Ghost Rider III
Wind, Speed, and Flame
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Chapter One
Fire Will Burn Thee To the Bare Bone ….
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"Speak, or suffer." A careless shrug of delicate shoulders. "I care not, Mephistopheles."
The King of Hell - chained by blessed silver, speared with spikes of white oak, and scalded by holy water - looked up between the rivulets of blood running down his wrinkled face at the slender, pale woman in front of him. How? How had he ever found her enticing? This feral witch, eyes glinting like jagged black ice with suppressed mirth, with malice, watched as he struggled to fight through the kind of pain he hadn't known in centuries.
Black.
The first thing he saw when he looked at herwas black. Her black gown, a thing of ragged silk that clung to every milk white curve, billowed and writhed on imaginary winds, serpentine strands of sheer black material. The witch looked as if she were being engulfed by a coil of phantasmal, sable silk serpents. Her hair - blacker than a raven's wing - hung in a tenebrous cascade over her narrow shoulders, pouring like poison down her back. Jagged talons painted like obsidian blades glinted in the torch light, promising pain. Ebony lips curled into a smirk that held much self-satisfaction.
Mephistopheles knew that after this, he would loathe the color black.
The only alleviating color against the nearly blinding, icy whiteness of her skin and the near impenetrable blackness of the demon witch standing so haughtily before the Dark Prince was the crimson splashing her otherwise pale hands.
Blood. His blood. The only color in the black stone cell of Hell's lowest dungeon. Even Lilith's eyes had lost their normal acid green tint. Twin pools of onyx glass in her death pale face reflected the flickering torchlight. Her gaze raked him like talons. The thin, black needle-teeth of the Demon Kind, bared in an abyssal grin, stretched at her face, twisting it from its ethereal seductive beauty into something freakish and mortally terrifying.
The demon lord hissed in pain when Lillith drove the silver-tipped, oak spike she held in her elegant hands through his shoulder, cutting through flesh and muscle until the point stuck in bone. Snarling, eyes red with fury, Mephistopheles growled, "think you can defeat me, witch? You think you and Asmodai can take the SeeInfernumfrom me? Do you not know who I am? You will fail in this, Lillith."
"Can I take the Throne? Why, yes, actually. I think I can manage quite well. Don't you, dear? "
The Mother of Demons sank to her knees in front of the Devil, once her Consort, smiling. Her lips were a hair's breadth away from his mouth. As she spoke, her lips brushed against his skin, a mockery of a kiss. Devilish exhalations like sulfur and the poisonous zephyrs that were Lillith's breath mingled between them, and for a moment, the Prince of Darkness remembered what it had been like to rule Hell with this demon queen at his side.
Obsidian eyes took on a razor edge that cut at Mephistopheles's skin, like her talons, drawing black ichor that might have been blood.
"You see, once we have you out of the way, there is only your little Riders. Ketch and Blaze. Speed and Flame. Mortals, darling. Only mortals. You think you can frighten me with human spawn? I am Lillith. Once the Mistress of Hell, still the Mother of All Demons. You silly devil. "Even as she let out a tittering little laugh, her hand swiped across his face.
SLAP!
Blood seeped from the new slash wounds in Mephistopheles' cheek, four raked furrows from Lillith's claws, filling quickly with blood. He grunted and eyed the demoness in front of him with pure loathing. Once his Queen, now she would die at his hands. He would desecrate her, butcher her, and then he would drink her blood and devour her corpse. For decades, the High Lord of Hell had known that Lillith plotted to invade the Infernal Dimension, planned to wrestle the authority to rule the realm from him and then murder him. She, and that snake in the grass, Asmodai, Arch-Demon of Lust. The Devil had had decades of warning, and decades to plan.
They thought they could take over Hell? They would soon see the error of their ways... and die.
"Blackheart tried to dethrone me, "he reminded her, grinning inside. A tiny thrill shot through him when she wrinkled her brow and pouted. He knew that look. She tried to hide her perplexity at the sudden change of subject. The Devil continued, "tried... and failed."
The Mother of Demons chuckled, her voice like honey set out to entrap the stupid flies.
"Blackheart? Our second eldest 'son?' Ah, yes, I remember well how powerful and intelligent our son was. "Her voice choked the air with scorn. The contempt was clear on her face. The knife edge to her voice would have drawn blood from stone. "lost to your first Rider, if I remember correctly. But you see, myundead armies are strong enough to defeat both the Riders. Both Ketch and Blaze. The demons Zarathos and Petbe are no match for my lovely dark forces.
"Besides, Blackheart was weak. It is really better for everyone that you had him executed. "
Ah. Excellent. The one gamble in his plan, and it had played out just fine. So Lilith thought that the demon known as Blackheart was dead, did she? The old Devil grinned, showing his true smile for once. Sulfur tinged with blood spewed from his mouth in a crimson cloud as he laughed, brimstone melting in his throat. Teeth rotted to darkness gleamed in his mouth, pushed against his paper thin lips, needles and razor-thin thorns. His eyes darkened to empty blackness, twin pits with no bottoms, depthless, eternal.
Lilith recoiled. She loathed his true form. The true shape of Mephistopheles frightened even the Mother of All Demons. But the Devil's laughter enraged her.
"What is so damn funny? "
" 'Good thing I had Blackheart executed,' eh? And who is to say that I did? "The Demon King gave a weak chuckle at the vicious look warping the beautiful demon queen'face. Blood dripped into his eyes. It rolled down his cheeks like ruby tears. The effort of breathing continued to stab his chest and lungs as broken ribs screamed protests. Still, he managed to laugh at Lillith and her impotent fury. He knew it would gall her when she learned that he had anticipated her coup and made preparations against her.
"You're lying! "
He giggled maniacally. She shrieked at him, clawing his face and shoulders with her obsidian talons, "Liar!Where is he, then? Where is my son?"Her pitch black eyes blazed with twin embers in the depths of her gaze as she screamed and raked at the Devil chained before her.
"I sent him after the third Rider. You know the prophecy.
"Wind, speed, and flame will rise from the ashes.
Wind, speed, and flame with burn in the night.
Wind, speed, and flame with Ride through the Darkness,
Slaying the demons and bringing the light.
Wind is a shadow of both East and West,
Speed is a daredevil, recklessness his test.
Flame is mortal man with broken heart.
These three will tear the darkness apart.
"Once the Riders are banded together, they will destroy you. And Blackheart knows just where to find the last Rider. "
"You lie! "The desperation in her voice scorched the air. Mephistopheles smelled the stench of sulfur, noxious as rotten eggs.
"Do I? "He asked, wheezing with laughter. His chest burned. The Devil wondered if it were possible for him to die, here in the Tartaran dungeons. "I indeed?"
"You will pay for this, "Lillith hissed, her eyes burning with hellfire. She held out her hand, touching the wrinkled face with its skin like tissue paper, and snarled five words imbued with torment. Agony ripped through Mephistopheles, and his screams reverberated off the raven glass windows of the Black Palace.
Striding out of the dungeons, Lillith sprinted up the stairs, all the while shrieking like a banshee, "! Asmodai! Bring me a soul seed!"
She had a plan for her second son. Oh, yes, she most certainly had a plan.
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Author's Note: I own nothing that isn't copyrighted by me. The title of this chapter is a line from an old poem called the Lyke Wake Dirge. And I made up The Prophecy of the Riders. What did you think? Cheesy? Or cool? This chapter is 1500 words long about. I'm experimenting by trying to keep each chapter no shorter than 1200 and no longer than 1600 words, and see if I can still set mood and describe stuff well and everything.
Reviews?
Translation: See Infernum is Latin for Infernal Seat (aka Throne of Hell)
