The Devil Made Me Do It: Cain, Part 1.1 by TheBaldestOfThemAll

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There are a lot of demons in life that are worth slaying, but some demons are worth succumbing to.

Being a demon hunter is a thankless life, but it’s the only life Cain Crawford has ever known.

Cain came out to the crossroads between California and Nevada a few days ago to investigate some cataclysms that shook a small community. It was the sort of sad, dying old town all by its lonesome out in the middle of the Mojave. Desolate, with nothing but blue skies and the bleakness of the dusty desert for miles and miles to keep you company. Nothing interesting ever happened here—not until the murders. They’d been shrugged off as the acts of men who’d gone mad by most in the once-sleepy locale, but to the grizzled huntsman, reeked of all the tell-tale signs of some sort of otherworldly intervention.

Another day, another damn demon. Well, make that *three* demons—three raging demons of Wrath whose heads were wrapped up haphazardly with some newspapers and trash bags in the trunk and bound with some seals and a hex. They sure made a Hell of a lot of noise hissing in there all pissed off.

Cain dialed a number into his phone. It buzzed on for a bit before someone finally picked up.

"What?" a gruff old man’s voice on the other end asked, impatient.

"The job’s done, Mr. Yeager." Cain said, breathing deeply out of anticipation for the old man’s bulls**t.

"Is it now?" Mr. Yeager asked with a cuttingness to his voice. "You know how I operate. You’re not getting anything out of me until you’ve got proof."

"Hell yeah I’ve got proof," Cain exhaled, "When I say I got the job done, I got the job done. I expect to get paid."

"Fine," Mr. Yeager grumbled on a bit more before continuing. "Be here bright and early tomorrow morning and I’ll take a look at your work. Don’t off them just yet." The old man hung up before Cain could talk.

"Sure thing. See you, you old bastard," Cain said under his breath. Mr. Yeager was a mean old motherf***er with a hatred for the world, but it’d be fair to say that most hunters ended up like that at that age with everything they’ve been through. Most hunters hated dealing with him, but he paid well enough if he liked their work. As hard as he was on Cain, he knew he was one of the best goddamn demon hunters in this part of the country, and he’d always paid him for his work accordingly.

Now that the job was done, Cain was headed back to the motel for the night. Tomorrow morning, he’d pack up the few belongings he had, get the cash from Mr. Yeager, and head out onto the road again, going wherever the wind would take him as was the way of the hunter. Maybe he’d head to Vegas for a bit to make some easy cash. He definitely had to look for another case, but that was something for tomorrow. Tonight was the sort of night he’d been looking forward to for far too long.

"The devil went down to Georgia, he was lookin' for a soul to steal," Cain half-hummed, half-sang along to the radio, tapping rhythmically at the steering wheel. He turned it up, trying to drown out the demons in the trunk. "He was in a bind 'cause he was way behind, and he was willin' to make a deal."

The blazing Mojave sun started to set behind the mountains to the west, disappearing under the depths of the deep horizon. The desert was shrouded in darkness now, an eerie sight as the last of the daylight faded away into deadness. The skies burned a hellishly beautiful gold, the clouds on fire.

The handsomely grizzled huntsman took a sip from his canteen, some water spilling from his thirsty lips into his beard. With his right hand at the wheel, he wiped away at the warmish water with his left sleeve. The desert day had been a scorcher, but with the night approaching, the atmosphere started to cool off. A wind drifted in through the half-open window and into the Torino, giving the hot man some relief. He unbuttoned his bloodied henley to reveal a bit of the fur that covered his manly chest, and rolled his sleeves halfway up his big, burly forearms to savor the sensation of wind against his sweaty skin. He grabbed the hunter’s amulet that sat on top of his chest and pressed the hot silver to his lips, kissing it and smiling before setting it back down. Today, it’d saved his ass from the three demons. These ones weren’t particularly special or anything, but Wrath demons were some of the toughest moutherf***ers to deal with. They’d always gotten Cain some decent coin, though, so he couldn’t complain.

Cain ran a hand through his windswept, graying, golden-brown mane and brushed the four inches back against his head. As virile as he was at the age of 40, it was a wonder he wasn’t bald and still had the sort of hair that any man would sell his soul off for—except this one didn’t have to do any selling of his own for it. It was a supernaturally handsome head of hair for a supernaturally handsome man. As a hunter and a man of practicality above all else, his life was one that afforded him very few pleasures, but his hair had always been one of these pleasures.

Finally, with a sigh of relief, Cain pulled into the decrepit-looking parking lot of the Crossroads Motel. The neon sign overhead that read CROSSROADS blazed a brilliant red and bled onto the cracked asphalt. The first O flickered in and out of its tired existence, in the last days of a long-lived life. A shady little establishment, the Crossroads wasn’t the sort of haunt where any individual with an iota of self-respect would want to wander, but for those who had to live on the edges of civilization for whatever reason—welcome home. With all the demonic happenings that’d been going on in the area these past few months, the motel had become something of a hotspot for hunters like Cain. The owners were decent enough, too. Well, not exactly "decent" in the sense of morality, but "decent" in the sense that they knew how to mind their own business. As long as Cain paid on time, they let him do whatever the Hell it was he needed to do. Not that they’d want to meddle with him or his work either way. Best to leave what you don’t know well enough alone and all that.

Cain pulled himself out of the car. All 240 pounds of the manly workhorse of a man’s muscles rippled as he got out. He waved at the hunter couple sitting on the two old polypropylene chairs in front of the run-down rooms across from his own, sipping away at the bottles of beer they had in hand. Jess and Rio.

"Hey man!" Rio called out to Cain, his words slightly slurred. "Wanna join us? We’re celebrating!"

"Hey pardner! What’s the occasion?" Cain called back out heartily.

"Had a good hunt today." Rio reached out to Cain, a bottle in hand. "Come here, have a drink with us."

"‘Preciate it, but I should call it a day. Tell me all about your hunt tomorrow though, alright?"

"Yeah, sure man, all good." He wrapped an arm around his boyfriend and took a sip from his bottle. "Have a good one!" he waved to Cain.

They were good people, definitely the sorts you’d want to have a cold one with after a hunt, but the huntsman had other plans for tonight. He couldn’t help but feel a bit bad for lying, but he’d waited way too long for a night like tonight. No way in Hell he’d f*** it all up.

The huntsman grabbed his leather duffle bag and the greasy paper bag with his half-eaten burger from the passenger seat before shutting the door a bit too roughly. He went to the back of the car, to the trunk, and opened it to double-check the seals he’d etched onto it—triple-check them. No demon could get in or out, but hellish howls and the smell of fire and brimstone pervaded the air.

"Pedicabo ego te et irrumabo!" one of the Wrath demons who chewed through the trash bag threatened. It gnashed its teeth together at Cain, frothing at the mouth.

"Doubt you’re gonna be doin’ much irrumatin’ or anythin’ of the sort anymore, bud," Cain chuckled. "Tell you what—if you stop being a pain in my ass tonight, I’ll put you out of your misery tomorrow, nice and quick. Deal? Deal. Fututus moritor in igni, irrumator," he cursed back indifferently before slamming the trunk shut with a satisfied smile and resealing it.

Cain headed to the door to his room—a weathered piece of red wood with a number 3 crudely screwed into it. He stuck the key into the rusty keyhole and turned it, feeling a satisfying click. Slowly, to not trigger the hex trap he’d put on the door, he opened the old piece of wood and crossed the portal. He stepped onto the old terracotta of his room. Hot, mildly musty air assaulted him. The flickering red of the motel’s neon sign that spilled in through the blinds barely broke through the suffocating darkness. He reached to his right, running his hand across the old wood-paneled wall for the light switch. With one flick, the ceiling fan that looked like it’d come crashing down at any moment and its dim halogen lights came to life. The room was small and had definitely seen better days, but the man was grateful for its simple comforts. He set his belongings onto the side table by the door. He shut the door behind him and eyed the seal he’d carved into it all craftsmanlike.

Cain sighed deeply under his breath as he leaned heavily against the door, relieved. If it had been tampered with, he’d know. After all, it wasn’t his first demon rodeo—and it wouldn’t be his last.

Not that it’d matter in a moment or two, anyhow.

Shifty-eyed, the huntsman took a peek through the blinds before shutting them. The hunters were gone. They’d probably headed back to their room and called it a night. Good. There wasn’t a soul out there anymore.

Cain reached down to his right hip. Slowly, he unsheathed a blade from its sheath and brandished it. Damascus. It was a beautiful-looking thing, with intricate ornamentation etched along the eons-old steel, but don’t let looks deceive you. It was demonic in origin with a deadly bloodlust ever since its inception. It broke all but the strongest men who met its gaze, driving them to madness, but even the strongest could succumb to its call if they got too cocky. It was dangerous, almost stupidly so, but it was one of the few things that worked against demons. Cain gazed at the blade, its whispers filling his head, bringing its deathly tip to the center of the seal. With a method to his madness, the huntsman hacked and slashed away at the seal until it was scarred beyond recognition.

At first, nothing. Or so, it seemed that way. There was something off with the atmosphere, like the air felt heavier. Hotter. There was the sort of thrumming in the air that Cain could feel in his muscles. He knew the feeling well. Every hair on his body stood up. The room shook as the lights fluctuated, becoming brighter, then dimmer, then brighter again before returning to their usual dimness. The huntsman’s amulet started to hum, writhing violently as if it’d wanted to break away from the chain that it was bound to by his neck. He closed his eyes, waiting impatiently. Then the scent of sex and sandalwood overpowered the air.

"Well, well, well. If it ain’t the big, bad hunter." a familiar drawl reverberated through the air thickly, demonically deep and distinctive. A set of eyes like embers in the night revealed themselves in the shadows of the dimly-lit motel room. A man emerged from the darkness. "Did you miss me, Cain?"

The huntsman grinned, his green eyes gleaming as he looked at the handsome devil.

"Miss you? I’d miss gettin’ tortured in the Ninth Circle more than I’d ever miss you," he replied in his own deep drawl.

The demon raised his right eyebrow in amusement. "I can make that happen, if that’s what you want," he taunted, his lips contorting into a sinful smile.

"You know I’ve missed you, Asmodeus." The huntsman caressed the handsome devil’s face with a calloused hand, starting at a chiseled cheekbone and going down to his short black beard. His gaze wandered over the demonic hunk’s monstrously muscular form, bound within a pinstripe penitentiary that struggled to suppress all 280 pounds of the hellhorse, before shifting his eyes up to the fiery gold ones before him.

"I’d wager you did," Asmodeus smiled, feeling his hardness against his thigh. The demon wrapped himself around Cain’s musculature and tormented the manly man with his own serpent.

"Did you miss *me*?" Cain asked. He looked into the demon’s eyes lustfully, ready to succumb to his temptation.

"Oh, I didn’t miss you," Asmodeus replied deviously, "but I did miss playing with you." He thumbed the scar on the bridge of the huntsman’s nose, handsomely crooked from being broken one too many times in a bar brawl with a werewolf years ago.

"Is that right?" The huntsman looked at the demon mischievously. He smirked. "Well, I’m willin’ to play… if you think you can still handle me."

"I can handle you just fine, sweetheart," Asmodeus replied, running his fingers through Cain’s beard. He gripped him by his square jawline. "What you ought to ask yourself is, can *you* handle *me*?"

With bravado, the huntsman took off his amulet and disarmed himself. It fell to the floor lifelessly, clattering against the cracked terracotta.

"Destroy me," he breathed hotly into the demon’s ear before leaning in to seal the deal with a kiss. "I dare you to try."

"Well, a deal’s a deal." The demon took off his suit jacket and set it onto a chair. His smile became sinister. Darker. He meant business.

It’s strange what Desire will make foolish people do.

A demon hunter, f***ing a f*** demon—the daddy of all f*** demons, nevertheless.

It’s wild, ain’t it?

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