ass towards the exit after the others move through ahead of him.

  His legs pound against the ground, heart once again thundering in his chest. His breath comes in raspy waves, the adrenaline coursing through his veins more than he can manage.

  They manage to get several feet down the hall before it starts to stretch out impossibly before them. Nearly half way before they are stopped, caught in the middle.

  John turns to the opposite end, his weapon trained into the black as the world around him vibrates with the thundering charge of the monster that seems all too keen to follow them out this time around.

  “Take the fucking contract John!” Lilith half screams it as she appears in front of him, her eyes blood red, her arms outstretched as she appears to physically pull the hallway closed, giving them twenty more feet of movement before sweat drips from her forehead and her arms drop, the hallway once again expanding out away from them.

  “I’ve made one deal with a devil, I’m not making another.” John grits his teeth and pulls Lilith away from him with his hand, sending a few rounds of the far less potent 9mm as the mass of muscle and bone that is the monster emerges from the hall behind them.

  The rounds barely stop the charge, the flash of light is absorbed by the black and consumed just as the writhing mass fills the entire hallway, each step sending the shocking vibration through his bones.

  John pulls the trigger until the mag runs dry, and by then the claws are already on him.

  He pulls his hand away just in time not to lose the whole thing. Instead the weapon turns to ribbons as it’s smacked into the hungry walls, each part grabbing at whatever made contact to pull it into the larger mass.

  With a roar, the creatures bares down on him, bloody bile saturating his armor as another claw is ready to take his head off, but Casper pulls him further backwards moments before contact, the monster’s strike instead smashing into the wall itself.

  The wriggling flesh of the wall reaches out to grab at the monster, and for a fleeting moment John feels hopeful, hopeful that this monster would be consumed the same way Bella and Blackbeard almost were, but as the Monster rips part of the wall out, it pulls with it a number of mangled body parts that shift and crawl along its body like a massive spider, adding to its total mass and making the next swing towards the mercs the deadliest one yet.

  Lilith releases her sparse hold on the space, groaning from the effort as the hallway expands out around them, space shifting just enough to stop the clawed hand, now tipped with a mass of other human hands from splattering them all.

  The monster's strike falls short, crashing into the ground and sending a force of wind towards the mercs like stepping in the way of a jet engine. John barely has a moment to think as the world spins around him, his body smashes into the ground, sending him ass over kettle for what feels like a mile, before realizing the perpetual loop in the hallway just meant he never actually went anywhere.

  John has to tuck his arms into his head to stop his skull from rattling off the ground before the constant spin eases enough for him to scramble back to his feet.

  Shaking out his head, a grunt turns to a scream as Spaz tries to claw his way from the wall, as hands and teeth and disjointed limbs reach out and pick at his clothes and plate carrier.

  Bella, now barely recovered, uses the knives at the end of her gun to carve off the hungry limbs, though more and more strain to pull Spaz in. Blackbeard smashes his hammer into the wall, once again giving it up to the wall of the flesh though the force rips through the mass nearest Spaz, allowing Bella to quickly cut the straps off his carrier.

  She manages to pull Spaz away just as the monster closes the distance on them again.

  This next strike isn’t going to miss, John realizes. Lilith lays panting on the ground, sweat pouring from the exertion, Bella and Spaz struggle to stand, Blackbeard no longer has his hammer and Shellshock is the only one primed to punch the thing to buy them a little more time.

  Shellshock takes four large steps towards the monster, the hallway's ability to shift space allowing him only that much, enough to get in front of John.

  The monster's clawed hand tears through the air and makes contact with Shellshock’s gauntlet, the shockwave ripping the monster apart to the shoulder. Its other arm comes in for a cross and Shell punches that one as well.

  He laughs, a manic, frenzied laugh that gets cut short as its head rears down faster than Shell can load his next strike, and consumes the man from his head to his knees.

  John’s eyes go wide, watching as the amalgamation of human jaw bones latch on to his brother, lift him into the air and then crunch through the bone, sending his legs falling to the ground like fresh cuts of meat off a butcher's block.

  One more faint explosion rips through the monster's stomach as Shell punches it from inside, but the flesh heals faster than before as the monster pulls more mountains of meat from the walls to add to its mass.

  John falls to the ground as the monster brings its newly regenerated arm down into the center of their group, forcing everyone to roll off to one side or the other, everyone but Blackbeard who is caught out on the far end. The tip of the monster's arm rips the man down the middle, his nose splitting in two, his chest cavity opening up as the claw severs the sternum. Blood sprays the hallway, Blackbeard collapses back, screaming as he watches blood spill from his chest, the scream turning to a gurgle as his sinuses fill with the blood from his split nose.

  John struggles to his feet but has to tuck back down as another strike rips flesh from the wall and sends it down on Spaz who’s face begins to look like that woman's, hands grabbing at him from the walls, pulling him deeper, ripping his cheeks apart as he tries to scream.

  Bella closes her eyes, waiting for the monster's next strike to kill her, but instead of the beast's claws tearing Bella apart they rip clean through Lilith who throws herself in front of the strike, tackling Bella to the ground while Lilith’s spine is split in two.

  Bella gasps, Lilith's material corpse falling atop her before it burns up into ash just as quickly.

  “You can have my loyalty!” John shouts, his voice rasping in his breath as the monster rears against Bella again.

  A contract appears in the air before him. John grabs one of Bella's guns, slits his hand across the palm with its blade and smears it across the pages just as the monster's arm smashes through Bella's legs, turning everything below the hips into ground meat—the resulting shockwave sending her limp body tumbling a few feet forward.

  John screams as he pulls his prototype rifle to shoulder, the electronics whirring to life, the energy building in his hand. He can see the HUD flicker on, and in one motion flicks the safety off and pulls the trigger.

  The room explodes with a pulsing red light as it fires out of the barrel in violent waves. The air itself screams in protest, crackling explosions as molecules of air are ripped apart around its edges.

  The impact of the weapon on the monster is more than John could have ever expected. Its meat and flesh burn away, carving a hole through the body and ripping up the wall behind it in a wave.

  Roaring, the monster tries to rip and tear at the beam, only to shred its own arms in the process. The weapon continues to destabilize the molecules in the monster's body, a viral like effect that sends more and more of its mass collapsing in on itself. John tries his best to center the weapon away from the Monsters center of mass, hoping to god or who ever the fuck was watching right now that it didn’t hit Shell who was still inside the thing.

  The monster falls to the ground, its body unable to regenerate quickly enough.

  Several alarms blare in his ears, and John drops the steaming heat sink, slotting a new one into the grip before reengaging the monster, pinning it to the ground under the force of the stream.

  “Lilith! Get them to med evac now!” John commands.

  “I can’t until you destroy that circle!” Lilith's voice reappears, her body slowly manifesting in black smoke nearby, having returned fresh from hell.

  John doesn’t wait a moment longer, he charges towards the monsters, and crashes through the hole in its chest. It tries to swipe at him, but instead only manages to tear half of its own body open, sending it crashing into the wall with a roar. John sprints down the hallway back towards the cave of blood until the darkness gives way to the man in the circle.

  Without hesitation John pulls the trigger again, turning the chanting man into a charged husk of nothing, never giving him a moment to repair himself as he arcs the beam around the circle, entirely removing it from the altar.

  Warning lights again, he drops the second heat sink and slots a third, pulling the trigger again to keep the circle down as it desperately tries to rebuild itself.

  He has to hope Lilith did as he asked, hope she brought them to medical. The wounds were horrific but none of them were dead, not yet, if they got stims in the next 10 seconds they could live—maybe.

  More warnings, he drops the sink and slams home the last one while tearing out the burnt battery at the top and replacing it as well for good measure.

  John holds the trigger down, until lighting strikes within the room itself, the air crackling with energy as the thunder sends him flying against the wall, pinning him to the edges of the cave with so much force his helmet cracks. His armor nearly shreds itself apart, his ribs collapse from force alone, the air ripped from his lungs as Bazel appears, standing atop the charred altar with sweat pouring from his head, his eyes tired, shoulders heaving from exertion.

  Clenching his jaw, straining so hard he can feel blood vessels pop in his eyes, John levels the rifle to the Devil then holds the trigger down until the warnings blare in his ears louder than the blood pumping through his skull.

  Bazel smiles as the blast hits him, then that smile drops as the red light begins to rip through his skin, charring the dark flesh, breaking through to the muscle underneath.

  His eyes go wide at that, and his wings spread outward.

  Another crack of lightning and Bazel is on John, ripping the helmet from his face and the gun from his hand, tossing them both away into the blood. The devil's pure black eyes stare through John, his perfectly white teeth visible in a smile as he looks at the smoldering flesh down at his chest.

  “I am going to love playing with you in hell,” Bazel snears, the vibrating baritone nearly enough to rupture John's organs.

  “Lilith already has my soul in retainer, sorry.” John cracks a bloody smile, shocked to see Bazel's eyes narrow.

  “Lilith...” Bazel speaks her name as if it were cursed, as if he's afraid of it.

  “Sorry hun, until I deal with you, he’s mine.” Her sultry sweet voice overtakes Bazel’s, and the devil loosens his grip on John, letting him fall into the noticeably smaller pool of blood. Now only a few inches deep.

  “What are you doing here?” Bazel nearly growls the words as he tries his best to appear unharmed by John's weapon.

  “Dealing with you... this whole mess is causing quite the incident you know.”

  “No, you succubus whore, how did you get out of hell?”

  “The same way you did.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Evidently not hun.” Lilith sucks in a deep breath, and lets her head roll idly to the side. “Now we can do this the easy way, or the hard way... Take one good look at me and tell me where my power lies, because I can assess yours and I find it rather.... lacking.” She accentuates the point by letting a finger drift to what was once the chanting man and the circle, neither of which have been repaired yet. The effects of John's weapon still lingers enough to ensure that its ability to heal even at the fastest rate is only enough to stop further damage, not actually repair or stop the ongoing burn caused by the atomic decay.

  Bazel lets his wings fold into himself, his weight shifting to the backfoot.

  Devil or not they took on human mannerisms and tells. Funny…

  John watches the blood level lower even more, until he is no longer in it at all, the pool all siphoning to the altar at the center.

  “What do you want then?” Bazel asks, voice wavering.

  “All of this. Give me everything you have here on the material, and in turn you will be barred from manifesting here in the mortal world ever again, and I promise I will not hunt you down in the hells.”

  “You’re mad...”

  “I am ambitious.”

  “Fucking succubus,” Bazel spits as a contract appears in fire at his face.

  “That is what we do, yes, very good.”

  Bazel manifests a quill from nothing, and signs the papers before him.

  “Good effort hun.” Lilith offers a finger wave as Bazel bursts into flame and vanishes from sight with far less drama than how he appeared.

  “Are the others safe?” John wheezes, he can feel that his ribs are broken, as are a number of other bones. His muscles shake, enough to force him to sit back against the cave wall to avoid landing fully on his face.

  “They are. Your contract with me bought me enough power to heal them just enough to survive the critical seconds it took me to restore my material form.”

  “So... what now? Am I you’re fucking dog for the rest of my life?” John spits, eyes narrowed at Lilith who saunters over to him, and squats in front of him.

  “I think I would enjoy playing with you a little, it could be fun to take what we did in your dreams into the real world...” She traces a fingernail under his chin and smiles a sad, almost sympathetic smile. “I can sense your heart still lives with another.”

  “Fuck off, stop toying with me and get to the god damn point.” John looks away, unable to meet her prying eyes. He doesn’t like how much she could see when she looks at him.

  “I may be a devil, John, but trust me when I tell you I’m one of the good ones... I won’t do anything with you.” She snaps her fingers and the contract for his eternal loyalty appears before him. With a flick of her finger it burns away, causing Lilith to wince as a shot of pain ripples through her perfect face.

  John blinks a few times, not at all sure what the hell is going on now.

  “I have all of Bazel’s material possessions, all of his contracts, all of his power. The cost of severing a contract is great, even for devils. We have no souls to give but we do have power. Every ounce of strength I gained from Bazel is gone, to free you of your obligation to me and remove this blight from this country.”

  John watches her, watches her bare the pain, a pain that looks immense. He doesn't know what a devil’s tolerance is but it surely has to be super human, and for her to have the same look in her eyes as men chained up in unmarked blacksites meant that what ever she is going through is nigh un-fucking-imaginable.

  “You gave up all that power, you broke your contract with me.. For what?” John gapes, his mind racing.

  “Because it is the right thing to do. I needed such a high price to get the power to win—and now we won. I don’t want unwilling subjects. Hell, John I don’t want any subjects. Bazel is a threat to the mortal world, so I helped you stop him, that is all.”

  “Bullshit, that's all.”

  “You still don’t believe me?”

  “You are a devil. I never went to Sunday school but I know one thing. Devils lie, they deceive. I am thankful you broke my contract but that doesn’t mean I'm buying what you’re selling.”

  Lilith stands, and brushes her dress off, shuddering through the last bits of pain.

  “This area is cleansed... I have business with Mr. Blackwood still. Do you trust me enough to teleport you back to your base?” She asks, her tone having dropped into something almost resembling sorrow.

  John knows it's bullshit, knows it’s all a facade to buy sympathy. She is a Devil for Christ sakes, and devils are evil. He doesn’t know much but this is one of the few things he’s pretty damn sure about.

  “Sure.”

  Devil or not there is no way he would stay awake long enough to make it to extract though.

  “In that case, I have a new contract for you.” She smirks, John's eyes narrowing to slits.

  She waves a hand dismissively. “Joking! So serious all the time.” She rolls her eyes, snaps her fingers and the weight of John's armor is gone, the growing cold of the cave replaced with the sterile scent of alcohol and latex as he finds himself blinded by the lights of the medical wing with the others as they groan and moan and spew curses through clenched teeth. At least they are all alive, just like she said.

  He did not like the fact that he is now entirely naked, but between laying broken in the desert waiting for another helicopter ride and being... miraculously cleaned and awaiting swift medical attention from the already sprinting doctors and nurses who notice his sudden arrival, he is perfectly content taking the ladder.