Mind Games Ch. 06

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Beatrice opened her mouth wide.

The reflection flipped the paper, then slapped it against the mirror.

OR YOU WILL REGRET IT

The 'will' had been underlined and circled a few dozen times. Between blinks, the reflection was normal again. Beatrice stammered. Five minutes later, she was on the phone with her accountant.

"I don't care how hard it its!" She said, clutching the crystal orb of the phone to her head. She could have used her internal coms, but at the moment, Beatrice desperately wanted to hold something. "Start some charities! R-Right now!"

###

I sprawled in the bed. It didn't seem right for Hell to be quite so comfortable. My aching muscles twinged as Leviathan's hands caressed along my shoulders. I shivered as his cool fingers found places where I had gotten tight and he loosened them. I let myself turn into a puddle and reflected on just what a bit of sleep, some food, some drink, and a quiet talk could do to someone's perspectives. Lev had taken me to his kitchens and cooked up something that tasted a great deal like a well marbled ribeye. I had eaten, drunk down some beer, and gone right to sleep. The next three days had been spent just...recovering.

There were nightmares.

There were shivers and shakes.

Lev didn't talk much.

But he did hold me. So there was that.

Then, when he did talk, it was simple and to the point.

"Interaction is bidirectional."

My brow had furrowed, my cheek pressed to the hard muscle of his belly. I kissed around the soft divot I kept calling a belly button, despite it being no such thing on his alien biology. The kiss had come naturally - though we hadn't shared more than fifty words between one another. It was a bond made in fire and blood and sex. I didn't...wouldn't call it love, but it was something that made a kiss like that feel as natural as breathing.

"Okay," I had said. "Evil can't come into a world without good leaving it."

Lev inclined his head, fractionally. His avatar had cables connecting it to his draconic body, which sprawled on a massive pile of obsidian and copper and shale rocks. Smoke rose from several points on his body, wafting down wind over us and filling my nose with his scent. I noticed that as his head was inclined, his dragon body nodded in unison - creating a small cascade of shale rocks.

"Temporal exigencies force alteration in cyclic systems," he said.

"Time makes Hell different," I translated.

He held up his hand, inclining it from side to side. When he spoke, it was his dragon who opened its mouth and the words were deep. Bone rattling, sex moisteningly deep.

"Possibilities exist."

"But are resisted, aren't they?" I asked, quietly.

Both nodded.

"Entrenchment in purpose leads to calcification of mentality." Lev chuckled, quietly. I snorted and leaned forward. I found his nipple and bit it gently. He rumbled quietly. I felt a strange squirming happiness in that rumble.

"Well, ain't that just a pisser?" I asked, brushing my hands through my hair. I sat up and shook myself a bit. "Lucy runs away from the Big G to find freedom. Now, who knows how many billions of years later, he's just as stuck in a rut."

"Biblical allegories are imperfect and inexact," Lev said, shrugging those athletic shoulders of his. "Suffice to say that the multiverse remains irreducibly complex. There exists threats larger than a lack of illumination."

I shook my head slowly. "I can't fucking solve those."

"You can solve this. Or help." He looked right into my eyes.

I smiled. "I'll need a break, first."

And I had gotten it.

Rested. Relaxed. equipped. Blackened and scarred by reentry, my shotgun had been tossed away from the space station, and had landed in the vast plains. The artisans loyal to Lev had worked day and night to restore her to working quality. My armor was pitted and scored - but I hadn't wanted it fixed. I liked it weather beaten. Armed and armored, I stepped out of the front gates of Lev's castle. I rested the shotgun against my shoulder and looked out at the vast steppes of Hell. The smoldering flames, rising and crackling from the pits. The rust red skies.

In the distance, I could see the banners of Lucy's armies.

I grinned.

"The mind games are over, buddy," I muttered.

And I set off.

Cause I had some hell to pay.

THE END