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In the Blue Limbo

I was almost nose-to-nose with an X-rated cartoon come to life A hot - literally - demon babe ay too cheerful for my peace of mind I kept the sword raised between us

She looked it up and down and flicked that long blue tongue over her full blue lips On her they worked "Well, honey, is that a sword in your hand or are you just happy to seeto sound neutral, but hed to clear out the knot "Who are you?"

She made a little yummy noise deep in her throat Real deep "Mmm I am the stuff of dreams The real fun ones, that is"

"Whose drea like her surface in my subconscious More&039;s the pity

"Anybody&039;s"

"Lemme put it this hat are you?"

An amused pout Damn, but it was cute "Honey, what you have here is a Grade-A, ultra-terrific, lon, get-down, let&039;s-make-hay-in-the-howdee-do-me-now-baby-in-the-moonshine" - she took a breath - "succubus!"

Uh-oh Not that I hadn&039;t had a suspicion or three, but it was hard to think with her breathing all over like that What an as

"I&039;httheir underwear" She sashayed - I&039;d never seen it done right before - in a slow circle I got a heart-stopping view of everything, including her long blue tail It had a little arrow-shaped point at the end, and she ran the tip up the inside of one of s

Ohhh, man, that tickled "I&039;ve - ah - ha-ha - heard of you But don&039;t you, like, have incubuses, too?" Or was that incubi?

She sniffed and whipped her tail back, lashing it restlessly around "Losers, every one of theet a date is when the woman&039;s unconscious You ever see one of those un-joy boys, you&039;ll knohy Uhh-gaa-lee But we succubae like a o till the dawn-done-done-does us" She raised her hands high overhead and stretched

Gawd have ain, shifted in place, and casually held the sword a little lower Okay, a lot lower

She winked "And honey, this is your lucky night I haven&039;t had any in aaages!"

"Any what?" I knew, but wanted confirmation Hell is not a place where you wanna take chances on the wording

She broke into a wide grin Real white teeth Lots of theet used to that "Oh, in?"

Like when I had that lunch with Filima, it seemed best not to commit myself to any specific direction until I had all the facts "What if I was?"

"Ooohhh!" She screa her head back

Holy moley, if she made a noise like that just froot serious?

She slipped a very war with me, honey, as of no, and how"

Under any other circumstances and in any other place I&039;d have been e Terrin never had told otten that T-shirt, but I hadthrough"

"Aw, they all say that, but you can put your feet up for a little bit, can&039;t you? Why else would you co for so and I&039;ll show you what it is allll about"

She looked like she could write encyclopedias about it, but that crystal eighing way too onna spend time with any cartoon-based lesbian demon babe while Terrin and who kno ainst a good healthy orgy, but those work better when everyone participates using their own body

I tried to loose her grip "It&039;s real generous of you, but I just cauys on the other side of the Gate, find soh the Gate?" She had night-black eyes, and they got real wide

"More like dived under it Those guys can&039;t follow me, can they?"

"But you can&039;t come here by that way It&039;s not allowed"

The pissed-off de similar "Why not?"

"It just isn&039;t They have their side, we have ours You go in by the Gate You never go out It&039;s The Way Things Are" She stepped away fro alarmed

Hmm Maybe Dante had a clue about different levels, but I couldn&039;t recall if he had mentioned one-way streets I wondered if he&039;d ever seen this world&039;s Hell Probably not or his Inferno would be a lot more popular with literature students; that, or he kept the high points about this section to himself

"Okay," I said "Probably better if I leave, so if you don&039;tI figured he&039;d been laughing his ass off the whole ti in and out like a bad radio MyhrBotello&039;s

"What? I can&039;t hear you!"

Linkanchorbreaking the circlebackpull you

The succubus looked at me quizzically "I never struck anyone deaf before Blind,disrupt

I checked behindso far as I could tell withinup and down like a phone line in a stororeel you in

Let go of what? The sword? The crystal? Let go how?

I felt a powerful tug onhtless The succubus ran after, easily catching up despite her heels

"Honey, you can&039;t go noe haven&039;t even started!"

"Can&039;t help it Don&039;t worry, I&039;ll call you Terrin, what&039;s going on? Terrin?"

No reply Maybe he was focused on bringing me out

I hit stairs with my butt, a very unpleasant shock "Ow! Watch what you&039;re doing! Terrin?"

The astral thread hauled me up a couple s along, unsure whether I was helping or hindering He hadn&039;t exactly briefed ony flared in h shot A blast of heat and light exploded behind ht myself at the last instant so the fall wasn&039;t too bad, but that didn&039;t register inin Wind, the hurricane-force kind, knocked rasp They went spinning off, vanishing into pale blue depths like feathers in a stor freight train I ducked and covered and hoped not to get crushed

Another hot flare, thennothing Total silence Total nothing and then so

I cautiously pushed up No pain Twisted to look behind ot to one Once that fact sank in, I sat down again, feeling sick, shaken, and more scared than I&039;d ever been before in my short but very full life

"Terrin?" I called My voice was flat, no echoes "You there? Terrin? Filima? Cadmus? Velma? Anyone??? Knock three times if you can hear me!"

No dice Not one little whisper in my head

The succubus came close, put a warm hand on my shoulder "What&039;s the

"Hey, you can talk to me" She did look sympathetic

My hands twitched "I - uh - I don&039;t wanna jump to any conclusions, but I thinkI think I&039; smile and squeeze "Oh, honey, don&039;t take on so! There&039;s lots worse things!"

"I can&039;t think of any"

"Well, let&039;s get your mind off it for a while You need a break"

Short attention span We had that in coh "But if et hold of you That&039;s the probleet in they can do it Most don&039;t bother Keeps out the riff-raff"

"I thought Hell was full of riff-raff"

"Soht I would, too "Okay, but I gotta find that sword and the crystal I brought in withblast"

"Do you knohat it was?"

She shrugged, not too concerned "Probably another spat between the Inner Overlords and the Outer Guardians They&039;re always at it Why can&039;t beings just get along?"

That was a spat? I didn&039;t want to knohat a real as like "Outer Guardians? What are those?"

"No one you&039;ll be seeing anytime soon They see you, not the other way around You cos have been so slow around here lately For the longest ti I shouldn&039;t be out, but when I heard you I just couldn&039;t resist taking a peek"

Well, I didn&039;t have anything else to do So in the Blue Room, but Terrin would find a way to fix it I hoped If not, then there wasn&039;t anything I could do, being dead And in Hell Though looking at the succubus, the situation wasn&039;t as horrible as itcompany with a horny - nice blue ones - babe was better than being on the uys on the other side of the Gate

She urged ainst s I&039;d lost, but the longer it took, the less important they seemed I was dead Didn&039;t need stuff like that anyo very far, that, or she wased color until ere in a kind of fluffy red chamber, all pillows and s bed Even the floor was soft and squashy

"This has possibilities," I said,considerably

She was pleased "Ooo, honey, I&039;: this isn&039;t one of those bait-and-switch kind of things, is it? Me thinking one thing and getting another that&039;s really bad for me?" I was still very much aware of my location

"Sweetie-tweetie-piddie-piewhen I&039;m bad, it&039;s better!"

"I just want to ask Succubae have a reputation, you know Not all the press has been favorable"

"And where did it coet a date if they picked it off a tree I&039;ll let you know right off that their guilt trips borea downer like theo?"

"Who knows Any lonely guy with a need for fun It&039;s What I Do"

That I could believe "Here, there or where?"

"Any place, any position, big boy" Her whiplike tail came up and tickled me under the chin "Oooo! You&039;re so soo-oooft!"

"Not all ofbetter and better everywith this babe I could deal with it And her Several ti," she murmured

Somehow my pants were down around my boots I didn&039;t mind the warm draft Neither did she We ended up on the squashy floor Woo boy, this was the life Or death

Then we rolled into soave a bit oing on?"

One of the curvy, pillowy features of the place e It stretched itself out into another succubus She was identical to the babe who had in!" she said to the newcorin blossoentle But they were not interested My blessings had just doubled and gotten a lot noisier I&039;d be busy here for hours on end, just whose end we had yet to work out It could take years

Then another orange succubus eed from a soft wall, and another surfaced frooodness

The rest of my clothes went away real quick after they lent a hand, or hands Tails too Those things got everywhere I was at the bottoer flesh and feeling pretty daood about it No way to keep count of them all I couldn&039;t tell if the first one was still with me or not; ere all over each other

"Save soleeful feawd fora Myhr-fest for sure I never saw - or felt - so ues, and hands at once, all of the everywhere on reat

As I looked to see how things were going for one of theet eaten by demons He never said it would be this kind of a chon

Ohhh,consciousness during that long and truly horrid drop It recalled to hi, only those were tolerable since he aloke up before hitting the ground Not so lucky this tih to knock his breath out, but apparently not froht, since he still lived

He was fairly certain he was alive, anyway He had to fight to get air back into his lungs, was frightened and angry at the sa to kill Botello no

Filimawhere was she? Over there, just a few yards He crawled toward her She also seemed out of breath, confused She opened her eyes, stared about and called his name when she saw hilad to see hihty anxious, too Understandable, if they here he thought they -

It hadn&039;t been a greeting, but a warning

Hard, strong hands cla else pressed heavy on thehie to break away His head was pulled up, there was a painful twist, and he heard and felt his neck snap

It was that quick

He collapsed in the dust, boneless

Now that&039;s just bloody unfair, he thought

Filiuish He could just see her standing, then launching herself toward hi noises and Overduke Anton laughing and cursing at once

"You bloody bitch! You won&039;t - ah!" The last was full of pain

She ht

Cad a hard time of it He could blink and that was the limit Very odd If his neck had been broken he should be dead But if he was in Hell, he was likely dead already It was all too much to take in, and Filima needed his help

She and Botello danced into view In Anton&039;s body Botello towered over her His hands were on her throat, but she raised her arrip Then she drove a sharp elbow into his belly He doubled over, but too quickly recovered Using a will he&039;d never called on before, Cad to slow hiive her a chance to escape