Chapter 1
The two-headed demoness met him at the bottom of the shaft. She was frightening to look upon, with leathery black wings, mottled pink skin, and mouths bursting with needlelike teeth. Ram horns twisted from the sides of her heads and purple chains circled her wrists and ankles, binding her power. Her forked tail was long and skinny, and writhed like a snake.
"Master," one of her heads hissed. "It awaits."
"Take me to it," he said. "Take me to my abomination."
"But, Master," the other head hissed. "It has not fully healed -"
"Take me to it, Equenel," he commanded, eyes flashing like blue steel.
The demoness's heads nodded. "Of course, Master." She escorted him to a large central chamber, so tremendous that the roof, though brightly lit, was clouded with shadow. At the bottom there lay a huge, shapeless mass of flesh, spread over the whole floor, trembling in agony. Its body was rife with fresh wounds and old scars, and as it trembled it oozed blood. Capillaries spurted openly on its body as it lay on the chamber's floor, staining the black obsidian dark red with their contents.
Equenel took him in her long, thin claws and descended to a spot on the floor untouched by the grotesque mass. He reached out his hand and gently caressed the infected flesh.
"Hello, my abomination," he said soothingly as the mass writhed in pain. "Do you recognize not your master?"
The flesh's wrinkled eyelids blinked open, revealing two diseased, rheumy eyes. Its massive mouth opened and closed, revealing several hundred teeth. They were very long, incredibly sharp, and stained a filthy brown.
"Master," it whimpered.
He smiled gently. "That's what I thought."
"Master," Equenel hissed in his ear, "it is diseased. Wounded. Must you?"
"Hush, Equenel," he hissed back. "It is time for things to become more harsh for it." He removed a long, barbed whip from a sheath on his back. The demoness sighed, picked him up, and started flying around the cavern with him. He cracked the whip again and again, lashing fresh wounds across the quivering flesh and painting bloody stripes all over it. The flesh's mouth opened once again and it bellowed, screaming in agony until its roars could be heard all across hell...