He reaches out and grabs me, I don’t have time to struggle. The next thing I know he has picked me up, spun around and sat me down. Then he turns around to face the demons. One of them aims his pistol, the big guy reaches into his coat, and there is suddenly a massive shotgun in his hands.

The big guy starts blasting. The demonic goon is struck in the chest, very human looking viscera explodes out of the massive wound, he flies backward. Another demon takes a hit, firing wildly as he falls. The she-devil, Baara, pops up from behind a stack of satanic decorations. Her face is filled with righteous fury as she flings an ornate knife. The blade sinks deep into the guy’s shoulder. He barely flinches, just swivels toward her and fires. The blast hits one side of her face, there is an explosion of blood and she falls out of sight.

The big guy starts walking backward, laying down a hail of suppression fire. The fake demons return fire, but their shots are erratic. I take the hint, heading through of the doorway and into a corridor. There are several doors, with one at the end of the hall. I can hear more gunfire coming from that direction.

The big guy loads a few shotshells, “Head out the farthest door,” he says, his voice just as deep and gravelly as you would expect. Then he rips the knife out and hurls it at the demon that just exited one of the side rooms. The poor bastard clearly wasn’t expecting that to happen, he ducks back into the room. I reach the door at the end of the hall and pass through it.

The main floor is an amazing place, even during the off hours. Satanic seals and symbols cover the floors. Demonic banners adorn the walls. Everywhere you look there is a pentagram or a skull or an inverted cross, everywhere you look there is an emblem of the fallen one.

At night this place would be a seething mass of naked bodies, a sadomasochist orgy presided over by artificial demons. The lights would be turned down and the heat would be turned up. A Doom Metal soundtrack would accompany the moans of pain and pleasure.

I’m not sure why Hell is so much fun, but it is.

The source of the gunshots is a woman in a blue jumpsuit that hugs her body tightly, like she had been vacuum packed into it. There are a pair of submachineguns in her hands. She is a caricature of a blond bombshell. The massive tits that are past the point of being ridiculous, the lips that are far too swollen to be sensual, she is another one of Dr. Gorman’s living mistakes.

The mysterious woman has taken cover behind a stone altar. She is spraying her SMGs at several demons that are hiding behind a stone pillar, one of them is another succubus. I dive behind the altar, posting up next to the woman. Rounds ricochet off of the beautiful carved stone and the immaculate, tiled floor.

She glances over at me, “I’m Sylvia, he’s Gustav. We are here to rescue you.”

As I try to wrap my brain around this new piece of information, I realize something. This is the woman that broke into the Archipelago. Gustav joins us, firing a few blasts at the door to the backroom, before chambering a few more shells.

I hear a voice call out, “John!”

I look over to see Mike, lying up against one of the ornate pillars. The client reaches into his jacket, pulling out that massive revolver I had gotten for him. He tosses the gun to me, “Use it well!” he yells before heading for the exit. Oh, you’re God damn right I will.

I pop up, aim down the iron sights and squeeze the trigger. The recoil is tremendous, the pain horrific, I can’t wait to fire it again. The bullet goes clean through my target. My attack, along with the hail of gunfire being laid down by my rescuers causes the remaining enemies to stay behind cover, only taking the occasional blind shot.

“I think that we should make a break for it,” I state, earning nods of agreement from my unexpected allies. We get up, making our way toward the door. It was then that we heard it, a mighty roar, a war cry from the depths of Hell.

The source of the sound appears. It must be at least eight feet tall. The creature’s torso is a solid slab of red muscle. Unlike the other demons, it walks on cloven hooves; its lower body is covered in a layer of thick hair. The face is long, the horns are impressive, the claws on its fingers look like they could slice open a military drone.

I have only visited this place once, and that was well over a year ago. They didn’t have this guy back then. I instinctively will my IC to do a quick search. There are posts from patrons of the Demon’s Den. They speak of how scary it was to see and hear this big bastard stomp around as the evening’s madness unfolded.

The face tenses up, the nostrils flare, its eyes burn with anger. The beast charges forward. Gustav opens fire, the shots blast chunks of flesh off of its body, but it just keeps coming. I aim and fire, emptying the rest of the cylinder, each round hits, causing the monster to stop for a second, but it quickly recovers. Battle damage has revealed that the organic body is augmented with mechanical parts.

It reaches us, Gustav drops his shotgun. The brute takes a swing, his massive fist connecting with the demon’s snout. The colossal fiend lets out a roar of pain and anger, before throwing its own punch. I tear my eyes away from the brawl, frantically looking around the room, desperately searching for a way to help. Sylvia is using her SMGs to keep the other enemies at bay, I’ve got no clue how much ammo she has left. I scan the walls, spotting a large sword hanging on a rack.

I pocket the revolver, then I take off running toward the display of wicked looking weapons. The rack is well out of reach, more than likely to prevent a guest from grabbing one of the implements. A shield that is decorated in demonic runes is located below it. I work the shield off of the wall, then I throw it at the rack, knocking it lose, causing it to come tumbling down.

I quickly inspect the sword, discovering that it is indeed real, and not a plastic prop. Thank god that the decorator made the choice to go with realism. Gustav lets out a cry of pain, I look over to see that he is clutching his forearm, which has been sliced open by the demon’s razor-sharp claws. Blood oozes out of the lacerations at an alarming rate.

I charge at the demon, aiming the tip of the sword at his chest. The point makes contact, piercing the skin, before striking bone or maybe metal. I rip the blade out, putting everything that I have into an overhead swing. The bruiser raises an arm defensively, the blade cuts through the flesh, sliding along the bone. My attack leaves me vulnerable; the beast delivers a powerful backhand that causes me to drop the sword as I am sent flying.

I land in a jumble, sliding along the floor for a surprising distance, before coming to a rest in the middle of a symbol that is constructed from the number 666. Gustav jabs the demon between the eyes, while the creature is stunned, he moves to the side, reaches down to grab something.

He swings the sword. The head isn’t quite severed, the blade stopped after it cut through the final neck bone. Blood sprays out of the wound with a force that natural arteries could never hope to produce.

The man’s face is filled with pure determination as he pulls the head the rest of the way off. With a surprisingly loud shout he throws it at the remaining demons, who are awe struck. He stands there for a few seconds, laboring to catch his breath. The flow of blood from his wound has stopped, the blows to his face have left terrible bruises.

“We need to go,” Sylvia says in a surprisingly calm voice.

We run out the door. Daylight stabs me in the eyes. “This way,” Gustav yells, taking a turn to the left. I follow him, praying for my eyes to adjust to the light. After a minute or two of running they finally do. I glance around, Canal Street looks so strange in the daytime. It is like I am seeing something I am not supposed to. This place is too profane, too magical to be seen without the cover of darkness and the daze that night brings.

The walkways are empty. No one gets in our way as we run, but there is also no way to blend in. What has happened starts to sink in, I begin to ask myself if this is real. A check with my IC shows that I am indeed cut off from Charles Fauré.

We reach the end of the street, the water flows into the foundation of a skyscraper. The two of them leap over the guardrail; I follow reluctantly. My body hits the water, the momentum takes me down deep. I claw my way back up to the surface, the others making their way to a boat that is parked just inside of the opening. We pile in, a pair of large engines speeding us along, the dim lights that are set into the low ceiling rushing past.

As I squeeze the water out of my clothes I wonder where they are taking me.