Time Jacker by Aaron Crash (nonfiction book recommendations .TXT) 📕

“Oh, right, because we’re currently not fucking,” the demon spat back.

“Be nice!” Gabby shouted. Her halo flashed, and in a heartbeat, she had her divine horn and her sheathed sword hanging off her golden belt.

Bailey turned both pale and sarcastic. “Sure, Gabby. Whatever. I’ll be nice to you on our way into hell, where we’re risking our lives for some dumb bitch. Sure. This is exactly the right time for me to be nice. Let’s just go.”

Gabby frowned. “I’m sorry.”

Jack wasn’t sure why the angel apologized because it was the demon that was cracking under the stress.

Bailey rammed the dagger-long skull key into the bank’s bare wall and turned it. The entire back side of the bank seemed to turn to dust, but it was like looking at a picture of a wall crumbling. Then all of reality was torn away, and the bank wall was gone, the bank was gone, and there was a three-story hole in the world. Beyond was a blasted wasteland of stone structures, all in disrepair, underneath an orange sky that looked like it was on fire. The dry heat washed over them, and Jack could smell burning hair. He had to check his own skull to make sure it wasn’t him.

Overhead, a central orb of reddish-yellow fire burned unevenly in the orange swirl of decaying clouds. It seemed the smell of the human hair burning came from there. When he focused on that abysmal sun, the stink grew sharper.

Bailey summoned her war pick, and her dress ripped open, the red fabric falling to the ground of the parking lot as she strutted forward onto the blasted cobblestones of hell. A leather skirt and complex leather top replaced what she’d been wearing, with black boots that went up to her knees. Black vambraces covered her arms. It looked like a cross between armor and bondage gear. But this was the real Beyazul Baal, the real demon. She didn’t need to hide her true demonic self, and she wasn’t. She had her leathery wings, her black horns, the black eyes, and the vicious black spike of a tail, ending in a length of polished, razor-sharp bone.

She turned and pointed her war pick at Gabby. “Hide your halo for as long as you can. And don’t fucking blow your horn if you can help it. If we can get in there, get Annie, and get out without your legion knowing, it will be better for everyone.”

Gabby nodded. She did take off her jacket and blouse and spread her white wings. She also dropped her skirt. Dressed only in bra and panties, she floated upward with the orange hair-burning sun glinting off the metal edges of her fluffy wings.

Jack put the shotgun on his shoulder and strutted into hell for the first time, but probably not the last.

The smell of the torched hair was abruptly tinged with the chemical stink of something rotten, covered in bleach, and set on fire. That was followed by the stink of rot. It was like the land itself was rotting, and it was. Where there should be dirt or sand, there was flesh covered in a layer of white, powdery mold.

Bailey saw his disgust. “This section of hell was built on the corpse of one of the elder demon gods, a world-devouring horror, and it’s best not to think about that. A happier thought? Damned souls had to bring all of the stone here. The dukes give them Corpus bodies that are mostly wounds, rashes, and blisters. Good times. The damned souls in their rotting bodies have to repair it every ten thousand years or so. It’s probably due for repairs.” It was funny. The demon seemed almost embarrassed by the horrible state of her homeland.

Bailey plucked an ash-gray tunic out of nowhere. She tossed the clothing to the angel. “Put this on. There are slits in the back. You don’t want the demons looking at your titties.”

Gabby grabbed the gray tunic and slid it on, adjusting it so her wings were still workable. Then she smiled. “I think I’ll change up my appearance a bit since, well, you look so good, Bailey.”

Gabby turned her golden bracelets into vambraces which ended in gauntlets, protecting her hands. Golden boots reached up to her mid-thigh. Her halo morphed into a golden helmet, open except for a noseguard to show her pretty face. A golden cuirass covered her chest.

It was a great transformation.

“Why didn’t you armor up in the Land of the Tossed?” Bailey demanded.

The angel smiled. “I have my reasons. My very mysterious angelic reasons.”

Bailey returned the smile. “You’re the best, Feathers.”

Jack loved it when the two women got along.

They were standing on a hilltop of rotten flesh, with a crumbling archway above showing two demonic figures fucking, though the exact details were lost to time. However, he could make out the demon crouched with her ass up while a huge horned man-shaped fiend gripped her hips. Behind them was a mountainous region of mold. In front of them was a series of hills, covered with more crumbling stone, with some bridges connecting them. Most of those bridges were destroyed, though, leaving ragged gaps between them.

Things chittered in dark cracks, and eyes twinkled in the shadows, in the darkness. The orange light was horrid, but it was better than the darkness.

Bailey pointed to a hilltop where a disintegrating stone building teetered. “We need to get to that hilltop over there. I can use my wings to glide, but I can’t really fly. Remember, everything will want to kill you. If you see something, kill something. Your average imp is cautious, though, since this is such a violent, terrible place. Shit won’t attack you unless it thinks it can kill you. Hopefully, we look badass enough that they won’t attack us.”

A grand wall blocked out the horizon farther down the road. That wall was a thousand feet tall, with huge spikes of rusted metal pushing out from the top of the ramparts. In the