Mistresses of Hell

Mistresses of Hell
Prologue I
Morning After Senior Prom


Tiffany sighed heavily and shoveled more vanilla ice cream into her mouth, mumbling, “We really shouldn’t be eating this, you guys.”

Razielle snarled at her and took a hefty bite of black cherry. She swallowed it with a mighty swallow and pinched the bridge of her nose, praying for a lack of brain freeze. When none came, she smiled and shook her long, chestnut bangs out of her face.

“Look, Tiff, c’mon! We’re miserable, and mad as Hell, literally. Those stupid ignoramus losers made us look really, really dumb. I mean, sure we had fun without them, but still, it’s the principle of the thing!”

“Exactly,” Lillitha, AKA Lily, cried. “Nobody stands up the daughters of Satan!”

“Nobody knows you two are the daughters of Satan,” Tiffany pointed out. “Remember? Nobody is supposed to know.”

“That totally sucks.” Lily shoveled ice cream.

“I wanna chocolate covered rice ball,” Raze murmured.

“You seriously don’t need anymore calories,” her sister said.

“You’re chunkier than me, you wanna be peanut butter sandwich!” Tiffany choked on her ice cream when Raze snapped at her sister.

“At least I don’t have the metabolism of an obese monkey!” Lily snapped back.

Tiffany looked around at the other people in the room and wondered what they thought of the twins. It still made her nervous to be in a room with the girls’ minions. She still remembered how Julia and Pinhead and the others had tried to kill her and Kirsty. Now they were under orders to never hurt the girls, to always protect them. Although she knew Pinhead didn’t like it, she knew he wouldn’t disobey. It was Dr. Channard she was more concerned with.

Now, the Cenobites- at least, three of them, including Pinhead and Channard- were watching the girls with cold, unblinking stares. Watching them argue was always amusing- if you were human.

“Obese monkey, my ass!” Raze cried.

“You have an obese monkey ass?” Tiffany asked, caught off guard by Raze’s retort.

“I know you have an obese monkey ass!” Lily sneered at Razielle, who tried to kick her sister in the knee, crying, “You have an obese monkey ass.”

The bloody, skinless corpse that was Julia Cotton muttered, “Here we go.”

“My monkey’s ass is not obese!” Lily cried.

Tiffany blinked at Lily, confused, and muttered, “You have a monkey?”

The bloody, skinless corpse that was Frank nodded wisely, murmuring, “An obese monkey.”

“Is, too!” Raze yelled, clutching her spoon till her knuckles turned white.

“Is not!” Lily cried.

“Is, too!”

“Is not!”

“Is, too!”

“And Pinhead’s got balls! You obese monkey ass!” Lily added as an afterthought. Tiffany glanced at Pinhead, who appeared intent on Raze’s answer.

“Hey!” Wondering if Raze was referring to the obese monkey ass insult or the Pinhead’s lack of balls insult, Tiffany asked, trying desperately to avoid looking at the leader of the Cenobites, “Well, was he castrated?”

Pinhead opened his mouth to speak, but Raze cried, “No! And anyway, I am not an obese monkey’s ass!”

Her sister snorted and cried, “How do you know he wasn’t castrated? What have you two been doing?” Pinhead opened his mouth again, but Lily went on, “And your ass is that of an obese monkey. Get over it.”

Julia snickered, and sniped, “And how do you know anything about Razielle’s ass?”

“I could check that for ya.” Frank leered.

“Oh, bite me, you Trill-spotted crack whore! I’m busy!” Razielle snapped.

“Hey!” Lily cried at the same time Frank and Julia snapped, “Trekkie!”

“I am not a Trekkie! And I wasn’t talking to you, dorkus!” Raze muttered at her sister before wolfing down some more ice cream.

“Oh.”

“And my ass is not! And I haven’t done anything with the Prince except borrow some pins for my voodoo dolls. And I haven’t done that since I was thirteen!”

“So, you mean Pinhead doesn’t like your ass?”

That got everybody’s attention. Tiffany cried, “What?”

Julia looked about ready to puke, and muttered, “That’s disgusting.”

“I prefer inane,” Pinhead said in his cavernous voice, totally unruffled.

“More like inSane,” Tiffany muttered.

“Answer the flipping question! Does he like your ass or not?” Lily grinned as her sister turned a brilliant shade of pink, which stood out against her black velvet dress.

Raze coughed and snapped, “What? H-how the Hell am I supposed to even know that? Because I don’t, you know, and anyway, that’s more Frank’s department, the perv, and... and... and... and what the Hell has that got to do with anything, anyway?”

“Pinhead likes obese monkey asses.”

“What?” Tiffany cried, looking at the chalk white demon. He blinked once, and that was the only indication that he was surprised by what Lillitha had said.

“No, he doesn’t,” Julia snapped, glaring at the three girls. Both nineteen-year-olds turned to regard her with some measure of surprise, while seventeen-year-old Tiffany was still staring at Pinhead. Now he was looking at Julia, looking almost angry. Was he glaring at the... woman-thing?

“Believe me,” Julia was saying, “he has no interest in anyone’s asses.”

“Because you tried, of course,” Raze said sweetly, smiling. Her voice dripped sweetly poisoned venom and her eyes were glacial emeralds.

Tiffany caught a gleam in Raze’s eye, and turned so both Julia and Pinhead were in her field of vision. She murmured softly to Julia, “But you’re so old.”

Julia whirled to look at Tiffany, who blinked her innocent, big eyes.

It looked to her like Pinhead was smiling, just a little.

“I tell you, the Dark Pontiff of Hell is not interested in an eighteen-year-old demon princess’s ass! Even if she is the daughter of the Devil!”

“Is, too, Julia!” Lily yelled.

“Is not!”

“Is, too!”

“Is not!”

“Is, too!”

“How the mighty have fallen,” Pinhead whispered in Razielle’s mind. She flashed him a smile full of razor sharp teeth.

“Is not, goddamn it!”

“Is fucking too!”

“Hey!” Tiffany threw up her hands in the universal “don’t kill me” gesture. “Why don’t we just flippin’ ask him, huh?”

Pinhead opened his mouth to answer, when Raze lifted her long, white hand in a silencing motion. Her blood red nails glinted in the candlelight. Her eyes were twin pieces of glittering, dark jade as she said, “Dude, don’t even answer that. I don’t even wanna know. And besides, darling, that’s a hang yourself question.”

“Because you know the answer is no, huh, Snow White?” The skinless woman snarled.

Raze growled low in her throat and jerked her head all the way around to stare behind her at Julia. The corpse-woman took a step back as Raze, Lily, and Tiff both snarled, “Shut the hell up, bitch!” Bones cracking, Raze rotated her head another 180 degrees and then popped her neck to relieve some of the tension.

Tiff looked a bit green. She hated it when Raze did the Exorcist thing.

“And, anyway, so, what the heck were we talking about? Oh, yeah... hey, wait! Pinhead thinks I have an obese monkey ass? Dude!” She turned to look at the creature the Aztecs called the Flayed One. “You actually think that?” Raze looked pale, stricken. If someone who wasn’t supposed to think about stuff like that actually thought stuff like that, then that meant it was true.

“I-” The Cenobite got out one word before Lily interrupted, “No, no, I mean he’s attracted to the asses of obese monkeys.” Pinhead opened his mouth to interject, but Lily continued, “And if you don’t have one, he may not like you as much as you do.”

Tiffany blinked at both demon twins, then looked at the nail-studded demon.

“You mean, he won’t like her as much as she likes herself? Or he won’t like her as much as she likes him? And is that true?” She added, looking at Pinhead.

“I-”

“Duh!” Lily cut him off. “Of course it is.”

“Dude! He does not like obese monkey asses!” Raze glared at her sister and shoved a spoon overflowing with slightly melted black cherry ice cream into her mouth.

“Well, he likes yours!”

“Well, I like yours!”

Utter silence, then everyone turned to look at Pinhead, who still looked unruffled. He turned his unblinking, obsidian stare on Raze, who swallowed. He said, “The Crown Princess of Hell is the epitome of the temptations of the flesh. She is beautiful and dark, a mistress of temptation and suffering and pain. What is there not to like?”

“Whoa,” Tiffany murmured.

“Told you,” Lily said.

“Bastard!” Julia clenched her fists while Frank muttered, “Gross.”

Razielle blinked her huge green eyes and nibbled on her full, bottom lip. Her eyetooth cut into the flesh of her lip, drawing a thin ribbon of bright red blood that dripped into her gallon-sized tub of ice cream.

“Are you going to eat that?” Angelique asked, her voice waspish. She was watching the blood trickle onto the Princess’s comfort food, her face twisted with dislike. Raze glanced at her cousin and then turned to stare at Pinhead.

“Dude.” She said that a lot. “Is that what you think about all day? Aren’t you, like, supposed to kill and maim people and stuff? And drive them nuts and whatever?”

“I-”

“No, of course that’s not what he thinks about,” Lily said. “Not ALL day.”

Frank snorted in disbelief and muttered, “Yeah, right.”

Lily hissed at him, showing her forked tongue, and then continued, “He just appreciates your hotness.”

“He ain’t the only one,” Frank said.

Tiffany swallowed her vanilla ice cream and snapped, “Pervert! Shut up!”

“Like I said. Anyway-”

“Well, actually-” Pinhead began, but Lily yelped, “Shut up, no one’s talking to you! Only about you! Damn!”

Tiffany giggled at the younger princess’s outrage and said, “Yeah, and at you!”

Lily glanced at her human friend and laughed, crying, “In your general direction. Got it?”

“I-”

“Shut up, goddamn it!”

“Quit with the swearing, dang!” Raze nibbled on a spoonful of black cherry but had to put it down. She couldn’t eat it, she had to know the truth first. “Anyway, so, I don’t need an obese monkey ass?”

“No-” The leader of the Cenobites began, but Lily cried, “Shut up! And no, you don’t, Raze. Why would you?”

“Oh. Good.” Raze relaxed and began to eat her ice cream again.

“Of co-” Pinhead started to say, when Lily gave a strangled scream and cried, “Shut! The fuck! Up! God! I’m still talking! God!”

“No, darling, Xipe Totec.”

“Ha, ha, shut up, Raze. Anyway, besides, you’ve already got one.”

It took Raze a second to process that, but then she remembered the part about not needing the obese monkey ass, and it hit her.

“What?” Tiffany asked.

“Hey!” Raze cried, while Frank muttered something about feeling the burn. “I do not have an obese monkey ass, goddamn it!”

Tiffany sighed when her spoon hit the bottom of the container. Ooh, wait, she’d dug a tunnel. Cool!

Well, anyway, the twins weren’t going to stop fighting unless their father showed up. Tiffany wasn’t looking forward to that at all.

“This is just one vicious cycle, isn’t it?” She asked, and both Lily and Raze turned to look at her.

They blinked once and then shivered in unison.

“Oh, boy.”

Turning to watch the room’s door-less doorway, the three teenage girls jumped in surprise when a tall crimson skinned creature with long, ebony bullhorns stepped through.

“Thought it was you two,” the devil-thing said. The twins grinned, and Tiffany said shyly, “Hi, Darkness.”

“Tiffany,” he said, then, “Father’s coming, thought I’d warn you.”

“Why, so they’d owe you a favor, cousin?” Angelique narrowed her brown eyes.

Darkness smirked and said jovially, “But, darling cousin, just because your family is made up of back-stabbing Hell scum doesn’t mean ours is. We may fight openly more than your family, but we still love each other, and we’re not filthy, sneaking rats. That’s more than I can say for the children of Juggernaut.”

“How dare you-”

“Shut up, Angie!”

Tiffany’s jaw dropped at Raze’s moniker for her demon cousin. The other demon clenched her fists, but fell quiet when a thunderous voice cried, “What is going on?”

The twins swallowed hard, and glance at each other, chorusing, “Shit! Nothing. Daddy,” they added as an afterthought. Perhaps it would make them more believable.

No such luck.

“Indeed?” Satan arched an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest. Both girls paled and swallowed. While they would often threaten each other by claiming they were going to tell their Father things that they didn’t want him to know, they would never actually do such a heinous thing.

“Pinhead likes Razielle’s ass, Uncle Lucifer.”

That was a heinous thing Angelique just did.

“Bitch!” The twins hissed at Angelique, before Raze yelped, “He does not!”

Now, many adults- and many demons- think that they are very mature, but when it comes to most demons, this is not the case. They enjoy causing mischief- something that is rather immature- but they never cause any real damage. Now, when confronted with an opportunity to make themselves look stupid and immature, demons like Angelique will always do so.

“Does, too!”

“Does not!”

“Does, too!”

“Does not!” Lily and Raze cried.

“Does, too!”

“Does not!”

“Does, too! Does, too! Does, too!” Angelique yelled, slamming her fists against her lean thighs.

“Does not,” said Tiffany.

“Does not,” said Lillitha.

“Does not!” Razielle exclaimed triumphantly.

“Do you two ever not fight with people?” Julia cried in exasperation.

“Go to Hell, bitch!” The twins stuck out their tongues at her, forked and snakelike, before sucking them back in as their dislikable cousin crowed, “Does, too, indeed! He even said so!”

“Oh, really?” Both twins gulped and started to blink rapidly as Satan turned his dark, onyx gaze onto the Prince of Pain. They knew Pinhead wouldn’t lie to their Father. The leader of the Cenobites was too loyal to the Son of Perdition for that. Besides, in Hell, there were laws against that kind of thing.

“Yes. I did.”

Ah. Simple, painful truth. Satan arched an eyebrow, something that could mean either intense amusement or agonizing dismemberment, depending on the topic, and Raze cried, “God damn it!”

“It’s a little bit late for that, don’t you think?” Julia asked.

“Go to Hell!”

“That, too,” Julia said. She opened her mouth to say something scathing and witty, but she went pale at the sound of Lucifer’s devastating roar, as the Devil cried, “Out! Everyone out! Get out! Now! Except you, Prince!”

Pinhead froze in the act of rising from his Dark Throne, and slowly reseated himself. He looked completely unruffled.

Raze wondered how he did it.

Lily wondered if they were going to get grounded.

Tiffany wondered whether she was gonna die if she didn’t go home soon.

Pinhead wondered why the Princess Razielle was turning that tender shade of a baby rosebud in the early beginnings of the spring, and also whether or not he was starting to become sentimental these last few decades.

“Tiffany, I’ll escort you home,” Darkness said, and offered his huge, crimson-skinned, black-taloned hand. The young mortal blinked her huge, violet eyes, swallowing hard, but she placed her small, pale hand in his, and it enveloped hers until you could barely see it, and then he guided her out of the room.

Neither of the twins were very worried. Their younger brother, Darkness, could handle anyone that might disobey their orders, and he actually had a thing for Tiffany- as creepy as that was.

Both girls suddenly wondered if one of their other brothers might attack, but no. Adrian and Cassius were still in Limbo, Nicky was on Earth, Azrael was busy collecting the Souls of the Damned, and Minos was still grounded- and locked in his room- for trying to take over the world. Baltazar was busy leading life as a human and being married to a witch, Cedric was busy taking care of Ilean, their younger sister, and Damian just wouldn’t do something like that. Beelzebub was busy possessing the children of a town, Judas was still in Purgatory, Dante was writing a book and had no interest in being a demon, and Alexander and Zacharias were still too little.

“Get out, both of you girls.” Satan stared at the twins, his oldest children, and felt his jaw drop when they both shook their heads.

“No way in Hell,” Lillitha said.

“Or anywhere else, for that matter,” said his eldest, Razielle, the thorough one. She shoved her long, thick brown hair out of her face and did her best to meet her Father’s eyes. The Son of the Star of the Morning was a little intimidating.

“You can’t kill him, Daddy,” Lily went on. “Raze is in love with him.” The eyebrow popped up again, and went even higher when Raze squeaked, “I am not!”

“Oh. Okay.” Lucifer smiled. “I’ll just kill him, then.” He noticed the way Pinhead’s eyes shifted from his face to his daughter, waiting to see what she would do. In this instance, she cried, “No!” And then she raced to stand in front of the white skinned demon, arms spread wide, lips quivering with nerves.

“Hi,” she said, looking over her shoulder at Pinhead, and waved liked a little kid. He waved once, as if unsure what he was supposed to be doing.

“Princess,” he said in acknowledgement.

“Daddy, you can’t kill him! You don’t have a reason! He’s always been loyal, and he’s brought you souls, and... and... and you just can’t kill him, that’s all.”

“You’ve been watching too many Shirley Temple movies, kid,” Lucifer murmured, trying not to laugh. Raze smiled and cried, “Oh, my duck can do a wonderful trick! My duck can lay an egg!”

“And just what is so wonderful about that?”

“Well, can you lay an egg?”

“No, but I know damn well Xipe Totec can’t lay an egg, either.” Raze blinked, unsure of what to do. She muttered, “Damn you, Angelique.”

“So, you love him?” Satan asked his eldest child.

“Um...” she mumbled, chewing on her lip so that it bled. “Um... but, love is such a strong word. Like friend. I’d say more that I like him... kinda. I guess.”

“Hmm. And you,” Lucifer said, turning towards the Cenobite. “So, what are your intentions? Do you intent to marry my daughter?”

“No.”

“Yes!” Raze exclaimed. “Thank God. Er, kinda.”

“Sorta,” Lily said.

“Yeah,” Raze said.

“Right,” Lily said.

“Exactly,” Raze & Lily said, then looked at each other and offered each other a hopeful smile. The Devil shook his head and passed a hand over his face before looking at Pinhead.

“Do they frighten you?”

“No.”

“They scare a Hell out of me.”

“But... you are their Father.”

“And they are their Mother.”

“Squared,” the girls chorused, grinning. Satan smiled and murmured, “Rectangular.”

“Oh! Daddy!” Raze threw herself down on the ground, spread-eagled. “Don’t be such a freaking parallelogram.” Lily kicked her in the thigh, but she didn’t feel it. Her mind was still reeling from the square metaphors.

“Oh, my God!” Lucifer shook his head at them both.

“Nope, just your kids,” Raze said, pillowing her head on her arms. “Aren’t we sexy?” Pinhead nodded almost imperceptibly and whispered, “Yes, you are.” Lucifer’s eyebrow popped up, and he hissed, “Excuse me?”

“I said, ‘I doubt that they are.’ ”

“Oh,” Raze murmured. Lily glared and muttered, “Creep.” Pulling her sister up off the floor, she dragged the older girl out of the room. Razielle kept looking over her shoulder, watching her Father and his minion as she disappeared.

“Damn,” Pinhead muttered.

“Nice going, Prince,” Lucifer said. He motioned for the demon to sit down, and then followed suit, plopping down on a chair that he summoned from thin air. "That was just bloody brilliant.”

“Forgive me, my Lord.”

“Don’t let it happen again. Don’t worry about maintaining the facade of being a cold, heartless demon around them. It’s a waste of time and effort, because they’ll just break through anyway. Try to act... human.”

“Why?”

“Because, foolishly, it’s what the two of them- and quite a few of my other Hell spawn- want. They want human friends. They’re stuck with demons.”

“I see.”

“You like my daughter, don’t you? You got a thing for Razielle.”

“Nonsense, my Lord. I am empty. Exquisitely empty.”

“Sure ya are. You know, if she’s anything like her mother, and I know she is, then you really wanna be careful. I know you’re into pain, but Raze is likely to lop off something important if you piss her off too bad.”

“My Lord?”

“What I mean is, good luck trying to keep your treasured body parts.”

“Well... if the Princess ever wants children, she’ll keep her dismemberment to herself.” Almost like magic, up popped Satan’s eyebrow.

“I beg your pardon, Prince?”

“I... I... the Gates of Hell are open! Time to wreak suffering! Farewell!”

Before Lucifer could say anything, his lieutenant vanished in a flash of golden light. The Prince of Darkness shook his head and muttered, “Great. I knew that was gonna happen. It’s a fact of afterlife: demons are attracted to women with angelic blood in their veins. Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. I’ve got two sons to release, an Apocalypse to plan, and a pineapple to shove up Hitler’s ass.”


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